Hey, What’d I Miss? OTE Summary, 7/2 – 7/8

Jul 09, 2012 at 11:27 am

(A new addition to OTE, summing up the posts of the past week.)

• A prelude and multiple reactions to the June jobs report:  musing about economic forecasting on jobs day eve, delivering a first impression, and delving into a bit more detail.
• Imagining being King for a day:  I’d mandate a solid slug of job creation measures to complement and juice the Fed’s monetary stimulus.
• Examining a boost from consumer prices:  the fact that there’s a bit more consumer buying power thanks to lower energy prices is one positive aspect of the current US economy.
• Considering a very important fiscal chart:  an article by WSJ’s David Wessel tackles the question of whether the recent slowing of health care costs is cyclical, structural, or — most likely — a combination of both.
• Mulling over the resignation of the chairman of Barclays Bank as a result of a rate-rigging scandal around the Libor:  anyone who’s paying any attention should be more convinced than ever of underlying instability of financial markets and thus the need for regulatory oversight.
• Scrutinizing the Medicaid opt-out:  a few thoughts and observations, including some interesting questions that might be answered by the natural experiment created by the opt-out.
• Another edition of OTE LIVE!:  discussing the tax trap (summarized here and here) with my CBPP colleague Chuck Marr.

Bonus: there’s been a huge spike in the use of the term “job killer” in prominent newspaper articles about progressive policies, but the job-killer claim rarely gets the evidentiary scrutiny it should.

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