Central Banks Can’t Save the World
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 3rd, 2012 11:08 pm by HL
Central Banks Can’t Save the World
Mohamed El-Erian, Bloomberg
The three central bank meetings this week — the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve — made very good cases for additional stimulus measures, though they failed to specify what these would be.Equities and certain bonds that had surged on the basis of last week's verbal assurances by central bankers and political leaders sold off. There was no panic given central bankers' promises to do more in the future should additional action be needed. This is what the standard narrative has been.
Jobs Report: Not That Bad!
Andrew Leonard, Salon
The bleeding stopped — at least temporarily. The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July, a significant jump from June’s revised 64,000 gain, and its best performance in five months. The unemployment rate rose one notch to 8.3 percent.In a healthy economy, 163,000 would not constitute a very exciting number; barely enough to keep up with population growth, and most certainly not indicating that what economists call “full employment” is anywhere within sight. But in a presidential campaign entering its home stretch, the numbers are good enough…
Heitkamp Puts N. Dakota in Play for Democrats
Caitlin Huey-Burns, RCP
Most North Dakotans do not like President Obama or his health care law, surveys show. Voters here have not backed a Democrat for president since 1964, and polling forecasts a loss for the White House occupant in November.But North Dakotans also have a deep history of splitting the ticket. And that, mixed with a strong candidate and a booming economy, makes Democrats hopeful about winning a U.S. Senate seat here, despite the otherwise discouraging atmospherics.The Senate race figures to be one of the most competitive in the country — but it wasn't supposed to be this way.When veteran…
Professors Admit Anti-Conservative Bias
Emily Smith, Washington Times
It’s not every day that left-leaning academics admit that they would discriminate against a minority.But that was what they did in a peer-reviewed study of political diversity in the field of social psychology, which will be published in the September edition of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.Psychologists Yoel Inbar and Joris Lammers, based at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, surveyed a roughly representative sample of academics and scholars in social psychology and found that “In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and…
