Economy | News-Opinion
TOP NEWS: Economy: June 11, 2012
Excerpts and more top stories
US Stock Futures Rise As Spain Asks for Bailout
Rita Nazareth, Bloomberg – U.S. stock futures advanced, following the biggest weekly rally for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index this year, as Spain asked for a bailout to help shore up its banks and China’s exports beat economists’ estimates.
Europe’s Troubles Affect Wide Variety of US Firms
Zachary A. Goldfarb, Washington Post – From manufacturers in the Midwest to upscale retail shops in Manhattan, a wide variety of American companies are feeling the pinch of Europe’s economic contraction, helping to hold back recovery in the United States.
7 Shrinking State Economies
Emily Jane Fox, CNN – Economic activity declined in these states in 2011: Wyoming, Mississippi, Maine, Alabama, New Jersey, Hawaii, & Montana.
Bernanke Gives Little Hint that Fed Plans Action to Spur Hiring
Zachary A. Goldfarb, Washington Post – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke expressed worry Thursday about the significant weakening in the nation’s job market but gave no hint of whether he plans additional intervention by the Fed to spur more hiring.
Selling Abroad, China Eases Slump at Home
Keith Bradsher, NY Times – With China’s domestic economy stumbling badly this spring as construction and retail sales slow, this country is unleashing a fresh surge of exports that is preserving millions of jobs in Chinese factories but could fan trade tensions with the West.
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America’s Hidden Austerity Program
Ben Polak & Peter K. Schott, NY Times – Why is the recovery from this recession different from recoveries from past recessions? In the previous two recessions, it took 32 months for nonfarm employment to reattain its June 1990 peak, and 48 months for it to reattain its January 2001 peak. Assuming the economy keeps adding nonfarm employment at the current rate, it will have taken 88 months to reattain its January 2008 peak.
US Oil Output Tops 6 Million Barrels in Quarter
David Bird, WSJ – U.S. oil output in the first quarter of 2012 rose 12% from a year earlier and topped six million barrels a day for the first time in 13 years, the federal Energy Information Administration said Friday.
Let’s Close the Information Gap About Fracking
Michael Hiltzik, LA Times – The oil and gas industry wants to withhold information even from regulators about the exact formulation of the fluids injected into the ground during fracking, calling them trade secrets.
For Emerging Companies, A Dual Track Dilemma
Dan Primack, CNN – It’s been two months since President Obama signed the JOBS Act into law, and dozens of “emerging companies” already have filed confidential IPO registration papers with the SEC. Some even have emerged from the private vetting process and filed “public” papers.
The Recovery’s Fate, Back in Consumers’ Hands
Paul J. Lim, NY Times – In the rebound’s early stages, business investment was the driving force. And, last year, corporate earnings hit their stride — so much so that investors began to view corporate America, not consumers, as the linchpin keeping the economy spinning.
Long-Term Unemployment Crisis Rolls On
Charles Riley, CNN – The national unemployment rate has fallen from its recession highs, but Americans who have been out of work for six months or more are still having trouble finding work.
Obama Takes Aim at GOP, Europe, As Economy Sputters
Eric Pianin, The Fiscal Times – A day after Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated the Fed was standing pat on its economic recovery strategy, President Obama offered no new proposals for bolstering the economy and bringing down the 8.2 percent unemployment rate.
Is Mark Zuckerberg Up to the Job?
Dan Lyons, Newsweek – At Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg was a superstar student, a computer prodigy able, in his spare time, to bang out the lines of code that would become Facebook, a transformational company that in eight years has changed the world. But in his first big test as a CEO—Facebook’s initial public offering of stock—the baby-faced 28-year-old flunk-ed, and badly.
