NEW YORK — U.S. consumer confidence rose in July after four months of declines, as a brighter outlook for short-term hiring offset longer-term worries about the economy. The Conference Board says its Consumer Confidence Index increased to 65.9, from 62.7 in June. That’s the highest reading since April and better than the reading of 62 [...]
The Federal Reserve’s monetary policy brain trust – the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) — meets again today, and after a month of disappointing economic news following June’s meeting, the financial world is eagerly waiting to hear news of what action the Fed will take to goose the economy. At last month’s meeting, the Fed [...]WASHINGTON — Americans spent no more in June than they did in May, even though their income grew at the fastest pace in three months. The lack of growth in spending follows a decline in the previous month, suggesting consumers are staying cautious with their money as they economy weakens. Income rose 0.5 percent, the Commerce Department said in [...]
| Peter Klein | President Obama’s gaffe about business creation — “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen” — has been met with the usual reactions. Defenders claim he simply used infelicitous language to describe the vital role of government in providing essential goods, while critics point out, for [...]
| Peter Klein | Joe Salerno’s post at Circle Bastiat, “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Cloud,” could have been an entry in our nothing new under the sun series. Joe highlights a recent HBR blog piece on the physical footprint and energy requirements of server farms, showing that success in the digital age [...]
| Peter Klein | I’ve been reading Jack Mathews’ The Battle of Brazil: Terry Gilliam v. Universal Pictures in the Fight to the Final Cut, a fascinating — if absurdly one-sided — look at director Terry Gilliam’s struggle to get his 1985 film Brazil distributed in the US. Mathews tells the story as a noble [...]