Links: 2009-07-03

Econoblogger and economics Professor Mark Thoma talks with Bloomberg’s Tom Keene.

America’s health care is the costliest in the world, yet quality is patchy and millions are uninsured. Incentives for both patients and suppliers need urgent treatment

Mark Sanford, the Republican governor of South Carolina, is a strict fiscal disciplinarian. When Washington announced its economic stimulus plans last year, he opposed the whole idea…As the months went on South Carolina’s situation only worsened and Mr Sanford accepted bits of federal money here and there, complaining all the while. And in June the South Carolina Supreme Court ordered him to request the unemployment money.

"…an analysis by The New York Times of rainfall and homicides for the last six years shows that when it rains substantially in the summertime, there are fewer homicides."

Ouch. Merrill Lynch didn’t pick the best time to upgrade its outlook for the U.S. economy. The research note on the upgrade hit my email inbox at 8:12 a.m.—minutes before the Labor Dept. announced a worse-than-expected decline of 467,000 jobs in June.

May I paraphrase? The employment report was awful. By the way, stop using the term green —–! It needs to die under the rock from which it crawled.

It looks a bit too high for my taste.

The I-Bank gravy train ended, so he went after his wife’s cash.

Said pollster Peter Brown: "Those who liked President Obama the most from the start – African-Americans, Democrats, women — still like him by the same margins, but a chunk of voters who were undecided have decided he’s not their cup of tea. Among independents, men, white Catholics, white evangelical Christians and Republicans, his numbers have fallen. He still has a ways to go before his coalition becomes politically unstable, but there are some groups and issues — especially the economy — where he needs to make sure this trend does not continue."

Very interesting account at how even fake news stories spread. "After generating his fake news story, John tweeted “Looks like Jeff Goldblum is dead too”, accompanied by a link to the spoof news. In retrospect, it’s amazing that anyone believed it. The short ‘news’ piece has several grammatical errors and there’s even a disclaimer at the bottom of the page making clear that it’s not real."

"The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation plans to issue new rules that could make it slightly easier for private equity firms to buy failed banks…"

Fitch lowered its issuer default ratings on Comerica and its lead bank, Comerica Bank, one notch to A from A+, keeping the rating within investment-grade range. The agency also cut its rating on Comerica’s preferred securities to BBB+ from A, and lowered the company’s senior debt to A from A+, among other ratings downgrades involving Dallas-based Comerica.

Distraction of the Day: Reporting a college football game