Thursday Miscellany
Lots of interesting material out there today...
- Consumer credit rose in March by more than one-and-a-half times economists' expectations, with emphasis on credit cards. Not a pretty picture.
- Writing in the FT, Martin Feldstein notes that reports of a growing economy in the first quarter were at least mildly exaggerated.
- Calculated Risk has a good post on the economic impact of tighter lending standards. Perfectly intuitive preview: Standards matter, with a lag.
- Is this what Ben Bernanke has in mind when he refers to "unmoored" inflation expectations? UPDATE: File this in the same category.
- Sometimes it's tough to say whether one measure of some underlying reality is better than another. This is not one of those cases. As Barry Ritholtz notes, Fannie Mae's measure of home prices "ex-foreclosures" is nonsensical.
