Good news on the recession, sugar, bubbles, and new homes.

A few pieces from Capital Gains and Games. Some thoughts on the unemployment numbers--getting worse slower isn't getting better. Still, I prefer getting worse slower. Still, the prospect that the unemployment rate won't hit 10% is great. The deficit would have been the same under Bush (or McCain) and is likely going to be less than originally forecast. So, it was largely unavoidable. Still, I hope that our money was put to good use.

A reduction in the supply of sugar is causing prices to increase. If there are profits to be made, then we'd expect other firms enter the market. Good sign for South American and African sugar farmers?

The Business Pundit speculates at the next possible bubble to burst. Gold seems a little far fetched to me, as I always thought of gold as a back-up place to store wealth, which means that it'd be more of an effect than a cause of speculation.

Felix Salmon reminds us that a home is not an investment as Krugman buys a new place. I've seen it argued that people thinking of homes as investments is a part of what caused the housing crisis.

Agriculture, Libertarianism, TED talk, law, city house prices, and Google

Some stylized facts about agricultural subsidies. It looks like a very inefficient market. Again, no surprise there.

Henry Kaufman explains how Libertarianism hindered the Fed. While I don't agree with all of it, it raises some good points, I think.

A couple of very interesting pieces from Marginal Revolution. I recommend you read them. Alex Tabarrok gave a TED talk, and Tyler Cowen discusses the field of Law and Economics.

Here's some Case-Shiller city data on housing prices. They're still dropping, though it looks like we're nearing normal levels in some places. Unfortunately, there's still likely more dropping to happen, due to a super saturated market.

On a different sort of note, now Google offers some searchable public data. I hope they greatly expand this.