Here are your five business stories of the morning: Home prices are up. Bernanke is mum. The GOP is consistent. Dying is expensive. Basel is in agreement.
1. Housing Prices Set Four-Year Mark: The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values increased 4.6
percent from May 2009, the biggest year-over-year gain since
August 2006, the group said today in New York. [... BUT] "There's an awful lot of houses on the market right now
and with sales declining we're likely to see price declines in
the second half of the year," Mark Vitner, a senior economist
at Wells Fargo Securities Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina,
said before the report. [Bloomberg]Bernanke feels that if he goes before Congress and rattles off his
preferred taxing and spending policies (as opposed to giving more
dispassionate comments about long-term fiscal policy), it would be
usurping his role as an unelected official charged with making monetary
policy. [WaPo]
3. The GOP's New 'Tax Hypocrisy': You might think
that people terrified of deficits would be concerned about permanently
extending tax cuts that will add at least $2 trillion to the national
debt over the next decade. Nope. [Daily Beast]
4. The Most Expensive Year: The soaring cost of health care is the greatest
threat to the country's long-term solvency, and the terminally ill
account for a lot of it. Twenty-five per cent of all Medicare spending
is for the five per cent of patients who are in their final year of
life, and most of that money goes for care in their last couple of
months which is of little apparent benefit. [New Yorker]
5. Basel Committee Reaches Agreement on New Bank Rules: A panel of world financial officials has reached "broad agreement" on new rules to govern
the global banking system but has postponed some key elements for as
long as seven years while the impact is studied, the Switzerland-based
group said Monday. [WaPo]
2. Why Bernanke Isn't Advocating Fiscal Stimulus:
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