If you haven't acquainted yourself with the saga of Reinhart-Rogoff, read this post by Mike Konczal. According to Konczal, an error in the Excel coding of Reinhart-Rogoff's major study on public debt casts the entire study into doubt (and it was quite an error.)The American Enterprise Institute's James Pethokoukis highlights Reinhart-Rogoff's response to Konczal, and then offers his own thoughts on what these new findings mean for long term debt management.

Offers $25.5 billion.

There may be more upheaval in the very active U.S. telecommunications industry as Dish Network Corp. has made an unsolicited $25.5 billion bid for Sprint. The bid, which would end a $20 billion bid by Japan’s Softbank, would allow Dish to combine Internet and phone services with satellite TV.

Read it at Los Angeles Times

Carlos Barria / Reuters

Some markets are ugly. Others work miracles.

The Great Recession began in the fourth quarter of 2007. Measured in Depression clock time, 2012 was 1934, when the U.S. economy expanded 7.7 percent. Today such expansion seems remote. Rather, the economy is still stuck in a low-growth rut, the second such severe downturn in the United States since 1929. We suffer from a balance-sheet crisis, the consequence of a collapse of property values plunging many households—now 21.5 percent—into negative equity.

Concedes to changes with European regulators.

“Don’t be evil,” said European antitrust regulators, and after a two-year inquiry, Google has reached a settlement with the European Commission over alleged abuses in online search. While it will not have to change its algorithm, Google will have to plainly label results that feature its own products (Google News or Google Plus Local) and also show links from rival search engines. The biggest change will be in travel, where Google’s own products have led to conflicts with companies like Yelp and TripAdvisor.

Read it at The New York Times

New two year low.

Looks like gold may have lost its Midas Touch. On the back of disappointing news out of China (gold’s second-largest buyer), gold continued to fall on Monday—by more than 9 percent. In percentage terms, Monday's decline is gold's biggest in 30 years. The end may be in sight however, as analysts do see the slide stopping in the summer thanks to restocking in India, the world’s largest consumer of gold.

Read it at Wall Street Journal

Growth drops to 7.7 percent.

The future looks dim for a consumer-driven Chinese economy. With a slowing manufacturing sector and weak consumption numbers, China’s economy grew at 7.7 percent—a slowdown that comes during a transition period both in leadership and economic reforms. President Xi Jinping had warned that the days of “ultra-high speed growth” was over.

Read it at Financial Times

Eli Lehrer with a guest post on how one part of the Obama budget will kill jobs, make services more expensive, and possibly start a trade war

Buried on page 187 of President Obama’s 2014 budget lies a $6.2 billion tax hike with potentially disastrous consequences.While the language used to describe the new tax—“disallow the deduction for non-taxed reinsurance premiums paid to foreign affiliates”—will evoke more drowsiness than Tea Party rage, it’s still a problem. The tax will make insurance vastly more expensive, destroy jobs, and, quite possibly, start a trade war.Understanding the tax requires some background.

Marios Lolos/Xinhua/eyevine, via Redux

A ‘bail-in’ saved Cyprus. But dark days are ahead.

The political elites in Brussels can once again breathe a sigh of relief. Cyprus did not implode and take the euro with it. In many ways, the latest drama in Cyprus followed a familiar pattern: the so-called troika of European leadership (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) flew to a country on Europe’s periphery to rescue its failing banks, that country’s leadership balked, and then eventually caved to Brussels’s demands.

Getty; AP

From Sarah Palin to Paul Ryan and now Greg Walden, why do Republicans keep attacking Obama for trying to save money? Peter Beinart explains this weird phenomenon.

Washington Republicans believe passionately in deficit reduction, except in two circumstances: when they’re in power and when Democrats are.During the George W. Bush years, Dick Cheney famously said that “deficits don’t matter.” And by their actions, many prominent Republicans sent exactly the same message. Between 2001 and 2008, even anti-debt crusaders like Paul Ryan voted for three tax cuts and two wars that, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, will add $6 trillion to the national debt by 2019.

Don Ryan/AP

Wipe that smile off your face. That big tax refund is bad news.

As I write this, April 15 looms. Not for me, mind you—we took our taxes to the accountant weeks ago. But for millions of Americans who will be driving madly to the post office at the last possible minute, dropping their returns in the slot, and hoping a sizable tax refund. Many of you have been looking forward to that refund for weeks, planning all the great stuff you’re going to do with it.This is all wrong. No, not the last-minuteness of it all.