Your customized headlines for Fri, Mar 2, 2012

Americans are earning more money amid the strengthening job market, but economists say the arc of the recovery largely hinges on what consumers do with the extra cash.

Government data released Thursday showed wages and salaries rose 0.4 percent in January from the previous month, following a similarly strong increase in December. Total personal income increased 0.3 percent in January, and government economists recently revised their calculations upward for income growth during the second half of last year.

There will be no payouts to investors holding bond insurance contracts on Greek debt, a committee of bankers and investors ruled Thursday.

The decision by a panel of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association keeps the country — and the euro region — clear so far of the stigma of a "credit event" that would trigger billions of dollars in payments under the insurance contracts known as credit default swaps.

The billionaire Koch brothers, whose outsized political spending has become an issue in the 2012 elections, are attempting to take control of a prominent Washington think tank in a move that would expand their influence in conservative politics, according to court records and interviews.

Quick! Was 2011 or 2010 a better year for the economy?

The answer is 2010, at least if you're looking at growth. That year -- widely considered a disappointing one for the recovery -- saw three percent economic growth. As for 2011, even with the strong fourth quarter, growth was only 1.7 percent. That's not so impressive. And yet this, right now, feels like a recovery. It feels like we turned the corner in 2011. 2010, meanwhile, felt like a setback.

Dave Weigel examines the claim that gas prices doubled under Obama:

This is a true statement: At the end of 2008, gas prices were half of what they are now. The twist is that the end of 2008 was also the apocalypse. The day that Obama was sworn in, the Dow plunged to 7,949. It's now above 13,000 again. The month that Obama was sworn in, the economy shed around 600,000 jobs—the third consecutive month with a loss that size.

Americans are earning more money amid the strengthening job market, but economists say the arc of the recovery largely hinges on what consumers do with the extra cash.

Government data released Thursday showed wages and salaries rose 0.4 percent in January from the previous month, following a similarly strong increase in December. Total personal income increased 0.3 percent in January, and government economists recently revised their calculations upward for income growth during the second half of last year.

— Could Facebook avoid paying taxes?

— What intersections might look like in a world of driverless cars.

— Bad movies are a dying breed — and that's not necessarily a good thing.

— Mike Konczal sees excellent news in today's auto sales data (and auditions for a job at Business Insider while he's at it).

The Tax Policy Center has just released its analysis of Mitt Romney's newest tax proposal. That certainly calls for a chart. So here are Romney's and Obama's tax plans, side by side:

Note that the Tax Policy Center could only conduct a partial analysis of Romney's tax plan. That's because Romney's proposal itself is incomplete. He's said that he wants to scrap various deductions in the tax code, particularly for high earners, in order to broaden the tax base. But he hasn't offered any details about which deductions he'd scrap or how, so there wasn't anything for the Tax Policy Center to analyze.

Rand gives it a go:

Although family income grew throughout the decade, the financial benefits that the family might have realized were largely consumed by health-care cost growth, leaving them with only $95 more per month than in 1999. Had health-care costs tracked the rise in the Consumer Price Index rather than outpacing it, an average American family would have had an additional $450 per month — more than $5,000 per year — to spend on other priorities.