This week from the @valeofinancial Twitter feed

Financial Planning

• States Use Sweepstakes to Attract Parents to College-Savings Plans Wall Street Journal
• 10 Things You Should Know About Your IRA Yahoo! Finance
• Lowering the Cost of Long-Term Care Wall Street Journal

Domestic Economy

• What the deficit deal is like to look like, and what comes after it: Washington Post
• May CPI: Headline +0.2%, Core +0.3% BLS
• Retail Sales Drop; Inflation In Check At (PPI) Wholesale Level NPR
• New housing starts +560,000 (seasonally adjusted annual rate) better then expectations of +540,000 US Census
• Capacity utilization stays at 76.7%, 3.7% below 1972-2010 average. Chart: Federal Reserve

International

• A new piece by Mohamed El-Erian, “Europe’s Moment of Truth,” PIMCO
• Country default risk; Greece distinguishes itself Bespoke
• Chart: Which countries have had most, and least, GDP growth per person since 2001. The Economist

Greece

• At CCC Greece is lowest rated sovereign in the world, says S&P. Comparison: Jamaica, Ecuador, Pakistan, Grenada all rank B- via FT Tilt
• Argentine parallels to Greece: The humble Greek (and Argentine) depositor FT Alphaville
• If Greece defaults on its payments, U.S. banks risk losing tens of billions of dollars MarketWatch

 Investing

• Conduit municipal bonds represent 20% of muni market, but account for about 70% of all defaults LA Times
• The performance of 2011 IPOs- not as rosy as you would think. IPO Dashboards via Tableau
• Senate votes to end $0.45/gl ethanol refiner subsidy & end $0.54/gal tariff on imported ethanol Reuters 

Local

• State freedom indexes: Indiana #3 overall, #1 regulatory, #4 personal, #13 economic, #24 fiscal policy George Mason
• Indiana’s economy had the third-highest rate of growth in 2010; +4.6%. Map of all states in 2010: BEA

Other

• U.S. Airlines Collected $3.4B In Bag Fees In 2010 NPR