Unemployment Across the Unites States

The New York Times has a good graphic of how unemployment over the course of the recession until now has affected different parts of the United States.  The geography of the on going economic problems should spark some debates.  Here it is:

Eurozone Public and Private Debt

Floyd Norris in the New York Times has a good article comparing the levels of public and private debt in eurozone countries.  The article makes the point that the amount of private debts in these countries is important in the current crisis because it directly affects the ability of these counties to grow their economies (which is harder if the population is trying to dig itself out from a pile of debt).  The article also has this good chart:

Greek-Euro Crisis

Greece is heading for a crisis point (again).  As always, it looks like the big crisis point, but we shall see if the Europeans come up with another way of kicking the can down the road.  The New York Times has a good graphic (shown below) that explains the basics of the crisis.

Marketplace Comic Book on the Fiancial Crisis

Marketplace has posted a comic book about the economic crisis in 2008.  Looks good.  Below is the intdroduction by Paddy Hirsh (of Whiteboard Video fame).


WHITEBOARD SPECIAL: Lehman Brothers, three years on from Marketplace on Vimeo.

Goldman Sachs Chart on Obama's Job Plan

The chart below is from Goldman Sachs and shows how different fiscal policies will affect the economy.  Two thinkgs to note:

First, look at how the current spending will create a fiscal drag, pull down the economy - this is because of the large cutback state and local government spending (the American austerity policy).

Second, look at the effects created by Obama's plan - either hold constant or small stimulus.

Nasar Cartoon on Economic History

Nasar has a great short video on economic history that is quite good.  Check it out.

Nasar on Fisher

Nasar has another article in Bloomberg in the run up to the release of her book.  This one is on Fisher and his ideas - a too often overlooked economist.

Nasar on Keynes and Schumpeter in 1919

Sylvia Nasar has a new book on the history of economic thought called Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius.  It got a strong review in the Economist.  In the run up to the release of the book, she has this article on Bloomberg about the roles of Keynes and Schumpeter in the wake of World War One with the restarting of economics.  It is interesting how she portrays Schumpeter working to create a new economic Austria in the wake of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Keynes trying to get the Big Four to be less crushing on Germany.

Loss of Teaching Jobs - American Austerity

The chart below show the loss in teaching jobs over the course of the recession - around 300,000. Keep in mind that the population has been growing, which means a higher teacher to student ratio. This will have an adverse effect on American education. On a macro view, this is an example of the American austerity program. In total (Federal, State and local) government, spending has gone down over the past few years. This is because state and local governments cannot run deficits and so have to balance their budgets - which means job cuts. The United State's governments have been enacting an austerity package.

Zandi Thinks the Obama Plan Would Work

Mark Zandi has crunched the numbers for Obama's job's plan and concludes it would work - that it would add 2% to GDP and create 1.9 million jobs and reduce unemployment by 1%. That is the good news. Bad news - he doesn't see a lot of the program getting through congress. Here is the details of his analysis. The best part is the chart below.

Matching Jobless to Jobs on PBS News Hour

The PBS News Hour had a good video on the issue of structural unemployment - the problem that today's jobless may not match the jobs available. In short that structural unemployment is are current problem. As the video makes clear, this is currently a major point of debate.

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Rich and Poor in Europe

Throughout the euro crisis the discussion has been around the rich and poor countries. However, that division is not quite honest. The reality of rich an poor in Europe is regional. The magazine Spiegel has posted a great map showing the income (based on GDP per capita) for the different regions of Europe.

How the Great Recession Measures Up

The new unemployment numbers are out and nothing has changed - which is bad. Unemployment is still at 9.1% with no new new jobs for August. Catherine Rampell in the New York Times Economix blog posted the following graph that shows this to be the longest and worst recession of the post-war period. Maybe we should follow Ken Rogoff and stop calling it a recession and instead call it the "Great Contraction".