Federal Revenues, Spending and Debt - Charts

Uwe Reinhardt has a post in the New York Times Economix blog about the Federal ratings downgrade that has some good charts on the comparisons of Federal revenue to deficits and about the size of the debt. Here they are:

Debts around the world

Speigel online has the following graphic of national debts around the world - good visual for getting students talking about debt size. Would be better if it had information about the size of GDP in each nation.

Greek Problem - Good Charts

One of the big questions in the world economy right now is how long can the Europe crisis go on and when will it break. The German magazine Spiegel has the following charts showing the worsening condition for Greece - it does not look good.

The first chart shows clearly how debt growth is outpacing GDP growth (which is negative).

























Clearly Greece is going down (unless the Germans want to permanently support them). One of the big unknown is the losses a Greek (and Irish and Portuguese) restructuring will do to European banks - will the debt crisis cause a European Lehman crisis. The balance sheet of the ECB is looking shaky, as shown in the chart below.

Debate over the Debt Ceiling

Now that the current budget debate is over, the next debate will be over raising the debt ceiling. This debate will be coming to its :do or die" time over the next five weeks. This debate is more important. The temporary shutdown of the Federal government would have been not good, but the failure to raise the debt will be a big bad that could have wide ranging consequences for the U.S. and world economies. So, as this debate gets going, it is time to look at the current composition of the debt. The New York Times published this graphic showing the history of rising the debt ceiling and the composition of the current debt. Three points to look at on this. First, look at the amount owed to Social Security. Second, the amount added to the debt by the Obama stimulus plan. Third, the amount added by the various programs of George W. Bush. Interesting that only now the Republicans are worried about the debt - so much so that they will threaten the creditability of the U.S. on world financial markets.

Irish Crisis - Good Graphs

The German on-line magazine Spiegel has a series of good charts showing the problems in Ireland and comparing the Irish situation to the rest of the euro-zone. Here is the interesting part - clearly Ireland is in trouble with high unemployment and a very high deficit (30% of GDP), but its overall debt to GDP is low (lower than Germany's). So, why is this a sudden crisis? Why is there a sudden jump in Irish interest rates?
Look at the charts:

Ireland's growing deficit - and crisis

Last spring Ireland was held up as the model of what countries should be doing - engaging in an austerity package in the face of a deep recession. They were doing this to stay within the bounds of the euro-zone treaties that limit deficits and debt. It was clear that the budget cuts and tax increases would be painful. Still, it was seen as the responsible thing to do. During the Greek crisis last spring, the Greeks were constantly reminded that the Irish were doing the noble thing. Even more oddly, given the current state of things, some people said that austerity would cause economic growth.

Now, it looks like Ireland will be the next point of the euro-crisis. The Irish deficit has been sky-rocketing and this has been compounded by rising interest rates. Clearly, Ireland is in trouble. Two charts from the Wall Street Journal get to the crisis. The first shows the history of the banking crisis in Ireland - it may be, as Simon Johnson has said, that Ireland's banks are "too big to save" (as opposed to the American banks which are said to be "too big to fail". The second chart shows Irish deficit compared to the rest of the euro-zone average.


This is about to get ugly.