|
|
| |
economic news: Fascinating article in The Atlantic Monthly
- 08/13/10 07:01 AM
Fascinating, and terrifying. A must-read.
"How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America"
… (30 comments)
|
economic news: The Global Ticking Time Bomb: Government Debt
- 03/05/10 08:42 AM
This paper scared me very badly, so as a form of therapy I figured I’d share it with you. Misery loves company, after all.
Governments around the world are already drowning in debt, and many countries face a high certainty of debt levels that will exceed their GDP (100 in the graphs below means that GDP = the debt amount). Think about that for a second, and imagine it for your own household. GDP is the amount of all goods and services produced in the total economy – it’s sort of like your total personal income in a year. Now imagine … (132 comments)
|
economic news: How important are startups to job creation? VERY!
- 02/01/10 03:28 AM
A very interesting study was just released by the Census Bureau analyzing job creation at startups.
"The fraction of employment accounted for by U.S. private-sector business startups over the 1980-2005 period is about 3 percent per year...While this is a small fraction of overall employment, all of this employment from startups reflects new jobs. As such, 3 percent is large compared to the average annual net employment growth of the U.S. private sector for the same period (about 1.8 percent). This pattern implies that, excluding the jobs from new firms, the U.S. net employment growth rate is negative on average.
… (1 comments)
|
economic news: Sorry to spoil the party, but we're not at the bottom!
- 05/06/09 03:38 AM
There's an interesting thread in Zillow Advice right now discussing whether we're at a bottom in the housing market. And the discussion is very timely because today Zillow released its 1st Quarter Home Value Report, detailing what is happening to home values in 161 cities. It's by far the most comprehensive report about the housing market in terms of its breadth and depth. True, individual Zestimates have their issues (more about Zestimate accuracy), but the Zillow Home Value Index is very reliable because it has enough aggregated data to wash away inaccurate Zestimates -- in other words, statistically speaking, … (68 comments)
|
economic news: USA: "United Spenders Anonymous"
- 11/10/08 06:46 PM
An economist friend at Deutsche Bank compiled these studies about consumer debt and consumer spending to help provide background on the current financial crisis. (He knows I find this stuff fascinating.) I thought I’d share them with you:
1. A paper by the Federal Reserve (Dynan & Kohn: 8/8/07) titled “The Rise in US Household Indebtedness: Causes and Consequences”.
Cliffs Notes version: The average household savings rate (as a % of income) has gone from 9.1% in the “greedy, consumption-mad 1980s” to 1.7% this decade, and the ratio of total household debt to aggregate personal income has … (0 comments)
|
economic news: US economic stimulus package stimulated us
- 08/28/08 06:26 AM
A few months ago, I explained why I doubted that the handout, er I mean the "federal government tax refund stimulus package", would help the economy. Well now we have data to see if I was right or not.
Turns out I was wrong. Sort of.
I speculated that consumers would do what they said they would do with the extra dough: pay down bills (42%) and save it (21%). That's where I went astray. You should never believe the American consumer when he says that he's going to save money. Apparently when a pollster asks us what we're going to … (1 comments)
|
economic news: Morgan Stanley: Look out for a global recession, thanks to declining home prices
- 03/29/08 04:00 PM
In case you're interested in geeking out on economic info, some of Morgan Stanley's top brainiacs hosted an interesting conference call on the global economic climate. The first 10 minutes are the most interesting and relevant to most of us. Basically they explain that the entire global economy is propped up by the US Consumer because even though China and India have 40% of the world's population, they consume very little. Over the last 10 years, the US Consumer has used their house as a piggy bank and has lived high on the hog, which has helped the entire global economy. … (1 comments)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fascinating, and terrifying. A must-read.
;)
;)
;)
