Archive for January, 2010
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Unemployment Rates: U.S. Versus the Rest of the World
Today Gerald F. Seib wrote an interesting article at the WSJ, Obama Invites GOP to Share Burden of Fixing U.S. In it, he says the following:
Thus, Mr. Obama, after reeling off a veritable litany of proposals focused on how to create jobs (a word that appeared 29 times in the speech), came to the heart of the political matter: Democrats’ stunning loss of a Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat means he tackles this daunting agenda one vote short of the 60 needed to stop Republicans from mounting filibusters to stop his initiatives.
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Bond Markets Soaking up Greece
Greece announced a 5-yr 8 billion euro deal today (as expected) – yesterday I called this a Hail Mary. Well, the Hail Mary worked! Books are closed, and the deal is well over subscribed (i.e., strong demand for the deal). Evidently, the talk is that there is natural demand for this product, via the rest of Europe, to shore up the value of the bonds over the near term.
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National Saving Rates Across Europe: Diverse
Greece – it’s the Eurozone’s black sheep. If this isn’t a Hail Mary, I don’t know what is: Greece Plans Bond Issue Soon. From the Wall Street Journal:
Greece said Friday that it plans to syndicate a five-year benchmark bond next week to address renewed market jitters over its ability to finance its giant budget deficit, even as yields on Greek debt hit a new high. The bond, long awaited by market participants and seen as a key test of Greece’s ability to attract investors, will raise between€3 billion and €5 billion, the head of the country’s debt agency said.
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The Frequency of Economic Statistics Matters at Turning Points
How are the data presented? At an annual, quarterly, monthly, or weekly frequency? At the onset of the New Year, you will undoubtedly see many charts illustrating records broken in 2009 using annual measures. This is always fun (from a data junkie’s point of view), but it only tells the reader where we were, on average in many cases, rather than where we are now! Quarterly data are the same story – often presented well after the culmination of the period.
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Government Payroll across U.S. Presidencies
The term of Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, concludes this year. During President Lula’s tenure, Brazil enjoyed stable monetary policy and strong economic growth. However, President Lula is likewise known for growing the size of Brazil’s government, for example, by adding over 300k government jobs. This translates into a 4.8% increase in the [...]
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China’s Trade Balance Points to Inflation
The Customs Administration announced record trade flows in and out of China in December. Specifically, exports grew at a 17.7% annual pace, while imports surged 55.9% over the year. This is a remarkable one-month rebound; reported export growth beat consensus expectations by a factor of 3.5 (+ 5% export growth and + 32.5% import growth, according to Bloomberg).
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Two BRICs: India vs. Brazil
I started research on India to further explore economic prospects after reading and (excellent) FT article on necessary labor reform. In doing so, I now see a (possibly) much flatter economic growth trajectory for Brazil. Here is an excerpt from the article (last paragraph):
Over the years, numerous academic studies and official reports, including the Second National Labour Commission Report (2002), have recommended major reforms of India’s labour laws. The problem is absence of political will. Until that will can be mustered, the expansion of decent non-agricultural jobs will continue to fall far short of burgeoning supply (the “demographic dividend”), condemning many millions to insecure and ill-paid, informal urban employment (or even unemployment) and mounting underemployment and distress in rural India.
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World Income Distribution: Not Normal
Angry Bear blog is running a theme today on income distributions. I wanted to add my input about global income imbalances here on News N Economics.
On Angry Bear, Tom Bozzo authored The Rich *Are* Different, focusing on the makeup of earnings across US tax payer brackets. And Cactus authors Poverty and the Real Median Income, where he comments on the poverty share and median income across U.S. Presidencies.
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Unemployment in Europe: It’s Not Just Spain
The New York Times published an article about Spain’s “soaring” unemployment rate among those aged 15-24. Across Europe and in the US, the unemployment rate for young workers surged in 2009. Labor reform is needed in Spain, which is the overall theme of the NY Times article; but the article confuses slightly the long-run phenomenon [...]
