The OECD has released its estimates for growth in the major economies for 2009. Robust growth is seen in China and India. Less, but still good growth for Indonesia, while Russia, Brazil, and South Africa are less than robust, but still growing. Australia and Turkey are growing, but even less than the others.
For most of [...]
Watch a well informed discussion of the new stimulus plan President-Elect Obama offered in his weekly radio (and YouTube) address. George Stephanopoulos leads the discussion between George Will, Arianna Huffington, David Brooks and Robert Kuttner on the merits of the plan.
This is well worth the time if you want to see a well informed and [...]
Mr. Obama announced on Saturday a rough sketch of a major stimulus plan that would add several million new jobs to our faltering economy. American workers will rebuild the nation’s roads and bridges, modernize its schools and create more sources of alternative energy, creating 2.5 million jobs by 2011, Obama said in the weekly Democratic [...]
A brief profile of Tim Geithner published last year at New York Times:
“If the brave new world of finance is daunting, the man in charge of it is not. With a boyish charm and a dry sense of humor, Mr. Geithner has taken advantage of the current calm waters of the financial markets to take [...]
How Bad Can it Get?
My last blog on the economy was entitled: It’s Worse Than We Think. So what comes after, worse than we think? Worser is not a word, but it’s what comes to mind today when I see the latest employment and price data.
The worser news began yesterday with the release of the [...]
Here is a link to the full text of the press release of the attendees: Press Release of G-20 Members
There were two agendas at the G-20 meeting on Saturday:
Strengthen the world’s economies and reduce the effect of the world-wide recession that is getting worse daily.
Find a way to share the authority over the structure of [...]
The emergency meeting of the Group of 20 this Saturday, November 15, was called because the world’s financial system is broken. The meeting was suggested by French President, Nicolas Sarkozy to President Bush. Although Mr. Bush did not want to take up the issues that will be brought up at the meeting, he agreed to [...]
The evidence is mounting that the American economic downturn is going to be much worse than generally thought. A downturn that was thought to see unemployment at 8%, which is a recession level, is seen now to have an easy potential of 9% or 10%–levels not seen for decades–a deep recession.
Here are the culprits:
Falling home [...]
The five graphs below show with stunning visibility how bad the economy is today. Chart 1 shows changes in nonfarm employment from 1990 through the end of October, 2008. You can see the dramatic drop of 240,000 jobs lost last month in this graph. Also shown are the relative lengths of the last two recessions: [...]
After years of hyper growth, averaging close to 10% a year, the great engine of growth that is China, is faltering. A series of government reports released over the last few weeks indicated that China’s exports are moderating. Real estate construction projects are being suspended. Consumer confidence is in decline. And many factories in southern [...]
