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KARL SMITH has been doing some interesting blogging on the nature of the recession and recovery as seen through charts of the composition of economic activity. Do click through and have a look. He makes an interesting point about the contribution of housing to GDP; importantly, its decline began in 2006, over a year before the recession officially began and two years before the recession entered its severest phase. Employment figures tell the same story. Residential construction employment peaked in April of 2006; the economy lost nearly 250,000 construction jobs between then and September of 2008. Total nonfarm employment, however, kept right on growing until January of 2008. Total employment in September of 2008 was 433,000 jobs higher than in April of 2006, despite the bloodbath in residential building. Growth slowed with the collapse of the housing bubble, but it didn’t collapse until two years later; beginning in September of 2008, all sectors of the economy faced a sudden, sharp contraction.What does this tell us about the contribution of the housing bust to the recession? Mr Smith muses that it points to the importance of asset prices in the business cycle. This resonates the with Dean Baker view of the downturn, in which massive losses of housing wealth destroyed the economy. The problem is that prices also peaked in early 2006. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller …
August 29th, 2011 | Posted in Arts,Business,Economy | Read More »
UK Only Article: standard article Issue: Asia’s lonely hearts Fly Title: Letters Letters are welcome via e-mail to letters@economist.com A different kind of crisis In this section»On the debt crisis, Egypt ReprintsRelated topicsRecessions and depressions John Maynard Keynes Japan Barack Obama United States SIR – The title of your leader on the debt crisis was well chosen (“Turning Japanese”, July 30th), but you missed the point. The Japanese problem of the past 20 years, together with the American and European problems of today, boils down to one fact: the economics profession has never considered a recession that could be caused by the private sector minimising debt in order to repair balance sheets after a debt-financed bubble in asset prices. As a result, the profession has no clue as to what is the right thing to do. In this rare type of recession, monetary policy is useless because people with negative equity will not borrow, no matter what the interest rate. Nor will there be many lenders when banks have such huge problems with their balance sheets. In this environment, therefore, …
August 18th, 2011 | Posted in Arts,Economy | Read More »
UK Only Article: standard article Issue: Asia’s lonely hearts Fly Title: France and the euro Rubric: Market jitters over France look overdone. But Nicolas Sarkozy cannot afford to relax Location: PARIS Main image: 20110820_EUP001.jpg FOR the second time in as many weeks, President Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Paris for the day from his holiday spot on France’s Mediterranean coast to try to calm the markets. His meeting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, at the Elysée Palace on August 16th took place as the panic of recent weeks had given way to mere gloom about the stagnating euro-zone economy. But France itself remains under close scrutiny, after dramatic drops in the share prices of some French banks last week (see article) and rumours that the country might lose its cherished AAA credit rating. Just eight months before an uncertain presidential election, and with a tough 2012 budget to finalise, Mr Sarkozy …
August 18th, 2011 | Posted in Arts,Economy | Read More »
UK Only Article: UK article only Issue: Asia’s lonely hearts Fly Title: Unemployment Rubric: A fresh burst of rising unemployment is hurting the young most UNTIL recently the jobs market had been one of the livelier parts of a mostly spiritless economy. Unemployment peaked well below the levels endured in past recessions and had begun to drift down. That small comfort has gone. Unemployment rose from 7.7% to 7.9% in the second quarter of this year, according to figures released on August 17th. It is likely to go higher. The number claiming jobless benefits, a timelier signal of jobs-market conditions, rose by 37,100 in July—the largest increase since May 2009, when the economy was in recession. The figures have worsened since February (see chart). In this sectionAccord and dissent Sauve qui peut Murder, she watched The transportation option ReprintsRelated topicsBusiness Economic crisis Economics United Kingdom Economic indicators And the young have been hardest hit. Half the July increase in the dole queue was people under 25. The …
August 18th, 2011 | Posted in Arts,Business,Economy | Read More »
UK Only Article: standard article Issue: Asia’s lonely hearts Fly Title: Banyan Rubric: Disarray in the West generates mixed reactions in Asia Main image: 20110820_ASD000_1.jpg TO ERR is human. To gloat, divinely satisfying. The sequence of bad news from America and Europe has provoked its share of triumphalist commentary in Asia. What the subtitle to a book by Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean former diplomat, called “The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East” seems to be happening faster than anyone expected. Many Asians, naturally, are inclined to cheer. But many find the shift rather terrifying. No sooner was America’s credit rating downgraded than China, its biggest creditor, (admittedly by a coincidence of timing) sent its first aircraft-carrier out to sea. For those living in emerging Asia, the memory of the devastating regional financial meltdown of 1997-98 is still fresh, and now they see smug Europeans struck down by their own debt crisis. And although many countries …
August 18th, 2011 | Posted in Arts,Economy | Read More »
To the shock of no one that’s been following the awards season happenings these past couple of months, Tom Hooper’s THE KING’S SPEECH won big at the BAFTAs (British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the equivalent of the Oscars in the States). The film went home with seven awards total, including Best Film and Outstanding British Film, as well as acting wins for Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey… Read More..
February 14th, 2011 | Posted in Arts,Movies | Read More »
