Sunday, May 11, 2008
Fun week... learn about economics! by gimleteye
This week I'm taking a look at what is happening to the US economy. Every day, I'll post another chart or statistic of interest, that may have escaped your view in the mainstream press. While the price of oil is pushing toward of $150 barrel and the evident charade of core inflation failing to include the cost of food and energy, we can have a healthy dialogue about the real state of the US economy. Let's imagine for a moment, that we aren't hostage to despots because we won't change our habits of consumption, or make necessary investments in alternative, renewable energy and conservation adequate to the purpose. Let's believe, for a moment that the Bush White House is right: we've only spent $600 billion in wars that Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz claims is not the six hundred billion but $3 trillion. Who do you trust? Furthermore, let's imagine we're all going to get a big payoff in the mail for our investment. But instead of imagining, let's go to some hard truth: while Florida mainstream newspapers obsess about FCAT scores and the Florida legislature eviscerates school funding, take a look at this chart. In a 24/7 world, where innovations flash around the globe at the speed of light, share with us your thoughts about American competitiveness and our ability to quickly respond as a debtor nation in the global economy where the upstarts may have a lower standard of living but a higher commitment to educate their children.
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4 comments:
Numbers Racket
Why the economy is worse than we know
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2008/Pollyanna-Creep-Economy1may08.htm
Transparency is the hallmark of democracy, but we now find ourselves with economic statistics every bit as opaque—and as vulnerable to double-dealing—as a subprime CDO. Of the "big three" statistics, let us start with unemployment. Most of the people tired of looking for work, as mentioned above, are no longer counted in the workforce, though they do still show up in one of the auxiliary unemployment numbers. The BLS has six different regular jobless measurements—U-1, U-2, U-3 (the one routinely cited), U-4, U-5, and U-6. In January 2008, the U-4 to U-6 series produced unemployment numbers ranging from 5.2 percent to 9.0 percent, all above the "official" number. The series nearest to real-world conditions is, not surprisingly, the highest: U-6, which includes part-timers looking for full-time employment as well as other members of the "marginally attached," a new catchall meaning those not looking for a job but who say they want one. Yet this does not even include the Americans who (as Austan Goolsbee puts it) have been "bought off the unemployment rolls" by government programs such as Social Security disability, whose recipients are classified as outside the labor force.
More learning...
This week (5/9) Ira Glass and this American life in cooperation with NPR news did a great story on the subprime meltdown, credit crisis...everything you really don't understand about CDOs with just the right music in the background.
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355
355: The Giant Pool of Money
A special program about the housing crisis. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.
It's worth a listen.
S
Gimleteye writes:
Thanks for enhancing our learning experience!
You're welcome.
S
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