Calculated Risk
Read the Bill McBride interview.
Jobs
The best summary of the state of our economy is the graph (below) of employment as a fraction of population for people over 16 years old. The decrease is large, but the most troubling feature of the graph is the flat trend .
Click on the image to get a bigger version.
June Payroll Employment
The slowndown in employment growth over the past few months is starting to become more apparent in the graph below.
Click on the image to get a bigger version.
Focus on the Problem
U.S. payroll employment peaked at 132.5 million jobs in February 2001. For April 2012, U.S. payroll employment had reached 133.0 million jobs, marking the third month in a row above the February 2001 level.
Click on the image to get a bigger version.
Graph-of-the-Year Candidates
Donald Marron likes European interest rates. Click on the image to get a bigger version. Can you find three distinct subperiods?

Brad DeLong favors the U.S. gdp gap.

Finally, it's hard to argue against the payroll employment graph below (straight from FRED) and the comparison across recessions (courtesy of Calculated Risk).
Looking Up At 2001
In February 2001, U.S. payroll employment peaked at 132.5 million. The November 2011 figure of 131.7 million still falls 800,000 jobs short of the earlier peak.
Click on the chart for a larger version.
Remember M1?
Money Supply M1 growth is now over 20% per year over a 12 month lag. M1 growth has touched 20% before, but not with excess reserves of $1.6 trillion. Where is M1 headed?
Click on the chart for a larger version.
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Rajiv Sethi
"thoughts on economics, finance, crime and identity”
April 25, 2013, 2:35 pm, 1082381
Among the many fascinating people currently affiliated with the Microsoft Research New York
lab is
Kati London, judged by MIT's Technology Review Magazine (2010) to be among the “Top 35 Innovators Under 35.†Through her involvement with the start-up
area/code, Kati has developed games that transform the individuals who ...
April 6, 2013, 8:35 pm, 1072653
When Intrade halted trading abruptly on March 10, my
initial reaction was that the company had commingled member funds with its own, MF Global style, in violation of its
Trust and Security Statement. I suspected that these funds were then dissipated (or embezzled), leaving the firm ...
March 25, 2013, 12:35 am, 1068301
The following is the text of my remarks at a
gathering in memory of Albert Hirschman, held earlier today at the Institute for Advanced Study. The event included moving recollections from members of his family, as well as
tributes by Joan Scott, Jeremy Adelman, Michael Walzer, ...
March 11, 2013, 10:35 am, 1063798
The peer-to-peer prediction market Intrade ceased operations yesterday and closed out all open positions without notice. Visitors to the
site were greeted with the following mysterious message (emphasis added):
With sincere regret we must inform you that due to circumstances recently discovered we must immediately cease trading ...
March 1, 2013, 10:35 pm, 1060994
One of the many benefits of visiting
Microsoft Research this semester is that I get to attend some interesting talks by computer scientists working with social and economic data. One in particular this week turned out to be
extremely topical. The
paper was on "The Groupon Effect ...
February 19, 2013, 4:35 pm, 1056938
I'm on leave this semester, visiting Microsoft Research's recently launched New York
lab. It's a lively and stimulating place and there are a number of interesting projects underway. In this post I'd like to report on one of these, a
prediction market developed by a team composed of David ...
December 11, 2012, 6:39 pm, 1035439
Albert Hirschman, among the greatest of social scientists, has died. He was truly one of a kind: always
trespassing, relentlessly
self-subversive, and never constrained by disciplinary
boundaries.
Hirschman's life was as
extraordinary as his work. Born in Berlin in 1915, he was educated in French and German. ...
December 7, 2012, 6:38 am, 1034004
A
paper on the profitability of high frequency traders has been attracting a fair amount of
media attention lately. Among the authors is Andrei Kirilenko of the CFTC, whose
earlier study of the flash crash used similar data and methods to illuminate the
ecology of trading strategies in ...
November 28, 2012, 10:38 am, 1030906
A couple of days ago Intrade
announced that it was closing its doors to US residents in response to "legal and regulatory pressures." American traders are required to close out their positions by December 23rd, and withdraw all remaining funds by the 31st. Liquidity has dried up ...
November 18, 2012, 2:38 pm, 1028021
I never thought I'd see an RSC policy brief referring to mash-ups and mix-tapes, but I was clearly
mistaken.
The document deals in an unusually frank manner with the dismal state of US copyright law. Perhaps too frankly: it was quickly
disavowed and taken down on the ...