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.
EconModel
The Economics Roundtable is sponsored by EconModel.
The Classic Economic Models cover micro, macro, and financial markets.
RSS Feed
About Economics (Mike Moffatt)
May 13, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1092224
I wrote before about
Janet Yellen as a potential successor to Ben Bernanke, but she's certainly not the only contender for the position. The Wall Street Journal
gives a good rundown of the likely contenders for the job...including
Mr. Bernanke himself. For what it's worth, ...
May 13, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1092226
One thing that the
shut-down condition teaches us is that sunk costs- i.e. costs that have already been paid or committed to and can't be recovered- should not factor into rational decision making. (This is basically the economic equivalent of "there's no use crying over spilled milk.") ...
May 13, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1092225
When thinking about borrowing for a large purchase, you've probably noticed that interest rates can differ quite a bit not only across time but also across people and types of borrowing. This makes sense, since interest rates not only compensate lenders for making their money available but also protects ...
May 6, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1088215
It really hasn't been a good few weeks for social scientists. First Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff have to address the issue that
their implicit recommendation for global austerity was driven by a sloppy Excel formula. Then economic historian Niall decided to announce publicly that
John ...
May 6, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1088214
I've mentioned before that
Dan Ariely is one of my favorite economists. As such, I am surprised that I didn't know until recently that
he has a podcast where he invites other economists to come and talk about
behavioral economics. (In related news, I continue ...
May 6, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1088212
Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers offer up some good advice on
how to be a smart consumer of economic information.
Some Good Advice for Economics Readers... originally appeared on About.com Economics on Monday, May 6th, 2013 at 12:52:36.
Permalink | Comment |
May 6, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1088213
New economics research suggests that
broadband internet access acts as an enabler for marriage. And here I always assumed that people who spend all day on the Internet would be alone forever. :)
This Week in Counterintuitive Economic Findings, Internet and Marriage Edition... originally ...
April 29, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1084125
First the good news: teens are talking more about economics than they used to. (This is good because economics is relevant to daily life and therefore something that is beneficial to discuss outside of the classroom.) Now the bad news: teens don't actually know more about economics than ...
April 29, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1084123
The official measure of U.S.
Gross Domestic Product for the first quarter of 2013 was
published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis last Friday. The upside is that we're still seeing recovery, but the downside is that growth was not as large as some people were expecting. ...
April 29, 2013, 2:04 pm, 1084124
