Economics Roundtable
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.
November Payroll Employment
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.
Oligopoly Watch
"The latest maneuvers of the new oligopolies and what they mean”
DHL expresses itself out of US market
We've called it often before. In a three-company oligopoly (a triopoly?), the #3 company is always at risk. That's especially true when #1 and #2 keep the pressure on, and where there is no earth-shattering innovation that offers #3 a way ...
Brazilian bank deals
The Brazilian banking business has seen two large acquisitions over the last few weeks.Banco do Brasil, a state-owned bank, announced a deal to buy majority share in Nossa Caixa. The deal is for around $2.25 billion. The new bank ...
Brands and the (incredible shrinking) Big Three
"Just how serious are they about shrinking their vast lineups of different brands and models to match the current harsh reality of the market?" That’s the key question asked in the New York Times t "Big Three May Need ...
Wherein my taxes fund Citigroup's new acquisition
First was the knowledge that Citigroup was in a bad way thanks to bad loans and credit cards. Then Citigroup tried to buy rival Wachovia, but was beaten out by Wells Fargo. Then came a new bailout of Citigroup ...
More medical deals
While the current crisis has put an end to deals in many areas, there are still some areas where the chance of bargains and a belief in the long range have allowed the pace of acquisitions I to keep on track. The health area ...
LCD price fixers "sorry"
Three giants of the LCD (liquid crystal display) industry will soon plead guilty to price fixing, Korean-based LG Display Co. will pay $400 million, Taiwan-based Chunghwa Picture Tubes $65 million, and Japan-based Sharp $120 million.
A Bloomberg News article (LG Display, Sharp ...
Panasonic buys Sanyo
Mergers between Japanese consumer electronics giants have been few and far between, even though you would think hat these companies would want to reduce competition by buying out rivals. These wide-ranging companies (including Hirtachi, Canon, Konica Minolta, Epson, Sony, and many others) have long ...
Broken China
In December 2004 we reported
Ireland-based Waterford Wedgwood the world's leader maker of fine china and crystal announced it will buy competitor Royal Doulton, based in the UK. These leaders in the luxury tableware market have both been suffering due to ...
Head-scratcher
Big UK banks seem to be in just as bad shape as their American cousins. The government is about to start a second round of bailouts (Of up to $100 billion) and the targets are rumored to be the three biggest: Royal Bank of Scotland, ...
The dark night of Citigroup and Bank of America
How the might have fallen! Citigroup and BoA had pushed to dominate financial services by buying up rivals and expanding horizontally. Over the last few years, they have bought into areas from stock brokering, investment banking, wealth management, ...