Renaming A.I.G.: Putting Lipstick on a Pig?

We all recall the tremendous amount of noise that was made about the-then-Senator Obama’s claim that McCain/Palin do not represent change by saying: “you can put a lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig.” Well, I think, now we have the most apt opportunity to apply that expression. It turns out that A.I.G. [...]

The Credit Card Crisis

The destabilizing influence of indebtedness on the part of financial institutions and corporate giants has already been brought to bear. The “too big to fail” institutions, which took unsustainable risks in the interest of short term gaming of financial markets, have left us with a tattered economy and ill to many. Now, the advent of [...]

Job Losses Continue: Unemployment Rate Reaches a 25-year High

Here is another graph, via a reporting from The Boston Globe,  to make sense of the dramatic worsening of the economic climate in the U.S. It shows the month-over-month net change in non-farm jobs, which culminated in the rise of the unemployment rate to a 25-year high of 8.1 percent in February.

How the Stimulus Plan Will Help Your State

Have you ever wondered about what the estimated job creation rate at different states will be as a result of the stimulus plan that was just passed? Here is a graphic that will answer your questions. Texas, California, New York,  and Florida appear to get the most job creation. However, per capita, it turns out [...]

The Recession County By County

The recession as seen county by county, via NY Times. The highest unemployment level is found at Imperial County, California (22.6 %)

Government Intervention in Perspective

Among the best summations I have seen, via Center for American Progress, of what the Federal government has done and continues to do in an attempt to rein over the economic crisis sweeping through the nation and the world at large.

The Green and Red States

Gone are the days when the states are divided between blue and red states. When it comes to what really matters in the lives of millions of citizens, the right distinction to be made is between the red and green states -  those that are financially solvent (green) and those that are not (red) in [...]

The Employment Gap

The gender gap in employment is one of the human phenomenon that has long persisted and is rapidly closing in part because of the dramatically larger proportion of men who are being affected by the recent wave of job losses. NY Times looks into this issue and presents an instructive graphics, which is shown below.

The [...]

The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan

Via Ezra’s blog, the following is a graph showing the projected job impact of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, which is outlined in this report by Christina Romer, the Chair-designate of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, from the Office of the Vice President-elect. It is certain that with or without the [...]

The Eight Who Saw It Coming

Thankfully, for sanity’s and humanity’s sake, not everyone was asleep and completely blind-sighted by the recent downturn in global economy. Below are the eight people who saw it coming long before, according to CNN Money /Fortune. They call them The Ratings Gadfly, The Economist, The Analyst, The Investor, The Regulator, The Politician, and The Short-Sellers.

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GDP, Consumption, and Govenment Expenditure

Via Euromonitor International, below are graphs which, I think, help make sense of the changes in GDP, private consumption, government receipt and expenditure, and net surplus/deficit that have been accumulating in recent past.