Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Increasing internal demand in China for goods needs more thoughtful analysis

A shift to more internal demand for China might not benefit the US in ways we think it will. One such area is the impact of increased demand for resources and energy. And another is where the jobs are. China Puts Up More Money to Build Solar Capacity The government-owned China Development Bank has just […]

Relative employment is shifting

Today Statistics Canada released impressive June employment figures from its Labour Force Survey (LFS). In case you missed it, the April gains, +109,000 new jobs, set a record. And the June gains, +93,000, were nearly as spectacular. (Note: the unemployment rate for Canada in the chart to the left is through May, not June)Canada’s labor […]

Crib notes for G7 unemployment rates

Unemployment rates across the G7 illustrate a broad-based labor recovery. Fantastic – now let’s get to the underlying stories. (Note: The US is the first to release the June 2010 figures. All other unemployment rates, except for the UK, are current as of May 2010.) Germany, France, and Italy: Germany’s labor market is ostensibly improving, […]

Yield curves in Japan and the US: similar but not the same

Andy Harless presents the case for a double dip (second recession) – I would re-order #1 and #2 on that list – and that for a sustained recovery. #6 of Andy’s case for a sustained recovery (he calls it Case Against a Second Dip) caught my attention, pointing me to an earlier Paul Krugman article […]

Another blow to the US labor force

The Senate voted down the American Workers, State, and Business Relief Act of 2010, 57 to 41 (see an earlier version of the CBO’s estimate here for a breakdown of the Bill). The emergency extensions to weekly unemployment benefits will now expire, leaving many without government support as the labor market improves at snail speed. […]

The hourless recovery

There was an interesting blog post over at the Macroblog (Atlanta Fed) regarding productivity. John Robertson and Pedro Silos highlight the contributions to GDP growth from various factors, including productivity and employment. One of their findings: As this chart shows, relatively high labor productivity growth during a recession is not a phenomenon isolated to the […]

It’s not hard to understand why Asia’s worried about Europe

On the forefront of the Chinese economic releases this week was the trade data, where headlines shouted +48.5% Y/Y export growth in May. This report didn’t go unnoticed in Washington, as renewed obsessions with the Chinese peg against the US dollar fired up again. But the Chinese release overshadowed the Philippines April trade report, which […]

The United Kingdom Draws the Wrong Lessons from Canada

by Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow and Braintruster Marshall Auerback at the New Deal 2.0 For once, Canada is making the news for the wrong reasons. The United Kingdom has braced the country for cuts in government spending up to 20 percent as the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition lays the groundwork for an austerity program to […]