Category: Economy
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The only green shoots are the ones you're smoking
I present two charts. First, via Blytic, a look at food stamp usage and unemployment. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or an economist to figure out that this recession still has legs and a long way to run before we even begin to approach “normalcy”. Anyone talking about recovery is being a…
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I was on a boat called PAB09
Podcasters Across Borders 2009 has wrapped up and the team of Mark Blevis and Bob Goyetche threw yet another impressive event. This year’s PAB theme was ostensibly bringing outside knowledge into the podcasting world, but the general subject of many of the presentations was on story more than anything – ways to more effectively communicate…
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Local recession indicators
Want to know how the recession is affecting your small part of the world, if at all? Check your workplace refrigerator. In boom times, folks tend to eat out more, especially for lunch. In leaner times, folks bring lunch, especially leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. This, plus a slew of other local economic indicators,…
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The eye of the storm
A couple of years ago, I posted a graphic of the mortgage resets from Credit Suisse First Boston. Let’s see where we are now. Congratulations to all. We’ve made it through the subprime crisis and only lost GM, every investment bank, nearly wiped out the FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund, put 1 out of 8 homeowners…
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Turning this economic ship around
Take a look at these three charts. Bloomberg’s commodities index of indices: Commodities, or commodity futures, are investments in the future value of things like rice, gold, oil, cattle, and other tangible goods. Baltic Dry Index: The Baltic Dry Index is an index of costs to ship things on cargo ships. As BDI goes up,…
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Time is not money
There’s a popular expression, a cliche, that says time is money. However, time isn’t money. Why? There is no such way to intermediate time. There is no coinage for time, no way to purchase time back that you have spent. If time were actually money, you could buy back that missed softball game or child’s…
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Seeds of the recovery
The seeds of the economic recovery are beginning to sprout a little. While the broader economy still has a lot to shake off and the investment, credit, and financial markets still have more garbage to take out, there are small signs of recovery underway that will eventually grow to big signs down the road. A…
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Stop whatever you're doing and watch this video
This is mandatory, absolutely must see material. The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo. I only wished the video went further. It ends at the credit crisis and failing investments – and the chain reaction beyond that is choking of credit to businesses, which puts some out of business, which creates joblessness,…
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A different stimulus idea that might work
Jobs are what matter most. Here’s a stimulus idea to send to Washington. Create a 100,000 loan grant run through the federal department of your choice, backed by the Treasury. Businesses of any size may apply for and receive a100,000, one year loan at the Federal Funds Rate. If a business then spends that loan…
