Jobless Claims Fall to 7-Month Low: Is the United States' Large Layoff Period Ending?

A ray of light at the end of the tunnel? Maybe, but recent initial jobless claims statistics may have the light getting a little brighter. Initial jobless claims 4-week moving average has hit a seven month low. Though this is a good sign, we are not out of the water yet. Currently, the United States is short 11 million jobs in the economy. That is a lot of ground to make up and economists predict the United States needs to nearly triple the current job growth to 300,000 a month, and have it constant there for 37 months to get back to the pre-recession rate. Lets hope it doesn't take that long, for graduates' sake everywhere.

The magic of diasporas

This is a great article which talks about the changing attitude towards immigrants and its negative repercussions on the economy .  In Europe, Japan and USA immigration laws are being made tougher and tougher and those immigrants who are educating themselves in these countries find it hard to land a job as companies are not willing to sponsor them. Making immigration laws intricate and discouraging foreign workers is not only bad for the country which is imposing it but also for the country where the immigrant comes from as that country looses precious foreign remittance.
"America educates foreign scientists in its universities and then expels them, a policy the mayor of New York calls “national suicide”. Whether or not this is national suicide only time will tell. 

Voices of the Near Poor

This article starts off by explaining the Census Bureau's new system of measurement for the poor and the near poor. This Supplemental Poverty Measure seems superior, especially when you see that the number of near-poor was 76% greater than estimated with the original system.

The article then goes on to discuss the situation for the near-poor, who are largely forgotten by the public and politicians. They're between a rock and a hard place; their income is "too high" for food stamps or to be considered poor, yet it is not high enough to keep them safely away from the brink. It's shocking that so many people fall into this near poor category and it seems that their situation is almost inescapable. It's really a shame that so many find themselves in this situation in the US.

Extending Black Friday

This article is quite interesting. It talks about the economic effects of the Black Friday shopping event. They note that during this period in the shopping year about 1/5^th of all revenue is made, that’s just in four weeks. They say an alien to America would describe the economy as, people living frugally for 11 months of the year but then going crazy buying things that they don’t need.

This unnecessary spending is however very useful to the economy. It stimulates the consumption, spending of billions of dollars that otherwise were not spent. The writer even goes on to describe the event as a “one-day economic-stimulus plan and job-creation program”. This causes the suggestion of trying to extend this effect for more than just say a week. Give the article a read the writer goes more into detail about this idea.

Imagine, Black Friday as an economic relief source.

Targeting Nominal GDP as a Monetary Policy Rule

In class last Thursday (11/17), we talked about various monetary policy rules and mentioned that there is currently a debate whether the Fed should adopt targeting nominal GDP growth rate to stabilize the economy. The debate on this issue in policy circles is very current and it is interesting to follow a back and forth on the issue, especially since we are in uncharted waters. This article (linked in the title) is a response to Christina Romer's case for targeting nominal GDP growth rate.

Hope you find this stimulating.

Prof. Skosples

Greece lightning

Greece seriously needs good leadership. Just when the world thought there could have been some reasonable state of stability in Greece and the Euro crisis, the world was reminded of how inept Greece's prime minister George Papandreou can be. The idea of having his citizens vote on whether they want to put in place a plan that will higher their taxes and basically make their lives worse, was absolutely crazy if he wanted to somehow avoid even more economic turmoil for the EU. After decades of terrible economic policies in Greece, new leadership is needed clearly in order for them to get back on track towards a more fiscal responsible future.

Delaying retirement: 80 is the new 65

This is a kind of depressing article, but it is also truly realistic. There is data shows that, a quarter of middle-class Americans are now so pessimistic about their savings that they are planning to delay retirement until they are at least 80 years old -- two years longer than the average person is even expected to live. The main reason is that, on average people cannot save as much as the need before their retirement.

I think this situation will bring many other issues. For example, the limited job chances for young people, especially new-workers, will be decreased by this extension of retirement age. This change could be another challenge for the job market in the future.

Bell Ringers Go Digital This Season

After reading this article now I see the importance about adaptation since technology is always improving. The company/organization/ business have to cater to their customer's needs same as the Salvation Army in this article.

They realized that people don't really carry cash anymore so this year they will use Square a mobile start up payments which allow them to take credit cards. So that people won't have any excuse not to donate. Some other organization have started using Square as well, it brought great feedback. By accepting donations by credit card it can eliminate theft too.

When I went to a farmer market down in Columbus I started to see small merchants using this technology as well.

U.S. Economy: Sales Rise More Than Forecast, Driving Growth

As the title suggests, Christopher Wellis discusses a rise in retail sales, stocks, as well as discussing other economic indicators showing signs of growth. This recent growth was under predicted by most economist and is in agreement with the attended lecture. An interesting aspect to look out for is whether or not income inequality continues in this growing economy.

Republicans Consider Breaking No-Tax Vow as Deadline Looms

This article talks about some Republicans that are willing to change their original stance on taxes as they see the turmoil that is unfolding in Europe. This is also because of the November 23rd deadline of Congress' Bipartisan super committee is approaching quickly and no mention of anything happening has been brought up. They must find 1.5 trillion dollars from the budget and some Republicans are willing to make some changes and compromise with Democrats. We'll see if it's all talk or will they make it happen.

What do you do when you reach the top?

This is a great article which talks about the rapid speed with which South Korean economy has been growing. Till 1960 it was one of the poorest economy with all resources exhausted after the war, but now it has a gross domestic product per person of $31,750 compared compared with $31,550 for the EU. Although it did suffer from the 2008 financial crisis but it gained back the momentum quickly and currently south Korea is enjoying growth of around 6% with unemployment of 3%. 
However this pace of growth can not continue forever and South Korea will have to come up with new ways of maintaining its growth as it has almost reached its optimum level.  

France and Italy in the Eurozone Turmoil

This article discusses another Euro-zone problem, with French banks having substantial holdings in Italian, not Greek, debt. French banks are “among the worlds’ biggest, and are closely linked with their counterparts in the United States.”

While we are all well aware that our American $ will also ultimately be affected by the euro crisis, this article attempts to explain to an extent, how intertwined the US is with European banks.

The article also discusses the various ramifications from the leaders of severely indebted countries leaving office (most notably Greece and Italy)

Italy approves austerity, Berlusconi resigns

This article heralds gives a basic idea of the measures to be taken by the Italian Government and people in regards to their current debt crisis. Measures such as, pension reform, raise in the retirement age, the privatization of state-owned companies and sale of state-owned properties, the liberalization of certain professions, and investment in infrastructure. This turn of event comes with the realization of Italian politicians that daily in their reform could mean the end of Italy, as they make changes and receive support from the European Central bank. The article continues to say though the market seemed to have reacted favorably to the actions by the Italian government the Nation is still not out of the risk of default with it's 1.9 trillions Euro debt that makes up 120% of their current GDP.

The democratic votebank

This is a great article that talks about how Obama and the democrats aim at the majority of the minority.
Great article on how things were, how they look now and how they might be in the future for American Politics.

Greece lightning

The prime minister’s botched referendum plan has left the debt deal in trouble. Doubts about the deal had emerged even before the Greek thunderbolts. It was not clear that the euro-zone leaders had done enough to bolster their rescue fund. European leaders hoped that emerging economies, particularly China, might put money into a special purpose investment vehicle capitalized by the EFSF. Investors were also unnerved by signs that the European economy seems to be slipping closer to recession. Global markets took their cue from Europe, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by 573 points over the course. But a European collapse would still be very bad news for American banks and exporters.

Drought warning

As the rich world lurches from one crisis to the next, a consolation has been that emerging economies, which account for about half of world output, have been growing quickly. Even the wretched euro zone has a few racy emerging markets nearby. A deep recession in the currency zone would leave few countries unscathed, even in fast-growing emerging Asia. For developing economies closer to home, the euro zone’s banks may be the main route by which the suffering spreads. The current-account balance is a rough guide to which countries are most vulnerable. On that basis, Asia is generally a safer place than Eastern Europe, where several countries run large current-account deficits, and so rely in part on fresh loans from big European lenders.

Kick the Can

This is a really interesting article. I like how the author compares countries dealing with massive debt and them continually kicking a can down the road. It's like no one wants to deal with anything except the United States. People in the Eurozone are all passing the blame and not working together to solve problems. They can't agree on how to fix anything. As for China, according to this article, they are doomed to crash. They are inflating their numbers and patching things so they continue to grow instead of fixing them. It's just like if you continue to patch a boat eventually the patches will give and you will sink the boat. I do like how this article gives hope to the American people about how politicians are determined to fix things, yet they can't agree on anything. However, this does give people hope and more confidence about how good we have it compared to other countries.