Monday, March 9, 2009

Unemployment rate, auto industry, Asia, morality, and business cycles

The unemployment rate is 8.1% nationwide, but in Houston it's--erm--"only" up to 6.5%.

James Hamilton at Econbrowser shows us some numbers on the auto industry. It looks like the industry has been faltering since June, those numbers are way down. I'm reminded of James Joyner's piece this past week celebrating the exit of manufacturing jobs. Still, I get the idea that the numbers are soft--domestic and import numbers are down. People have to start buying cars again eventually.

Sachs writes a Letter to the Editor at NYT, disagreeing with Krugman. According to Sachs, the global crisis isn't Asia's fault.

Here's an interesting discussion on the claim that morality is analogous to economics. I've been thinking about similar issues on and off--I even saw a book comparing economic and Christian principles. Although, I guess it isn't surprising that there are similarities in what different groups say will make us better off.

David Beckworth provides an industry-by-industry look at the employment numbers during the recession. Some of them have actually been growing! I don't think it's much of a surprise, but it's still worth a look.

CalculatedRisk talks about business cycle indicators, from lead to lag.

2 comments:

Income Protection said...

Unemployment cannot be totally eradicated but can somehow be lessened. Proper reform is a must.

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