Monday, June 1, 2009

Africa, college gards, unemployment and stocks, children, and cheap condos.

William Easterly challenges Sachs in development issues, pointing out problems with Sachs's arguments, and problems in aid money. I think Easterly's position is often overstated by others--Easterly doesn't think that we shouldn't provide aid to Africa, necessarily. Easterly, instead, recognizes that much aid to Africa is wasted, and helping Africa requires some non-monetary reform.

Mike Shedlock tells us how hard the job market is for new college graduates. This isn't anything new, I think, but it is important. We know the job market is bad, Mike just tells us that it's also bad for recent college grads.

Felix Salmon shows us that unemployment and stocks are more coincident than we may have thought. I'd like to see more historical data, though it'd be understandable for unemployment to be more coincident with large changes in stock markets, unemployment being a less sensitive indicator, and both potentially being affected by other economic phenomena. Still, I'm not sure I buy it. The decline in the stock market from 2007 - 2008 alone seems within normal fluctuations and doesn't quite justify the rising unemployment rate.

Nancy Folbre warns us that kids may be the most severely effected by the recession. Parents' job loss can lead to instability in the home, which hurts education and hurts physical health due to lower quality food.

The amazing Tata is making $8000 condos. I wonder if this sort of thing will catch on in other parts of the world, as land becomes more scarce. Certainly, I would think this sort of thing would be popular among college students.

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