Google, unemployment, sports, and loans

More data on Google! This from the World Bank.

Here's a chart showing the duration of unemployment, for the unemployed.

Some Houston sports hotshots (not those) talk about how their sports businesses are going.

Angry Bear has an interesting graph of the number of loans given by banks. I'd like to see the graph go back a few (maybe seven) more years.

Water, TARP, incentives, and Austin.

Here's an interesting article on the issue of water in Latin America.

Here's a look at TARP funds--they were actually used to make loans! Some were afraid this may not be the case for very much of the funds.

A TED talk (those things are great) by Dan Pink, former speechwriter for Al Gore. He talks about incentives, and how they can hurt. Also follow the links for similar talks by Dan Ariely.

Austin, TX looks like it's going to rebound this year, too. News for Texas looks relatively rosy.

Job markets, mortgage default rate, credit, and spending

Insight's best and worst job markets. It's nice that the page is continually updated, too.

13%? That's a very high mortgage default rate. And it's not supposed to peak until at least a year from now. CalculatedRisk tells us that the problem is growing to fixed rate prime loans. Yikes! That last link also shows rates per state.

Banks are cutting credit limits for 58 million card holders. I've also heard that they're raising the rates that they charge companies who use their credit card services for payments. This sort of thing isn't a surprise, due to recent credit card reform, and this is probably a good sign.

Here's a neat graphic: how the average consumer spends his paycheck. It's actually a "consumer unit," which is apparently about 2.5 people with 1.3 earners.

Healthcare, financial crisis, stimulus, and jobs.

Instead of the UK and Canada, Jonathan Cohn compares our future healthcare system to France and the Netherlands--whose plans he says is actually more similar to our proposed plans. It's a worthwhile read, I think.

Justin Fox points to an investment banker who says that the fault of the financial crisis should fall onto the people who bought toxic assets, not the people who created them. They should never believe that you can make a return on a riskless security. I still think there were many people at fault--after all, the true risk was not properly assessed by ratings agencies.

The French think they've done fiscal stimulus better than the Americans. Could be. Certainly, our more "free" system carries with it more risk and uncertainty. It's harder to get effective government action done here.

Catherine Rampell at Economix points out that the problem with the job market is a hiring slowdown, not layoffs.

Macroeconomics again, Africa, safety nets, and retail spending.

Matt Nolan at TVHE provides a critique of macro critiques. Over the past few months, he has provided some insightful commentary on the state of macroeconomics, I think. While it's important to try to explain stylized facts about the economy, I think what people want out of macroeconomics is something more concrete. Hopefully that'll come with time.

The Guardian emphasizes the dire condition of Africa during the global recession. Though they have relatively little political capital, they are in great need of assistance. I'm not convinced that people are more willing to help during a recession, though. It's hard enough to help Africa when things are going well. Still, it's important for that region to improve. Thank goodness Zimbabwe dollarized!

Mike Moffatt comments on safety nets--protect people when they start businesses.
safety nets. Sure, it's inefficient and could cause people to take advantage of the system, but it'll speed up growth a lot. While I agree it'll speed up growth in the short run, I'm not convinced it's a good idea. Since we're trying to affect the recession, it'd have to be a temporary safety net. Do we want to prop up the economy with temporary inefficiencies? What will happen when we take away the safety nets?

Michael Mandel points out why falling retail sales are good--they reduce our trade deficit. It matters whether retail is falling more in imports or domestic goods, though. Still, since we've been spending beyond our means for quite some time, reeling that back and having some savings will be a good thing in the long run.

Consumer spending, demand, and markups

Carter Dougherty at Economix mentions that we've been seeing a decline in consumer spending during this recession--an historical oddity. I read once that consumer spending doesn't change much because most of what we buy, we have to buy. We don't buy a washing machine or a sandwich because we merely want these goods, we buy them because we need clean clothes or are hungry. So much for that idea! As credit increases what we are able to buy, we buy proportionally fewer necessities. When credit dries up, we have fewer means with which to buy stuff. Credit causes consumption to be more volative.

Andrew Cassel reports that the cause of the 2008 oil spike may have been demand expectations in developing countries. Developing countries were growing much faster than expected, which caused future demand expectations to become very high.

Mark Perry reports on the markup on iPod devices. iSuppli is a firm that takes apart devices and estimates how much the components would cost, to try to estimate the cost of making such a device.

G-20, credit crisis, auto industry, and taxes

Now that the G-20 summit is over, you can imagine that a lot of people are weighing in on what they consider to be the important results. Dani Rodrik says that it was a victory for Europe. Vicky Pryce talks about the focus on trade. Free Exchange seems optimistic about most of the results. Justin Fox talks more about the IMF's cash. ... And that's just a drop in the bucket of all the commentary going around out there.

Calculated Risk provides a bunch of graphs of credit crisis indicators. We're still high on all of them, but things are looking better.

Free Exchange considers how one would separate the auto and oil industries. We don't want rising oil prices to sneak up on us again, which may happen due to rising demand in China, but there are fewer incentives for fuel efficient or electric cars while oil prices are low. Of course, this is nothing new, it's just another thought on that same old topic. The way to do it might be a tax on gas.

Mike Mofatt talks about why value-added sales taxes are more efficient than other taxes.

Family planning, the bottom, help for Geithner, protectionism, and defaults

As history has clearly shown a number of times, economics affects family planning.

A few pieces from Calculated Risk. Orders for durable goods rose in February. Truck tonnage also rose in February. The bottom of the recession may have arrived! Not that it necessarily matters much, anyways. We'll feel the effects of the recession for quite some time.

Thankfully, Geithner may be getting some help, soon. Helen Garrett has been nominated for the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Michael Barr for Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, and George Madison for General Counsel.

Yet another piece warning against protectionist policies, ahead of the G20 summit. I hope the world leaders get the idea.

Credit card and school loan default rates are on the rise.