Felix Salmon tries to explain the map below and answer why unemployment in the U.S. has risen much faster than in advanced countries where GDP has declined more sharply.
His take-away is the following:
When the median period of unemployment exceeds the maximum duration of unemployment checks, that’s a sign of a country which has simply given up on its neediest.
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
The latest issue of Carolina Context, a publication of the UNC Program on Public Life, critiques several recent national reports about the importance of postsecondary education and how North Carolina could strengthen higher education in the face of economic and social change.
The picture that emerges from these reports is that of powerful economic, demographic and technological forces presenting an array of challenges to test North Carolina’s mettle. The challenges arise even as the Governor, the General Assembly and all elements of state government confront an especially difficult budgetary outlook for the next fiscal year. Our purpose here is to give policymakers information that helps frame the decisions they will make in 2011.
…The synthesized message is that nearly six out of 10 jobs in North Carolina’s near future are projected to require some higher education, principally in community colleges or universities. To meet that requirement, our higher education systems will have to elevate their completion rates substantially. Barely more than one in three North Carolina working-age adults holds an associate’s degree or higher.
Simon Johnson explains why the problem of banks that are too big too fail hasn’t gone away and what could be done about it.
Or we could also make the biggest banks smaller — ideally, small enough to fail. This was the proposal of the Brown-Kaufman amendment to Dodd-Frank, which died on the Senate floor, largely because of opposition from Geithner and the Treasury Department. So we’ll do nothing, it seems, except let these massive banks become bigger and even less well managed.
…
Until next time, the people who run the country will again face the same choice as in November 2008: provide an unsavory bailout for management, shareholders and creditors that rewards failure and stupidity, or run the risk of causing a second Great Depression.
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
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