LUCK...you gotta watch this!

Riddle me this...how long before your financial comeback?

Click on the link below. It shows how long it will take to return to where you were, and at what rate of interest, for your investment portfolio values. Note that you can slide the rate of return up or down as you choose. Move the cursor around and see all the information that is before you!


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/06/business/20090106-comeback-graphic.html

Fiscal Policy runs amuck. I happily signed this statement.

Here is the statement:

www.funnyeconomist.com/stimulus.pdf

Fiscal Policy is great if you can fix bridges falling down over the Mississippi river. The problem is you get 25 dog parks and 17 bridges to nowhere for every one bridge you fix. Take 60 years of economic research and throw it down a rat hole.

Read what Robert Barro has to say about these things. He is correct.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123258618204604599.html

Past recessions and what worked...three top economists recount history.

Listen to this and learn. Macro history in a nut shell.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/26/business/economy/20090126-recessions-graphic.html?hp

Fiscal Stimulus? What stimulus?

There is a raging debate on line between Brad DeLong, Greg Mankiw, Eugene Fama and John Cochrane about the impact of fiscal policy and the likely result of fiscal stimulus.

My answer to the whole thing is, it doesn't matter. Read this and decide for yourself.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html

Joe Stiglitz gets it all wrong.

www.funnyeconomist.com/Stiglitz.pdf

Oh yea, and the co-author Peter Orszag is the new Director of OMB. Let's hope he gets it going better in future endeavors.

Yes, she did say it.

I have absolutely zero interest in debating the abortion issue. None. If you say "we won, the American people knew we were for this and we are going to fund it", that is the political process, and so be it. But equating abortion with economic stimulus is one of the more sickening things I have heard in some time.

Wanda gets it right....

Recoveries are different now.

The graph at the top is a measure of unemployment that includes "discouraged workers" and also adjusts for part-time employment. We are not at the levels of misery experienced during the early 1980s, but we are gaining on it.

Look at the bottom graph. This shows the length of time it takes for employment to recover to pre-recession levels after the economy is disturbed. There it is for all to see. The last two recoveries we have had are unlike those of the post-WWII 20th century experience. Recoveries are now longer and more drawn out. So, let us hope the economy hits bottom soon. But even when we do...don't look for recovery to be swift and vigorous.

Current Recession in Historical Perspective.

Notice today versus the last 10 recessions we have had since 1945. The damage to unemployment was turning up by now even during the harshest recessions. Not today....Click on the link below for some more highly informative visuals of today versus the 10 recessions since 1945.

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/studies/recession_perspective/index.cfm