Map of unemployment progression by county

[Shay]

Interesting map.

multimediafinal

 

[ATF Consumer]

I find it more scary than interesting.

 

[6birds]

Any bets on how long it will take to get below 5%-5.9% (red) again in MI?

Anyone else guessing 10-12 years?

 

[jblomenberg16]

Interesting to say the least. Amazing how in the course of a couple of years unemployment nearly doubled.


To put it into a bit of perspective, I've added some data for all of the World's advanced economies. Note that 2009 and 2010 are estimates and projections. 2009 will likely be pretty close to these numbers once data is completed and compiled later next year.

Data comes from the International Monetary Funds October 2009 World Outlook report.

IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) - Sustaining the Recovery, October 2009 -- table of contents

Download entire World Economic Outlook database, October 2009

 

[Shay]

Wow. Poor Iceland.

 

[jblomenberg16]

If you need a job, Spain and the Slovak Republic aren't real good places to be either.


The other piece of data that is usually discussed with unemployment is inflation. As a general rule inflation will generally increase as unemployment decreases, and decrease as unemployment increases. There are many other complicated factors that can change that, but we'd be getting way off topic and into another discussion all together.

Here's inflation data for the same countries, from the same source. (www.imf.com).

While not a perfect relationship, it does show that for many advanced economies, 2009 saw a jump in unemployment as a result of the ecnomic downturn, but also saw a decrease in the rate of inflation.

If you look closely, you will actually see that the IMF is predicting some deflation for the US and a few other countries (inflation is negative).


Yet again, it doesn't look like Iceland isn't a real good place to be. Then again, even in good economic times, I'm not sure if Iceland is really the place to be anyway.


I'm not sure what Bernake's views are on the topic, but suspect that the goals of the Fed are to keep inflation in the 2-3% range (widely considered a healthy number), and get unemployment back down to the 5-6% range. If we really want to get deep into it, we can start talking about the NAIRU...but alas I've already jacked the thread enough.

 

[evansvillethompsongunner]

Duplication of an older thread.

 

[jblomenberg16]

Duplication of an older thread.

Awe, C'mon....let Shay and I talk about the economy of Iceland!!!

 

[evansvillethompsongunner]

Awe, C'mon....let Shay and I talk about the economy of Iceland!!!

Sorry to interrupt; as you were!