Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, December 13, 2010

And Now For Something Completely Different

Yes, please...

Now for some good news!

Bondad's blog has become my favorite place to read charts and graphs that I only dimly understand because my pre-Calc teacher was insane and I stopped learning math in 1983.

Anyway there's this.

He basically relays that most economists foresee steady growth next year.  In another post, he shows how some sectors of the economy (including - counter-intuitively - manufacturing) have rebounded quite nicely.  Right now basically retail, construction and state governments are the locus of unemployment.

He also notes that the recovery stalled to some degree over Greece and Ireland and continued worries about Spain and Portugal.  IF - and it's a big if - Europe is serious about keeping the Euro afloat, then they will have to keep Spain afloat and that means...PONIES FOR EVERYONE!

Well, if not a pony, then maybe a real recovery.  Without the benefit of fancy Bondadian math, I would presume you would look for retail to pick up first.  Construction is hurt by so much excess capacity that it will likely take longer.  State governments will be the real tell.  With it unlikely that the GOP House will approve any more aid to states, local governments will need to wait for tax receipts to pick up before they can rehire the clerks and public works people that they are either laying off or attritting.

Again, this would seem to suggest that the short term stimulus of the tax deal that Krugman worries will be over too fast, might be OK.

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