Federal Receipts and Outlays Divided by National Income

Federal receipts and outlays divided by national income. What is the U.S. plot line and summary story judging from the available data? Here are the compiled statistics, courtesy of the FRED storehouse, as lodged on-line and provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Labor, Trade & Federal Budget Balances Aggregated by Country

Courtesy of Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, we may now consider a new analytical measure to compare America’s progress on jobs, trade exports and federal budget balances against the rest of the World, namely a revised ad-hoc Misery Index. The Index directs us to add: (1) the unemployment rate; (2) the current account deficit/GDP percentage; and (3) the federal budget deficit/GDP percentage.

Inquiry into Debt/GDP Feedbacks in the United States

What is the effect of United States government borrowing load applied to own-real income growth percentages? If we are to evaluate economists Carmen Reinhart, Maryland University, and Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University, and their widely-cited, and now seemingly conventional, insight that debt levels breaching the implosive debt-to-gross domestic product limit of ninety percent literally imply significantly reduced real income growth for a country, then the United States audience should now be a captive audience in high-drama suspense mode.

Fiscal Policy Review: Raising & Lowering Taxes in War and Recession, 1913-present

Raising and lowering of the highest marginal tax rate is considered here-in relating to the U.S. from 1913 to present day. Against the backdrop of 8 years of war in Iraq and 9 years in Afghanistan, more specifically considered are the precedents of past presidential administrations established in the context of cutting and lowering the highest marginal taxes in war-time and recession-time.

O is for Operation Iraqi Freedom: Lining Up Statistics on War Casualties

Operations and conflicts involving United States military might have been ever-enduring in the American esprit de guerre for years upon years since Revolutionary War time period ‘til to-day in Iraq and Afghanistan. O is the one current, explicit war however; so, here, constructed and resolved are economics journal-inspired recession bars and categorical aids applied, charting and comparing the scale and progression of the current principal wars at hand, mainly Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Primary Regulators: OCC, OTS, FED & FDIC-Failed Institutions in Distributed Form

Behind the curtain of failed depository institutions, it is notable that the total number of posthumous banks and thrifts having failed during business cycle #34, as ordained by official NBER record, is rapidly approaching 200. This thread analyzes the distribution of failures across primary regulators. Upfront, here is a pie chart displaying that regulator distribution, with warts and all.

U.S. Banking Crashes, Three Episodes

Compared here and revisited are three banking-centered recessions dominating the unpopular imagination from 1900 onward: namely, the Great Depression period, the Savings & Loan Crisis period and the Subprime Recession period. In looking back, contrasted are usual traditional monetary measures one encounters in Mankiw (2003), e.g., the money multiplier, monetary base, reserves-to-deposits ratio, etc., with aim to assess and draw distinctions between the three larger bank failure periods in modern American recall and imagination.

Fighting The Establishment Survey, January 2010

The Employment Situation Summary of February 5, 2010, released last Friday, has managed to turn heads and raise eyebrows. Namely, how is it that the unemployment rate declined, while payroll employment simultaneously declined? Preliminary estimate on payroll employment, pulling from The Establishment Survey, projected -20,000 jobs lost in January. Differingly, the unemployment rate, pulling from The Household Survey, estimated a drop from 10% in December to 9.7% in January.

RE: Maestro

Monetary policy independence is being spoken of rampantly in the press: Libertarians have been battling Federal Reserve policy experts, e.g., Ron Paul’s Plan to Audit Fed a ‘Serious Attack’: Mishkin, and Federal Reserve presidents have been taking to the pen, e.g., Lacker Says Threats to Fed Autonomy Imperil Stability and Lockhart on Preserving the Role of an Independent Fed. Maybe it is time for a historical flashback. Enter Maestro by Bob Woodward, the American journalist.

The Pujo, Pecora and Born Investigations and Their Aftermath

Congressional investigations are common in the wake of financial panics, including those of 1907, 1929 and 2008. Appropriately, The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is such an investigation, undertaken starting today, with an initial hearings phase scheduled before Congress. This Iraq Study Group-modeled commission will potentially hold a candle to forerunner inquiry commissions of the past 20th century — read Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission: A User’s Guide.