In the US it appears that this may be the case. American express is offering some clients a $300 gift card to close their accounts and pay off credit card debt in the next few months (ht Marginal Revolution). This is interesting, given that a few months ago (in the middle of the explosion of […]
For me, there are two categories where the costs of rising unemployment fall (ignoring any indirect costs through taxes and benefits): The costs of an unemployed person/resource (so their pain, and the fact that we have a market that isn’t clearing), The costs to those who become scared that they are going to become unemployed. […]
So the New Zealand stock exchange is at its lowest level in five years. So what’s going on? Has the market been over-valued this whole time? Has the value of our capital (the implied future earnings of that capital) really fallen levels unseen in five years? Is the market over-reacting? Or finally, is the NZX-50 […]
NZI has suggested that unemployment may go over 11%. Now although it sounds like this estimate is no more than random conjecture (the countries in the Rogoff study are not comparable to the New Zealand case), it is still worth putting what this means in some historical context. Source (Infoshare) The time axis above gives […]
The raging capitalist nation of Sweden has stated that they are against government bailouts for manufacturers (ht Econlog): “Voters picked me because they wanted nursery schools, police and nurses, and not to buy loss-making car factories,” Enterprise and Energy Minister Maud Olofsson told Swedish public radio. Very cool. In other news I caught wind of […]
Source (Snorgtees) I wonder whether this is going to be part of the National government’s infrastructure package?