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by Dwaine van Vuuren, Financial Sense: We have quarterly GDP data for 11 more OECD countries since our last post “World plunges into recession in Q42012“, and there have been some 2nd estimate revisions (such as the U.S). The chart below shows an improvement over the last post we made with the inclusion of more data points, but both the measures of single and two quarter recession metrics are still below their respective “Global [...] Jack Mintz: U.S. worse than Europe At a European conference on the sovereign-debt crises that I attended this week, my overwhelming conclusion, after listening to many experts, is that the U.S. is in far more trouble than Europe. This was brought home by calculations presented by Larry Kotlikoff of Boston University at a lecture held at the International Institute of Public Finance, the biggest gathering of public-finance experts in the world. Greece [...] A rapid and large increase of government debt has been a general phenomenon in the advanced countries since the 2007-09 crisis: for the first time, the average debt/GDP ratio for OECD countries has surpassed 100%.
Fiscal consolidation will weigh on growth prospects for two generations to come, and the welfare state as we have known it in Europe since World War II will have to be transformed, especially given a [...] By ROBERT J. BARRO The weak economic recovery in the U.S. and the even weaker performance in much of Europe have renewed calls for ending budget austerity and returning to larger fiscal deficits. Curiously, this plea for more fiscal expansion fails to offer any proof that Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries that chose more budget stimulus have performed better than those that opted for more austerity. Similarly, in the [...] Back in 1950, corporations paid $3 in taxes for every $1 paid by a worker. Today, they pay 22 cents.In 2009, the United States ranked 26th out of 28 OECD countries in total federal, state, and local taxes as a percent of GDP. Only Chile and Mexico had lower tax rates. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “federal taxes on middle-income Americans are near historic lows.” For taxpayers in the top 1%, the tax burden has fallen dramatically in recent years. At very high income levels, beginning at about the million dollar range, [...] View full graphic There is a simple reason health care in the United States costs more than it does anywhere else: The prices are higher. That may sound obvious. But it is, in fact, key to understanding one of the most pressing problems facing our economy. In 2009, Americans spent $7,960 per person on health care. Our neighbors in Canada spent $4,808. The Germans spent $4,218. The French, $3,978. If we had [...] Spain’s new prime minister has looked into the abyss and recoiled. Though he swept into office as an apostle of orthodoxy, Mariano Rajoy has since delved into Madrid’s ghastly accounts and concluded that it would be “suicidal” to try to slash the budget deficit from 8pc of GDP to 4.4pc of GDP this year, as demanded by Europe’s fiscal Calvinists. Such a policy would require a further €40bn or €50bn of cuts [...] by Michael Brendan Dougherty, BI Comparatively speaking, the United States does not starve its education system of revenue. The U.S. is one of the leaders in spending on Education, and yet it’s schools are rated “average” by international bodies. The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries [...] From FT: Markets and governments face an uphill struggle to fund themselves next year amid extreme uncertainty over the eurozone and the global economy, as new figures reveal that the borrowing of industrialised governments has surged beyond $10tr this year and is forecast to grow further in 2012. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which represents the leading industrialised nations, will warn in its latest borrowing outlook, due to be published this month, that [...] OECD says entire global economy is slowing: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says that every economy it monitors suffered a slowdown during September. The OECD’s leading indicators index for the month is designed to highlight turning points in economic activity. The data showed growth slowing in all OECD countries and major developing economies monitored by the group. The OECD represents developed economies including the US, UK and Japan. The index [...] Taxes on Corporate Income in OECD Countries in 2002 (LOT LOWER NOW THANKS TO 14,000 LOOPHOLES IN USA) as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product Country Percentage of GDP% Luxembourg 8.6% By Ezra Klein, Published: June 6 Everyone in Washington claims to want the same thing lately: a “serious conversation” about health-care costs. So let’s have one. Republicans have a plan that has been tried repeatedly but that has never worked. Democrats have a plan that might work in theory, but it is untested at the scale they’ll need for it to work in practice. And both parties are [...] Widening income inequality has been a thorn in America’s side for some time now. Turns out, other countries in the developed world aren’t exempt from it, either. Yes, even Sweden. In a new report, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) finds that since the mid-1980s income inequality has increased in 77 percent, or 17 of the 22 surveyed countries. Across all OECD countries, the [...] by Saxplayer00o1 Sovereign Debt Levels ‘Unsustainable’, Double Dip A Possibility Too many countries have levels of debt they will not be able to finance, which could cause further economic turmoil in 2011, Gulf economic expert Eckart Woertz has said.?Speaking to Arabian Business, Woertz, who is a visiting Fellow at Princeton university in America, said GCC economies would not be insulated from another downturn on international markets.?He [...] by TKWallace “The OECD’s international test, first administered in 2000 and given every three years, aims to measure skills achieved near the end of compulsory schooling. In the U.S., 165 public and private schools and 5,233 students participated in the two- hour paper-and-pencil assessment, given in September and November 2009. It consisted of multiple-choice and open-response questions. The UK’s debt will take generations to repay Photo: PA As long as the media continues inferring that the debts CAN be repaid, they will have the wool pulled over 99% of the sheeples, and NOTHING will be done to retructure the debt economy…. Furthermore, I think that “ Interest payments on the UK’s public debt will double from 5pc of GDP to 10pc [...] |
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Fulcrum: rare disaster risk explains bonds- abnormally low yields but rising credit risk alongside, more ‘equity like’
Two-year bond yields in six European countries recently turned negative. The decline in bond yields has prompted a growing number of commentators to say that bonds are overvalued.
In this column, we present a framework that can rationalise and explain current bond prices. The framework also sheds light on other trends in bond markets. It builds on the rare-disaster framework of Reitz (1988), Barro (2006), Barro et al. (2010), Barro and [...]