Nifty interactive animated chart showing business cycles - and a glimmer of hope

[scheming daemons]

This is REALLY interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/02/business/economy/20090705-cycles-graphic.html

Click on the link and watch how cycles have gone in the past and where we are now in the current one.

Illuminating... and with a hopeful sign at the end.



Doom-and-gloomers will unrec the thread, but that's ok. That's their right. But it is interesting no matter what you think about things.

[Odin2005]

1. K&R

[smiley_glad_hands]

2. Its cool and all, but economics is not a science, its an art.

I hope its right though.

[Posteritatis]

17. I always figured it was sorcery, myself (nt)

[lindisfarne]

3. Anyone who doesn't realize there are economic cycles is either <25 or really unobservant. The real

issue is how deep they go and how long they will last. We could stay in that "downturn" quadrant & wander around for a relatively long period, or get out more quickly. In reality, economists have little understanding of how the economy really works. They arrogantly will claim they do, but when it comes down to it, they really don't. (It was just in the last 10 years, for example, that studies were actually done showing that raising minimum wage does create new jobs; previously economists had argued against that view - although that was largely due to the fact most economists are business oriented and only look at business interests. Unfortunately, business interests have largely determined who gets tenure in our university economics departments - and very few with other views do get tenure.)

Downturns are definitely worse than expansions.

Wouldn't it be nice if they marked the years on the lines so you'd have a better idea of what else was going on? Perhaps a mark for every 6 months?

[scheming daemons]

4. True... but visual aids like the graphs make it much more interesting, don't you think?

I just found it to be an illuminating tool.

[lindisfarne]

5. It helps - but I think it would be more useful if they had one complete graph with 6 month int

intervals marked. But thank you for sharing.

(they don't really do a good job of explaining what the axes represent - and they don't even label the line graph that shows up on the bottom in some views.)

[lindisfarne]

7. If you like cool ways of showing data, have you seen Hans Rosling on Ted?

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html
Edit:
Actually, I think this is the real cool one:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Jump to about 10 minutes in to get to the "bang" (then go back and watch all to appreciate the method) - he has amazing graphics.

[Greyskye]

10. You get the month in the top right of the graph, and if you do this...

If you slide the ends of the linear graph at the bottom of the last page (Page 9) together, you get a very tight time window. By sliding this reduced window along the graph, and watching the Month/Year in the upper right corner, you can get an excellent sense of what the date is when the indicators are doing something.

:hi:

[lindisfarne]

12. Thanks - I saw that. But I really want to see all the dates and all the data at the same time.It

seems it could have been easily done, given that they have that. Probably very busy, but valuable, nonetheless!

[eridani]

6. Not unrecommending--just pointing out that you cannot sustain an economy

--based 70% on consumer spending when consumers have been getting relatively poorer since 1980. Are you expecting another bubble to follow the S&L bubble, the tech bubble and the real estate bubble? Until 1980, the US had the world's highest wages. See that coming back anytime soon?

[scheming daemons]

8. I see a shift coming over the next several years....

...with Obama's green economy... we'll start making shit again.

Namely... the energy and high-efficiency products of the future.

[wroberts189]

9. "poised to turn around" ..but its still headed down with a bad trajectory. nt

[thecrow]

13. Maybe the blue line is only beginning its death spiral.........

Is that what you want to hear?

If not, believe in the yellow line and send me $20 today.

[wroberts189]

15. I do not know which direction its going to go but it is still going down. nt

[KillCapitalism]

11. Past recessions were far different.

In the past, we weren't sending jobs to slave labor countries by the millions. I mean we were, but nowhere near the pace we are now.

I don't think we'll have a recovery without jobs.

[RC]

14. And you cannot have a recovery with our manufacturing off shore.

We shipped our manufacturing overseas, sometimes literally boxing up the whole factory and shipping it elsewhere and setting it up again in some 3rd world country with a dollar a day workers.
This recession is going to be with us for some time. Just how long did they think we could sustain an economy, by buying, buying, buying when too many of us had no jobs, jobs, jobs?

[conscious evolution]

16. You should compare

a graph of the DJIA and annual retirement rates.
Due to the US Census bureuea's fine work one can look into the future in regards to the dow.