Greece Economic Overview (May 2012)

Overview of the Greece economy (May 2012). Especially notice the consumer confidence and the collapsed new car registrations.

OECD Government Budget History: Deficit versus surplus

The Economist posted this interesting chart with the budget historty from several countries. On the top a smaller group of countries over a longer time and on the bottom a bigger group of countries over a smaller time. Unfortunately there was no data available for both more countries and over a longer period. What both graphs show though is that most countries had a lot more years with a budget deficit than years with a budget surplus. Many economists advice governments to buildup debt-ratio in a recession and lower the debt-ratio in a boom. Because there were more deficit years that surplus years, this wasn't the case. Overall, in the long run government debt ratio's on average increased.

The Economist

Total Jobs: United States Vs. Euro Zone

As you can see in this graph, before the Great Recession the total nominal employment was higher in the United States than in the Euro Zone. During the Great Recession U.S. employment declined more than twice the number of the Euro Zone. Unlike the U.S., the Euro Zone has not seen a recovery in the number of jobs. Since late 2011 the number of jobs are even declining again in the Euro Zone.

Zero Hedge

EU: Broader Unemployment Rate (2011)

This graph shows a wider measue of unemployment for the countries in the European Union. The blue line (U-3) is the normal unemployment rate, as reported by the national statistical agencies. Unemployment is defined as the part of the labor force without a job that is available and actively seeking for a job. With this measure Spain clearly has the highest unemployment, followed by Greece and Lithuania. 

Next to the normal measure of unemployment people in the work force can also be seeking for work, but not immediately available or available but not seeking or involuntary part-time. When you add these factors you get the total (partly) workless labor supply. With this measure Spain is still the country with the highest unemployment. Latvia and Ireland are now second and third. Spain, Ireland and Sweden are countries with a relatively high percentage of the labor force being involuntary part-time. Italy and Latvia are countries that have especially a high percentage of the labor force available, but not seeking. 

Luxetveritas

Government Debt And Deficit Euro Zone Members 2012 (Expected)

This graph from the Rabobank shows the fiscal positions of the Euro Zone members (orange) compared to the UK, US and Japan (blue). National debt is on the horizontal axis and deficit on the vertical axis. Numbers are expections from European Comission and IMF.

Notice that the U.S. and Japan have way worse fiscal positions than the Euro Area. Well known is that Greece and Italy have the biggest government debt compared to the GDP in the two economies. Ireland and Portugal are getting closer and closer to Italy though.

12 Euro Zone Countries in Recession (May 2012)

This graph from Reuters shows on the left side the quarterly economic growth in the Euro Zone. The economic block just entered it's second recession in three years. On the right it shows that already 12 countries in the EU are in recession: Spain, Belgium, Cyprus, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.


Click on the source for an interactive view per country.

Reuters

Credit Ratings Overview April 2012

The ratings by S&P and Moody's are generally viewed as the most important. As you can see only Germany, Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have an AAA-rating by all of the credit rating agencies.

UK: Current Recovery Worse than Depression

In this chart from the Guardian you can see that this recession lasted longer than any recession since the great depression, even longer than the great depression itself.

The Guardian