Total Debt (Public and Private) in the United States, Euro Zone, China, Japan and the U.K.

This graph shows the total debt (government, households and firms) for the biggest economies in the world. First, what I think is remarkable is that total debt is for the developing world (except Japan) all around 250 percent of GDP. Second, total debt did not decline since the crisis. In Japan and China (perhaps as expected) it is even rising again.

BBVA Research

Quarterly EU House Prices (2005-2013Q4)

With new data from Eurostat for the percentage change in q4 2013 of the house prices in the EU I constructed this graph. During the last quarter of 2013 the United Kingdom and Sweden saw big increases in their house prices, while house prices in the Netherlands and Cyprus decreased. For the EU as a whole house prices decreased with 0.1 percent compared to Q4 2012.

Eurostat

Positive Relationship: House Prices & Election Polls

This graph shows the relationship between house prices (left axis) and the Incumbent Poll lead (right axis). As you can see lower house prices go along with a lower probability that the current government will be re-elected. This of course doesn't mean that house prices necessarily cause the probability to change that the incumbent government will be stay in power. Remember correlation does not imply causation. Yet it is an interesting relation.

Independent Investor

Projected Government Spending For Developed Countries in 2013

Denmark has the highest projected government spending as a percentage of GDP, with 58.4 percent. France and Austria also have notably high expentiture percentages, even above Noric countries Finland and Sweden. Greece doesn't have that high government spending after all with 48.3 it is around the average. Australia has the lowest government spending for the selected countries.

Banking Sector: Percentage of GDP Across the World

This chart shows the banking sector in terms of assets as a percentage of GDP forcseveral continents. What stands out, are the extremely large banking sectors in European countries.

ZeroHedge

OECD Direct Fiscal Costs of 2008 Financial Crisis

This chart shows the direct fiscal costs for the financial crisis in OECD countries between 2007 and 2009. Especially Ireland and also Iceland stand out as having relatively high costs in those years relating to the crisis. Notably the Netherlands is third and USA only comes in on the eight spot.

OECD Yearly 2012 GDP Growth

More and more countries have been reporting their fourth quarter GDP growth for 2012 lately, and hence the yearly 2012 GDP growth rate. For the countries that have reported their figures China had the highest yearly growth rate of 7.8 percent. Indonesia and Norway are following China with 6.2 and 3.0 percent respectively. Yet, most countries had a growth rate of less than 2 percent, with most all European countries on the lower end. Portugal and Italy saw their economy's decline the most, in Portugal even with 3.2 percent.

Global House Price Indicators (January 2013)

The Economist posted this overview of global house price indicators in January 2013. Some points of interest:

• Hong Kong saw the biggest rise in housing prices: 22 percent compared to year ago, while Spain saw its house prices contract the most.
• Hong Kong was also the country that saw its house prices increase the most after the start of the global financial crisis in 2007, while Ireland saw the biggest correction; house prices were slashed in halve. 
• Housing markets in Canada and France are most overvalued according to rent and income measures, while those in Japan and China are quite undervalued compared to their long term average values.

The Economist

Changing Top Manufacturing Countries (1980-2010)

The developing countries have made their way more and more in the top 10 of global manufacturing countries. While you might expect China on the first spot, the United States as being the world's biggest economy is still the largest manufacturing producer. Brazil has advanced up to the sixth place. India just entered the top 10 in 2010 and Russia especially made a big jump from place 12 in 2000 to 11 in 2010.

ZeroHedge

Government Debt in the EU Countries (second quarter 2012)

This great graph from Reuters shows per EU country the government debt it had at the end of the second quarter, as a percentage of GDP.

Since the crisis Portugal, Ireland have been accumulating debt at a high rate, while seeing their economy shrink significantly. This is shows in the government-debt-to-GDP measure, for which they are in respectively  the third and the fourth place in having the highest government debt in the EU.

Estonia and Bulgaria have the lowest government debt in the EU.

Gold Price In Several Currencies (2007-2012)

This graph from Reuters shows that gold (price set to 100 in all currencies in the beginning of 2007) rose in all selected currencies from 2007-2012. In UK pounds the gold price rose the most. What might be surprising is that the gold price rose more in Swiss francs than in Japanese yen, in which for the last currency gold grew the least.

ZeroHedge

Developed Countries GDP Growth (2nd Quarter 2012)

This chart show the quarterly economic growth (second quarter versus the first quarter of 2012) for the countries in the Euro Zone, compared with the United States and Japan. What is interesting is that most Euro Zone countries saw their economic growth far below the U.S. and Japan, especially Portugal and Italy. Not being in the Euro Zone is not a guarantuee for economic growth though, as you can see with the -0.7 percent contraction in the United Kingdom.

http://twitpic.com/aj9dlc

EU VAT-Rates Compared

The value added tax raises the price on consumer goods. Almost all EU countries had a higher VAT-rate in 2012 compared to 2000. Perhaps surprisingly, Hungary has the highest VAT-rate, followed by Scandinavian Denmark and Sweden. Cyprus, Portugal, Greece, Spain and Romania particularly saw their VAT rising in the last twelve years. Except for Cyprus, all of these countries have now a higher rate than the average for the EU of 21 percent.

Reuters

Manufacturing Activity Down Around the World

This chart from The Economist compares manufacturing activity around the world for last june compared to the last two years. Most countries saw a shard decline this year, compared to last year, although less in the Emerging Markets.

Due to a request by the Economist this graph has been removed. 

View the graph here

House Prices Versus Disposable Income (1993-2011)

This chart shows the development of the house price-to-disposable income ratio for several countries, with the long term average set as 100. Ireland had the biggest housing bubble (in terms of prices to income). Spain was really close to Ireland and the ratio is still higher for Spain, while Ireland already got back to its long term average.

Especially notice the Netherlands, which is still really high on the scale and France, which is rising again after the decline. Also notice the United States which, according to this measure, should not have a housing bubble anymore.

Global PMI: Euro Zone Down, U.S. Up

The PMI stands for Purchasers Managers Index. The research firm Markit surveys managers of private companies and asks questions about five different topics. These topics are New orders, Output, Employment, Suppliers' delivery times and Stocks of purchases. When the index is at 50 there is no change. Anything below 50 means a decline in activity; similarly above 50 means an increase. This picture shows the data for April 2012. The PMI of the Euro Zone is declining more and more. Especially Greece, Spain and Italy are not doing well. Germany and France have joined them in recent months.

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.

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

United States Sectoral Balance Sheets (1985-2012)

As you can see running up to the crisis households massively increased their borrowing. The government also had substantial deficits in the nineties and after the millennium. The corporate sector was on average almost in balance. Since the crisis a dramatic increase in savings by the private sector made the public sector increase its deficit.

Richard Koo

China & India Will Consume 50 percent Of World Economy in 2050

In this great graph you can see the developing of the economy (gross domestic product) of the world throughout history, illustrated by the relative importance of the nine great powers of the world. Up until 1800, more than half of the world economy was dominated by China and India. Since 1800 the western powers more and more took over the world economy from Asia. Especially look at the development of the United States and the United Kingdom. The process turned around from 1980 when China introduced economic reforms. China and India are projected to have around half of world GDP again by 2050.

This can also be seen as the rise and the fall of the 'West'.

Nalilord