MacroScope

It’s no surprise that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report on state unemployment is grim reading. Unemployment is up in 49 of 50 states (go Louisiana!). 

It may also be telling us something troubling about the prospects for recovering from this recession quickly. The states with low unemployment aren’t exactly the most exciting places to live, and even if you were prepared to move there’s the not-so-small matter of trying to sell your home in the middle of a housing crisis.

The states with the lowest unemployment include Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska — far from the coasts where populations — and unemployment — are higher. Which brings us to the Oswald Hypothesis (don’t worry — we didn’t know what it was either until JP Morgan economist Michael Feroli mentioned it). Higher homeownership rates may increase the natural unemployment rate, essentially because that makes it harder for people to pick up and move.

Feroli pointed out that the housing crash may be playing a bigger role in unemployment in this recession because people who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth have a particularly tough time selling. Almost 20 percent of U.S. households with mortgages fall into that category, he said.

“For these underwater households to move, they would have to incur a large capital loss,” Feroli notes. “This may preclude the option of moving in search of better job opportunities.”

Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at the Economic Cycle Research Institute, speaks to Pedro Nicolaci da Costa about his views of the recession, the current economic environment, and possible steps that could lead to a turnaround.

In Finland, public service messages have turned to pleading with people to consume more to stave off the recession.

The “Ala ruoki lamaa“, or “Don’t feed the recession”, campaign says being too cautious in consumption is one factor feeding the recession, and it seeks to make people understand the importance of private consumption to the economy.

Posters of a piggy bank equipped with fangs and horns greet travellers on tram stops in Helsinki, and television viewers see spots showing consumers feeding the recession by curbing consumption.

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s Beige Book survey of economic conditions is always chock full of goodies for the econ wonks among us. Today’s installment is a recession-era opus, chronicling in amazing detail just how sharply the economy is falling. Allow us to present a top 10 list of interesting observations:

10. Across the country, demand for professional services was down. “However, Dallas noted a modest increase, albeit less-than-expected, in demand for legal services due to increased bankruptcy proceedings.”

9. In New York City, revenues per hotel room were reported down a record 30 percent in January from a year earlier. Some 13 Broadway shows closed in January.

How do you buy $750 billion of toxic bank assets with only $250 billion of taxpayer money?

If you know to play U.S. budget rules like a violin.

President Barack Obama told Congress in passing this week he might need more money than lawmakers have already approved to stabilize banks and pull the economy out of the ditch. 

How much? His budget virtuoso Peter Orszag said on Thursday he could support buying up to $750 billion in bad assets but only needed to set aside $250 billion to do it.

If you're among those upset that your taxpayer dollars may be spent in volume to rescue people who -- for whatever reason -- can't make their mortgage payments, Federal Financial Analytics analyst Karen Shaw Petrou recommends thinking about it this way:

"Preventing foreclosures has a lot in common with treating syphilis. In both cases, you help some who are undeserving, but – in an economic collapse or a public-health emergency – one acts nonetheless. "

Just as in an serious epidemic, you'd take care of the problem and leave moral judgements to others, the right course of action is to take action to halt the housing crisis and leave the debate about moral hazard to economists, she wrote in a note to clients on Friday.

The world’s second largest economy, Japan, and Europe’s largest, Germany, all of a sudden have a lot in common. 

Their most striking resemblance in recent weeks is the breathtaking speed of economic decline, with output ransacked by a collapse in world demand for high-quality manufactured goods and an overvalued currency.

The fundamental problem is simple and doesn’t take an economist’s model to explain. At this stage of the financial crisis, who wants to replace a fully-functional Audi they bought a few years ago? What’s wrong with the 2007-vintage Sony PlayStation connected to the two-year-old Bravia or Grundig flat-screen TV? And who in their right mind would want to import the stuff in bulk when the euro and the yen are so expensive?

The financial crisis is causing people to do some funny things, but when the head of one of the world’s biggest central banks looks down the lens and tells people to stop being so cautious and go and spend, spend, spend, you know something strange is going on.

Despite European high street stores offering up to 90 percent off, rattled Euro consumers have reacted to the financial crisis by slamming the brakes on spending.

It is not exactly an irrational response. Jobs are being slashed at an eye-watering rate and savvy shoppers know that, as stores become ever more desperate, there is a good chance the
must-have jeans, gadget or new car they have been eyeing may be even cheaper in a few weeks.

It takes a delicate touch to make job cuts sound more palatable. As U.S. companies reduce payrolls by the thousands, the press releases seem to be getting more and more creative.

Check out today’s announcement from The Reader’s Digest Association, which is eliminating 8 percent of its global workforce and suspending matching contributions to employees’ 401(k) retirement accounts. Somehow it stings a bit less when you tell employees that it’s all part of a ”Recession Plan” right?

“We have announced a comprehensive ‘Recession Plan’, which is our internal roadmap for dealing with the extraordinary effects of this recession on consumer spending,” Mary Berner, president and CEO, said in a statement.

Merrill Lynch economist David Rosenberg’s views are well-known for bearing no resemblance to his firm’s trademark bull, so when he says European clients seem too upbeat, what he really means is they weren’t thoroughly depressed. The New York-based economist just got back from a marketing trip across the Atlantic and didn’t find much common ground.

In particular, he said European clients seemed more concerned about inflation than the deflation that he sees coming, and they may have unrealistically high expectations for President Barack Obama.

“Unbelievably … portfolio managers seem to think they are taking a bigger risk with their careers by missing the rallies than by missing the sell-offs,” he wrote in a note to clients. “I can tell you that this is not a condition from a sentiment standpoint that terminates bear markets.”