October 11, 2009
Britain's Central Planning Death Panels
October 11, 2009
Free Market M.D.
October 11, 2009
Economies of Scale in Compliance
October 11, 2009
Balan's Challenge
October 10, 2009
The Pleasure of Telling Others What to Do
October 10, 2009
Gonick the Great - and How He Could Have Been Greater
October 9, 2009
More Scott Sumner
October 9, 2009
Not From The Onion
October 9, 2009
Thoughts on a Second Stimulus
You point out that in spite of troubles in the financial sector the unemployment rate is only 6.1%, which is pretty average. This strikes me as an odd way to estimate the impact of failures in finance on the broader economy.
If the finance sector is partially crippled, my understanding is that this would decrease employment primarily because businesses would have difficulty obtaining loans for good projects. Thus, it seems that the employment rate would be a lagging indicator of the impact of finance problems. Wouldn't it be better to look directly at how these troubles are affecting the availability and price of credit? Or am I missing something?