jim nourse

Posted: Dec-17-2008 by jim

Calpers is now warning California's cities, towns and schools that they may have to cough up more money to cover the retirement and other benefits the fund provides for 1.6 million state workers. Some towns are already cutting municipal services, and at least one is partly blaming the Calpers fees.

Calpers in recent weeks said it expects to report paper losses of 103% on its housing investments in the fiscal year ended June 30. That’s because Calpers invested not only its own money, but billions of dollars of borrowed money that must be repaid even if the investment fails. In some deals, as much as 80% of the money invested by Calpers was borrowed.

Tagged in: amateur economist

Invest in Hormel

Posted: Dec-17-2008 by jim

Demand for SPAM at an all time high.

Through war and recession, Americans have turned to the glistening canned product from Hormel as a way to save money while still putting something that resembles meat on the table. Now, in a sign of the times, it is happening again, and Hormel is cranking out as much Spam as its workers can produce.

Tagged in: amateur economist

Is Rising Unemployment F'ing with my Google Analytics?

Posted: Dec-12-2008 by jim

Anyone else noticing this sort of thing?

I host a dozen or so domains, ranging from an average of 9000 unique pageviews per day, to about just 10 a day. In all cases, the traffic is down about 4-7% in the past month.

Just a seasonal anomaly? Didn't happen last year.

I once read that most web users surf while at work. Fewer people working = fewer people cruising the interwebs?

Tagged in: tech

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Posted: Dec-04-2008 by jim

Did you know? Total Eclipse of the Heart was written originally for Meatloaf?

Tagged in: silly

Just an Ordinary Depression?

Posted: Dec-03-2008 by jim

I've been doing some elementary research into economics. I'm determined to better understand the economic recession we're in.

I've learned that we've technically been in a recession for a year now, which is already a longer duration than the average recession since the Great Depression.

So do you buy this?

Define Recession: "The conventional rule of thumb is that a recession is two consecutive quarters in which the nation's gross domestic product contracts." -- WSJ

Define Depression: "A depression is any economic downturn where real GDP declines by more than 10 percent. A recession is an economic downturn that is less severe. If we use this method then the Great Depression of the 1930s can be seen as two separate events: an incredibly severe depression lasting from August 1929 to March 1933 where real GDP declined by almost 33 percent, a period of recovery, then another less severe depression of 1937-38. The United States hasn’t had anything even close to a depression in the post-war period. The worst recession in the last 60 years was from November 1973 to March 1975, where real GDP fell by 4.9 percent." -- about.com

Looks like the US GDP declined a bit in Q42007 and again in Q32008, but rebounded in between. So all this talk about a new Depression seems a little nutty -- right?

So right now, I'm interested in unemployment more than GDP. So, here are the unemployment rates during the Panic of 1893 -- and the Depression that followed:

1890 4.0%
1891 4.8%
1892 3.7%
1893 8.1%
1894 12.3%
1895 11.1%
1896 12.0%
1897 12.4%
1898 11.6%
1899 8.7%
1900 5.0%
(Source: Romer, 1984)

Obviously there's a 5 point jump in 1893, and then another 4 point sustained jump in 1894.

Unemployment during the Great Depression (1933-1941)

1933 24.9%
1934 21.7%
1935 20.1%
1936 16.9%
1937 14.3%
1938 19.0%
1939 17.2%
1940 14.6%
1941 9.9%
(source: Historical Statistics US (1976) series D-86)

25%? That is astronomical!

Looks like unemployment in the US has been pretty stable in the last 10 years; the nadir of the dot.bomb/911 period was about 5.9%. In 2008 unemployment has increased nearly 2% in just a year -- we'll know for sure where we are on Friday, but it's looking like it may be about 7%. Here in California, the rate was 8.2% 2 weeks ago. In Silicon Valley, the number is 6.9%. That's about the same rate during the last recession of 1991-92.

But unusually long recession during the late 70's and early 80's, unemployment ranged from 7-11%. I don't think anyone called that period a depression though?

Tagged in: amateur economist

Posted without Comment

Posted: Nov-01-2008 by jim

I simply cannot get enough of these Sarah Palin Interviews. It's pure word salad.

Tagged in: politics

The Greatest Cover Ever

Posted: Sep-15-2008 by jim

Tagged in: marginal musings

Surfing the Internets and I Found...

Posted: Jul-31-2008 by jim

Tagged in: marginal musings

The Covert War on Iran

Posted: Jul-15-2008 by jim