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This is a post from John Lounsbury which will cover ground on the official designation of recessions and his own designation of depressions about which he has written in the past. Previous articles in this series have discussed:

The NBER process for dating recessions;
Redefining the business cycle;
Normalization of GDP to population; and
Normalization of [...]

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I came across an article in the FT by Gideon Rachman which examined “How Reagan ruined conservatism.” It is an interesting piece which claims that traditional conservatives abhor populism and respect knowledge, while the Reagan Revolution ushered in a ‘new’ conservatism that appealed to those who love populism and disdain knowledge. All very interesting – [...]

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This is a post by Edward Hugh, who also blogs at Global Economy Matters.
According to data released today from the Swedish statistical office Sweden unexpectedly fell back into recession in the fourth quarter, adding to the impression there has been a growth dip among Europe’s economies and raising further questions about the durability of the [...]

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This post was originally published at A Fistful of Euros.
“Doom-mongers” – the Economist tells us – “are licking their wounds”. And why exactly are they licking their wounds? Well for two years now (apparently) they have been telling us that “the struggle to save the lat’s peg to the euro was bound to end in [...]

I said: “Here’s my question: when does this affect the Greek sovereign credit rating? That has to be next because the scenario I just scoped out would indeed suggest lower tax revenue and more budgetary pressure. Sure sounds like a death spiral to me.” And now (25 Feb 2010) S&P is saying, indeed , they may downgrade the sovereign debt next month.

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I am back from a week in Mexico.  And here in DC there are still mountains of snow on the ground. Here are some links I picked up on yesterday on my way home.
Cheers.
Edward
PS. – the article from Worthwhile Canadian Initiative is another disappointing one.  I told you on Thursday that the fallacies of composition [...]

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Marshall Auerback here with a post which I originally published at New Deal 2.0.
What is a fiscal crisis? When does deficit spending become “unsustainable”? Today, we can see net public spending rising (sharply as a percentage of GDP in some cases) as private spending has plummeted. Still, unemployment has skyrocketed. So whatever government spending has [...]

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I will be away all week, so I will have a number of guest contributions in that time. Here is a great one from John Mauldin, who I frequently publish.  At the bottom is a blurb on how to subscribe to his newsletter.  It is worth it.
Edward
P.S. – Note the ode  in this post [...]

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Edward Hugh here.
Well, I may say there were no surprises, but in fact the Greek economy contracted more than many observers expected in the fourth quarter, while downward revisions to the rest of 2009 converted the present recession into the country’s worst since 1987. Evidently the latest numbers offer the first warning that all may [...]

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This post was originally published at A Fistful of Euros.
Well, as we say in English, it never rains but it pours. Latvia, which has had the deepest recession of all 27 European Union member states, contracted by nearly 18 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2009, when compared to the same period a year [...]