Via The Wall Street Journal By NICHOLAS WINNING The euro zone plunged deeper into recession in the fourth quarter of last year with its sharpest contraction in gross domestic product since records began in 1995, data from the European Union’s Eurostat statistics agency showed Friday. The decline was led by the biggest quarterly fall in German GDP in more than two decades. France and Italy also reported severe downturns as … Continue reading
Via The Wall Street Journal By MARCUS WALKER BERLIN — Eastern Europe, which narrowly survived the global financial crisis with help from the International Monetary Fund, now faces a second shock wave: Industry is slumping along with exports to Europe’s wealthier West. Economic data for 2008′s fourth quarter, due Friday, are expected to show growth collapsing in countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which had coped relatively … Continue reading
By TODDI GUTNERThe Wall Street Journal Relief, guilt, grief and fear are all typical feelings of employees are left behind in an office after a wave of layoffs. It’s easy to get mired in the emotions; it takes deliberate thought and action to manage in the workplace after colleagues have been laid off. “To be a survivor you have to act like one,” says Janet Banks, an executive coach in … Continue reading
Via The New York Times by Jan Hoffman TO a passer-by, the chic clothing store on Mott Street in Manhattan looked like a tumult of activity. On a recent weekday afternoon, Carolyn Bailey, a supervisor, was fussing with the window displays of women’s clothing, shifting piles of perfectly folded sweaters, spacing hangers a finger-width apart, debating avidly on the phone with a higher-up about coordinating outfits. Though she appeared occupied, … Continue reading
via The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Anyone looking for an indication of how dramatically the American political landscape has changed since September 2008, when the global economy slid into its meltdown, should consider this: The proposal floated recently by President-elect Barack Obama to spend at least $675 billion over just two years to stimulate the moribund economy ?– with the largest share of the money slated for … Continue reading
THE UN-COMFORT ZONE with Robert Wilson I know an advertising agency owner who never fully takes a vacation. He takes his family to fairly exotic locations, but never so alien that they are outside the reach of modern communication. In other words, he is never further than a cell phone call or email away. He checks in with the office several times a day – much to the chagrin of … Continue reading
Via New York Times By JANET RAE-DUPREE CREATING new jobs is a good way to get America’s economy moving again. That’s not the controversial part of President-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plans. As usual, the devil is in the details. And innovation advocates fear that if the devil runs amok, a short-sighted emphasis on jobs over long-term productivity may bog down the economic recovery. The problem, as they see it, … Continue reading
ViaWashington Post Some transit or rail spending can,of course, promote efficiency and productivity … By Joel Kotkin It’s the new buzzword: infrastructure. President-elect Barack Obama has promised billions in infrastructure spending as part of a public works program bigger than any since the interstate highway system was built in the 1950s. Though it was greeted with hosannas, his proposal is only tapping into a clamor for such spending that’s been … Continue reading
ViaCitizen Economists By Cheryl Grey All other things being equal, high productivity growth—a rise in the ability to create more with less of anything—remains the central driver for a nation’s economy, and United States productivity is world renowned (and envied). In the 1990s, productivity growth in many other economically-developed nations remained flat or even decreased; for example, in Spain productivity in service-related industries slowed -1.2% between 1995 and 2004. But … Continue reading
News BriefViaWall Street Journal LONDON — The recession in the U.K. manufacturing sector deepened in October, with output dropping a larger-than-expected 1.4% on a monthly basis, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday. October’s decline is the eighth successive monthly drop and marks the longest consecutive contraction in manufacturing output since 1980. The monthly decline was the largest since March 2005. On a year-to-year basis, manufacturing output dropped 4.9%, a … Continue reading