From the Great Moderation to the Great Financial Panic

On the day, Britain loses its AAA credit rating, research shows a link between austerity and rising debt to GDP ratio in the Eurozone.

Source: Vox

The Eurozone 'Panic driven austerity' was a tragic waste. Austerity has done a lot of damage, but it was unnecessary and only really occurred because of rising bond yields due to having no Central Bank willing to shore up confidence. With an independent Central Bank, the UK didn't have same problem with bond yields have fallen to record levels, so it is a shame, we pursued austerity over economic growth.

Other popular blog posts

• Keynesian Economics - How much does the current crisis vindicate basic Keynesian economics?
• What happens when quantitative easing ends? We will see the Central Bank start to sell it's mountain of government securities. This will push up interest rates and possibly reduce money supply. But hopefully, Q.E. will only be reversed when the economy is growing strongly.
• The Great Moderation - Those were the days! the longest period of economic expansion on record, low inflation, low interest rates,  rising house prices (just don't mention the sub-prime mortgages on private debt)
• Iceland's recovery - some proof that devaluation and defaulting on bank debts can actually be quite good.
• Financial instability hypothesis - why the great moderation helped create the great credit crisis and financial panic of 2008.

A Level Economics Help

• Examples of protectionism - Some modern day examples of Protectionism, useful for Unit 4 global economics.
• The wrong and right type of inflation - Forget the wrong kind of snow on the tracks, a look at why cost push inflation causes more problems than demand pull inflation.
• Inflation and depreciation - a little difficult, but the post explains the relationship between the exchange rate and inflation, often a source of confusion.

Light Hearted Reading

• Daily Mail Economics - the partial use of data to create fear, worry, moral indignation.
• 1,700 applicants for 8 vacancies at a Costa Coffee in Nottingham. Does your barista have a first class degree?

Quick Links

• Moral Hazard
• The growing size of the welfare economics - plenty of material for Daily Mail economics
• Tax on sugary drinks - is this the solution to the obesity crisis?
• Economic changes from railways - how railways changed the world
• Cost of servicing debt - UK debt interest payments are low by historical standards
• UK bond yields explained - the mysteries of the bond market explained
• Debt as % of GDP