May 21, 2009

Global Economic Pain

Read more here from the Journal, for an excellent perspective on the global recession, and the stats show it is a bad one.

1 comment:

dylan from 5th hour said...

This post leaves me thinking two things.
First, it is a blaring example of the globalization of the economy. There was a time when one nation's failing economy actually had no effect on another, certainly not one on the other side of the globe like Japan. However, those days will never come again. Instead we see the economic troubles of the U.S. resulting in a plunge of GDP in it's three biggest trade partners. The second, more interesting thing this shows me is just how powerful the United States economy is. Globalization has created an "even" playing field, but clearly uncle sam is still running downhill. This whole crisis originated on U.S. soil with the housing market crash, and yet we now show less of a decline then our partners abroad. If Japan's housing market had done the same thing 2 years ago, obviously it would have affected us here in America. But not to the tune of a 15.2% drop in national GDP, and certainly not while Japan's only drops 6.3%.
This decline started with us and has hurt our trade partners. If we can't pull up from the tailspin, I expect Germany and Japan will find a new favorite trade partner (china anyone?). As for Mexico, they dont really have a choice.