On our last day, here’s our top post of all time (or the last nine months, which amounts to the same thing). This post had legs like Betty Grable, probably because it so clearly illustrated just how badly the employment situation was deteriorating last year. 1. Geography of a recession (Nov 30, 2009) This is [...]

As we wrap up here at the EconomyBeat Podcast, I thought we could take a long view and look back the the last great depression, the one in the 20th century. Over the next five minutes or so, feel free to reflect and do a little comparing and contrasting for yourself.  Fewer than 1 in [...]

2. Health care reform explained on the back of a napkin – Simple graphics illustrate a topic that baffled most Americans for an entire year. (Oct 14, 2009) Original post: After reading countless articles and opinion pieces on the health care debate, and watching dozens of talking heads slug it out over individual mandates, insurance [...]

3. “Who the hell is John-Boy?” – blog post arguing that the American corporation, dominated by baby-boomer management, is out of touch with the youth culture that drives much of Americans’ spending (Mar 15, 2010) Original post: On Grant McCracken’s blog, which “sits at the intersection of anthropology and economics,” this post argues that the [...]

4. Funny unemployment photos – from the blog Unemploymentality (Nov 6, 2009) Previous top-post entries: 25. Colorado Springs: City of the future? – Anti-tax haven Colorado Springs finds itself in desperate fiscal straits, touching off schadenfreude and defensiveness on the Web. 24. Sub-prime the Musical – college student creates series of podcasts on the causes [...]

Paris Porter moved from the South Side of Chicago to St. Paul, Minnesota when he was 6. His family was part of a migration to the Twin Cities in the 1990s when the economy was creating more jobs than it had workers to fill them. Was Minnesota a welfare magnet in the 1990s or a [...]

5. Bush tax cuts vs. Obama health care – chart showing the relative impact on the budget of the two Bush tax cuts vs. the Obama health care plan (Mar 4, 2010) Original post: From a recent post titled “What Are These Three Numbers” on the economics blog Econbrowser comes this chart: “The first bar [...]

6. Who are the worst tippers? – another round of waiters commenting on which groups of people they think are the most penurious when it comes to tipping (Dec 8, 2009) Original post: The recession has fewer people eating out, which means less in tips for waiters and waitresses. This can only accentuate the hard [...]

7. The H&M incident – After a student notices that retailer H&M is dumping unsold garments, a p.r. nightmare for the company unfolds on the web. (Jan 8, 2010) Original post: “The phone no longer just rings off the hook at the corporate public relations office. Now the Internet lights up too with thousands of [...]

Pretend Office – Freelancers write pretend email messages about pretend office matters. (Apr 12, 2010) Original post: If you’ve been unemployed a long time, perhaps you miss the kind of electronic back-and-forth that goes on in an office. If so, check out Pretend Office. Here’s a description: A few times over the past couple of [...]