This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Economist.com: Jobs gloom, with glimmers, November 6, 2009.
America’s jobless rate passes 10% but the job market should start to improve soon.

• Paul Krugman (The New York Times): Why not a WPA? November 6, 2009.
A question I’m occasionally asked at public events is, why aren’t we creating jobs with a WPA-type program? It’s a very good question. As it is, job-creation efforts are generally indirect. Tax cuts and transfers in the hope that people will spend them; aid to state governments in the hope of averting layoffs. Even infrastructure spending is routed through private contractors. You can make a pretty good case that just employing a lot of people directly would be a lot more cost-effective.

• Knowledge @ Wharton: The post-recessionary global economy: In search of the new normal, November 2009
As the global economy climbs slowly toward recovery, two pressing questions remain: How do we prevent things from getting out of control again, and what is the so-called new normal?

• Floyd Norris (The New York Times): Goodbye to reforms of 2002, November 5, 2009.
Sarbanes-Oxley – the law requiring public companies to make sure their internal controls against fraud were not full of holes – was passed, almost unanimously, by a Republican-controlled House and a Democratic-controlled Senate. Now a Democratic Congress is gutting it with the apparent approval of the Obama administration.

• Elyssa Spitzer and Noah Rayman (The Harvard Crimson): Economics professors push safe investing strategies, October 23, 2009.
Like most of the investment community, Harvard’s vaunted economists were hit hard by the recent financial crisis and ensuing downturn.

• International Monetary Fund: Asia and Pacific: building a sustained recovery, October 2009.
Asia is rebounding fast from the depths of the global crisis. Initially, the region was hit extremely hard, with output in most countries contracting by more than even those nations at the epicenter of the crisis. But now Asia is leading as the world pulls out of recession. What explains this remarkable comeback? And what challenges does the recovery pose to Asian policymakers?

• Nick Schulz (Mint): Comparing the economic health of India and China, November 4, 2009.
Comparing the relative strengths of India and China is a time-honoured parlour game. But courtesy of an innovative London-based think tank, we have a comprehensive way of comparing India and China – one that is far more useful and comprehensive than anything that has come before it – and the results might surprise some readers.

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Last 5 posts by Prieur du Plessis

• Face to face with Ed Yardeni - January 6th, 2010
• Year-end/new-year indicators: progress report - January 6th, 2010
• Prieur’s readings (January 6, 2009) - January 6th, 2010
• Chart du Jour: No signs of imminent rate hike - January 6th, 2010
• Jim O’Neill: Recovery will be stronger than forecast - January 6th, 2010