For months, now, the news has been filled with reports of a huge credit crunch crushing the ability to borrow in the United States economy. The impression of a financial sector that has ground to a halt, however, is not born out by the facts. To the contrary, lending and borrowing have continued to grow in America, albeit at a lower rate of growth all through 2008.

New housing permits fell in November to a new low since the data began to be collected since 1946. According to the Census Bureau, 616,000 building permits for privately owned housing units were issued in November—15.6 percent below the October level, and 48.1 percent below the level of a year ago.

Nearly 50 years ago, Yale University economist Robert Triffin identified the inevitable future deterioration of the dollar in his book, Gold and the Dollar Crisis: The Future of Convertibility (1960). Essentially, Triffin argued, under the Bretton Woods system in which the U.S. dollar was the world’s principal reserve currency (instead of gold, for example), the United States had to incur large trade deficits in order to provide the rest of the world with the liquidity required for functioning of the global trading system.

You had to be living under a rock to miss the topsy-turvy ride the economy took in 2008. The housing market tanked. Credit froze. And giants fell, including the now-defunct Lehman Brothers investment bank, insurance company A.I.G. and the government-sponsored mortgage brokers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, among many others.

The financial fraud allegedly carried out by New York investment counselor, Bernard L. Madoff is considered the largest financial swindle ever. In all, Madoff’s 30-year-long Ponzi scheme is believed to have caused least $50 billion in losses and one suicide. The founder of the hedge fund Access International Advisors was found dead December 23 after his fund lost as much as $14 billion invested with Madoff.

The notion that the U.S. economy is now experiencing, or will shortly enter, a period of “deflation” is making headlines and is the subject of much comment in the media.  Few who are discussing this appear to have much understanding of what they are talking about.

The slaughter of more 370,000 chickens in China last week has rekindled concern about the possibilities of a global flu pandemic. The birds were killed after the discovery of that some were infected with the deadly H5N1 virus.

AIER’s December Economic Education Bulletin addresses the public health and economic consequences of a bird flu pandemic that could be caused by a mutated H5N1 virus. In “Bird Flu Economics,” William F. Ford, a recent AIER visiting research fellow, reports on the work of those who model for disaster.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced that the nonfarm unemployment rate had reached at 15-year high, with the largest one-month drop in employment since 1974.

Another survey by Bureau of Labor Statistics tells a less discouraging tale. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) collects data from employers and produces monthly estimates of job openings, hires, quits, layoffs, and discharges, and other separations. JOLTS data attempts to measure the demand for labor, and is a way to track the health of the employment market.

Recent unemployment numbers have conjured up the fear of a coming new Great Depression. A careful look, however, suggests no economy-wide collapse in employment. In addition, some unemployment  during an economic downturn is actually essential for a stable economic recovery.

New data in the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds report show that the national debt has surged at an annualized rate of increase of 39 percent between the end of June and the end of September.