Our World's Economies

By Dian Vujovich

Charts have a way of helping me see things. Then again, I like many of us am a visual person. And, one who finds those great big this-is-how-the-market-has-performed-from-1925-through-2008 charts very helpful: They keep me keenly aware of the fact that markets naturally seesaw up and down.

The other day I ran across a story, accompanied with a series of charts, that compared the collapse of today’s world economies with those during the Great Depression. Thanks to our ongoing recession, it turns out things are worse now then they were then.

Not sure everyone will buy that but according to the work of two professors, Barry Eichengreen from Berkeley and Kevin O’Rourke from Trinity, that’s the case. Three of their findings;

•Trade has collapsed at a greater rate than in the Great Depression.

•The global stock-market collapse has been far worse than it was in the Great Depression, even including the recent bounce.

•The world’s money supply is increasing rapidly, in direct contrast to what happened in the Great Depression.

There are 17 charts in their work–each worth a click-through and read for anyone with an interest in various economies around the planet.

Going through them I couldn’t help but think of Sir John Templeton and how he introduced the concept of global investing to the masses in the mid-1950s with the introduction of the Templeton Growth Fund. With a value bent to his investing style and a strong believer in believing and research, I’d bet he’d see the info in these charts as both interesting and laden with investing opportunities.

You’ll find the charts at:http://tinyurl.com/lmc775 .