Podcast: Jobs Report, European Debt and the Flat Tax

Each month, the Labor Department issues a report on jobs and unemployment. It would be a relief to get one showing that jobs are being created in large numbers in the United States, and that unemployment in rapidly sinking.

But we will have to keep waiting: that, alas, was not the report that the Labor Department released for October.

Instead, like so many monthly tallies before it, the latest report paints a picture of an economy that isn’t creating enough jobs to keep up with population growth, Catherine Rampell says in the new Weekend Business podcast. While the unemployment rate dipped slightly, from 9.1 to 9.0 percent, the drop was so slight that it might well be a statistical anomaly.

Heightened uncertainty from the Greek financial crisis has affected the global economy and the markets. It’s the focus of my column in Sunday Business, as I mention on the podcast. And as Gretchen Morgenson says on the podcast, the crisis has already caused collateral damage in the United States. It contributed to the downfall of MF Global, the financial firm that went into bankruptcy last week. It had been headed by Jon Corzine, the former governor and senator from New Jersey and a former chief of Goldman Sachs. She writes about some of the broader implications of the firm’s failure in her Sunday Business column.

In this presidential campaign season, proposals for the institution of a flat tax have re-emerged but they are likely to go nowhere once again, in the opinion of Robert Frank, the Cornell economist. He discusses his Economic View column in Sunday Business, which says that while flat taxes are attention-getters, they would add to the growing income inequality in the United States.

And in a separate conversation in the podcast, David Gillen talks to Evelyn Rusli about Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, who has become an increasingly important figure in Silicon Valley.

You can find specific segments of the podcast at these junctures: Catherine Rampell on the jobs report (31:11); news headlines (22:55); Evelyn Rusli on LinkedIn (20:51); Gretchen Morgenson on the European crisis (15:36); Robert Frank on flat taxes (9:51); the week ahead (1:36).

As articles discussed in the podcast are published during the weekend, links will be added to this post.

You can download the program by subscribing from The New York Times’s podcast page or directly from iTunes.

Podcast: The European Crisis, the Guggenheim Family and Online Privacy

The European financial crisis has already roiled markets around the world, but it’s likely that worse is yet to come.

That’s the view of Gretchen Morgenson, who analyzes the effects of the European crisis on the United States financial system and economy in the new Weekend Business podcast, and in her column in Sunday Business.

While central banks and political leaders are trying to ameliorate the crisis, a default by Greece is quite probable, she says, and that is likely to be felt in the United States in two main ways. Credit default swaps insuring against a default will entangle some as- yet- unknown American counterparties, she says, and the shock could lead to another full-blown credit crisis, which would inflict harm on the markets and the economy.

The fundamental mechanism underlying world markets is the focus of Robert Frank’s new book, “The Darwin Economy,” an adaptation of which appears in Sunday Business. In a podcast conversation, he argues that Charles Darwin, the naturalist, was a greater economist than Adam Smith. Darwin’s theory of evolution explains why markets sometimes produce socially unacceptable results — and the reason, Professor Frank says, is intrinsic to competition. Unlike Smith’s “invisible hand” theory, Darwin’s theory says that group and individual interests sometimes conflict, in which case, individual interests trump. Government sometimes needs to step in to correct matters, he says.

In another conversation, Graham Bowley tells David Gillen about the history of the Guggenheim family, and of individuals who are accused of trying to swindle investors running a swindle based on the false claim that they, too, are members of that illustrious clan. The saga of the Guggenheims and would-be Guggenheims is the subject of Mr. Bowley’s article on the cover of Sunday Business.

And, finally, Natasha Singer discusses online ID systems that, she says, may threaten individual privacy. She elaborates on this theme in the Slipstream column in Sunday Business.

You can find specific segments of the podcast at these junctures: Gretchen Morgenson (34:29); news summary (27:03); Graham Bowley (24:38); Natasha Singer (17:32); Robert Frank (10:11); the week ahead (2:06).

As articles discussed in the podcast are published during the weekend, links will be added to this post.

You can download the program by subscribing from The New York Times’s podcast page or directly from iTunes.