New York SBDC Research Network

The Great Recession of 2008-2009 will be remembered for its severity—a cumulative decline of 4.2 percent in real GDP, the loss of 8.7 million jobs, and a harsh toll on the banking system with more than 400 bank failures from 2008 to 2011. The Great Recession should also be remembered for the massive increase in the federal budget deficit it spawned. As a percentage of GDP, the budget deficit reached 9.8 percent in fiscal year 2009, the highest since 1945 and the highest ever excluding the World War II period (Chart 1). Through another lens, the six-year cumulative deficit from 2008 to 2013 totaled almost 41 percent of GDP, well exceeding the total of about 26 percent for the six worst years of the Great Depression. Statistical Indicators of Business-Cycle Changes Like the proverbial double-edged sword, fiscal deficits can be both helpful and detrimental. The positive aspect is that the strong federal fiscal response likely helped initially to support the recovery. The negative side...

How's your brain feeling today? Right now, at 10:30 in the morning, mine is a bit sluggish. When asked "How are you?" by coworkers first thing in the morning, "tired" is the word I've used the most. No different today. I need more sleep. A fellow named John Medina would agree. He wrote a book called Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. In it, he puts forth his 12 rules for a better brain. Most of the rules are pretty obvious: exercise more, eat better, get more sleep. However, he's built a website where he lays out the science behind each of them - how a portion of your brain is physically influenced by external factors. For instance, regular exercise stimulates a part of the brain related to the thalamus, which aids in memory. A lack of sleep hinders your attention span, promotes moodiness, and impacts your logical reasoning. Your brain will better retain new information if exposed to it repeatedly. And so...