Dec 15
2008
Economic Indicators
Last week I bought the domain econdicator.com (economic + indicator) for the express reason of creating a site for cataloging all the economic indicators I keep reading about. I haven't gotten around to it yet (and may not), but I quite enjoyed this roundup of 15 indicators from sex to NASCAR. In summary: An economic crisis has brought more sex and babies, less lipstick, more pantyhose, more beer, smaller college endowments, a bankrupt but more tourist-friendly Iceland, fewer divorces, more people eating spam, less recylcling, fewer company holiday parties, more people buying used cars, cheaper sports tickets, higher paid free agents, more psychic predictions, fewer NASCAR advertisers and less plastic surgery. (Oh, and as I mentioned on Twitter last week, more stubble.)
Regarding econdicator.com, how do you plan on sourcing the data? Is there a source that has some a data feed/API of unemployment, housing starts, new jobs, GDP, etc.?
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) cataloges most of this data and feeds it in XML format for users to cut and play with. The subscription, however, is very expensive, and I'm do not think it's updated more than once per month.