Economist World Debt Guide

World Debt Guide interactive chart -- check it out.

Also, here's a fun chart from the same site:

Schwab/Yahoo report -- Economy stalling

Schwab link (lots of nice charts, too)

Key points

• Although the debt deal remains top-of-mind, the latest GDP report's weakness didn't ease the angst.

• The economy is now operating at "stall speed" and is at a crucial inflection point.

• There's no much good news other than corporate profits, which have boomed.

Building on the last bullet point, Yahoo report link:

I didn't believe it myself until I was joined by John Butters, the Senior Earnings Analyst from FactSet. With roughly 2/3 of the S&P500 having reported Butters has cut into the data. Frankly if you saw the figures in a vacuum you'd have to be impressed:

* 78% of companies reporting have beaten expectations EPS estimates
* 73% of have beaten revenue estimates
* Earnings and revenue have been growing at roughly the same rate
* 45 companies have lowered estimates while 25 have raised guidance

8/9/11:  And now, of course, we have to really check this out.  Post from 8/09/11 sheds some light on this

Recession & 2011 Q1 worse than reported

from Consumer Metrics Institute.  Great (scary) charts.  scroll down for full article.  First paragraph:

Included in the BEA's first ("Advance") estimate of second quarter 2011 GDP were significant downward revisions to previously published data, some of it dating back to 2003. Astonishingly, the BEA even substantially cut their annualized GDP growth rate for the quarter that they "finalized" just 35 days ago -- from an already disappointing 1.92% to only 0.36%, lopping over 81% off of the month-old published growth rate before the ink had completely dried on the "final" in their headline number. And as bad as the reduced 0.36% total annualized GDP growth was, the "Real Final Sales of Domestic Product" for the first quarter of 2011 was even lower, at a microscopic 0.04%.

US debt holders