The Labor Department released its monthly unemployment figures today. Here is a graphical representation of recent rates from the W$J:

Notice that the line is plunging from 5.5% in 2004. Much of Europe wouldn't even appear on this scale. Since 2004, unemployment in Germany and France, using U.S. concepts, has gone from over 10% to roughly 9%. See here.

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During my recent trip to Brussels and Berlin for the Fulbright German Studies Seminar, the German Press Officer in Brussels was asked by one of our group to name the best sources for news about the European Union. In response, he first opined that most national newspapers (such as Le Monde or Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) were parochial and failed to capture a European view of most stories. Indeed, he argued that this was one of the major obstacles to popular support for the EU among the people of Europe.

In the end, however, he identified one publication that offered an appropriately European view. Can you guess what it is? (The answer is below the fold.)

I suspect that some of you were thinking of The Economist, but his answer was the Financial Times.

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