FRED Graph Round-Up: Veggie Tales, Financial Woes, Manufacturing Blues, U.S. Debt and Financial Stress

FRED is an amazing resouce that cannot be taken for granted.  FRED offers customizable graphs and allows the user to manipulate hundreds of time series data.   Anything from vegetable import prices to foreign capital flows can be observed and presented in an attractive way.

Vegetable import prices keep rising as indicated by the following graph:

We can see that foreign investors are starting to see the U.S. as a financial safe haven.  As Europe's fiscal woes ensue the United States is starting to look relatively safer:

 The recession has hit manufacturing employment in the already ailing Michigan pretty hard:

A look at federal spending and revenue reveals that federal expenditures keep rising while total tax receipts have dropped significantly due to the persistently high unemployment and general contraction in business activity.  The difference is payed for by issuing treasuries thus increasing our federal debt.

The St. Louis Financial Stress Index measures financial stress and is updated each Friday.  Notice how the index has been elevated recently: