Just over a year ago, President Obama and Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better know as “The Stimulus.” It was a $787 billion shot-in-the-arm to the U.S. economy, a mix of tax cuts and expenditure spending.

The U.S. wasn’t the only country to take such action. Governments across the globe passed stimulus plans to rescue their economies from the doldrums. On this podcast, a look at how the stimulus plans in different countries have fared. Is it possible to say that one country did a better job than another? We compare the actions taken by the Canadian and U.S. governments. Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad breaks down how leaders and Ottawa and Washington structured their plans.

Also stories about why many Greeks don’t pay taxes, and how the British are feeling about their bankers.

Eurozone leaders say they will come to Greece’s rescue. But Greece’s Finance Minister, George Papaconstantinou, wants details, as to how exactly other eurozone nations will bailout his country. Papaconstantinou said the 16 countries that use the Euro need to devise a mechanism to help any nation that cannot pay its debts. At the same time, the European Union statistics agency, Eurostat, is saying that Greece falsified its data to hide the extent of its debts. Now the EU has given Greece until the end of February to provide more details of that.

In this podcast, we explore what went wrong with Greece and what it means for the rest of us. Also, an update from Haiti: How to bring jobs to the millions of unemployed. And a small flower shop near Vancouver that is putting together 1,800 bouquets for all the Olympic medal winners.

Whistler's new bobsled track: CDN $105 million (Credit:© VANOC/COVAN)

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When all is said and done, preparing for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler will have cost close to CDN $6 billion. (About $5.6 billion in U.S. dollars.) And that’s just the price tag to get everything built, before the Games have even begun. What did British Columbia get for all that money? Was it all worth it? (For more stories on the Winter Games click here.)

Also on this edition of the podcast, news about Toyota and Moscow McDonald’s turns 20.

The earthquake in Haiti has taken a terrible toll. An estimated 1.5 million people were left homeless by the 7.0-magnitue quake, which some have estimated may have killed as many as 200,000 people.

But out of the rubble, there is some hope. The earthquake offers that country a chance to rebuild its economy from scratch, and develop the infrastructure its been sorely lacking.

Also on the podcast, two stories from Europe: Problems with the Euro and Iceland on sale.

Prices for real estate are sky high in Tokyo, not just in life, but in death too. The price for a burial plot in Tokyo is far from cheap. But using modern technology and some Japanese robotics, multi-story urban burial buildings are rising in popularity.

It’s not just expensive to die in Japan, it’s expensive to be born. Japan has an aging population and the government is trying to push up the country’s low birth rate with some financial incentives. But it’s particularly hard to be a parent in Japan, financially speaking that is.

Also on the podcast, Russians, Indians, and Israelis have arrived in Mississippi. And they may no longer be going for Olympic gold in Australia.

Classic oak tree with moss in our mystery state

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During the first three months of the year, trade fell across the board in 49 U.S. states. Which state managed to buck the trend? Tune into the podcast to find out.

Also on this edition of the podcast: A socialist toy fair in Venezuela, Britain begins labeling food from the West Bank as either Israeli or Palestinian, and young voices in Spain talking about their country’s soaring unemployment rate.

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The Global Economy Podcast was recently voted one of iTunes top podcasts for 2009! Quite an honor. Thank you, good folks at iTunes. Also on the esteemed list: President Obama’s Weekly Radio Address, 60 Minutes, and Old Jews Telling Jokes. While I’m not sure of the criteria used in the voting, we at The World are very happy to receive the recognition.

Some of the stories on this edition of the podcast… A story of love, or rather, a story about the economics of love. During tough times, people need entertainment, a distraction, a daydream. One industry that seems to be doing rather well, throughout the globe, is romance fiction.

We’ll also hear a story about Islamic financing, a piece about the green economy in India, and an interesting new marketing campaign from Chrysler featuring Burma’s pro-democracy movement Aung San Suu Kyi.

A year ago, inflation in Zimbabwe was a mind-blowing 231 million percent. (And that was before the government stopped bothering to update the figure!) A new government came to power in February and life has much improved. The Zimbabwe dollar, or Zim dollar, is gone. But that has spawned problems of its own.

Stories from Zimbabwe and other parts of Africa, Bangladesh, India and Peru on Part II of this two-part podcast about econonics and business in the developing world.

Bank bailouts and Wall Street bonuses may enrage many in the United States, but they’re hardly top of mind for most people in places like Nicaragua, Senegal, and Peru. The majority of people in the developing world were poor when the Great Recession began, and they’re poor today. Do the ebbs and flows of the banks in London and New York impact their daily lives? Part I of this two-part podcast looks at econonics and business issues in the developing world.

And question: How many flavors of Kits Kats is one too many? 10? 20? Try 200 in Japan. Also on the podcast: Mexican Coke, German taxes, and the tricky economic relationship between the U.S. and China.

On October 29^th, the US Commerce Department announced that the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, grew by an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the quarter that ended in September. So by one measure, technically we are out of recession. But it sure doesn’t feel like the hard times are past us for the one in ten Americans who are unemployed and looking for work.

This got us thinking in the newsroom: How effective is GDP at gauging the health of a nation’s economy? After all, GDP doesn’t factor in things like the environmental consequences of growth. Build some new machinery, but pollute a nearby river: GDP goes up. We weren’t the first people to question the validity of GDP as the best measure of a country’s well-being. I got the idea for a story by reading Eric Zencey’s op-ed in the New York Times, which questions the usefulness of GDP. (And of course, Zencey wasn’t the first to come up with the thoughts in his op-ed, but who really has an original thought anymore these days?) Zencey’s commentary, and the arguments of many others are stirring some debate over just how effective of a tool is GDP. The French say it’s time to find a better economic indicator. So too do groups from Nepal to Brazil to Vermont who are looking at ways to measure happiness and well-being to gauge a nation’s economic health.

Traditional Thai Greeting

And while we’re on the subject of happiness, how happy can a people truly be without access to a McDonald’s happy meal? I’m not a regular McDonald’s visitor, but I have to say, when I’m having a tough day on the road thousands of miles from home, the golden arches bring a familiar feeling of welcome. (Personal testimony: McDonald’s strawberry milkshakes hold up as excellent in Ukraine, Italy, and Peru.) In this podcast, we’ll hear from a nation where it’s no longer possible to get a Big Mac. I ask you: Just what are we Americans supposed to do there if we’re having a bad travel day???

And check out this classic Thomas Friedman column about the Big Mac and global security.

Could jatropha solve India's energy problems? (All pictures copyright D1 Oils plc)

The next gold rush is gearing up: renewable energy is hot. You can find solar panels everywhere these days, from the Mojave Desert to to roofs of Midieval castles.

Nuclear energy may be entering a renaissance. And scientists are looking for nearly any type of plant to power our cars: from sugarcane, to corn, to jatropha.

In this podcast we look at the future of renewable energy in Europe, North Africa, and the USA.

The International Monetary Fund declared earlier this month that a global recovery had begun. But one major European economy conspicuously lags behind the curve. Spain has an unemployment rate of almost 19 percent, more than twice the European average and double the rate in the U.S. Now, Spaniards are asking serious questions about their country’s socialist government.

Also on the podcast, stories about olive oil production in Spain and Italian banks that are accepting deposits of cheese. Germany finds creative ways to keep people employed, former bankers in the UK are finding creative new jobs, and EXTRA, EXTRA, a major newspaper is now free in London.

Migrant Workers beginning their journey in Africa

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Each year, 200 million migrant workers send about $300 billion back to their home countries. Workers send $45 billion back from the U.S. alone. These remittances are worth more to poor nations than development aid or foreign direct investment. Take the example of two countries, Moldova and Tajikistan. Remittances there make up over 30 percent of national income.

How has the financial crisis impacted this flow of money?  Millions of migrant workers have lost their jobs or seen their incomes cut. The value of remittances is expected to fall for the first time since records have been kept. For migrant workers, it’s a difficult journey to Europe and the U.S., with less payoff today.

On this weeks podcast we see the impact of smaller remittances in New York City, Madrid, Senegal, and North Dakota.

China has grown beyond recognition in the past sixty years: an agricultural society transformed into a land of skyscrapers and cell phones. The population has more than doubled. The country’s GDP has grown nearly 80-fold. Chinese officials say what the country used to produce over a whole year can now be done in single day. Sometime next year, China could become the world’s second largest economy, passing Japan.

In this podcast we bring you stories from China and The World’s Beijing correspondent, Mary Kay Magistad. She put together a five-part series, the last two pieces, featured in this podcast, focused on the surging Chinese economy.