patrick.net

I like to take a look at U6 as well as U3 trends over the past 12 or 24 months...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_measures.svg

I'm still willing to put up my $1000 wager that unemployment will have fallen 2 points from peak by the end of 2012 (i.e. it will be 7.9% or less).

I know that goes against the narrative that the world is ending and there's nothing we can do about it, but it's a bet I'm pretty confident in.

Kevin says

’m still willing to put up my $1000 wager that unemployment will have fallen 2 points from peak by the end of 2012 (i.e. it will be 7.9% or less).

Looking at the chart

that's just a continuation of the present trend, as as long as both the state and the Feds can keep their deficit spending engine running, I don't see why we won't continue this (other than some sort of nasty price shock like $10 gas doing an "OPEC shock" on us like the 1970s).

8% is still 33% (200bps) higher than the worse of the dotcom recession, so all we're saying is that things are going to continue to suck for the foreseeable future.

I think plenty of borrowers and their trillions of debt are going to continue defaulting this year and next, but as long as the Fed is willing to remonetize the system to compensate, perhaps we'll continue to not-crash.

How about this:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/february-unemployment-falls-long-term-jobless-struggle/story?id=13039978

The recovery is on very solid footing right now.

LOL, the recovery is a bubble.

"The decline in the unemployment rate from 8.9% to 8.8% was good news, especially since the participation rate was unchanged at 64.2%. Unfortunately the number of long term unemployed increased, as did the number of part time workers for economic reasons.

"More disappointing news was that the average workweek declined slightly to 34.1 hours, and average hourly earnings was flat."

The Chart still shows we'v got another 2 years to just get back to the worst of the tech recession.

The recovery is entirely dependent gov't spending $6T+ but only taking in $4.5T in revenue.

under capitalism with business cycle crashes there is always a recovery, just it never recovers to the same level. Permanent unemployment will be higher than before this last cycle, I just don't know where it will be.

A lot of unemployment is being fixed right now through insane government spending. They spent billions bailing out builders, real estate speculators, etc..... eventually that subsidy will run out and I don't know what that will bring. But current prosperity is very fake. Can't spend once way into prosperity.

The recovery is not real, for several reasons. First, I agree with the techgromit, the numbers were entirely fake, Gallup has the real numbers. Our so-called recovery is fueled by huge stimulus spending of borrowed money, and the money supply is increased by the Fed with QE, QE2, etc. This is not recovery by increased production, real growth in anything. The last time we had an economic problem this severe was the Depression. Recall that they put millions of Americans (who were recent high school graduates and presumably entering the workforce) into uniforms and they fought in a world war. The huge build up in industrial capacity here was convenient after the war and our industrial competitors were all in ruins. This gave the millions of guys born around around 1923 a growing industrial base to find jobs in, while the other nations had to play catch-up. The USA had the "roaring 20's", then the "roaring 50's". There was quite a long gap in between. So, are things better today? Are politicians wiser and remember history? Maybe. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, let's say that they'll figure out what to do and the problem lasts only 1/2 as long. That's about 10 years of high unemployment. So, we have years to go. I am sure the employees where they make Tomahawk missiles are more secure lately, as are those who make Predator drones. What is interesting to me is that Hoover saw unemployed Americans and decided the Mexicans should go home. The millions of foreigners in the USA are by and large still working. Could 20 million + jobs be created quickly here? Of course.

If the government spends $140 billion more every month than it takes in from taxes, then any "recovery" you think you see is entirely unsustainable, and unreal. A real recovery would mean more production, more workers, more capacity, fewer unsold cars, fewer unsold houses, fewer foreclosed houses, etc. Are people even observant of their own surroundings? I am not crawling into a bunker with freeze dried food, but the news of any recovery is entirely baseless and premature. I wish I were wrong, and I hope to be wrong next year. I am keeping my fingers crossed, and not buying the NYTimes version of events.

here's a graph:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=3b

red line is household debt, green line is gov't debt, blue line is sum of two.

As can be seen, the consumer hit the wall entering 2008 and gov't has had to borrow in their place.

ChrisLA says

under capitalism with business cycle crashes there is always a recovery, just it never recovers to the same level. Permanent unemployment will be higher than before this last cycle, I just don’t know where it will be.
A lot of unemployment is being fixed right now through insane government spending. They spent billions bailing out builders, real estate speculators, etc….. eventually that subsidy will run out and I don’t know what that will bring. But current prosperity is very fake. Can’t spend once way into prosperity.

I agree, and I also don't think much of the current "lower" numbers excpt maybe they will be revised some months from now to reflect reality.

TechGromit says

Can anyone else come up with great ideas that nothing to do with reality, but make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

How about making the publication of reports on the participation rate illegal?

And also, maybe, make illegal any upward revisions of the unemployment rate after the initial estimates have been published?