patrick.net

Goran_K says

robertoaribas says

my rental income after all bills including maintenance and vacancy will cross $6000 a month

Really, that's such an awesome amount. I can totally see you retiring in the tropics very soon with that princely sum.

Well,6000 a month in a desert would be pretty awesome.

Anyway, enough about Roberto's sand and cactus empire, I'm getting super jealous just thinking about it right now. Let's get back to unemployment numbers, shall we?

I think Mish's latest article does a superb analysis of all the numbers and trends that basically backs my point, and conversely shows that SFace is simply wrong (or dishonest) about job numbers being up.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/08/headline-jobs-163000-but-household.html

Some key points:

- US Unemployment Rate +.1 to 8.3%
- In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,683,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 1,655,000.
- This month the Civilian Labor Force fell by 150,000.
- This month, those "not" in the labor force increased by 348,000 to 88,340,000, another record high. If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed.
- In the last year, those "not" in the labor force rose by 2,027,000
- Over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by 2,770,000.
- Participation Rate was steady at 63.8%;
- There are 8,246,000 workers who are working part-time but want full-time work, an increase of 36,000
- Long-Term unemployment (27 weeks and over) was 5.185 million a decline of 185,000.
- Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.

In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,683,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 1,655,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,027,000 to yet another record high 88,340,000.

That is an amazing "achievement" to say the least, and as noted above most of this is due to economic weakness not census changes.

Decline in Labor Force Factors

- Discouraged workers stop looking for jobs
- People retire because they cannot find jobs
- People go back to school hoping it will improve their chances of getting a job
- People stay in school longer because they cannot find a job.

As I said, the BLS numbers actually under report REAL unemployment by a significant margin. Long term depressed unemployed are simply not counted, they just "drop off". Most entry level analyst know this, but of course, if you have an agenda to support, such as lying about stronger economic indicators so you can boost housing, then of course all of the above is very damaging to your argument.

There can be no sustained housing recovery without job growth. Today's market is speculation, and that rally has leveled off in many metro areas already even though it's only early August.

Nobody has been able to explain how we are going to curb the runaway deficit, it looks like we have passed the inflection point long ago where the amount by which the GDP must grow just to stop the deficit from growing and pay interest only is still achievable. I mean I don't care for politics here, tax 90% or cut spending 50%, whatever you choose it will hurt (for the better) ;)