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American in Japan
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2011 Feb 10, 5:35pm
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.
Â¥
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2011 Feb 11, 2:47am
’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.
Â¥
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2011 Apr 2, 2:32am
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.
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http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/feb/05/jobless-rate-drop-fastest-in-50-years/
Despite adding virtually no jobs to the economy, the wizards that track the federal unemployment rate determined that unemployment fell from 9.8% to 9.0% in two months. This goes along the lines of exactly what I was saying, STOP extending unemployment benefits and the unemployed with magically cease to exist, at least officially. I wonder if this same exact logic can solve any of the other challenging problems facing this county, or even the world!
How about the Multi location smog test. First you test the smog level in New York or LA, then next year you test the smog level in Big Timber, Montana and compare the results. WOW, a 2,000% drop in pollution levels in 1 year. Looks like our Smog reduction program is working.
What about the budget defict reduction plan. First we create a budget that's way over what the country takes in taxes this year. Then we reduce it by 50%, despite still being more than what out income, we claim that we reduced spending by half and declare victory.
Can anyone else come up with great ideas that nothing to do with reality, but make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside?