the unemployment % figure is a joke. Many economists ignore it, based on all the assumptions that are made. They concentrate on non farm payrolls, non gov jobs, and the moving average of unemployment claims, which is ugly.
Just for discussion's sake.. check out this report (from Greg Mankiw's blog). It does an analysis and says the two top criteria of recession are rising unemployment (m/m I think above .2% is key), and rising jobless unemployment claims. If it weren't for that seemingly illogical unemployment rate # (ie if it were 5.3% instead), recession probability would be more in-line with past occurrence. Fascinating stuff. Definitely. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/ http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/02/interpreting-employment-report.html http://www.house.gov/jec/studies/2008/Employment Numbers as Recession Indicators.pdf
Think about. Our government is in the phase of switching over to "Socialism". The Economic Tax Rebate is nothing more than an equal distriubtion of wealth program. I see none of that fucking rebate. The PPT or whatever people call those in "Play" to save the market have came in "with their Socialism Cape On' to save the poor fools who created personal "Debt". 1929 will pare in comparison to the storm that will arrive on day, but not in the near future. I only wish i could run my 'Fiscal" situation into massive debt to only be bailed out, giving a liquid injection to create even more debt. A new asset inflation will be triggered from all this. Rates will be cut lower than Greenspan's day. For those who are cash liquid and able to jump aboard the new ASSET, the sky will be the limit. This is a fucking gift from the fools who will destroy the overall "citizen" of this country. What ever asset is next for "exhiburance" ( could be short term corporate debt instruments, could be a global currency, something new will take off.) If you miss this last train leaving the station......you will be kicking your self in the arse in the future.
Another really good one is Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis. This guy doesn't sugar coat anything, and points out when others are, which happens on a daily basis. Many people don't understand that if an economist works for Wall St, or the Federal gov, it is their JOB to make things sound as rosy as possible without being totally discredited, as the NAR now has been (they still call the bottom to the real estate bubble almost monthly). http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
opps by the way, the worst jobs report since the "CONFIRMED 2003" recession Go ahead ET, GET LONG AND STRONG.
NAR IS A FUCKING JOKE. NAR is a membership for Housewives on "Oxycotton" and old washed out Hags. RE professionals (in the "Home RE business) are mostly morons.
Payrolls shrank, and unemployment rate went down because the overall labor pool, or the people who the census counts as being either employed or unemployed shrank. In other words, more people left the work force, most likely due to the fact that they have not been able to get a job for a series of months, and therefore have been taken off of unemployment benefits, and are moved out of the labor market. My guess is that if the requisites for the census was changed so that unemployment figures also account for people who have just given up looking for jobs or those who are just out of college and never had jobs, the actual unemployment rate would be much higher, probably closer to 11% or so. At the last meeting between bernanke and state/senate representatives, several of those representing the western or southern states indicated unemployment rates including those who have not been able to secure work for 12 months or over is dramatically higher then the national unemployment rate. The overall picture is starting to become more similar to what Japan is going through. Japan states the unemployment rate at 4.1%, but does not count house wifes who make up a good portion of japanese women(most of those who are married tend to become housewifes), does not count college students who graduated and have not been able to find work due to Japan's stagnate economy, or those who have not been employed for 6 months or more. On the outside Japan likes to keep a rosy picture of how healthy the country is, but many signs are fairly obvious when 4 or 5 generations of one family is living in the same house, with usually only one or two members providing income for the entire household.