There has been so much bad economic news out, recently, I do not see
how anyone with half a frontal lobe could say the economy is not in
trouble. Friday, new unemployment figures were announced, and a weak
119,000 jobs were created. The rate fell to 8.1%, but only because more
discouraged workers stopped looking for work and disappeared from the
government’s data base. In Friday’s report, economist John Williams of
Shadowstats.com summed
it all up by saying, “The headline U.3 unemployment rate dropped a
statistically insignificant notch to 8.1% in April, from 8.2% in March,
but the “good” news was anything but good. The declining pace of
headline unemployment reflected an accelerating increase in the number
of the headline unemployed giving up looking for work, because there
were no jobs to be had. . . . The SGS-Alternate Unemployment Measure,
accordingly, notched higher in April to 22.3%, from 22.2% in March.” (Click here to go to the free section of Shawowstats.com.) So,
unemployment in the real world actually went up—not down. According to
outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, planned job cuts
rose 7.1% in April, and more than 40,000 more workers are going to be
laid off. (Click here for more on this story.)
Housing is another sad story. Year-over-year housing prices continue to decline
despite record low 30-year mortgage rates below 4%! In the last two
years alone, 1 million homeowners who bought houses lost money and are
underwater. In January, the Federal Reserve estimated 12 million
Americans owed more than their homes were worth. (Click here for more on that story.) Economist Robert Shiller of the Case-Shiller home price index lamented, two weeks ago, “I worry that we might not see a really major turnaround in our lifetimes.”
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