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A different way to analyze the labor market
Friday, September 04, 2009
The staff at The Onion offer this look at current conditions in the labor market and how things can appear quite different depending upon your state of mind.
Despite ongoing economic woes and a jobless rate that has been approaching 10 percent, U.S. unemployment projections drastically improved Monday after the consumption of five beers.It's all a matter of perspective... Read more..."It's going up," leading economist David Singleton said confidently, indicating the predicted growth in jobs with an upward wave of a Bud Light bottle. "All the way up. By the end of the month. No problem."
Singleton said the economy would begin its rebound once employers realized that there were many currently unemployed skilled laborers across the country who would "bust their asses" in a number of growing fields.
"Whether it's manufacturing, finance, hospitality, or manufacturing, these dudes trying to reenter the workforce right now have awesome skill sets and, most of all, they really deserve it," he said. "They're great, great guys. All of them."
According to analysts, both long- and short-term forecasts showed signs of recovery between the third and fourth beer, but the fifth alcoholic beverage was the point at which the employment rate began to close in on 100 percent.
Roubini said there is just a small (but increasing) probability of this scenario and, if it occurs, it will be due to policy makers not getting the "exit strategy" right. Based on this logic - our economic future being dependent upon Washington economists doing a better job coming 
HOW big an influence on spending is housing wealth? Hopes for a consumer revival in countries where house prices have slumped rest, in part, on the answer. 
The nation's jobless rate jumped from 9.4 percent to 9.7 percent last month, the highest rate since June 1983 but still more than a full percentage point short of the post-World War II high of 10.8 percent reached in late-1982, as employers remain cautious about hiring, unsure as to the strength of the economic recovery.
Even the government pared back in August, total net job losses of 18,000 being reported across all levels of public service, paced by a decline of 12,300 in state and local education and the elimination of some 8,500 U.S. Postal Service positions.
A few items of note:
In fact, not only were we reluctant landlords, but we completed the 
"We had only seven lookers over the course of a year," Mr. Becker says. Meanwhile, the couple was paying $1,200 a month in rent for a Virginia house. Last spring, the Beckers finally leased the Missouri house for $675 a month—$225 less than their mortgage payment.
The yellow metal appears determined to cross the $1,000 mark, now having clearly broken out of the "wedge" pattern that had contained it in recent months. Surely, the technical traders have worked themselves into a frenzy by now...
The note-purchase deal enables China to take part in a $500 billion increase in the IMF’s coffers to which the Group of 20 industrial and emerging nations agreed in April.
It's available at 
“You’re seeing the first signs of positive growth now in this country and countries around the world,” Geithner told reporters in Washington today. “We’ve come a very long way but I think we have to be realistic, we’ve got a long way to go still.”
Don't be surprised if it is again turned back. Then again, the third time is often the charm...
Well, the surprise is that there’s been a significant break in that growth pattern, because of delevering, deglobalization, and reregulation. All of those three in combination, to us at PIMCO, means that if you are a child of the bull market, it’s time to grow up and become a chastened adult; it’s time to recognize that things have changed and that they will continue to change for the next – yes, the next 10 years and maybe even the next 20 years. 
This is undoubtedly an exciting rally for the bulls, and a frustrating experience for the bears; however, at the same time we should all be informed about the extent to which the market is behaving rationally and whether the macroeconomic landscape that is currently being discounted is going to come to fruition.
This move increases the likelihood that the current recession will be declared over within a month or two of this event, as was the case for the last five recessions going all the way back to the mid-1970s, though difficulties clearly remain for the U.S. economy.
Employment remains one of the weakest categories, however, it is contracting at a lesser rate than the prior month and is much improved from earlier in the year.
If a picture were
But the prevailing sentiment seems to be that even if a correction does come along, it will be healthy for the markets. 
Of course, a decline of this magnitude today would be about a 2.1 percent drop, whereas, a year ago, that same 200 points would work out to be a drubbing of 1.7 percent. Come to think of it, that difference is a whole lot less than it seemed it would be before doing the math.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) saw deficits as far as the eye could see back in the early nineties. Actual deficits turned to nice surpluses by the end of the decade. And looking back at year 2000 projections, the CBO penciled in a $400bn surplus for 2009 and better than $3.0 TN of cumulative surplus for this decade.
Central bankers expect to be unpopular, but the Fed is uniquely vulnerable now. A bill in Congress would subject its most sensitive decisions to legislators’ scrutiny, while the administration has proposed expanding its regulatory oversight to contain future crises. This has thrust Mr Bernanke into the political arena: he appears to be at odds with Tim Geithner, the treasury secretary and a former colleague at the Fed, over his proposal to strip the central bank of its consumer-protection duties. Just one senator voted against his confirmation in 2006; 
