Job Data Passes Threshold Where Recessions Dwell

[RedEarth]

Job Data Passes Threshold Where Recessions Dwell
By FLOYD NORRIS
When the number of Americans out of work starts to rise sharply, a recession occurs.

By that token, the latest figure for unemployed workers is, at the least, a danger sign.

The Labor Department reported that in December some 7,655,000 people were unemployed, meaning they were both without a job and looking for one. That figure was 13.2 percent higher than the 6,760,000 figure in the previous December. In the past, a 13 percent annual rise has been the sign of a recession every time.

Before December, there have been nine cycles in the United States since 1950 in which the annual change in unemployment rose to 13 percent or higher.

In eight of those cases, by the time the rise got to 13 percent, the recession had already begun, according to later conclusions by the National Bureau of Economic Research. In the other one, the recession began three months later, as depicted in the accompanying charts, which show the year-over-year change in the number of unemployed workers from one year before the increase hit 13 percent until one year after the recession ended. (In the case of the early 1980s, when there were two recessions close together, the chart shows both of them.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/business/19charts.html

[papau]

1. Amazing - the NYT actually spoke to folks with some training - good analysis

[Daveparts]

2. The Labor dept.

Uses logarithms to determine unemployment. A small pool extrapolated out to determine the figure nation wide. A plus or minus variance of 76%meaning that either we gained 18,000 jobs in December or we lost 76,000 which do you think the media reported? Totally ignored by the media was that December should have ticked up due to Christmas. A decline in the busiest retail month of the year smells of disaster.

The sudden interest of the President in giving tax rebates only fans the fires of speculation about an economic collapse.For in the pantheons of world trade, the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. The US no longer controls the capital, it is free to go where the pastures are greenest leaving the unwanted and under ripe fruit to rot on the branch.

If the US economy tanks, who in their right cotton picking capitalist mind would want to invest in the US? Thus the capital would flee as it is fleeing now, just when we need it most. Suddenly there is talk of reforming Wall Street investment rules. I wonder why? To keep us completive is the corporate answer while the truth is foreign investors are maxing out their investment limits faster than a middle class credit card.

I actually heard Lazier of the President's council of economic advisors explain that in 1950 America had 15 million manufacturing jobs and today in 2008 we still have 15 million manufacturing jobs. He explains that they produce 7 times as much as their 1950 counterpart. Ignoring that in 1950 Americas population was 150 million and today it is 300 million. Proving again that figure don't lie but liar's figure, a gross and total misrepresentation that goes unchallenged by the media.

There are some in the intelligentsia, that are beginning to tell the truth because they see no downside while in crises. We are not headed for a recession but a depression. Charts of American stock markets were they mountains would be unskiable, 2000 points in six months, almost 20% of total value. The good news? There is no good news, the markets were they not being propt up by oil and gold companies and by the tech stocks Google and Microsoft if deleted from the total would be a blood bath.

[TalkingDog]

3. WELCOME to DU Daveparts!

People wonder why they live in the richest country in the world and still feel poor. The good old Govt. PsyOps of: If you feel good, you can thank me. If you feel bad, blame yourself.

Then there is the reality:




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