charles hugh smithAugust 10, 2009
10 Pins for the Stock Market Bubble
The "Recession is over" stock market rally is just another bubble awaiting a sharp pin. Here are ten such sharp little pins. I really hate to pop anyone's bubble, but--oh, why try to hide it, I love popping bubbles, especially stock market, credit and housing bubbles. According to the standard-issue financial pundits (SIFPs), the stock market is not only in a new Bull Market but it's heading higher this month--S&P 500 is shooting to 1,200, guaranteed.
Before you join the euphoria, please consider these 10 sharp bubble-popping pins:
1. Structural unemployment is skyrocketing. Job Losses Moderate:
But structural unemployment worsened. The number of people who've been out of work longer than six months soared by a record 584,000 to 5 million, accounting for more than a third of all unemployment for the first time on record.
"Structural" is a polite way of saying there won't be any jobs for the long-term unemployed this year, next year, or the year after that.
2. The jobless rate declined because the work force shrank. This is typical smoke-and-mirrors statistics, courtesy of your Federal government: as people lose extended unemployment benefits, they are classified as "discouraged" and are no longer counted in the "headline" unemployment number.
Unemployment fell by 267,000 to 14.5 million, while employment fell by 155,000. The labor force declined by 422,000, which means the jobless rate declined because people dropped out of the work force, not because they got jobs. The employment-participation rate fell from 65.7% to 65.5%.
3. Everyone seems to have forgotten we need to create 250,000 jobs a month just to stay even with population growth. So while "only" 250,000 jobs were lost last month--never mind a big chunk of employment was linked to the "cash for clunkers" giveaway--that means we're still 500,000 jobs short of a return to a rising employment scenario.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html