Job Market
ADP Jobs: 152,000 for Jan07
US GDP: 3.5%
Housing starts: -10%
What's wrong with those numbers?
Well, to start with, they again fail to mention that those are absolute numbers and do NOT include monthly job losses, which are around -120,000 to -130,000. So the real net job gains are 22,000-32,000 new jobs. This is nation-wide, for one month. This is in contrast to the ~12,000,000 jobs lost since 2001. at 20-30 thousand jobs per month, it's gonna take a hellish long time to put those 12M people back to work. 12 years, in fact and the US jobs market was barely digging out of negative territory only slightly over a year ago.
While this is happening, we are seeing a good growth picture. In fact, it's so good that the job numbers reflect the fact that they HAD to create those new jobs. The bad part is that those GDP numbers are unsustainable, IMHO. Over half of the GDP comes from increased US Consumer and US Federal spending. Corporate and Investor growth are actually negative. Yes, Consumers have to keep spending, just like breathing, and the Feds still have a war to supply equipment to but neither indicate true sustained economic growth.
The result is that Corporations are sitting on the largest cash piles that they've ever had. Some are even buying back all of their public stock and going private. They are not creating new jobs!
The current US government, both Demorats and Repugnicans, are missing the point. Yes, it is about the Economy but, more specifically, it is about JOBS (and I'm not talking about Apple's CEO)! An economy that doesn't produce enough jobs for the people living within it is not sustainable because Consumers spend only if they have the money and for that, they need jobs! This is only superficially better than the Jobless Recovery of 2005 and that leads to a "Rich get richer whilst the poor get poorer" scenario.
US GDP: 3.5%
Housing starts: -10%
What's wrong with those numbers?
Well, to start with, they again fail to mention that those are absolute numbers and do NOT include monthly job losses, which are around -120,000 to -130,000. So the real net job gains are 22,000-32,000 new jobs. This is nation-wide, for one month. This is in contrast to the ~12,000,000 jobs lost since 2001. at 20-30 thousand jobs per month, it's gonna take a hellish long time to put those 12M people back to work. 12 years, in fact and the US jobs market was barely digging out of negative territory only slightly over a year ago.
While this is happening, we are seeing a good growth picture. In fact, it's so good that the job numbers reflect the fact that they HAD to create those new jobs. The bad part is that those GDP numbers are unsustainable, IMHO. Over half of the GDP comes from increased US Consumer and US Federal spending. Corporate and Investor growth are actually negative. Yes, Consumers have to keep spending, just like breathing, and the Feds still have a war to supply equipment to but neither indicate true sustained economic growth.
The result is that Corporations are sitting on the largest cash piles that they've ever had. Some are even buying back all of their public stock and going private. They are not creating new jobs!
The current US government, both Demorats and Repugnicans, are missing the point. Yes, it is about the Economy but, more specifically, it is about JOBS (and I'm not talking about Apple's CEO)! An economy that doesn't produce enough jobs for the people living within it is not sustainable because Consumers spend only if they have the money and for that, they need jobs! This is only superficially better than the Jobless Recovery of 2005 and that leads to a "Rich get richer whilst the poor get poorer" scenario.