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I think it will eventually and most likely similar to the 1929 economic problems. It will be a bank going bust, then another one, then loss of confidence by investors who pull their cash...
You seem to be prone to making assumptions about what I mean, rather than what I type.
Let me pose this to you: Let's say we have a pool of 100 workers. 95 of them are employed in various jobs requiring various skill levels. This would put the unemployment rate at 5%. We lose a technically skilled job which paid >$100k and created two service jobs which pay <$30k. Now the unemployment rate is 4%. Are we better off because the unemployment rate is down?
Not all jobs are created equally. Have you ever heard the term "quality over quantity?"
THIS is why the current use of unemployment figures are skewed; the figures are based on hogwash to begin with.
To add another layer of intentional confusion, our government no longer counts those who stop looking regardless of why they stop. The metrics that were used just two decades ago would put true unemployment well above 12% and probably higher.
Maybe baby boomers are retiring, but this doesn't come close to explaining why unemployment is down along with the participation rates. The workforce has not expanded enough to explain this, and your cite does a very poor job meshing the data to make a case.
In fact, your own cite states clearly that: "All told, it's likely to be a drag on the U.S. economy for years to come."
So we may appear to have low unemployment numbers, but the truth is the economy is in dire shape. They are about to start raising interest rates on a false flag of strength, and what little positive we got from cheap money will also go away.
You should read up on what Mike Cassidy (Mercury News) writes about unemployment:
U3 Unemployment is just one metric. Anyone measuring the health of the economy solely on the U3 would have a warped perspective on the economy. However, it does measure what it measures. It has has always had certain weaknesses. That is one of the reasons the BLS now provides 6 different versions of the unemployment numbers.
The BLS started tracking the number of people which it lists as not in the labor force, but who want a job in 1994. In Jan 1994 there were 6.7 million in that category. Currently (Oct 2015) there are 6.0.million. The lowest value measured was 4.3 million in March 2001. When the LFPR was at its highest, 67.3%, at the start of 2000 the number of people NILF who wanted in a job ranged from 4.3 million to 4.7 million.
If you add into the current LFPR and U3 numbers 1.5 million workers (bringing the current NILF but want a job in line with the lowest levels ever measured) you would get an LFPR of 63.0% and a U3 of 6.3% (assuming 1.5 would be unemployed).
So how do you figure the true unemployment at 12% or higher?
Those trying to measure the health of the economy based how much the LFPR has fallen from its previous high are not accounting for the demographic changes in the country.
I think it will eventually and most likely similar to the 1929 economic problems. It will be a bank going bust, then another one, then loss of confidence by investors who pull their cash...
Ok... How are the conditions similar to right up before the Great Depression?
Uncle Sam’s debt load amounted to 94% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2012, according to the World Bank. It now amounts to 103% of U.S. GDP. This ratio is sky high compared to its historical average of 61%.
U.S. government debt from 2010 through Sept. 2015. (YCharts.com)
Indeed the Federal Reserve fired up the printing presses, setting new records for U.S. money supply in 2013 and 2014. Forbes Welcome
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While I am not going to weigh in either way, it isn't hard to see the cogs and widgets that are in play. Rather than fixing what broke the world economy back in 2007/8, the power of printed money was used to double down and make the economy appear to be fixed. The same people who crashed the world are still in charge, nobody went to prison as they should have, and the few are still raping the many.
What broke the economy in 2007? Too much debt?
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