-- Published: Wednesday, 11 June 2014 | Print | Disqus
By Graham Summers
Wall Street and mainstream economists are abuzz that we’re seeing a recovery in the US due to the latest jobs data. These folks are not only missing the big picture, but they’re not even reading the fine print (more on this in a moment).
The reality is that what’s happening in the US today is not a cyclical recession, but a one in 100 year, secular economic shift.
See for yourself. Here’s duration of unemployment. Official recessions are marked with gray columns. The Fed has spent over $4 trillion…. and this has barely dropped by a month or two .
Here’s the labor participation rate with recessions again market by gray columns:
Another way to look at this chart is to say that since the Tech Crash, a smaller and smaller percentage of the US population has been working. Today, the same percentage of the US population are working as in the late 1970s.
Here’s average hours worked per week for the private sector.
This number is of extreme importance. The reason is because companies don’t just start laying people off en masse when the economy is weak. Instead they start cutting work hours bit by bit. The mass layoffs don't come until the official numbers announce that we're in a full-blown recession.
Indeed, when you account for population growth and the drop in average hours worked per week, the US has created net ZERO jobs in the last five years. Put another way, there has been literally ZERO job growth since the recession “ended.”
Again, what’s happening in the US is NOT a garden-variety cyclical recession. It is a STRUCTURAL SECULAR DEPRESSION.
Folks, this is a DE-pression. And those who claim we’ve turned a corner are going by “adjusted” AKA “massaged” data. The actual data (which is provided by the Federal Reserve and Federal Government by the way) does not support these claims at all. In fact, if anything they prove we’ve wasted money by not permitted the proper debt restructuring/ cleaning of house needed in the financial system.
It all boils down to the same simple sentence repeated by myself and others: you cannot solve a debt problem by issuing more debt (even if it’s at better rates).
This concludes this article. If you’re looking for the means of protecting yourself from what’s coming, you can pick up a FREE investment report titled Protect Your Portfolio at http://phoenixcapitalmarketing.com/special-reports.html.
This report outlines a number of strategies you can implement to prepare yourself and your loved ones from the coming market carnage.
Best Regards
Phoenix Capital Research
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-- Published: Wednesday, 11 June 2014 | E-Mail | Print | Source: GoldSeek.com
