Collapse Coming–Not Recovery

The way the latest unemployment numbers were reported by the mainstream media (MSM), you would think the Great Recession was over and the United States was solidly on the road to recovery. The Associated Press reported the numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) with a story that said, “The United States added 227,000 jobs in February, the latest display of the breadth and strength of the economic recovery. The country has put together the most impressive three months of job growth since before the Great Recession. The unemployment rate stayed at 8.3 percent. It was the first time in six months it didn’t fall, and that was because a half-million Americans started looking for work.” (Click here for the complete AP story.) I don’t see how the MSM can say this one number is “the latest display of the breadth and strength of the economic recovery.”

Cyclical and structural unemployment are gripping the nation. Certain jobs are gone forever or, at the very least, for a very long time. Maybe that’s why millions of people have given up even looking for work. Forbes.com reported, just a few weeks ago, millions have stopped looking for work, and the government has stopped counting them. The report said, “In the latest, much celebrated, unemployment report, the labor force participation rate had plummeted to 63.7%, the most rapid decline in U.S. history. That means that under President Obama nearly 5 million Americans have fled the workforce in hopeless despair. The trick is that when those 5 million are not counted as in the work force, they are not counted as unemployed either. They may desperately need and want jobs. They may be in poverty, as many undoubtedly are, with America suffering today more people in poverty than in the entire half century the Census Bureau has been counting poverty. But they are not even counted in that 8.3% unemployment rate that Obama and his media cheerleaders were so tirelessly celebrating last week.” (Click here for the complete Forbes.com report.)

While we are on the subject of unemployment and poverty, the number of people on food stamps jumped to more than 46.5 million in December 2011! It is a new all-time record. How can the nation be in a true “recovery” with increasing numbers of Americans on the government dole?

According to economist John Williams of Shadowstats.com, the latest good news about job creation is distorted with what he calls “massive seasonal adjustments.” The latest Shadowstats.com report, last Friday, said, “With heavy warping of the seasonal-adjustment process from the effects of the extreme nature of the current downturn, the resulting employment gain and unemployment rate level remain of questionable quality and significance.” If unemployment were calculated the way BLS did it in 1994 or earlier, the true unemployment rate would top 22% according to Shadowstats.com. Williams also says, “The outlook for the broad economy remains bleak, despite relatively upbeat February payroll data. Bank lending remains impaired, while household income has taken a new hit, as indicated in recent reporting. Separately . . . annual and monthly growth in the broad money supply appears to be stalling, again. That likely is a further indication of mounting difficulties in the systemic-solvency crisis.” (Click here to go to the Shadowstats.com home page.)

“Mounting difficulties in the systemic-solvency crisis” means, in reality, it is more likely financial collapse is coming—not recovery. Maybe that’s why the Federal Reserve recently announced it is going to start another round of money printing because the economy is teetering on an abyss. Marketwatch.com reported just last week, “Federal Reserve officials are considering a new type of quantitative easing that will attempt to boost the economy without accelerating inflation, according to a report published Wednesday.” (Click here for the complete Marketwatch.com story.) If the economy was in a real “recovery,” why would the Fed want to “boost the economy”? The Fed also announced at the end of January it would hold a key interest rate at 0% through 2014. If the “breadth and strength of the economic recovery” was so powerful, wouldn’t the Fed be hiking interest rates? Of course it would. The fact it is keeping them at zero for years and starting a new round of money printing is signaling the economy is in trouble, not in a so-called “recovery.”

Even near record low interest rates are not helping the morbid housing market to recover. According to the latest Case-Shiller report, home prices were down nearly 4% at the end of 2011. What kind of a recovery features near record low interest rates and falling home prices? Also, millions of empty houses are sitting on the books of the banks, and millions more are headed for foreclosure. Shouldn’t home inventory be shrinking in a real “recovery”? It is not, and that’s a fact!

Finally, if there really was a recovery, the government would not be hitting record deficits month after month. The deficit would shrink as the economy got better wouldn’t it? (Think Clinton era.) Instead, the Federal deficit is exploding! The Washington Times reported, just last week, “The federal government recorded its worst monthly deficit in history in February, according to a preliminary report Wednesday from the Congressional Budget Office that said the deficit in fiscal year 2012 is already more than half a trillion dollars. . . . The nonpartisan agency projected the government will run a deficit of $229 billion in February, the highest monthly figure ever.” (Click here for the complete report from the Washington Times.) That means the government spent nearly $8 billion more than it took in each and every day of last month (29 days). This is not a sign of economic “strength” but of tremendous weakness.

You cannot print your way to prosperity, but it can pave the way to an economic collapse.

I don't know about a complete economic breakdown yet since the US is so resilient, it will take much more debt load to break the camel's back.

The CFTC just released this announcement related to the CME withdrawing as a European Derivatives Clearing House: March 13, 2012...With that, this coming March 19th, Euroland rearranges the deck chairs. A heads up, to see if the banks have everything under control or not in the coming days.

I read on Barnhardt.biz a couple months ago, that the five largest banks in the U.S. have $250 TRILLION DOLLARS IN EUROPEAN DEBT. I’m assuming that is mostly in European government bonds. If the ECB defaults, those U.S. banks collapse. Our economy collapses.

anybody that has been paying attention for the past few years knows that this economy is circling the drain and the Obama administration’s economic statistics are just more lies from the king of liars himself, Barack Obama.

The nonpartisan agency projected the government will run a deficit of $229 billion in February, the highest monthly figure ever.

I believe that in 2007, Bush had an annual deficit of $160B.
Worst economy since Hoover.
Deficit spending was killing the economy.
Congress was out of control.
Bush was a disaster.

Obama? Monthly deficit is almost 50% higher than Bush's annual deficit?? Oh, it's all good. We're in Recovery.

I listen with frustration at news reports that say we are adding so many jobs to the economy when so many people I know, my son included, have been laid off from work. My son, who is only 28, has a college degree and has been working since he was in high school cannot find a job! He sends out resume after resume and not one of those jobs calls him in for an interview. I no longer can afford to live in my apartment since my salary has not risen in 4 years and gas costs more than double since that time. Who ever would have thought that gas would cost for many nearly $100 a week. Something is not right; something is very wrong here.

Nonsense!

Obama just announced 2.5 Gazillion new jobs manufacturing Chevy Volts!

Another 4.5 LaShillion jobs handing out Section 8 "vouchers."

And 5 new fat paying jobs for Obama's cronies sitting on Minority Health boards dolling out ObamaCare.

I always thought the Gov was counting welfare recipients as not-employed instead of unemployed.
Rats have a way with wordplay to deflect the truth and I think this is true here.

“Collapse Coming–Not Recovery”

Yup. And why we bought a farm in central KY two weeks before obama was elected, and moved there from our 45 year home of Seattle. Just bought 18 chicks for eggs. I’m working on a new hen house now.
We’ll supply all our neighbors with cheap eggs.

We’re plowing the garden this weekend.

If we can rid ourselves of the kenyan, marxist, usurper in November, we will be doing a LOT better starting at the end of January.

FUBO GTFO! 312 Days until Noon Jan 20, 2013

12 posted on 03/14/2012 5:46:53 AM PDT by The Sons of Liberty (Psalm 109:8 Let his days be few and let another take his office. - Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin)

Exactly. There is no recovery. By actual test let's see... Wife, lost her job a few months ago. Five people gone from where I work in the last 3 months. Gas prices more than double what they were before hussein. Unemployment, real unemployment numbers highest I've ever seen in nearly 50 years.

There will be no recovery under hussein's Marxist rule. Anyone with an ounce of common sense, and who hasn't drunk the hussein kool-aide knows this. The recovery really starts 1/20/13 under who-ever is the GOP President.

14 posted on 03/14/2012 6:18:32 AM PDT by DCBryan1 (Tagline removed at the request of someone who doesn't "get" Monty Python or Shakespear.)

—anybody that has been paying attention for the past few years knows that this economy is circling the drain and the Obama administration’s economic statistics are just more lies from the king of liars himself, Barack Obama.—

It was circling the drain before Obama. He’s just the one trying to “solve” the problem by following in Russia’s footsteps in the early 20th century.

Yes. If the recovery was coming the Govt would not be administering total collapse stress tests on the banks. they have done it because they know its coming.

If you are not already prepared for something really bad you need to get prepared quickly.

17 posted on 03/14/2012 9:33:23 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)

‘With that, this coming March 19th, Euroland rearranges the deck chairs. A heads up, to see if the banks have everything under control or not in the coming days.’

is this the date that greece will miss their debt payment

Yes, that is the date some old bonds get exchanged for new bonds as part of a work around and the remaining 10% or 15% of outstanding bonds due, actually default. It’s the credit default swaps, used as insurance, that will kick in on that 10% or 15% defaulting that is going to cause some pain to banks that wrote them (mainly banks here in the US). Have to wait and see how bad a hit is taken.

Either put the chicken coop on a cement slab or you are going to have to bury the fence (chicken wire) a foot or two deep into the ground to prevent varmints from tunneling to get to the chickens.

I have some fruits trees in the backyard. I think the birds get more fruit than I do.

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