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According to the just released European employment data for May, total Spain unemployment remained unchanged in May at 25.1%, while youth unemployment has actually risen to 54.0% - the highest since January! That's ok though: aside from the facts, onc is welcome to "believe" whatever headlines one wants to believe. And speaking of "recovery", here is what unemployment across Europe looked like as of May.

If you’re a typical family, you’re considerably poorer than you used to be. No wonder the “recovery” feels like a recession. A new study published by the Russell Sage foundation helps explain why many families feel like they’re falling behind: They actually are. The study, which measures the average wealth of U.S. households by income level, reveals a startling decline in wealth nationwide. The median household in 2013 had a net worth of just $56,335 -- 43% lower than the median wealth level right before the recession began in 2007, and 36% lower than a decade ago. “There are very...

In the first quarter of 2014, GDP shrunk 2.9 percent and most of the reason is because health-care spending declined. That doesn’t mean we’re in for a recession though. Obamacare did help crash the economy. Only not in the way its critics thought it would. The Commerce Department on Wednesday revised the growth figures for the first quarter of 2014, and concluded that the economy shrunk at a 2.9 percent annual rate. This comes a month after the government slashed its initial estimate from an annual growth rate of .1 percent to a decline of 1.0 percent. At the time,...

If you’re a typical family, you’re considerably poorer than you used to be. No wonder the “recovery” feels like a recession. ... The median household in 2013 had a net worth of just $56,335 -- 43% lower than the median wealth level right before the recession began in 2007, and 36% lower than a decade ago.

The economy is in a recession in effect if one quarter GDP (Gross Domestic Product/economic activity) wipes out the gains of the previous quarter. You do not need officially two consecutive quarters of a flat or minus GDP headline to be called a recession. Instead, as occurred in Q1 (first quarter of) 2008, one quarter GDP was so bad that it wiped out the weak gains of the previous quarter (Q4 2007). Result? The official start of the last recession was Q4 2007 despite the fact that only one quarter was in a minus. Well, Q1 of 2014 wiped out...

This country is a bunch of lions led by donkeys, as the Germans said about the English Army in the first war. The latest Obama-related bray is the revised GDP numbers for the first quarter. Economists expected the economy to grow by 1.9% even after a discount for the cold weather. Instead the initial estimate saw a contraction of 1%. As we approached the revision to the initial estimate, we began hearing that perhaps things would be even worse in the next estimate. They were. The revision came in at a contraction of 2.9% for the first quarter. But...

For months the administration, financial pundits and Wall Street analysts made it a point to inform Americans about the healthy state of our economy. One of the key metrics they’ve used as proof of recovery was the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which measures the productive output of the U.S. economy as a whole. Earlier this year the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis noted that this measure was showing positive growth. But now, after a second official revision, all of that purported growth used to goad consumers into spending more money on homes, cars and other goods has been revealed to...

The U.S. economy contracted at a much steeper pace than previously estimated in the first quarter, but there are indications that growth has since rebounded strongly. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday gross domestic product fell at a 2.9 percent annual rate, the economy's worst performance in five years, instead of the 1.0 percent pace it had reported last month. While the economy's woes have been largely blamed on an unusually cold winter, the magnitude of the revisions suggest other factors at play beyond the weather. Growth has now been revised down by a total of 3.0 percentage points since...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When the government updates its estimate Wednesday of how the U.S. economy fared last quarter, the number is pretty sure to be ugly. Horrible even. The economy likely shrank at an annual rate of nearly 2 percent in the January-March quarter, economists estimate. That would be its bleakest performance since early 2009 in the depths of the Great Recession. So why aren't economists, businesses or investors likely to panic? Because most agree that the economy last quarter was depressed by temporary factors - particularly the blast of Arctic chill and snow that shuttered factories, disrupted shipping and...

A worrisome word is popping up in discussions among some economists: Recession. As in, the next one. Many Americans feel the recession that began at the end of 2007 never ended, but in technical terms, the economy has been growing since the middle of 2009. Until recently, it looked as if growth might finally hit “normal” levels of 3% or more later this year, as the housing recovery kicks in and employers finally start to hire more. But recent economic setbacks have fed new worries about tapped-out consumers falling even further behind. “The danger has increased the U.S. economy could...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. retail sales rose less than expected in May and first-time applications for jobless benefits increased last week, but the data did little to alter views the economy is regaining steam. The Commerce Department said on Thursday that retail sales gained 0.3 percent. While that was below the 0.6 percent rise expected on Wall Street, April sales were revised higher to show a 0.5 percent increase, helping to keep growth forecasts intact.

At West Point last week [1], President Barack Obama went to a variant of an economic theme he’ll probably reprise until the day he leaves the Oval Office once and for all (we hope) 31-plus months from now.Obama told the assembled graduating Army cadets and their families: When I first spoke at West Point in (December) 2009 … our nation was just beginning a long climb out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. What if I told you that nearly five years into the nation’s “long climb” out of the recession, the relative size of the...

Tyler Durden 05/30/2014Submitted by Jeff Nielsen via BullionBullsCanada blog, Regular readers are familiar with my narratives on the U.S. Greater Depression, and (in particular) some of the government’s own charts which depict this economic meltdown most vividly. The collapse in the “civilian participation rate” (the number of people working in the economy) and the “velocity of money” (the heartbeat of the economy) indicate an economy which is not merely in decline, but rather is being sucked downward in a terminal (and accelerating) death-spiral. However, even that previously published data, and the grim analyses which accompanied it could not prepare me...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer spending fell for the first time in a year in April after two months of solid gains, but the decline is likely temporary given a strengthening jobs market. The Commerce Department said on Friday consumer spending dipped 0.1 percent, which was the first decline since April 2013. But the drop followed an upwardly revised 1.0 percent jump in March that was the largest gain since August 2009. "The disappointing spending report should be viewed in the context of a stronger handoff into the second quarter," said Gennadiy Goldberg, an economist at TD Securities in New...

In the past several years, one of the topics covered in detail on these pages has been the surge in such gimmicks designed to disguise lack of demand and end customer sales, used extensively by US automotive manufacturers, better known as “channel stuffing”, of which General Motors is particularly guilty and whose inventory at dealer lots just hit a new record high. But did you know that when it comes to flat or declining sales and stagnant end demand, channel stuffing is merely the beginning? Presenting… Where the World’s Unsold Cars Go To Die Above is just a few of...

Does the economy move in predictable waves, cycles or patterns? There are many economists that believe that it does, and if their projections are correct, the rest of this decade is going to be pure hell for the United States. Many mainstream economists want nothing to do with economic cycle theorists, but it should be noted that economic cycle theories have enabled some analysts to correctly predict the timing of recessions, stock market peaks and stock market crashes over the past couple of decades. Of course none of the theories discussed below is perfect, but it is very interesting to...

<p>A couple weeks ago, the Commerce Department said U.S. economic output expanded at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.1% in the first three months of the year. A near-stall for the economy, for sure, but at least it wasn’t worse.</p>

As chief operations officer at the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, Stephanie Caldwell knows her California region's high education levels helped buffer the worst of the recession's job losses. But the affluent community still suffered. "During the recession we were hit hard. Teens were having trouble finding jobs," she said. "After- school and summer jobs were definitely being taken by older people. Go to any Starbucks (SBUX) and you can see that. Hopefully with the economy picking up, that's starting to change. Teen employment has plummeted in a trend that long predates the Great Recession, worrying economists across...

Also, keep in mind that as we explained before, Q1 GDP was boosted around 1% by the forced spending "benefit" of Obamacare: a GDP contribution that will no longer be there. Which means that either normalized Q1 GDP is approaching -2%, or Q2 GDP is about to be whacked by the same amount. Pick your poison. One thing is certain - anyone hoping that 2014 is the year in which the US economy finally achieved "escape velocity" will have to drink the humiliation under the table as they repeat the mantra of apologists everywhere: "snow.... snow.... snow...."

The economy created 288,000 jobs in April, up from 203,000 in March. That’s the second best showing of the Obama recovery but still less than what is needed each month to raise employment to prerecession levels. Those results are consistent with an economy recovering from its winter slump but performing well below full potential—4 to 5 percent GDP growth and 400,000 to 500,000 jobs a month. Construction, manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade, business and professional services, finance, health care, leisure and hospitality, and government employment were all up. Information technology registered a small loss. Hourly earnings made no gain, indicating...