PeakTrader.com

[administrator]

PeakTrader:

I’d estimate, it’s less than 10% structural and over 90% cyclical, because Americans need to work longer to pay-down debt and build-up saving.

Unfortunately, too many had to give up on work, including retiring early, in this on-going depression/train wreck.

It’s just more lipstick on this pig.

******

It looks like we’re 13 million jobs short of the average recovery, since WWII, out of 11 recoveries.

Moreover, joblessness has been longer and deeper than any other recovery, and this is the only recovery where jobs haven’t recovered.

The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever Isn’t Scary Enough
March 07, 2013

“In previous postwar recoveries, the number of jobs was about 7 percent above its previous peak by this point, on average.

In other words, if this had been a typical recession and recovery, the U.S. economy would now have roughly 10 million more jobs than it did at the previous peak. In fact, there are now three million fewer jobs.”

******

It seems, the longer the cyclical damage (of the on-going depression), the greater the structural damage.

******

Whether the labor force is measured as 16 and older or 16-64, the decline is roughly the same.

http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/guest/AI-120913-In-or-Out.php

******

And the causes of the decline after 2000 are likely not the same as the causes of the decline after 2007.

******

I suspect, after the 18-year bull market, from 1982-00, the growth of high tech, in the “Information-Age,” and the continuing housing boom, with rising home prices, many Americans voluntarily retired in their 50s in the late ’90s and early ’00s.

However, after the 2007 recession, 2008 financial crisis, and subsequent deep depression that continues today, many Americans involuntarily retired, because of the lack of jobs, collected extended unemployment, disability, early Social Security, etc.

---

PeakTrader:

The Communist elites need to keep the masses employed, by exporting goods too cheaply, lending foreign currency too cheaply, building empty cities, etc., or they’ll have to flee to Hawaii, California, Switzerland, etc..

And without a “creative-destruction” process, which China needed over a decade ago, massive inefficiencies will continue.

---

PeakTrader:

U.S. production would’ve been much stronger if banks, over the past few years, weren’t under attack by the federal government, and given the (future) uncertainty of “too-big-to-fail.”

Congress has done an excellent job shifting blame from itself to financial institutions.

The big loser wasn’t government, because most of TARP was paid back (and all it by the banks).

Many homeowners lost their down payments or equity. However, many homeowners bought homes with no down-payment and many lived in their homes for years without making monthly payments. Moreover, many homeowners refinanced, at lower rates, and took out equity before the crisis.

The big banks were the big losers. They made money and then lost it, and more. Congress has made the big banks even more unpopular than itself.

---