The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Think

[link01]

The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Think

The average length of unemployment is higher than it's been since government began tracking the data in 1948.

By MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN

The recent unemployment numbers have undermined confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession. What we can see on the surface is disconcerting enough, but the inside numbers are just as bad.

 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary estimate for job losses for June is 467,000, which means 7.2 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the last six months have been greater than for any other half year period since World War II, including the military demobilization after the war. The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.

 

Here are 10 reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5% unemployment rate indicates:

 

- June's total assumed 185,000 people at work who probably were not. The government could not identify them; it made an assumption about trends. But many of the mythical jobs are in industries that have absolutely no job creation, e.g., finance. When the official numbers are adjusted over the next several months, June will look worse.

 

- More companies are asking employees to take unpaid leave. These people don't count on the unemployment roll.

 

- No fewer than 1.4 million people wanted or were available for work in the last 12 months but were not counted. Why? Because they hadn't searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.

 

- The number of workers taking part-time jobs due to the slack economy, a kind of stealth underemployment, has doubled in this recession to about nine million, or 5.8% of the work force. Add those whose hours have been cut to those who cannot find a full-time job and the total unemployed rises to 16.5%, putting the number of involuntarily idle in the range of 25 million.

 

- The average work week for rank-and-file employees in the private sector, roughly 80% of the work force, slipped to 33 hours. That's 48 minutes a week less than before the recession began, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data 45 years ago. Full-time workers are being downgraded to part time as businesses slash labor costs to remain above water, and factories are operating at only 65% of capacity. If Americans were still clocking those extra 48 minutes a week now, the same aggregate amount of work would get done with 3.3 million fewer employees, which means that if it were not for the shorter work week the jobless rate would be 11.7%, not 9.5% (which far exceeds the 8% rate projected by the Obama administration).

 

- The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks, the longest since government began tracking this data in 1948. The number of long-term unemployed (i.e., for 27 weeks or more) has now jumped to 4.4 million, an all-time high.

 

- The average worker saw no wage gains in June, with average compensation running flat at $18.53 an hour.

 

- The goods producing sector is losing the most jobs -- 223,000 in the last report alone.

 

- The prospects for job creation are equally distressing. The likelihood is that when economic activity picks up, employers will first choose to increase hours for existing workers and bring part-time workers back to full time. Many unemployed workers looking for jobs once the recovery begins will discover that jobs as good as the ones they lost are almost impossible to find because many layoffs have been permanent. Instead of shrinking operations, companies have shut down whole business units or made sweeping structural changes in the way they conduct business. General Motors and Chrysler, closed hundreds of dealerships and reduced brands. Citigroup and Bank of America cut tens of thousands of positions and exited many parts of the world of finance.

 

Job losses may last well into 2010 to hit an unemployment peak close to 11%. That unemployment rate may be sustained for an extended period.

 

Can we find comfort in the fact that employment has long been considered a lagging indicator? It is conventionally seen as having limited predictive power since employment reflects decisions taken earlier in the business cycle. But today is different. Unemployment has doubled to 9.5% from 4.8% in only 16 months, a rate so fast it may influence future economic behavior and outlook.

 

How could this happen when Washington has thrown trillions of dollars into the pot, including the famous $787 billion in stimulus spending that was supposed to yield $1.50 in growth for every dollar spent? For a start, too much of the money went to transfer payments such as Medicaid, jobless benefits and the like that do nothing for jobs and growth. The spending that creates new jobs is new spending, particularly on infrastructure. It amounts to less than 10% of the stimulus package today.

 

About 40% of U.S. workers believe the recession will continue for another full year, and their pessimism is justified. As paychecks shrink and disappear, consumers are more hesitant to spend and won't lead the economy out of the doldrums quickly enough.

 

It may have made him unpopular in parts of the Obama administration, but Vice President Joe Biden was right when he said a week ago that the administration misread how bad the economy was and how effective the stimulus would be. It was supposed to be about jobs but it wasn't. The Recovery Act was a single piece of legislation but it included thousands of funding schemes for tens of thousands of projects, and those programs are stuck in the bureaucracy as the government releases the funds with typical inefficiency.

 

Another $150 billion, which was allocated to state coffers to continue programs like Medicaid, did not add new jobs; hundreds of billions were set aside for tax cuts and for new benefits for the poor and the unemployed, and they did not add new jobs. Now state budgets are drowning in red ink as jobless claims and Medicaid bills climb.

 

Next year state budgets will have depleted their initial rescue dollars. Absent another rescue plan, they will have no choice but to slash spending, raise taxes, or both. State and local governments, representing about 15% of the economy, are beginning the worst contraction in postwar history amid a deficit of $166 billion for fiscal 2010, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and a gap of $350 billion in fiscal 2011.

 

Households overburdened with historic levels of debt will also be saving more. The savings rate has already jumped to almost 7% of after-tax income from 0% in 2007, and it is still going up. Every dollar of saving comes out of consumption. Since consumer spending is the economy's main driver, we are going to have a weak consumer sector and many businesses simply won't have the means or the need to hire employees. After the 1990-91 recessions, consumers went out and bought houses, cars and other expensive goods. This time, the combination of a weak job picture and a severe credit crunch means that people won't be able to get the financing for big expenditures, and those who can borrow will be reluctant to do so. The paycheck has returned as the primary source of spending.

 

This process is nowhere near complete and, until it is, the economy will barely grow if it does at all, and it may well oscillate between sluggish growth and modest decline for the next several years until the rebalancing of excessive debt has been completed. Until then, the economy will be deprived of adequate profits and cash flow, and businesses will not start to hire nor race to make capital expenditures when they have vast idle capacity.

 

No wonder poll after poll shows a steady erosion of confidence in the stimulus. So what kind of second-act stimulus should we look for? Something that might have a real multiplier effect, not a congressional wish list of pet programs. It is critical that the Obama administration not play politics with the issue. The time to get ready for a serious infrastructure program is now. It's a shame Washington didn't get it right the first time.

 

Mr. Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124753066246235811.html

[link01]

as a counterpoint to the above opinion piece, which is one apparently shared by WEB, among others, there's this:

 

<<The Recession Is Over

By Anirvan Banerji

RealMoney.com Contributor

7/17/2009 8:22 AM EDT 

 

Back in late April, amid rampant pessimism about the economy, the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) predicted that the recession would end this summer. The leading indices on which we based that call have since seen a synchronized surge.

 

In fact, the cyclical improvement in the economy is proceeding in a textbook sequence, from long leading indicators to short leading indicators to coincident indicators. In essence, there are now pronounced, pervasive and persistent upturns in a succession of leading indices of economic revival.

 

When approaching a cyclical turning point in U.S. economic growth, the growth rate of the U.S. Long Leading Index (USLLI) typically turns first, followed by the growth rate of the Weekly Leading Index (WLI), growth in the U.S. Short Leading Index (USSLI) and growth in the U.S. Coincident Index (USCI). Notably, the levels of the USLLI, WLI and USSLI are all rising. In fact, the chart below shows that by May, USLLI growth (top line) had already surged to a four-year high. Meanwhile, WLI growth (second line) has spurted to a two-year high, having crossed into positive territory. Following in their footsteps, USSLI growth (third line) has shot up to a one-year high, though it's still in negative territory.

 

Growth Rates (%)

of Leading and Coincident Indices

 

Source: ECRI 

 

 

 

Finally, the USCI is still slipping, indicating that as of June, the U.S. economic recovery had not yet begun. Yet USCI growth (bottom line), which represents the rate of growth of aggregate economic activity, has now risen for three months. While still in negative territory, it's now at a six-month high; almost certainly, the upturn in the growth rate cycle we predicted in April is now in progress.

 

But the sequential upswings in the leading indices aren't just about less negative growth -- we have pronounced, pervasive and persistent upswings in a succession of leading indices of economic revival, the most powerful possible predictor of a business cycle recovery. What's impressive here is the degree of unanimity within and across these leading indices, along with the classic sequence of advances in those indices. Such a combination of upturns doesn't happen unless an end to the recession is imminent.

 

If so, why is there such broad pessimism among analysts? The problem is a widespread inability to distinguish among leading, coincident and lagging indicators, along with the vast majority of economic indicators that don't fall neatly into any of those three categories. Thus, indicators are typically judged by their freshness, not their foresight. Because most market-moving numbers are coincident to short leading, while corporate guidance is often lagging, it's no surprise that analysts don't discern any convincing evidence of an economic upturn.

 

The arguments marshaled by standard-bearers of the pessimistic consensus hold little water. Usually, their "analysis" is based on gut feel, bolstered by any seemingly plausible argument that would support their case.

 

For instance, last month, with oil prices and interest rates staging something of an advance from their lows, skeptics opined that this would nip any potential recovery in the bud. But it's hardly unusual for such indicators to turn up in anticipation of economic revivals, which would never take place if higher oil prices or interest rates were able to head them off.

 

This month, the rise in the jobless rate to a 25-year high is being taken by some as an argument against recovery: Consumers supposedly won't spend when joblessness is mounting. Apparently, many analysts are unaware that even the 1929-33 recession ended when the jobless rate was over 25% -- and still rising!

 

The "second-derivative rally" in equities has provoked much derision, especially from those who missed it. Yet ECRI's leading indices now have positive second derivatives. More important, they've already had positive first derivatives for some months. It's worth reminding calculus-challenged analysts who doubt the significance of these cyclical upswings of the second-derivative test: When the first derivative of a univariate function rises to zero and its second derivative turns positive, it marks the low point of the function. That development is already in the rearview mirror for every one of ECRI's leading indices of economic activity.

 

In sum, the economy has a raft of problems that'll take a long time to resolve. But none of them can head off the imminent economic recovery that ECRI's objective leading indices are promising.

[Granitepost]

Even Roubini is now saying that he originally predicted a 24 month downturn and that we are now at the 19 month point, so he thinks he was correct in the first place as he sees it ending in the next few months.

[scorpioncapital]

Even Roubini is now saying that he originally predicted a 24 month downturn and that we are now at the 19 month point, so he thinks he was correct in the first place as he sees it ending in the next few months.

 

Philip Fisher said it best in Paths to Wealth through Common Stocks over 60 years ago - if you listen to analysts and economists in the media you deserve what you get. Since most of them are playing on fear, most people are going to get not making money or losing it from fear.