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The US Department of Agriculture highlights how the United States in the last decade, despite increased aggregate wealth, slid back significantly in terms of food insecurity as measure of poverty. With everyone now focused on the unemployment situation, it bears noting that even before the downturn in the economy there had been a large surge [...]

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Nouriel Roubini, writing in the New York Daily News , said on Sunday that “unemployed Americans should hunker down for more job losses” given the likelihood of a job less recovery. This was as gloomy a piece as I have seen from Roubini in the past few months. He has clearly become more downbeat about [...]

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Today, I want to run a few thoughts by you courtesy of John Mauldin.  In his recent weekly newsletter, he makes a number of points I have made here over the past few weeks and comes to a similar conclusion about the weakness of recovery and the likelihood of a double dip recession.
John Mauldin, Best-Selling [...]

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This morning, David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff had another wonderful piece. I am only going to take on one part of it here. I have linked to the full article below so that you can read his analysis in it’s entirety (registration free but required).
The part I want to focus in on has to [...]

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The latest number on unemployment claims shows a seasonally-adjusted 502,000 people applied for unemployment insurance last week, bringing the more meaningful 4-week average down to 519,750, the lowest since late November 2008. That is a good thing because it shows the labor market is improving.
Nevertheless, 500,000 initial claims in an environment of reduced hiring is [...]

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L. Randall Wray has a post up at New Deal 2.0 which puts forward an idea which is pretty innovative. I would label it a private sector replacement for unemployment insurance. It’s the kind of thinking that might bring Obama out of a policy cul-de-sac as the economy hemorrhages jobs.
Let me present an excerpted version [...]

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You have probably heard the term money illusion.  I want to coin a related new term called unemployment rate illusion because I think it is significant in light of some of the things David Rosenberg said earlier today about the unemployment rate in the U.S.
Wikipedia’s definition of money illusion is good:
In economics, money illusion refers [...]

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David Rosenberg thinks the unemployment rate is headed much higher than anyone anticipates.  If you recall, back in January when the stimulus package was crafted, the Obama Administration felt that passing the bill would mean an unemployment rate which would top out at 8.0%. As the situation deteriorated, the President recognized that 10.0% was more [...]

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While I see the job numbers as pretty much what was expected, the data do make clear that we are seeing a major jobless recovery. David Rosenberg has a piece out today that goes right to the heart of the issue:
All we can say is that if the overwhelming consensus is correct that the recession [...]

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The employment market is pretty grim. We’re talking a double digit unemployment rate – and that’s just the base rate. The comprehensive unemployment rate is now 17.5% in the US.  This is a fact not lost on our politicians. Today, Barack Obama signed a bill that extends unemployment benefits and home buyer tax credits. But,, [...]