Economic Double Dip

Excerpts from JP Morgans latest Ins & Outs...

A 0.5% increase took the unemployment rate up to 9.4%, precisely 5% above its lows of March 2007...

while the 345,000 decline in non-farm payrolls took the total net job losses since the recession began through the six million mark.

This cycle has seen sharp cost reduction by the corporate sector, with wages and salaries slashed by some $84.1 billion year-on-year as at the end of the first quarter;

at -1.3%, that marks the largest annual decline in wage and salary income since the Bureau of Economic Analysis began compiling the data in 1959.

Though the job market continues to deteriorate, the near-term profit outlook seems to be firming.

Wages have stagnated for two consecutive months, at the same time as gasoline prices have risen by more than 25%.

One of the parameters of the U.S. bank stress test’s adverse scenario was an average unemployment rate of 8.9% for the year.


The Nattering One muses… 5% increase in two years and 6 million jobs lost. At 9.4% we are already above the stress test limits.

Talk to me about “firming profits” and stress tests in November…

when 2.5 million more jobs have been lost & unemployment is near 12%. The double dip is coming my friend, not if, but when.

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