More Employment Data Points.

I came across an interesting fact about the US Economy.

The US economy now has fewer jobs than it did in May 2000. While the labor force has expanded by 12.5M workers since then, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a DC think tank. EPI says the 6.5M jobs lost since the beginning of the recession 18 months ago underestimates the unemployment gap, since to keep up with population growth the labor market needed to grow 2.3M jobs over that period, making the real shortfall 8.8M jobs.

Also, is unemployment really a "lagging indicator?"

Maybe we should try to look at it as a leading indicator because current household leverage from mortgage and consumer debt are at record levels. During typical economic downturns, there is always some feedback from employment losses to credit losses, but that effect has been more contained because debt burdens have not been nearly as high, and homeowners have not been saddled with negative home equity or ARM mortgages that reset. The dynamics of this downturn is different, so investors should be slow to accept the "employment is a lagging indicator" argument under present conditions.

Not to pile on but someone needs to sprinkle some realty dust. The worst type of losses retail investors typically face are the ones when they are told that a turn around is in the midst,and that turn around doesn't happen. I am no expert, but there is no turn around until the credit excess has been zapped out of the economy, and from the looks of it, the ones making the decisions don't really understand the issue as of yet.