The BLS reported this morning that in April the U3 unemployment rate increased to 8.9%. This is a .4% increase from March, and is what I expected.
This is one of those cases where "less awful" actually ought to give rise to some hope. Before Black September, when we had a shallow recession confined to Wall Street and housing-related trades, the worst month for payroll loss was -175,000. By November the loss was -597,000, and from December through March losses were clustered near -700,000 a month!.
April's payroll loss of -539,000 is ~140,000 less than the last 4 months. If this new trend continues for another 3 months, payroll losses will vanish and the economy might actually begin to add jobs by August.
I tried to add something profound .....but you know ... this shit writes itself.
Stephen Friedman, the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Board, abruptly resigned on Thursday, days after questions arose about his ties to Goldman Sachs.
Mr. Friedman was chairman of the New York Fed at the same time he was a member of Goldman’s board. He also had a substantial stake in the firm as the Fed was crafting a solution to keep Wall Street banks afloat. Denis M. Hughes, deputy chair of the board, will take over as the interim chairman, the New York Fed said in a statement. (Read Mr. Friedman’s letter after the jump.)
Because the New York Fed approved a request by Goldman to become a bank holding company, the chairman’s involvement in Goldman was a violation of Fed policy, The Wall Street Journal said in an article earlier this week.
Remember those strolls down Maiden Lane: here and here. Well, the Fed just announced today that it has lost a combined additional $10 billion from Maiden Lane II and III - these are the AIG counterparty bailouts.
"Terrors Reign, The Streets of Chicago Given Over to Howling Mobs of Thieves and Cutthroats."
-Chicago Times headline, 1877
130 years ago America was a different place. Labor unions were small in number and relatively powerless, the federal government was immensely corrupt, and the presidential election had just been openly rigged.
Hmmm. OK. Maybe America wasn't different from today's world after all. But it was a great deal different from the America of most of that 130 years.
What started as an investigation by the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, into the state comptroller’s office — where Mr. Cuomo says favors were being exchanged for contracts to invest pension money — has mushroomed into a broad look at more than 100 firms by attorneys general in at least 30 other states.
The Economic Policy Institute just released a detailed report on jobs.
When you look at these numbers, one realizes until all policy is addressed to stop the United States from hemorrhaging jobs, there will be no real economic recovery.
While the labor market has shed 5.1 million jobs since the start of the recession, it is important to keep in mind that in those 15 months, the population has continued to grow. Just to keep up with population growth, the economy must add approximately 127,000 jobs every month, which means 1.9 million jobs, should have been added over this period. In other words, the economy is now 7 million jobs below what is needed to maintain pre-recession employment levels.
"German Health System Not Quite in Intensive Care " - Going by media reports and public opinion in Germany, one might think the country's health care system is sclerotic and near collapse. But international comparisons and health-care experts paint a different picture.
In a 2000 report conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) on global health care, Germany ranked 25th out of 191 countries based on a cost-effectiveness ratio, coming in before the USA (37) and Canada (30). In another study, carried out by the Frank Beske Institute for Health System Research in 2005, Germany came in first among 14 industrial countries regarding health-care services available to the insured.
The BLS reported this morning that new jobless claims declined to 601,000 in the last week. That is the lowest reading since January. The 4 week moving average also declined to 637,000. According to the research reported by Prof. James Hamilton, this decline means that it is more likely than not that the recession will ultimately be deemed to have ended by the end of June.
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