Roubini: The Green Shoots Are Mostly Yellow Weeds

RGE :

The June employment report suggests that the alleged 'green shoots' are mostly yellow weeds that may eventually turn into brown manure. The employment report shows that conditions in the labor market continue to be extremely weak, with job losses in June of over 460,000. With the current rate of job losses, it is very clear that the unemployment rate could reach 10 percent by later this summer, around August or September, and will be closer to 10.5 percent if not 11 percent by year-end. I expect the unemployment rate is going to peak at around 11 percent at some point in 2010, well above historical standards for even severe recessions.

Read the whole story: RGE

Comments

[userw014]

The further I read into the article, the more I find fault with it.

For instance, he's complaining about how the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is reporting only a fractional increase with unemployment - from 9.4 to 9.5 - when the numbers he is using are the "seasonally adjusted numbers" - which is just BLS-speak for "we get to make them up." and he should be complaining about THAT - "seasonally adjusted" might make sense during a normal economy, but is completely irrelevant now.

[userw014]

This article represents everything that's wrong with our "business centric" social structure in the first sentence:

The June employment report suggests that the alleged 'green shoots' are
mostly yellow weeds that may eventually turn into brown manure.

The sheer ignorance of natural processes represented by the idea that yellow weeds can transform into manure without any intervention completely discredits the writer and editor's understanding of anything more complicated than spreading mud into a dish and presenting it to the parents as a pie.

[twogunmojo]

if you pay out more in entitlements than you take in as taxes you will go broke....

[HekmabaJuzimax]

OK, I have the solution, Mr. Obama. There are several steps, so pay attention and don't fall asleep:

1. Declare an emergency. The infrastructure of the country is crumbling. We need workers to build and fix stuff, but experienced American labor is just too darn expensive, so...

2. Halt all union activity. For at least a year, no worker will be paid union salaries. No company will fire any worker for any reason.

3. A temporary decrease in the sales tax to 3 percent. Elimination of most other taxes and surcharges, forgiveness of tax evasion, system wide.

4. IRS to take over mortgage companies and banks, and total mortgage forgiveness for ALL homeowners. Any lender not complying will be shut down and executives risk imprisonment.

5. Deployment of troops home from Iraq to arrest those deemed to be involved with traditional organized crime. Estimate 70 percent of politicians will lose their office in this operation.

6. Nationalization of companies dealing with clean energy production, research, and development. If a company is tagged as a polluter, the clean energy companies will assist that company FREE OF CHARGE in research, parts and labor.

6. Forgiveness of all my parking and moving violations tickets. This step is essential to the rapid growth of the economy.

7. After the economy starts to show signs of growth, military rule will cede to civilian rule.

8. There are no loopholes in this plan. It is perfect, as the Borg* will attest.

*Home Depot

[Chaimirija]

If I could, I'd buy ya a beer!

[elkabong]

Much simpler than that. We just make the top tax rate what it was during WWII. At end of WWII the maximum tax rate was 94% on incomes over $200k per year (about $6,000,000 today). It has steadily dropped since.

Then we institute a public works program to green every house, car and business; improve infrastructure and pass single payer.

We'd be out of this mess in a year.

[SamKnause]

Excellent plan!!!! I wish we could get moving on it tomorrow.

[Rule Of Law]

Unless this was satire, which I sometimes, admittedly, miss...?

[Rule Of Law]

Or as my first and now missing comment said--These ideas are not only unconstitutional, they are illegal.

[Raul Garcia]

Mortgage forgiveness for those getting in over their heads, buying overvalued houses they couldn't afford in the first place? If I'm not mistaken that is one of the keys factors behind the financial meltdown.

[PSM42]

NEVER FEAR!

Some Democratic Johnny will Save The Plane -- and/or fix the economy using the Ne. 0c. 0n' s wise counsel and sage advice. Or possibly not. - Airplane - Johnny - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YV5h6xzGKo

Naomi Klein - http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

Ne. 0c. 0n's wise counsel and sage advice - http://exiledonline.com/class-war-101-meet-the-reptiles-who-are-making-meat-out-of-you/

Information Parachute - Use if you think that all four engines have flamed out and the MSM is feeding you garbage - Information Clearing House -

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

[PSM42]

THAAATT'S CRAAAAZY

You mean that the Mickey Mouse band-aid on the US's sucking chest wounds is not going to fix it? But the Ne. 0c. 0ns told us that it would. Surely they wouldn't lie?

Wounds to the economy, the financial system, the currency; Wall Street's financial crimes, the fraudulent bailout, loss of habeus corpus, the Bill of Rights, Iraq, Afghanistan. Wounds _all_ inflicted on the US by the Ne. 0c. 0ns --

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gf8NK1WAOc

Why that kind of talk is crazy. As crazy as another 'foretelling' - SNL's.

"Mark my words. We're going to have ... a generated crisis. Gird your loins." - Joe Biden.
"My loins are fine. I was just at the doctor." SNL -

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/road-to-the-white-house/787141/

And don't call me Shirley - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGSRmemHxlo

[Luvial]

Where are the solar cells and windmills from Obama? LOL

[Luvial]

When will we get a jobs program to help real people?

[bobo5]

In august and September we'll see purple buds in Northern California's economy. Hopefully, the erradication budget is slashed this year.

[Nosybear]

Interesting, the "yellow weeds" in your photograph are rapeseed plants, a wonderful source of plant oils that can be converted to bio-diesel.

[RJII]

ya know.

[thebanana]

aka "Canola". We grow lots of it in Canada.

[kamachanda]

And we add it to food in The United States. We're fat and sick because we'll eat anything.

[Marlyn]

"this could be a double whammy that could push the economy into a double-dip or W-shaped recession"

W has left his mark on the economy.

[RJII]

I haven't found near sufficient work since 2007. about wwith Bush started to disappear from his mon.ster failed presidency. Every day, I am surprised and thankful I've made it another day. Every single day, I think about and see how horrid Bush was for this country.

[Chaimirija]

ahh but, all was well in 2007, riiigggggg­gggggggggg­ht?

[bobo5]

Hang in there.

[AtheistUS]

Stimulus should have been larger, TAX rebates smaller. And reforms must pass - health care etc.

[CanadianBeef]

I hate to say it, but this makes it the perfect time to pass a liberal agenda, especially health care reform. Everyone loves the good times, but they put America's compassionate impulses into a coma. There's an od saying that a recession is when you lose YOUR job, a depression is when I lose mine. And in a depression your start to appreciate the role of government again, in softening the blow.
It's no coincidence that the biggest advance in progressive policies came with the Great Depression. So this is no time for Obama to go squishy.

[AtheistUS]

Yes. Actually, at this time full liberal agenda becomes not just an agenda easier to pass, but really a common sense and a necessity for the country to survive.

A race against time.

[BartRoberts]

Tax rebates smaller???? Hell, it's time to repeal bush's tax give-away to his uber-rich friends.

[marshhen]

Guess you don't know all of the tax cuts, many will affect everyday americans. The following will expire in 2011 or sooner if Mr. Obama has his way:
•Tax rates will rise substantially in each tax bracket, some by 450 basis points;
•Low-income taxpayers will see the 10-percent tax bracket disappear, and they will have to pay taxes at the 15-percent rate;
•Married taxpayers will see the marriage penalty return;
•Taxpayers with children will lose 50 percent of their child tax credits;
•Taxes on dividends will increase beginning on January 1, 2009;
•Taxes on capital gains will increase, also beginning on January 1, 2009; and
•Federal death taxes will come back to life in 2011, after fading down to nothing in 2010.
Go read up on all the tax cuts!

[RJII]

we will need at least two more stimulus injections. I can't believe most people didn't know this. Also, our Bush problems won't change over night.

[AtheistUS]

That's what Krugman warned about: That initial stimulus is too small, and there will be need for more. And if the first package is too small and is not seen as an unarguable success then the next will be more difficult to promote.

[jmpurser]

Agreed. At this point the "liberal agenda" is the same as "conservative common sense" but we STILL can't manage to pull it off.

[donaldinks]

When you have spent the past 10 years "outsourcing" our entire manufacturing base...coupled with the American populous' incessant craving for "cheap goods"...this is what you get. We no longer MAKE things in this country. The American people have been robbed by Wall Street...and sold out by the corporate sectors...the very people that hold all your precious investments you THINK you will retire on.

Think again.

Buying CHEAP stuff is great... if you still have a job and some money. It is going to get a lot worse. NOBODY will escape this one. Not even the bastards that led us down this "rosy little path".

[Samalabear]

This will soon be Obama's depression, as he is ramping up Afghanistan, and we will be there for years as a result, Iraq, in spite of the recent pullback, is also in question. His failure to put the single-payer public option health care on the table -- rather than the crap Massachusetts-type that will lead us into further ruin -- and to lead on this issue, and use the enormous support he has from the American people on this, is short-sighted at best, putting the interests of Republican and so-called moderate Dems, along with their corporate owners above the interests of the American people. This is shameful. And, of course, the continued selling out to Wall Street.

These are the three biggest issues he was elected on to put this country on a right track. And why these are called liberal issues I don't know.

[SamKnause]

I agree.

[CanadianBeef]

He should read a few of FDR's speeches.

[Marlyn]

"why these are called liberal issues"

... because Conservatives don't want ANY government services BECAUSE such services are paid for by taxes, and Conservatives don't want to pay taxes. They call it freedom. I call it selfishness.

[clearwaterclearmind]

to be fair, neither do obama appointees.

[PBMac]

Nobody is mentioning as far as I can see what the cost of these two endless wars are to our economy.

[CanadianBeef]

Think of what could have been done with $1 trillion at home.

[Agent420]

Expensive foreign wars is what brought down the Roman Empire, will the American Empire go the same way?

[BartRoberts]

And when we're bankrupt and tired, China, who loaned us the money for this war, will come in and pick up the pieces.