Great news, right! Only 247,000 job losses when it was really supposed to be 325,000 losses. That’s all I’ve been hearing about from Wall Street contacts ever since Friday when the July employment numbers showed the lowest number of job eliminations in 11 months. Convinced that the economy had now turned the corner, investors took off on another one of their emotional tears by chasing after stocks and driving up the Dow Industrials that day nearly 114 points as the unemployment rate unexpectedly dipped to 9.4%, the first such drop in 15 months.
Even President Obama got into the act, telling the nation after the news of the reduced job losses that “we’ve built a new foundation and that the worst of the recession may be behind us.”
He may be right, of course, but everyone seems to be ignoring the accompanying anguish. In brief, the latest layoffs raised the jobless rolls to nearly 15 million, which means more foreclosed and abandoned homes (now in excess of one million), more mortgage delinquencies (currently a whopping 11.3% of the 41 million mortgages outstanding) and a growing number of worriers who will further pinch pennies, putting additional pressure on the economy.
Mark Haber, 56, who e-mails me he has a number of unemployed middle-aged friends who can’t get jobs and whose $475,000 upstate New York home is surrounded by 7 others that have been seeking buyers for many months, doesn’t share the President’s cheery outlook.
Click here to read the full article …
