Hey, with the economy perking up, the Dow recently sprinting above 10,000, a sizzling jump of more than 50% from its March low, and growing talk out of Washington that we’ll have a national health bill before year end, things are slowly starting to look honky dory again to a lot of folks.
Not, though, to the 15.1 million Americans who are no longer getting paychecks, nor the residents of the growing number of states being stung by double-digit unemployment rates. Nor for that matter the hefty share of the unemployed population (35.6%) that is out of work six months or more, and the 571,000 people who disappeared from the work force last month because they couldn’t find jobs.
You’ve got to be a relative of Denny Dimwit to ignore this spreading economic cancer. Or, for that matter, give any legitimate credence to the administration’s non-stop rah-rah public relations campaign that the economic horror story is all but over.
Not everyone agrees with me. Frequently, when I bring up the rising number of job losses to some economists and market pros, I come out a loser, often being tagged as an ignoramus for failing to recognize that unemployment is a lagging economic indicator, not a leading economic indicator.
