Nancy B King

The jobs report yesterday stated that 430,000 jobs had been added. That sounds good to me. So, why did the Dow fall 323 points. When you look more carefully at the jobs-added number—430,000—you discover that only 41,000 of those jobs were added in the private sector, the sector that produces sellable goods and services; the remainder are public sector jobs—census jobs.

Currently, 564,00 people are employed as census takers. Compare that with the total of 480,000 people who work in all the electronic and appliance stores; the 456,300 people who work in the entire air transportation industry; the 557,000 utility workers nation-wide who keep the water, electricity, and natural gas flowing into your home; the 580,000 people who are involved in one way or another in residential construction.

What happens to the unemployment figure when the census takers have completed their counting?

The chart below from BusinessInsider clearly shows why the market was scared yesterday.

CHART OF THE DAY: The Scariest Job Chart Just Got Even Scarier

by Joe Weisenthal

We’ve dubbed this chart the “Scariest Job Chart Ever,” as it shows how the decline in employment is WAY uglier than in past recessions.

Calculated Risk has updated it with the latest numbers from this morning, and now it looks even scarier.

Why?

Check out the two red lines at the bottom. The solid one includes Census hiring, while the dotted line doesn’t include it.

What’s clear is that while we still have a rebound including Census hiring, we’re already flattening out on the dotted line. This is a shape not seen on the other lines, suggesting that the fall is extremely deep, and the recovery is shallow.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-the-scariest-job-chart-ever-just-got-even-scarier-2010-6?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CS_COTD_060410#ixzz0q0FmIxdT

As a follow up to my Alaska’s Economy post, the chart and commentary below show where the economy of Alaska (AK) is in relation to the other 49 states.

CHART OF THE DAY: 49 Out Of 50 State Economies Are Still Underwater by Vincent Fernando, CFA and Kamelia Angelova

49 out of 50 U.S. states are still showing less economic activity than a year ago, based on February 2010 coincident economic indicators from the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia. The chart below is organized from top to bottom, from the most growth in economic activity to the largest declines in economic activity.

States like West Virginia (WV), Maryland (MD), Idaho (ID), and Wyoming (WY) are the worst off year over year. Their February 2010 economic activity remained 13.5%, 6.3%, 6.3%, and 6.2% lower year over year. Thus their economies, along with those of another 45 states, all the red ones, are all underwater on an annual basis.

North Dakota (ND) is the only state to currently have a higher level of economic activity year over year. Its February 2010 economic activity was 1.1% higher than February 2009, as shown by the green dot in the chart below.

Moreover, 28 out of 50 states even exhibited less economic activity in February 2010 than just three months earlier (not directly shown below). This means they have been deteriorating most recently as well.

In fact, the chart below is organized from left to right by the change in economic activity in the last three months (February 2010 vs. November 2009).

Thus West Virginia (WV), Maryland (MD), Montana (MT), and Delaware (DE), have seen their economic activity fall since November 2009 the most, given that they are the left-most dots. For example, West Virginia’s economic activity fell 3.1% vs. November 2009 (percentage not shown). In contrast, Michigan has done the best most recently, given that it is the right-most dot, rising 1.5% vs. November 2009 (percentage not shown).

Net-net what this tells us is that 49 out of 50 state economies are still underwater on a one year basis, and 28 out of 50 are even still falling vs. November.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-economic-activity-for-us-states-2010-4#ixzz0plifdhIV

Here is a great two-and-a-half-minute video explanation of the current global indebtedness and its domino effect.

Thanks to Very Short List:

It’s the question of the day: “How can broke economies lend money to other broke economies who haven’t got any money because they can’t pay back the money the broke economy lent to the other broke economy and shouldn’t have lent it to them in the first place ’cause the broke economy can’t pay it back?”

Then the following from Neil Cavuto:

Living in a Country Determined to be Indebted

Being broke means you don’t have options. Being broke means you don’t have influence. Being broke means you answer to someone who does have influence.

Being broke means someone else calling the shots—not you with nothing in your wallet, someone else with something in his wallet. Because when you’re broke, you’re desperate, so you get what you can from whomever you can. You’re so afraid of things getting worse, that you settle for terms that are just bad.

I know of what I speak. As a young man with an illness, I went into deep debt with abandon. I was as much an emotional wreck as a physical one. Disease does that. Being in hock does that too. Because creditors don’t much care what made you broke, just that you are broke.

And they have your number, so they call your number—a lot. Because they know you are desperate, and you know you are desperate. It’s as if you have “desperate” written all over you.

Forget sucking up to you; consider yourself lucky if they even talk to you. Because, like I said, you’re a loser.

And doesn’t the United States of America know it? Because, you know something? We’re broke. We’re losers. We’re an increasing laughing stock because we have no stock.

So we find ourselves in hock to those who are not in hock. Countries like China who know we need them; rich benefactors who know we depend on them. They are our sugar daddy, and it pains us to admit it; because we are broke, and there is nothing we can do about it.

As a young man, I remember vowing never to be so indebted. Now I find myself living in a country never so determined to be indebted.

It’s as if from the highest levels are begging to be beggars; failing to realize beggars can’t be choosers. Yet we have a government which chooses to spend even it means the rest of us poor suckers are spent.

Updated

From an anonymous source:

The world will soon wake up to the reality that everyone is broke and can collect nothing from the bankrupt, who are owed unlimited amounts by the insolvent, who are attempting to make late payments on a bank holiday in the wrong country, with an unacceptable currency, against defaulted collateral, of which nobody is sure who holds title.