Real Unemployment Situation: Approximately 26,000,000 Unemployed or Underemployed. Job Growth in $10 per Hour Jobs while $20 per Hour Jobs Disappear.
On Friday, we learned that the unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent from last month’s 8.9 percent. The BLS data surveys 160,000 businesses and government agencies that affect roughly 400,000 people so the data does cover a large portion of Americans and gives us a good sample size. The markets were largely moving sideways on Friday unable to make sense of the mixed data because we are still largely living through a highly volatile market.
Credit Card Debt Obsession: Americans Unwilling to Give up Plastic. Bankruptcies and the Credit Card Addiction.
The banking crisis with mortgages at the center, has taken much of the economic headline news over the past two years. Yet there is a brewing problem in the credit card markets. Credit card debt is now becoming another bubble itching to burst. The meteoric rise in bankruptcies is simply a reflection that Americans have maxed out in every form of debt.
Depression Level Unemployment: 40 Percent Unemployment in the U.S.? Top 12 MSA Unemployment Regions Located in California. The Only 2 MSA Regions with 20 Percent Unemployment Exist in California.
Statistics have a way of being cold and unsympathetic to the plight of the numbers they represent. That is why when we hear that our national unemployment rate is 8.9 percent, there is little cause for alarm from the headline. Yet when we parse the data we realize that 25,000,000 Americans are unemployed or underemployed with half a million more coming our way this Friday. The employment situation on an aggregate basis simply does not reflect the devastation of this current recession. A recession that can destroy $11.2 trillion in American household wealth is not a common recession.
FDIC Banking Report: 305 Troubled Institutions up from 90 in 2008. $13.5 trillion Assets held with 2.1 Million Employees at 8,200 Institutions.
The FDIC is facing the highest amount of bank failures since the early 1990s. To calm Americans the government in 2008 upped the amount secured at FDIC institutions from $100,000 to $250,000 for each customer account. Yet losses have been so deep that in the fourth quarter of 2008 the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) quickly lost a large portion of its balance. The FDIC unfortunately did not adequately prepare for such a deep credit crisis: