A drunken rant on, among other things, the previous unemployment report

Like the economy sucks. And if you don't think it sucks, you must be in Asia.

The colts rock so that is someth...ing positive.

The government just lied to you again and you took it.

You don't even know why they did it and neither do I, but they did.

OUR ECONOMY SUCKS!!!!!

Please don't spend extravagantly. Don't buy a house. Don't buy a car. See I am unimportant so anyone reading this is o.k. because the rest of the saps (and probably you) are going to go ahead and think that the economy is o.k. You are going to think GASP!!! that the economy is growing.

NO!!!! IT IS NOT GROWING!!!

And the government wants you to think the economy is growing. That is the worst part. Because the government is run by (gasp) big companies.

Hm.............Another day.

What I want people to realize is the banking system has failed. Somberly, let's discuss this. Back in 1978 Bank of America created the mortgage backed security. The what? They took like 100 home loans and sold them to another bank. Sold them? They sold the homes? No, they sold the future income (or loss as we have found) stream to another bank. Well what is wrong with this transaction? There was no economic value created. What?

See when you want to create economic value, you create something. Didn't they create the mbs? Yes. But what is an MBS. Its a promise based on 100 promises (the number I'll use going forward). O.K., well these 100 promisers have been promising for a while and they make good on their promises. O.k. fine.

So the second bank has a pool of 100 promises of 100 promises and sells it to the next bank. So now we have 100 X 100 promises. Do the math yourself you lazy slob and refuse that calculator.

So that's a lot of promises. What happens when some of them can't make the promise. What happens when some of the promises X some of the promises, can't make some of the promises. Oh that's ripe.

But wait it is not done. What if, someone else says, wait, if they don't make their promises, I'll give you a promise that I'll give you a bunch of money. Well, they all made their promises before. So why wouldn't they make them again. So I'll promise that if they don't promise, that they don't promise that these don't promise that they don't promise. What?

And that is the problem.

And its still the problem.

What?

I thought we got rid of that? Didn't we bail out all these banks and didn't the treasury buy this and the federal reserve buy that? Yeah.

But that was this and that and the other. Sure that got taken care of at the time and those will continue to be taken care of in the future.

So what am I yapping about?

The unemployment level is, well a large number and whatever you think it is would be so wrong you don't even know. If you think it is less than 16%, you are about 3-4 months behind if not more. If you take the government numbers of the high 9% range, you really need to stop watching TV and get on the internet and find the actual report and read it. Oh wait, I have it book marked.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

And from this report I want you to focus on the 10.8% number. Oh you said 16% up there, so why the 10.8% number? Because those are the people who actually count as unemployed in the official government stats. Now if you have no job, you don't get an unemployment check, you have been unemployed for a while what are you to the government. YOU DO NOT EXIST!

Yes that's right, you don't exist in these numbers. You are not unemployed if you don't get a check from the government and are not recently off the unemployment line for some reason. So let's say you have been out of a job for over year. What does the 10.8% number count you as? YOU ARE OUT OF THE WORKFORCE. You don't count. The government does not give a rat's arse about you in this number. You are not unemployed, you just don't count any more we are sorry to say.

So we go up above and we talked about promises. Back two years ago when the job market was great, the world was great, and life for the U.S. citizen was great, we made a whole bunch of promises. And I say we because I am a home owner and darn if I don't want to walk away from this promise and get my investment in this thing back. But I can't. And a whole heck of a lot of people can't. And a lot of those people who can't, bought a ridiculously expensive house. So they made a big promise based on a lot of future earnings and they lost their job. Or the value of their house dropped 40-50% in two years so even if they sold, they would owe the bank everything that they have including the underwear on their arse and then some.

But wait, everything is o.k. Some cars got sold. So a bunch of people who could not afford a new car and thus drove clunkers were induced into buying a new car likely on credit. Yeah go team go.

Housing. We had something good. I don't know what. I really don't. http://mam.econoday.com/byshoweventfull.asp?fid=438293&cust=mam&year=2009#top

Look at that graph. See that little bump there. That was the new housing market. That was the wonderful most exciting awesome recovery in the housing market. Do you see it. Maybe they should get rid of the blue line so we can see that hump a little better. Oh wait. What is that blue line. That is the plummeting mortgage rate. So what does that mean? Well when the mortgage rate crashes people buy homes and refinance. Um? Where is that on the chart? Good question.

O.K. So a bunch of these people bought houses and they aren't making new ones any more because that just does not work, so they are still selling houses right. I mean prices are going up right? Um no.

http://mam.econoday.com/byshoweventfull.asp?fid=441377&cust=mam&year=2009#top


So those people are making promises on promises on promises of people that have something that they owe money on if they sell, is worth less than they paid for it, and used to be one of the core assets of the American consumer.

Hm......

Where did all the money go.

fees.

And if you liked this, please let me know and I'll tell you about fees.

In the cold shade of the banana tree, on the rugged trail to the balcony.......