"No doubt that we are seeing modestly positive growth in the economy and that the pace of job declines is moderating. We won’t quibble with the rose-coloured glass crowd on that. But the extent of any improvement has to be viewed in the perspective of the vast amount of fiscal and monetary resources that have been deployed to-date to try and bring the economy out of its malaise. If indeed the economy is fully out of recession then that first quarter of positive growth normally is 7.0% at an annual rate, not the pathetic 2.2% rate posted for the third quarter. And, considering that the Fed began to ease monetary policy back in the summer of 2007, what is normal typically 2½ years after the first rate cut is that real GDP is humming along at a 5.0% annual rate and employment isn’t declining at a slower rate but is booming. The fact that that the private domestic demand is still so stagnant following the greatest experiment with fiscal and monetary ease in recorded history, we have to admit, leaves us more than just a tad worried over the macro outlook and beyond."
"We started the decade with a national payroll level of 130.8 million. We finished the decade practically unchanged at 130.9 million. Meanwhile, the total pool of available labour rose from 146 million to 159 million. In other words, we have the same number of jobs today as we did a decade ago, and yet we also have 13 million more people competing for them. It was more than just a lost decade for the equity market. It was a lost decade for the labour market."
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