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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NOW who wrote (1308)	3/5/2004 3:01:45 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

"The Lehman Brothers Global Economics team believes that the weak payrolls number may even be worse than at first glance. In addition to the weak 21,000 additions to the workforce, net revisions to the prior two months' payrolls reports subtracted another 23 thousand jobs, for a net of -2,000. Though the number may have been held down a bit by poor weather's effect on construction jobs (-24 thousand), this still paints a convincing picture of continuing employment troubles. The average duration of unemployment increased to 20.3 weeks, another negative indicator. The household survey also showed weakness - people leaving the labor force (-392 thousand) and fewer people employed (-265 thousand). " With the revisions we really had a loss.

To: NOW who wrote (1308)	3/5/2004 3:11:59 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

How bad were the numbers REALLY? [This post, including the comments by Pituophis on the FOOL] quote.bloomberg.com The unemployment rate was forecast to hold at 5.6 percent, based on the Bloomberg survey for the Labor Department report. The labor participation rate, which measures the number of people employed or looking for jobs, fell to 65.9 percent from 66.1 percent, as 588,000 people left the work force. February's participation rate was the lowest since September 1988. ======================================================= wow! I knew it was several hundred thousand - but 588,000 left the work force in February??? wow, again.... ...and yet payrolls increased by 21K? HAAA!

To: NOW who wrote (1308)	3/5/2004 3:13:30 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116555

housing mises.org There is a strong likelihood that the U.S. housing market bubble has already reached dangerous dimensions. The trend adjusted house price index has been following an explosive growth path. After falling to -44 in Q2 1997 the trend adjusted house price index jumped to +60 in Q4 2003. There are a lot of similarities in this regard with Japan in the 1980's and early 1990. During that period the trend-adjusted price index followed an accelerating growth path. A major reversal in this growth path took place after 1990 with the trend adjusted house price index plunging to -350 in Q3 2003 against a peak of +640 in Q3 1990. It seems to us therefore that the Fed is barking up the wrong tree. It is not possible to fix the housing market problem by fixing symptoms. What is needed is to restrain the Fed from its reckless monetary policies, which structurally distort the economic environment and give birth to various ugly symptoms