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Next Generation, Waiting

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There has been little doubt that employment has been improving in the US.  From the trough three years ago 5M jobs have been created.  That’s not enough to fill the 12M or so that need to be created, but it’s a start – and it’s been steady progress.  But who is being left behind as the situation (very) slowly improves?

The most important group are the young who are looking for their first job.  Those 20-24 have a lifetime of expectations and habits created by the start of their career, and by any measure their outlook is not good.  While the economy transforms itself into whatever will create the next wave of opportunity the young are being left behind.  This is true throughout the developed world, particularly in Greece and Spain, but the problem is also acute here.  Let’s start by defining the problem.

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Housing Boom?

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Are you ready for a new housing boom?  It’s OK, I thought you might need a chuckle today.  But there are some analysts who seriously expect housing to lead the economy out of the slump of the last five years … much as it showed the way into this mess in the first place.  It’s probably overstating the upside dramatically, but there are signs of recovery or at least stability in the housing market overall.  It’s uneven and just starting, but this may be the latest sign that we are, in fact, more or less at the bottom right now and starting to turn up.

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Surviving, Thriving, Realizing

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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 (KJV)

Anyone who has been close to the edge knows what “survival mode” is like.  Small flashes of adrenaline propel you from one day to the next.  Each fitful dawn is a mix of dread and possibility, all of them taken one at a time.  Next week?  Worry about it when it comes.  Next month?  Forever away.

Many people find themselves in “survival mode” through this Depression, especially those without either work or unemployment bennies.  For them it is a slowly unfolding tragedy, but in great numbers they become a society, a culture, and an economy that is unable to function.  That’s because a free market only reaches equilibrium in the long run, actually running on small differences in the short term.  But in the very longest term the magic of market forces become something else altogether.

Everything has its own time.  When we start to understand that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” it helps to appreciate the short, long, and very long term that are all whipping us through each day and all of our days.

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Tale of Two Reports

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It was the best of reports, it was the worst of reports.  The story of jobs in the USofA continues to wind down like a Dickens novel, crammed of details and well defined moments lush with feeling and energy but lacking a strong, driving plot.  We know when it ends, of course – somewhere many pages from now in the election in November.  Exactly how it goes down is entirely another question.

But for August we have two job reports.  The ADP report showed a private employment gain of 200k, a wonderfully robust gain that suggests a strong economy is really turning the corner.  The official household survey from the Department of Labor came in with an incredibly weak 96k jobs gained, a number that is not really treading water.  Why the discrepancy?  What is the real state of jobs?  How will this play in the election?

Keep reading.  This novel is far from done.

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