Very soon we will have employment/unemployment numbers for 2007. Initially they will be O.K. The statistical model that BLS is using ignores the 5% of the work force that has been out of work for a year or more, and 80% of the remainder of the employment number is based on population, not real/actual employment numbers.
Since population is still headed up, the employment numbers will still be O.K. despite the construction, real estate, and finance layoffs. We will continue to see un-employment numbers below 5% through the middle of 2008, and most of America will still believe that we are not in a real recession, just a real estate slow down. The real un-employment numbers are already about 10% and growing.
The real kicker is that inflation will continue to grow, and is already in the neighborhood of 10% per year if calculated the same way it was in the 1970’s. The “new” way ignores most upticks by geometrically weighting increases and changing the “bread basket” to include a lot of “magic” calculations to lower the CPI in order to overstate the GDP. GDP is already negative and has been for some time if inflation is calculate in a non-political way.
So America has probably been in a recession for most of 2007, but the media and most of American do not know, nor understand why or what it means. So as long as the talking heads tell everyone that the economic numbers look good, the market and housing will stay “bubbled”. Even if ma and pa kettle are underwater, they will believe that a turn around is just ahead. Or at least until a real economic event like the trillions is credit default swaps based on mortgages explode.