John William at ShadowStats has examined and corrected the government's latest unemployment data. The result: the effective unemployment/underemployment rate in this country is now 21.4% (that's the blue line in the graph). The government's own U6 index (the gray line--which the government claims to be the broadest measure of unemployment/underemployment) has risen to 16.8%. This index omits millions of people who have given up searching for jobs that don't exist; the government claims that they are "out of the work force" and ignores them.
In the meantime, the commercial real estate crack-up proceeds without let up, a new round of mortgage resets will begin in the new year (this time it's Alt-A mortgages--millions of them), and credit card defaults continue to reach unprecedented heights (unprecedented since last month when they reached unprecedented heights, and the month before when they did, and the month before that, etc). And sometime in early 2010, half the homeowners carrying mortgages will find themselves underwater--i.e., the balance on their mortgages will exceed the value of their homes. Gerald Celente of Trends Research is predicting the worst commercial Christmas in history, the aftermath of which will wipe-out countless marginal businesses that are at present hanging on only by their fingernails.
So in the final quarter of 2009, we are trillions of dollars in debt because of "stimulus" programs and bail-outs (the Plan A of both the Bush and Obama administrations), yet have absolutely nothing to show for it. What's Plan B?
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