Fewer Jobs Means Fewer Jobs Lost, Right?
I know one should always look for silver linings and glasses half-full, etc., but the happy declarations that “Our programs (stimulus, Tarp, and massive Govt expansion, etc.) are working!” because the job loss numbers are recently declining, rather ignore the fact that as millions are out of work there are just fewer left around to put out of work, don’t they?
I mean, unless the country is going to simply straight-line into near zero employment and become like some other “failed-states”, we have to reach the reasonable “bottom” of what is possible in our economy, and there are no more jobs to lose without total, 100% collapse! I would guess that, nowadays, with government (including military & law enforcement and such) being such a large part of the employment numbers, somewhere around 30% unemployed is about all there is to go unless the economy and the government both have totally collapsed and we live in a sort of “Road Warriors-like” space. And as we approach that bottom, the 600,000 per month increases in unemployment now declining to 100,000 per month is hardly evidence of “improving” as much as evidence of reaching that “it can’t realistically get much lower” point.
Considering the true unemployment is thought to be about 18 or 20%, because so many people are hardly working, or giving up trying to find jobs, or used up their unemployment “benefits” and have no reason to register their status, we could hardly expect new figures to jump 600,000 per month anymore! It could easily be the case that we are so near the bottom we won’t see much bigger declines anymore, but might just bump along the bottom with small numbers for a long time.
