And The Winner Is??

A current look at worldwide unemployment ranking.


Worldwide Unemployment



Source: Bespoke Investments

Lonely In The Desert

As I said in my January 1 post, "Things built on 'sand' will continue to struggle: California, Dubai, Arizona, Florida, and Las Vegas. Golf courses and cities are not naturally aligned with the habitat of a desert."

Nevada just grabbed the #1 spot in unemployment.  Time for a casino trip?

Viva Las Vegas

Bright light city gonna set my soul

Gonna set my soul on fire

Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn,

So get those stakes up higher

There's a thousand pretty women waitin' out there

And they're all livin' devil may care

And I'm just the devil with love to spare

Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas



How I wish that there were more

Than the twenty-four hours in the day

'Cause even if there were forty more

I wouldn't sleep a minute away

Oh, there's black jack and poker and the roulette wheel

A fortune won and lost on ev'ry deal

All you need's a strong heart and a nerve of steel

Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas



Viva Las Vegas with you neon flashin'

And your one armbandits crashin'

All those hopes down the drain

Viva Las Vegas turnin' day into nighttime

Turnin' night into daytime

If you see it once

You'll never be the same again



I'm gonna keep on the run

I'm gonna have me some fun

If it costs me my very last dime

If I wind up broke up well

I'll always remember that I had a swingin' time

I'm gonna give it ev'rything I've got

Lady luck please let the dice stay hot

Let me shout a seven with ev'ry shot

Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas,

Viva, Viva Las Vegas

Shadow Boxing The Facts

Shadow boxing is a technique that boxers use in training where they throw punches at the air. Its purpose is to increase muscle strength and to work on rhythm. Sometimes I wonder if the Fed isn't shadowboxing with the sheeple.

Shadowstats.com is a website dedicated to providing accurate data related to publically released government data. Over recent years, many metrics such as the consumer price index (CPI) and unemployment have had there definitions and formulas changed. This presents a great challenge when analyzing data on a historical basis. It's no longer "apples to apples". Often we like to compare a current cycle with one in the past. For instance, in the past two years, many have made comparisons to the Great Depression. If these metrics are not calculated the same way, then the comparisons are worthless.

Below are two graphs created by Shadowstats. Note the difference between accuracy and what is reported by the government and the media.

Note that real unemployment is much worse than being reported.

Note that the CPI formula was changed during Clinton's term.

As I always say, do your own research.

http://www.shadowstats.com/

A Spatial & Chronological Look At Unemployment

My buddy Bruce shared this one with me. A very interesting and unique approach:
http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

Worldwide Unemployment

Table provided by Casey Research:

Buffet on CNBC

Warren Buffet made some interesting comments this week:

"The government is going to play an enormous factor in our confidence."

On unemployment:
"Its going to go higher. Going to go a fair amount higher. Five years from now it should be running fine but I wish it would happen faster."

On inflation:
"Its hard to tell how severe it could be. We are certainly doing things that could lead to a lot of inflation. The best asset during inflation is your earning power - your own talent. Make yourself more valuable. The second best asset is a good business that you may own yourself or through equities."

On leverage:
“Leverage is the only way a smart guy can go broke … You do smart things, you eventually get very rich. If you do smart things and use leverage and you do one wrong thing along the way, it could wipe you out, because anything times zero is zero. But it’s reinforcing when the people around you are doing it successfully, you’re doing it successfully, and it’s a lot like Cinderella at the ball. The guys look better all the time, the music sounds better, it’s more and more fun, you think, ‘Why the hell should I leave at a quarter to 12? I’ll leave at two minutes to 12.’ But the trouble is, there are no clocks on the wall. And everybody thinks they’re going to leave at two minutes to 12.”

The Governor and The Onion

Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. summarizes California. The U.S. onion is peeling.

"Washington and Wall Street seem to be treating California as if it were a sideshow in the financial circus of these turbulent times. It's not. California is home to the largest manufacturing belt in the United States and to Silicon Valley, the nation's largest high-tech center. California is America's most populous state with 38 million people. Its GDP of $1.8 trillion is the largest in the U.S. Its economy is bigger than those of Russia, Brazil, Canada, or India. And it's collapsing."

"Major California counties are ground zero in the continuing mortgage meltdown: Los Angeles County with 5.32 percent of mortgages 90 days past due ... Monterrey County, 8.02 percent ... Imperial, 8.13 ... San Bernadino, 8.66 ... Madeira, 9.21 ... San Joaquin, 9.53 ... Riverside, 10.2 ... Merced, 10.57 ... and more! California's inventory of foreclosed homes is skyrocketing. Home prices are plunging. And the impact of surging unemployment is just beginning to show up in the data ..."

"The state's unemployment rate has surged to 11.5 percent, the worst since World War II. Last month, California lost 68,900 jobs. And since July 2007, it has lost 859,000 jobs, including 739,500 just in the past 12 months. Even if the economy recovers, an unlikely scenario in my view, economists agree that California will continue to be slammed by layoffs, at least through the end of this year and probably well into 2010."

"And even assuming a national recovery, UCLA's Anderson Forecast projects an average unemployment rate of 12.1 percent from this fall through next spring. What about without a national recovery? California's jobless could go beyond 15 percent. Worse, if you include part-time workers seeking full-time work plus workers who have given up looking entirely, it could reach 25 percent, exceeding the worst national unemployment levels of the Great Depression."

"Our wallet is empty. Our bank is closed. Andour credit is dried up."
Governer Arnold Schwarzenegger