There’s something very wrong with the US jobs market, as the slide above confirms. Commentators professed to be surprised by the disappointing May report last Friday, but its hard to know why: The overall participation rate has been in decline since July 1997, when it reached 68%: today it is only 62.7% Male participation is at […]
Chemicals and the Economy
UK’s ageing population causes earnings to decline
The UK economy appears to be recovering well from the financial crisis. But appearances can be deceptive. Certainly employment has risen for both men and women since 2009, and the jobless rate has fallen. But new data yesterday from the Office for National Statistics highlights how, despite these achievements, total incomes have been falling in real […]
US jobs growth fails to keep pace with population growth
The US population reached 320m this year, an 11.35m increase versus 2010, according to the US Census Bureau: “The U.S. is expected to experience a birth every 8 seconds and one death every 12 seconds, whilst net international migration is expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 33 seconds. All these factors […]
Market volatility jumps as Great Unwinding continues
As I have feared, major volatility is developing in financial and chemical markets, as the Great Unwinding of policymaker stimulus continues. The chart above shows the dramatic increase in the benchmark portfolio since the Unwinding began in mid-August: There was very little volatility from January until August, with prices generally remaining within +/- 10% Volatility then […]
US economic recovery at risk as energy bubble bursts
The bursting of the US energy bubble is looking more and more like a replay of the sub-prime bubble in 2008. As investor Warren Buffett has noted, “its only when the tide goes out, that you learn who has been swimming naked .” And nearly a year ago, former central banker William White warned the problems in the global economy were: “Worse […]
US jobless dominated by Blacks, Hispanics and those without high school diplomas
Financial markets today only care about one thing – whether central banks will continue to provide more low-cost financing to support higher asset prices. Thus markets liked last Friday’s weak US jobs report. They hoped that the US Federal Reserve would slow its tapering process as a result. This inverted logic explains why bad news for the […]
US incomes decline as job participation rate drops
There are two ways to approach last Friday’s monthly release of the US jobs figures: One is the Wall Street way, which is to bet on whether the numbers will be bad enough to persuade the Federal Reserve to boost its money printing operations The other is to look for clues as to what is […]
Working women changed Western economy after 1970
Household consumption is 60% of western GDP. So any economic forecast that simply assumes it will always increase is likely to prove badly wrong as BabyBoomers move into retirement. Of equal importance is the impact of women’s role in the workforce. They added a major boost to demand during the Supercycle, as dual-income households became […]
US job growth remains slow as Boomers leave the workforce
Last week’s US jobs report contained some good news, but not very much: • Employment inched up again to 136m. This is still below the 2007 peak of 139m – and never before has the number of jobs failed to rise over a 6 year period • Equally, disposable income fell back in Q1 to […]
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