Sunday, September 11, 2011

US Employment Picture

Here is a nice graph from David Altig's Macroblog of the Atlanta Federal Reserve:

Click to Enlarge

The only healthy employment is in the service economy: education and health care. That is almost as bad a foundation for an economy as the ponzi scheme of selling houses to each other at ever higher prices which was the US strategy of 2002-2007.

Manufacturing has had a millstone around its neck for the last decade. America as an industrial giant is fast disappearing. Construction and government jobs used to be a reliable employment sector but have been trying to tread water but are in fact slowly sinking since early 2009. The "temp help" business is the only current "strength" in the US economy.

And into that mix this week came Barack "Jobs" Obama with his $450 billion tiny thumb to plug a leak in a vast oceanic dyke, the $10 trillion dollars of lost wealth and income since 2008.

What happened to the "can do" America? The pragmatic America? The cut out the crap and get the job done America?

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