March 13, 2010

Are we in the clear yet?

If these facts from David Rosenberg with Gluskin Sheff & Associates have anything to say about it, I don't think so:
  • More than five million homeowners are behind on their mortgages.

  • There are over six million Americans who have been unemployed for at least six months, a record 40% of the ranks of the jobless.

  • The private capital stock is growing at its slowest rate in nearly two decades.

  • Roughly 30% of manufacturing capacity is sitting idle.

  • Nearly 19 million residential housing units, or about 15% of the stock, is vacant.

  • One in six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed.

  • Commercial real estate values are down 30% over the past year.

  • The average American worker has seen his/her level of wealth plunge $100,000 over the last two years, even with the recovery in equity markets this past year.

  • Bank credit is contracting at an unprecedented 15% annual rate so far this year as lenders sit on a record $1.3 trillion of cash.

  • Unit labor costs are down an unprecedented 4.7% over the past year, and what has replenished household coffers has been the federal government, as transfer payments from Uncle Sam now make up a record 18% of personal income (and the Senate just passed yet another jobless benefit extension bill!)."

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