HAPPY LABOR DAY WEEKEND, AMERICA

Here's a nice labor pool workup for you from the crew at Zero Hedge.

We discover that i) 7.6 Million absolute jobs have been lost since the beginning of the Recession; ii) that a record 10.5 Million jobs (and you won't find this statistic anywhere), have been lost when factoring in for the natural growth of the Labor Pool of 90-100K a month (we use the lower estimate, which also happens to be the CBO's estimate), and that iii) assuming we expect to return to the jobs baseline level as of December 2007 (or an unemployment rate of 5%) by the end of Obama's second term (and we make the big assumption there will be a second term), Obama needs to create 230,000 jobs each and every month consecutively from September through November 2016 in order for the total jobs lost to be put back into the labor force, and that iv) an optimistic (if more realistic) projection of jobs returning to the work force means the return the baseline will occur in 2019, some 12 years after the start of the last recession. The point of these observations is not to cast political blame on either party: we are in this predicament due to the combined stupidity, corruption and greed of both parties. The question is how do we get out of here. And unfortunately for all those hoping that a return to a normal, baseline past is possible, please forget it (i.e., the New Normal is really real), at least for the next 7 years. This also means that any charting, technical analysis and other "reversion to the mean" approaches of forecasting the future will all end up sorely lacking and misrepresenting the final outcome.  

Let that sink in for a bit there.  Best case scenario is we're back to December 2007 employment levels in this country sometime around the end of Obama's second term at the end of 2016.  Worst case?  We never get there period.  Now let's throw in the very realistic scenario that we're heading back into recession right now and it's not the phrase "lost decade" but "lost generation" that you need to be thinking about.

Now imagine Congress filled with the likes of Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Joe Miller and Michele Bachmann, and you start coming to the same conclusions I do.

Bend over and assume the position.

Happy Labor Day Weekend.