Economics Update

Something that everyone misses about this economy is that it is really all about jobs. Note that I am currently looking for a job, which makes me more aware of this.

Actually, it's not everyone who does not get that it's about jobs, ordinary people get it, which is why consumer confidence fell in July.

In any case, we should glad that we don't live in the UK, because "The Street", their version of Wall Street, owns their economy even more than that great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,* Goldman Sachs, owns our economy, and so the UK's GDP fell by 0.8% in the 2^nd Quarter, and 5.6% year over year, the largest slump ever recorded for Old Blighty.

The problem is that without jobs, there is no recovery, and the recovery programs spend a lot of times of the relative health of financial cephalopods,^† not the return of jobs.

It's beginning to increasingly look like real estate will lag any recovery, with major increases in the number of rental units and the vacancy rate, which has spiked to 10.6% as people who cannot sell their homes continue to rise, and US home vacancies hit 18.7 on bank seizures and walk-aways.

Still, the traders are optimistic, which is driving oil up and the dollar down.

^*Alas, I cannot claim credit for this bon mot, it was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.
^†You know, cephalopods, as in vampire squids, like Goldman Sachs