The Debts of the Spenders: Temp Jobs Mask Governmentt Lies

I cannot claim to be the first one out there to tell traders not to fight the tape. But I hope this message gets out for further warnings ahead. There has been a consistent trend of Non-Farm Payroll numbers going to the upside. Even in this economy.

Kathy Lien, forex analyst extraordinaire, has a great piece on fading the NFP #s:

http://www.kathylien.com/site/non-farm-payrolls/
fading-non-farm-payrolls


But move away from trading for a moment, here's a closer look at the macro-fundamental reality:

_The 9.4 percent May unemployment rate is based on 14.5 million Americans out of work. But that number doesn't include discouraged workers, people who gave up looking for work after four weeks. Add those 792,000 people, and the unemployment rate is 9.8 percent.

_The official rate also doesn't include "marginally attached workers," or people who have looked for work in the past year but stopped searching in the past month because of barriers to employment such as child care, poor health or lack of transportation. Add those 1.4 million people, and the unemployment rate would be 10.6 percent.

_The official rate also doesn't include "involuntary part-time workers," or the 2.2 million people like Noel who took a part-time job because that's all they could get, plus those whose work hours dropped below the full-time level. Once those 9.1 million workers are added to the unemployment mix, the rate would be 16.4 percent.

All told, nearly 25 million Americans were either unemployed, underemployed or had given up looking for a job in May.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_becoming_a_statistic