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No Joy in Mudville - by Stephen Lendman
Indeed not. The equity markets struck out, or as highly respected analyst Louise Yamada believes: "Clearly, this cyclical bull is over," but it's worse than that with Western and other economies cratering.
Some hover close to collapse or may head there. The operative word is hard times, the beginning of leg two of the global Depression that begin in fall 2007, likely to exceed it in harshness and duration.
Only massive monetary intervention prevented collapse earlier. Doing it, however, exacerbated a major problem, the equivalent of treating a metastasizing cancer with snake oil remedies. As a result, the patient is in sickbay failing.
Perhaps hindsight will prove what many analysts now believe - that the August 4 market rout was a major negative inflection point. By early August 8 trading, in fact, America's S & P 500 lost all its gains for the past nine months. By day's end much more. Other markets also got hammered, and why not.
Weak economic data are, in fact, worse than reported by manipulating them to look better or omitting their fine print, let alone what they portend.
For example, Friday's employment report showed 117,000 jobs gained in contrast to the broader Household Survey showing thousands lost. Moreover, labor force participation and the employment rate both dropped to a 28-year low heading south.
But's its worse than that as economist Jack Rasmus explains, presenting his views often on the Progressive Radio News Hour.
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