April Payrolls +165,000, 7.5% Unemployment Rate, Participation Rate Flat At 1979 Levels

Zero hedge ^

[Wyatt's Torch]

This data from the St. Louis Fed is in units:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ALTSALES

Using dollars to report vehicle sales would have all kinds of price/mix issues which would make the numbers pretty useless IMHO.

[bert]

U6 unemployment rate

[SoCal Pubbie]

I’d be delighted to be working 34.4 hrs a week at the same pay I was getting in April of 2009, since I’d be paid $1075 at that rate. Instead I’m making $504 for working 42 hours right now.

[MichaelCorleone]

“This market may be headed much higher still.”

I appreciate your entire post, and this one line in particular is encouraging to me as it implies there may still profits to be had.

Hopefully from now on I’ll take my cue from what the market - and the market only - is showing me.

[Longbow1969]

I appreciate your entire post, and this one line in particular is encouraging to me as it implies there may still profits to be had.

I just want to be clear that I think our economy is sick and eventually we are going to pay the piper for all this debt and overspending. In the meantime though, endless QE along with European weakness makes the US market sort of the only game in town. I mean, even bad news is good news for the markets because they read it as a sign of more QE. Additionally, we've seen a lot of strong earnings that suggest American businesses are in decent health.

Hopefully from now on I’ll take my cue from what the market - and the market only - is showing me.

Yeah, be really careful of overly ideological market analysis. I love sites like ZeroHedge, but at this point those guys have gone from warning of catastrophe to almost hoping for it (maybe to prove themselves right?). A similar thing happened to many conservatives during the Clinton years. Many missed the boat because they couldn't believe anything could go well under such a crappy President.

Saying all that, there is going to be a reckoning eventually. I think what we are seeing is that debt ridden nations can kick the can down the road a lot further than many believed. In the meantime though, I suspect there is still a lot of money to be made.