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-- at this stage of the economic cycle (two and a half years after Fed easing began), employment typically expands at least 150,000 per month; instead, it's still contracting, the level is 8.4 million lower than before the recession began, and the economy is 12 million jobs shy of full employment, a gap that will take years of sustainable growth to close;
-- commercial real estate values down 30% in the past year and falling;
-- the average American worker $100,000 poorer (including loss of home equity), even with the stock market rally;
-- bank credit contracting at an unprecedented 15% annual rate this year "as lenders sit on a record $1.3 trillion in cash;"
-- collapsed commercial and industrial loans;
-- Falling Gross Domestic Income, approaching an annualized minus 4% compared to the 1982 recessionary low of plus 4% and 2001 low of plus 2%; "the discrepancy between the income and spending accounts has never been so wide as" today; and
-- unit labor costs down 4.7% in the past year, meaning workers earn and spend less.
Conclusion - "the era of 'green shoots' is officially dead." Now you see them, now you don't because they never were there in the first place.
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