Daily Digest 9/11: What's the Real Unemployment Rate?

Economy

What Is The Real Unemployment Rate? (David B.)

According to the federal government, 96,000 jobs were added to the economy in August and the U.S. labor force shrank by 368,000 even though our population is continually growing. If the size of the U.S. labor force had stayed the same, the official unemployment rate would have actually gone up to 8.4 percent.

Why globally coordinated QE and higher gold prices are unavoidable (Taki T.)

Now QE will be globally coordinated. The point in all of this, is that all these countries need a weaker currency: they all try to debase their currency in order to inflate their debt away. Of course, if one country does it in a vacuum, then it works very well for them. But if all the other countries are doing it at the same time, then it’s a very difficult thing to pull off. So they are all going to push on the monetary pedal a lot harder to try and get ahead of the rest of the world.

The Secret Panic Of European Banks (David B.)

Instead of “the sky is falling,” we were warned (in the most shrill, hyperbolic terms) that we were facing nothing less than the total collapse of our financial systems and our entire economies…unless we listened closely to the bankers, and did exactly what they told us to do. To emphasize their point, the Banking Cabal deliberately “crashed” the global economy – the inevitable result when this banking oligopoly colluded to simultaneously cut-off all capital to an entirely debt-based economic system.

As Low Rates Depress Savers, Governments Reap Benefits (jdargis)

The fact that interest yields are so low in so many parts of the world is no coincidence. Rates are determined not only by markets, but also by government policy. And right now many governments say they have good reason to keep their own borrowing costs as low as they possibly can. Just last week, the government’s report on job growth in the United States showed continued weakness, and an international forecasting group warned that the European economic powerhouse, Germany, will fall into recession later this year.

Shell opens new oil frontier in Arctic with Chukchi Sea drilling (jdargis)

The work that began in the Arctic dawn is the first exploratory drilling in the Arctic since the early 1990s — when far less regulatory scrutiny was placed on the delicate ecosystem of the Far North. The project marks an important milestone for Alaska, where oil production has been declining steadily from the aging oil fields of Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk on the North Slope.

Saudi Arabia May Become Oil Importer by 2030, Citigroup Says (Arthur Robey)

Saudi Arabia, which depends on oil for 86 percent of its annual revenue, is accelerating exploration for gas and is planning to develop solar and nuclear power to preserve more of its valuable crude for export. The kingdom has refused to import gas, unlike neighboring producers such as Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates that also lack fuel for power generation.

Greeks Searching For Cheaper Heating Solutions (Alan W.)

Countryside fuel stations whose turnover relied mostly on heating oil will now have to shut down, says Kiousis. However, fuel stations across the country are feeling the effects of the change in consumers’ home-heating practices. Very few trading companies now sell fuel on credit, he notes, as most prefer cash transactions, while a number of companies have been demanding cash in advance since last year.

OPEC has Probably Deceived Us About the Size of its Oil Reserves (James S.)

Keep in mind as we go along that the sometimes astronomical numbers thrown around for world oil reserves by the uninformed or by those who intend to mislead us either have no basis in fact or actually refer to "resources." Resources are only an estimate of oil thought to be in the ground based on rather sketchy evidence. And, most of that oil will never be recoverable. Reserves, however, are what can be produced at today's prices from known fields using existing technology. It turns out that reserves are only a tiny fraction of so-called resources.

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