- [US Has Zero Jobs Growth, First Time Since World War II
Economy Gains No Jobs in August, Rate Holds at 9.1%-> http://www.cnbc.com/id/44370439]


- U.S. Showed No Job Growth in August; Rate Stays at 9.1%

By SHAILA DEWAN The economy showed no job growth in August, the first time there has been no increase in net jobs in the United States in 11 months.
The flat performance in the job market was down sharply from a revised 85,000 gain of jobs in July, the Labor Department said Friday, and was far below a consensus forecast by economists of 60,000. The unemployment rate stayed constant at 9.1 percent in August.
The nonfarm payrolls numbers were unchanged in August after a prolonged increase in economic anxiety that began with the brinksmanship in Washington’s debt-ceiling debate and was followed by the country’s loss of its triple-A credit rating, stock market whiplash and renewed concerns about Europe’s sovereign debt.
The jobs figure, a monthly statistical snapshot by the Department of Labor, may appear more negative because it does not include 45,000 Verizon workers who were on strike when the survey was taken.
Economists blamed both sluggish demand for goods and services and the heightened uncertainty over the economy’s direction for the slow pace of job creation, saying political deadlock was in effect creating economic paralysis.
“Business confidence surveys have uniformly pointed to businesses who are not laying off workers, but who are holding off on hiring while they wait for a clearer outlook — an outlook that became much cloudier and more volatile” beginning with the debt-ceiling battle in July, said Ellen Zentner, the senior United States economist for Nomura Securities.


- CHART OF THE DAY: THE SCARIEST JOBS CHART EVER
Joe Weisenthal | It's jobs day, so of course today's CHART OF THE DAY is the latest update of this classic, which we've dubbed The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever.
What the chart (made by Calculated Risk) shows is the trajectory of job losses and gains during the great recession, compared to previous recessions.
So as you can see, the depth of the decline was much worse than any other recession, and what's more, the pace of the recovery is much weaker than in previous ones. Over a year it was looking as though the recovery might be kind of V-Shaped (a really big, wide V), but now it's clear that the comeback won't look anything like the decline. And now the comeback is basically flatlining.
Yeah, scary.


- Black Unemployment Jumped To STAGGERING New Highs In August

Grace Wyler | While the overall U.S. employment situation is dismal, today's jobs report shows the crisis is much worse for minorities.
The unemployment rate for black Americans spiked to a shocking 16.7% in August, up from 15.9% the previous month. It's now the highest it has been during Barack Obama's presidency, up from the previous record of 16.5% in March and April 2010.
The unemployment rate for black males rose a whole percentage point to 18%. Even more staggeringly, the black youth unemployment rate in August was 46.5%, up from 39.2% in July.
The unemployment rate among Hispanics was also considerably higher than the national average, at 11.3%.
Now here's the No. 1 cause of the horrible jobs situation >


- [Here's
The No. 1 Cause Of The Horrible Jobs Situation-> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-1-cause-of-the-horrible-jobs-situation-2011-9]

Joe Weisenthal | Today is a bad day for Obama, and his economic policies (notably the stimulus) are being derided as a disaster.
But if you're not interested in politics, we can at least be honest: What's killing the jobs market is the ongoing contraction of the public sector.
In July, the private sector created 156,000 new jobs, but total non-farm payrolls grew by just 85,000, meaning, that public sector layoffs reduced employment by 70,000.
This month, private payrolls grew by 17,000, although that includes the 45,000 lost jobs from the Verizon strike.
Meanwhile, the public sector shed another 17,000 this month.
Obviously this is all state and local, since the Federal government hasn't shrunk.
These two charts tell the story. The first shows private payrolls continuing a fairly v-shaped recovery, while the second shows grinding declines in state and local employment.



- Un chroniqueur en vue perd les pédales devant la chute des marchés : Une mesure de la panique qui est en train de s'installer aux É.-U.

"The darn spectacle was getting up to these trillion dollars worth of debt and then thinking some action to try to address that is the spectacle is exactly half but backwards just as the interpretation if the government dumps a lot of money in the economy, they'll look like they're doing something," says CNBC's Rick Santelli.

Lors de la traditionnelle réunion estivale des banquiers centraux à Jackson Hole (Wyoming), aux Etats-Unis, Mme Lagarde a déclaré que les banques européennes avaient "besoin d'une recapitalisation urgente"
Sur la solidité des banques européennes, les deux rives de l'Atlantique ne s'accordent pas. Au Fonds monétaire international (FMI), qui insiste sur le "besoin d'une recapitalisation urgente", les établissements du Vieux Continent rétorquent qu'ils sont suffisamment forts.
Jeudi 1er septembre, les fédérations des banques allemandes et françaises sont montées au créneau pour défendre leurs institutions. Le gouverneur de la Banque de France, Christian Noyer, a fait de même plus tôt dans la semaine. Tous réagissaient aux propos tenus, samedi 27 août, par la nouvelle directrice générale du FMI, l'ancienne ministre de l'économie Christine Lagarde.
Lors de la traditionnelle réunion estivale des banquiers centraux à Jackson Hole (Wyoming), aux Etats-Unis, Mme Lagarde a déclaré que les banques européennes avaient "besoin d'une recapitalisation urgente", doutant qu'elles soient"suffisamment solides pour faire face aux risques" des dettes publiques et d'une faible croissance. De quoi faire enrager le lobby bancaire, qui ne cesse de vantersa résistance.
Depuis la crise de 2008, les banques européennes se sont dotées de plus de 270 milliards d'euros de capital dit "dur" – c'est-à-dire d'excellente qualité –, soit une hausse d'environ 50 %, estiment les analystes de Citi, dans une note publiée fin août. A la BNP, on explique que, depuis 2008, les fonds propres ont connu la même augmentation qu'au cours des 150 années précédentes…
Mais, depuis la crise des subprimes, la donne a changé. Aujourd'hui, plus personne ne s'inquiète de savoir qui détient encore des prêts hypothécaires "pourris" ou des produits structurés douteux dans son bilan. Ils ont pourtant fait figure de créances maudites en leur temps. Désormais, c'est l'exposition aux dettes souveraines de la zone euro qui fait peur.
LE PONT DU "TITANIC"
Et les efforts de transparence n'ont pas suffi à calmer les esprits. Comme aux pires heures qui ont suivi la faillite de la banque d'affaires américaine Lehman Brothers en 2008, les banques hésitent de plus en plus à se prêter entre elles.
Les stress tests, dont les résultats ont été publiés mi-juillet, avaient pourtant fait la lumière sur l'exposition des banques aux "maillons faibles" de la zone euro. Mais le doute persiste. "Il faut connaître l'exposition réelle", insiste Thomas Philippon, professeurs d'économie à l'université de New York.
Les banques, qui s'évertuent à rassurer sur leur exposition au risque grec, jugé limité, n'y parviennent pas. Selon le Financial Times, le régulateur international des pratiques comptables (IASB) estime que certains établissements n'ont pas assez provisionné pour faire face à la perte de valeur des titres grecs dans leur portefeuille. Leur bilan serait donc plus dégradé qu'ils ne veulent bien l'admettre.
En fait, leur solidité – supposée ou réelle – "dépend beaucoup du jugement que l'on fait de la crise de la zone euro", assure Nicolas Véron, économiste au centre de réflexion Bruegel. Toujours prompts à imaginer le pire, les marchés n'hésitent pas à s'effrayer avec le scénario catastrophe d'un éclatement de la zone euro.
Or, si la Grèce entraînait dans sa chute l'Italie et l'Espagne, une augmentation de capital n'y ferait rien. Cela reviendrait même à "ranger les chaises sur le pont du Titanic", ironise M. Philippon. Les banques, comme les autorités européennes, n'envisagent en aucun cas ce scénario.
Quant au FMI, il se pose peut-être la question de savoir ce qu'il adviendrait en cas de défaut… partiel. Ni la banqueroute ni le sauvetage. On ne peut pas se permettreun défaut de l'Espagne et de l'Italie, mais pas "un chèque en blanc" non plus, estime M. Philippon. Or, "pour ces scénarios intermédiaires, il se peut que [les banques] n'aient pas suffisamment de capital", conclut l'économiste.

La crise a fait bondir les dépenses publiques dans les pays de l'Union européenne.
Un comble pour un pays connu pour son libéralisme: en 2010, l'Irlande a été, au sein de l'Union européenne, la championne de la dépense publique! Celle-ci a représenté 67% du PIB, selon les calculs réalisés par l'Institut européen des statistiques - Eurostat - qui vient de publier un palmarès de la dépense publique au sein des vingt-sept pays européens.
La France, avec une dépense publique représentant 56% de la richesse nationale, n'est «que» troisième, précédée du Danemark. Si ces deux États traditionnellement dépensiers ont été doublés par l'Irlande, l'an dernier, c'est parce que Dublin a été contraint à un vaste plan de recapitalisation de ses banques.
D'une façon générale, la crise a fait bondir les dépenses publiques en Europe, qui sont passées de 45,6% du PIB en 2007 à 50,3% du PIB en 2010. Face à la montée du chômage, les États ont préféré laisser augmenter les aides sociales.
Les budgets liés à la protection sociale et à la santé représentent à eux seuls 54% des dépenses publiques dans les pays européens. Difficile de parler d'externalisation pour les budgets sociaux. Dans ces domaines, les économies se font plutôt en ciblant mieux les allocations…
La gestion de prisons externalisée au Royaume-Uni
Les fonctions régaliennes classiques - défense, justice, police, diplomatie, administration fiscale, etc. - sont le deuxième poste de dépenses pour les États européens. Elles peuvent être déléguées à des acteurs privés, sur certains segments. Le Royaume-Uni a été pionnier en la matière, en confiant à des entreprises la gestion de prisons. Autre exemple outre-Manche, toute la gestion du siège du ministère de l'Intérieur (accueil, restauration, logistique) est confiée à une entreprise, en l'occurrence Bouygues. La France se met elle aussi à l'externalisation, mais dans des proportions bien moindres.
Plus fondamentalement, le poids des différents budgets est le reflet de choix politiques. La Grèce consacre ainsi 3,6% de son PIB à son armée, alors que les budgets de défense absorbent en moyenne 1,6% du PIB dans l'Union européenne. Les États consacrent également des sommes très différentes à l'éducation, allant de 7% à 8% du PIB pour les meilleurs (Danemark, Suède, Chypre, Estonie) à 4,5% pour les lanternes rouges que sont la Bulgarie et la Grèce. La France est dans la moyenne haute, l'Allemagne en bas de classement. Selon le classement Eurostat, l'éducation est le troisième poste des dépenses publiques dans l'Union.

Simone Foxman | Sep. 2, 2011, 9:33 AM |
Eject Crash
UPDATE: European markets are now closed.
Here are your numbers:
DAX: -3.33%
FTSE MIB: -3.89%
Athens: -3.98%
As if collateral problems were not enough to freak out investors, now there's more bad news to destroy any semblance of confidence building in European markets this week.
The DAX is down 3.24%, the FTSE 100 is down 2.28%, Italian FTSE MIB is down 3.29%, and Athens is down 3.49%. Bond spreads are sharply increasing between Germany and the periphery, and Greek yields are going nuts.
Bad employment numbers and new impediments to the Greek bailout package (it's not just collateral anymore, folks) top the list of bad headlines today.
Let's summarize:
- Greece has paused negotiations with the EU/ECB/IMF to do technical investigations on its data. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos says this break is "scheduled," but if follows closely a report that Greece will not meet its deficit-cutting and privatization goals.
- The EU is no closer to any solution on the collateral agreement Finland wants to participate in the Greek bailout. This could jeopardize the success of the bailout in two different ways. Dutch, German, and Finnish finance ministers will meet Tuesday to discuss.
- Unemployment in Spain is still on the rise, with 51,185 more people out of work in August, according to Spanish newspaper ABC.
- German daily Bild (via Der Spiegel) reports that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble wants to propose a new EU treaty that would strengthen the monetary-policy powers of the EU to combat the sovereign debt crisis. German MPs have become increasingly isolationist of late -- not to mention critical of PM Angela Merkel late -- meaning Merkel's coalition is teetering on the brink. This also suggests that even highly powerful policymakers are freaking out about the euro crisis.
- Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi just can't get a break. He was recorded as saying, "In a few months I'm going to go away and mind my own f****** business. I'm leaving this s*** country that makes me feel like puking." Anyone who believed him before will have to seriously reevaluate that trust.

Consumer confidence has slumped to levels normally associated with recession in the US, UK and Germany in a reversal of the recovery seen earlier this year.
The US Conference Board’s index of consumer sentiment fell from 59.2 in July to 44.5 this month, the lowest level since the depth of the 2009 recession. In the European Union the EU Commission’s economic sentiment index dipped below the economic contraction line in August.
UK recession?
Data from GfK NOP showed UK consumer confidence slumped again in August back to -31, a level not seen since the recession of the early 1990s and 2008-9.
Trying to grow economies against such a headwind is impossible. Consumer spending accounts for 70 per cent of GDP in the US with the EU and UK in a similar position.
The specter of a double-dip recession is upon us, and with growth very low in the case of the US and virtually gone in the EU and UK this must be judged a near certainty and not a 50:50 chance as markets expect.
Financial markets that have turned volatile over the summer will turn deadly dangerous this autumn and those advising their clients to hold on will be again shown up as self-serving charlatans.
Yesterday the price of gold jumped 2.8 per cent and silver by 3.7 per cent. The recent sell-off was a great buying opportunity but that window of opportunity is closing fast.
For stocks we can only be a matter of weeks at the most until the market tips over. The obvious cause will be some kind of banking crisis in the eurozone, and there are so many possible candidates it is impossible to say who might bring this house of cards down.
ECB stuck
The ECB is being attacked for exceeding its mandate by powerful German politicians and constitutional lawyers for buying Spanish and Italian bonds recently. Yet it raised interest rates in July and made things tougher for European banks by tightening liquidity.
This does not bode well for a central bank rescue this autumn in the EU. The authorities may well reason that it will take more pain before their medicine will be accepted, and that could still be the wrong one.
It therefore looks as though the Lehman moment is coming with the EU allowing its banking crisis to get out of control – a very worrying development as the ECB is just not the Fed.

The latest statistics are confirming a sudden slowdown in global trade this summer that is reminiscent of what happened three years ago before the global financial crisis and credit freeze that brought global trade to a standstill. Is it happening all over again?
The Holland World Trade Monitor said global trade contracted by 2.2 per cent in June from July, back to the level of December 2010. This is clearly a slowdown though nothing quite to match 2008.
Asian slowdown
Japanese industrial production is also not showing the rebound from the March earthquake predicted by some economists and rose just 0.6 per cent in July. Korean industrial output fell 0.4 per cent in July. And Canadian GDP has just come in down a fraction in the second quarter.
Could this be the slowdown before the real fall into recession again? The pattern is certainly consistent with a reversal of the previous recovery trend. But it would need another global banking crisis to push trade flows really back down again.
However, there are ominous signs in global banking, particularly in the eurozone where inter-bank lending is becoming tighter. There is a lack of agreement among policymakers on what to do, and inaction can be all it takes in these circumstances.
It is always impossible to predict what it is that turns a slowdown into a slump in terms of an exact event. But you can see a mounting storm and a failure by policymakers to batten down the hatches properly.
Do these things become self-fulfilling with the approaching storm panicking key players who make it worse, or are they just saving themselves as any prudent individual would do in this situation?
1931 again?
In 1931 it was the collapse of the Credit Anstaldt in Austria that triggered the failure of thousands of US banks, well after the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
You could always hope that this time is different and that the central banks have learnt from their past errors. Yet the disarray and confusion in the eurozone about what to do suggests that is not the case, and let us not forget that the US authorities did decide to let Lehman go bankrupt in 2008, much as they have regretted it since.
So while nobody can be sure that this sudden slowdown in global trade will turn into another slump it would be very foolish to proceed as though it was not gong to happen because the probability is quite high based on recent experience and past precedent.