Economic Outlook: Worsening picture in the US

The establishment can no longer lie and tell you things are improving. Knowing that they are liars, you then know that if they're saying things are 'worsening', that means we're on the verge of utter catastrophe.

And, of course, it will all be totally unexpected.

Financial Times -

Investors will this week be bracing themselves for signs that the US recovery is slowing, as a slew of economic data on the world’s largest economy is expected to paint a downbeat picture.

However, they face a challenge disentangling the effects of the removal of government stimulus programmes from the scale of the private sector recovery.

This week sees the release of the monthly US non-farm payrolls report, the most closely watched statistic in global markets.

The headline figure is expected to show a sharp drop in non-farm employment – but that is largely the effect of temporary workers hired to carry out the US census coming to the end of their contracts.

There was a decline of about 250,000 in the number of people working on the census this month from May, leading to consensus expectations of a drop of 75,000 in the headline non-farm payrolls figure.

That could push the US unemployment rate above its current level of 9.7 per cent, leading to fears that the recovery might stall.

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