The Fed's Forecast on Unemployment, Inflation, and GDP

Fed data released Tuesday (2/24/09):

Delinquency rates on home mortgages in 4th quarter 2008: Almost 7% of outstanding mortgages

Unemployment rate in 4th quarter 2008: 7.6%, expected to rise to 8.8% this year

The Consumer Board's Consumer Confidence Index: 25, lowest level since data were first collected in 1967

February 2009 views on the job market:

"Jobs are hard to get": 48% of people surveyed, highest since Feruary 1992

"Expect jobs to decrease in the months ahead": 47%, highest percentage since December 1973

The Fed's Economic Forecast for the Next Few Years:

Unemployment, Inflation, GDP

US Unemployment Rate: 1994 - 2008

The unemployment rate crept up to 6.5% in October from 6.1% in September. This is the highest it has been since 1994. So far in 2008, 1.179 million jobs have been lost.

US Unemployment Rate: 1994 - 2008

In retail sales, usually the last bastion of employment for those thrown out of other jobs, the cumulative number of jobs lost since November 2007 ( a year ago) is 325,000.

Cumulative Jobs Lost in Retail Since November 2007

Credit Derivatives and the Modern Financial System

University of Chicago Economist and Nobel Laureate Gary Becker on the state of the economy:

U.S. unemployment 1931-1941: 25 percent
U.S. unemployment September 2008: 6.1 percent

The main problem with the modern financial system based on widespread use of derivatives and securitization is that while financial specialists understand how individual assets function, even they have little understanding of how the whole incredibly complex financial system operates when exposed to various types of stress.

William Engdahl on Credit Default Swaps (CDS), (June 6, 2008):

Like many exotic financial products which are extremely complex and profitable in times of easy credit, when markets reverse, as has been the case since August 2007, in addition to spreading risk, credit derivatives, in this case, also amplify risk considerably.

Now the other shoe is about to drop in the $62 trillion CDS market due to rising junk bond defaults by US corporations as the recession deepens. That market has long been a disaster in the making. An estimated $1,2 trillion could be at risk of the nominal $62 trillion in CDOs outstanding, making it far larger than the sub-prime market.

No regulation

A chain reaction of failures in the CDS market could trigger the next global financial crisis. The market is entirely unregulated, and there are no public records showing whether sellers have the assets to pay out if a bond defaults. This so-called counterparty risk is a ticking time bomb. The US Federal Reserve under the ultra-permissive chairman, Alan Greenspan and the US Government’s financial regulators allowed the CDS market to develop entirely without any supervision. Greenspan repeatedly testified to skeptical Congressmen that banks are better risk regulators than government bureaucrats.

Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, on the use of credit derivatives (e.g., CDOs) to transfer risk outside the banking system (May 5, 2005):

Use of Credit Derivatives to Transfer Risk outside the Banking System
Perhaps the most significant development in financial markets over the past ten years has been the rapid development of credit derivatives. Although the first credit derivatives transactions occurred in the early 1990s, a liquid market did not emerge until the International Swaps and Derivatives Association succeeded in standardizing documentation of these transactions in 1999. According to the BIS, the notional value of credit derivatives outstanding increased sixfold between 2001 and 2004, reaching $4.5 trillion in June of last year. Moreover, this growth has been accompanied by significant product innovation, notably the development of synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), which allow the credit risk of a portfolio of underlying exposures to be divided or "tranched" into different segments, each with different risk and return characteristics. Recent growth of credit derivatives has been concentrated in these more-complex structured products.

As is generally acknowledged, the development of credit derivatives has contributed to the stability of the banking system by allowing banks, especially the largest, systemically important banks, to measure and manage their credit risks more effectively. In particular, the largest banks have found single-name credit default swaps a highly attractive mechanism for reducing exposure concentrations in their loan books while allowing them to meet the needs of their largest corporate customers. But some observers argue that what is good for the banking system may not be good for the financial system as a whole. They are concerned that banks' efforts to lay off risk using credit derivatives may be creating concentrations of risk outside the banking system that could prove a threat to financial stability. A particular concern has been that, as credit spreads widen appreciably at some point from the extraordinarily low levels that have prevailed in recent years, losses to nonbank risk-takers could force them to liquidate their positions in credit markets and thereby magnify and accelerate the widening of credit spreads.²

A definitive evaluation of these concerns about nonbank risk-takers would require information on the extent of credit risk transfer outside the banking system and on the identities and risk-management capabilities of the entities to which the risk has been transferred. Unfortunately, available data do not provide this information.

Credit Default Swaps (CDS) Growth 2001-2007
Notional Amount in Trillions of Dollars

US Unemployment Levels and Rate: 1998 - 2008

The US unemployment rate among those 16 and older rose in August 2008 to 9.376 million unemployed, a nearly 30% year-over-year increase and the highest number in over 10 years.

US Unemployment Level: 1998 - August 2008 (Millions)

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

In August 2008 the US unemployment rate stood at 6.1%, only .2% short of the level reached during the 1991 recession.

US Unemployment Rate: 1998 - August 2008

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Unemployment rates, 2000-2008

Unemployment rates from January 2000 - July 2008, including those who have given up looking and those who are employed part-time but seeking full-time employment:

Source: Wall Street Journal

Unemployment rates in July 2008 are now almost equal to those of the recession of 2001.