Yes, we’ve already seen some of the speech. The Council of Economic Advisors reported that the stimulus has created a million jobs that otherwise wouldn’t have been created. Republicans disagree, Democrats are patting themselves on the back. Regardless, unemployment is now at 9.7% and it is going higher. The scary thing is the underemployed - those working less than full time. It’s additional ~7%. And the length of the work week is at record lows and wages are declining. The situation is not good for the unemployed and worrisome for the employed. Plus we all know that employment is a lagging indicator with job losses continuing to increase even while the economy is improving. If Schumpeter is right, there will be a lot of permanently eliminated jobs.
It all depends on how you look at statistics and what you take out of them to put them to good use for your trading. 
The equity market was jittery on both sides because this was a bifurcated number. In other words, the percentage (9.7%) was higher than the 9.5% the market was looking for. Indeed it is the highest rate since 1983. That puts a Scare Factor into the public because that�s the number that gets picked up in general media which the public see.
However what knowledgeable traders and investors look at is the Payroll data, which only fell by 216,000, which was much less than what was expected. In fact wages grew 0.3% and the work-week was unchanged.
[U]From a trader�s point of view, this was equity market friendly. But from the point of view of the public, this seemed to be equity-market unfriendly. Indeed you did see the public selling on the number.[/U]
[B]It is these perceptions that drive the market. They are actually not perceptions as much as they are the way that the public have been taught to look at statistics.[/B]
And analysts are more than happy to support these perceptions because they have been taught to look at statistics the same way as the public…
[B]Chodi,[/B]
Please read article below how close we were to some World financial disaster only 1 year ago. It still has the potential to cause upheaval in global financial Markets even today and in the future. That’s why the UK government [U]declines to release certain information[/U] as stated in the article below.
This article has been published by [B]Bloomberg[/B] and has been double checked in regards to sources and accuracy. So it’s more than credible.
Do you think it’s any different in the US or other countries in Europe…?
[B][U]U.K. Faced ‘Bank Runs, Riots’ as RBS and HBOS Neared Collapse [/U][/B]
A year ago today, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and HBOS Plc were close to collapse, causing a chain reaction that could have ended with riots in U.K. cities, security analysts and economists said.
[B]Bank failures would have forced the government to cancel police leave and deploy troops as the [U]breakdown of the financial payments system[/U] threatened the ability of utilities to provide essential services[/B], said David Livingstone, a fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, a former adviser to the government’s Cobra crisis response committee.
“You are talking about a situation with mass disorder and panic,” the former Royal Navy officer said in an interview. There would be “riots, pandemonium, everyone fending for themselves.”
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, Bank of England Governor Mervyn King and Financial Services Authority Chairman Adair Turner met at 5 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2008, and readied a 250 billion-pound ($398 billion) rescue for the banks in the 16 hours before they opened for business the following day. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Bloomberg News one year on, [U]the Treasury declined to say if it had a contingency plan for the two banks, then or now.[/U]
[U][B][I]Releasing such information would probably “have a destabilizing effect on financial markets,” damage the government decision-making process and cause commercial harm to the banks involved, the Treasury said in a letter.[/I][/B][/U]
“In the current economic climate, economic perception, even if totally misconceived, is important and has the capacity to alter market behavior,” the government said. “To confirm or deny whether or not the information is held, either in relation to the banks mentioned in your request or more generally” would hurt the banks and the U.K.’s economic interests.
‘Catastrophic’ Costs
[B]The crisis last year was the worst Britain had faced in peacetime, Darling told the British Broadcasting Corp. last month. The two banks were not “confident they could get to the end of the day,” on Oct. 7, King told the same program.[/B]
[U]“You would have had unmitigated panic and a bank run,” said Tom Kirchmaier, a fellow at the London School of Economics. “People would not have been able to buy bread.[/U] The cost to the economy would have been catastrophic.”
U.K. Faced ‘Bank Runs, Riots’ as RBS and HBOS Neared Collapse - Bloomberg.com