Trade Rains on the Jobs Parade
By: Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Capital
-- Posted Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Earlier this month the Labor Department reported that 227,000 new jobs were added to the economy in February, marking the third consecutive month of positive jobs growth. Many observers took the news as evidence that the recovery has taken hold in earnest, helping send the S&P 500 index to the highest level in nearly five years. However the very same day the Commerce Department reported that, after surging for much of the last year, the U.S. trade deficit increased to $52.6 billion for January, the largest monthly trade gap since October 2008. This second data set should dampen enthusiasm for the first.
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While the $52.6 billion deficit in January is still about 10% below the monthly average seen in 2006-2008, if GDP continues to nominally expand, as many assume it will, we may soon find ourselves in the exact same place in terms of trade that we were in before the financial crisis began. That's not a good place to be.
If the jobs that we have created over the last few years had been productive, our trade deficit would now be shrinking, not growing.
Full story: http://news.goldseek.com/EuroCapital/1332256658.php
Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months
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