Unemployment Rate Drops to 8.6%

     To toot my own horn just a little bit I have been pretty clear the last few months that I believe that on balance the U.S. economy is improving and that the main threat to recovery is actually Europe. We have met the enemy and it isn't-mostly-us. This threat remains: the Europeans need to get their act together and only their failure could possibly threaten us.

     Outside of this we are recovering, even expanding. It was Mark Zandi who had said back in the spring that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy were the best they have been in 20 years. At the time this seemed bizarre as the U.S. economy saw it's growth slow to a crawl in the first half. Even now it's hard to necessarily agree with that wholeheartedly but as Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics said: "Something good is happening in the U.S. economy."

     "The country added 120,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy has generated 100,000 or more jobs five months in a row — the first time that has happened since April 2006, long before the Great Recession set in."

     Meanwhile the 8.6% unemployment rate is the lowest in two and a half years. The last time it was this low was in March 2009, two months after he came into office.

     "The household survey picks up hiring by companies of all sizes, including small businesses and startups. It has shown an average of 321,000 jobs created per month since July, compared with an average of 13,000 the first seven months of the year"

     "When the economy is improving or slipping into recession, many economists say, the household survey does the better job of picking up the shift because it is more likely to detect small business hiring."

      "The unemployment report was the latest encouraging indicator for the economy. Other reports this week have shown that factories are producing more, construction is growing, and people are buying more cars."

       "And Americans spent a record $52.4 billion over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade group. A separate report from MasterCard found spending was up almost 9 percent from last year."

      http://www.startribune.com/business/134894308.html