It was big news when bank charge offs exceeded $40 billion in 2008’s fourth quarter.  It was the first time in history that wrote off more than $40 billion in uncollectable loans.  Since then, you’ve probably heard nothing about bank charge offs, unless you follow CERF. We think bank charge off data are important, because… Read more

The United States Employment Situation was released this morning and the glimmer of hope that I had been nurturing as the February, March, and April data came out has been weakened. While the May public sector jobs result was like I forecasted, the private sector jobs result was much weaker. Non-farm jobs increased 54 thousand… Read more

This is a short note about our forecast of the May labor market. We are still bearish on the overall economy with the usual suspects: banking, real estate, and the labor market weighing against vigorous growth. From the April results, the broad measure of unemployment (including under-employed & marginally attached to labor force) was still… Read more