POWER WITHOUT CREDIBILITY, Part 2: A lost decade ahead

By Henry CK Liu

Part 1: Bogged down at the Fed

The US Federal Reserve faces an intractable problem of unemployment. Non-farm payroll employment in the United States continued to decline in July 2009, with the loss of 247,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4% for the second consecutive month, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August.

The average monthly job loss for May through July was 331,000 jobs, about half the average decline for November 2008 through April 2009, which lost 645,000 per month. Employment decreased by 117,000 a month on average during that period.