CHESSNOID

This is very bearish news and if it proves to be true, I recommend preparing for the worse. We have only had 10% unemployment for 2 months officially, so if it maintains double digits for 5 years, things are going to be rough for everyone in every field.

According to Mike “Mish” Shedlock, he thinks the unemployment numbers “almost looked fabricated.” In his video he explains why he feels that way. In the excerpt below there are links to his data and analysis.

Mish: Nov. Jobs Report “Looked Fabricated”, Expect Harder Times in 2010

From President Obama on down, Americans are hoping Friday’s stronger-than-expected November jobs report marked the beginning of the end of our national unemployment nightmare.

Don’t get your hopes up, says Mike “Mish” Shedlock, author of Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis.

The November report was an “outlier” and “almost looked fabricated,” according to Shedlock, an investment advisor at SitkaPacific Capital Management

Looking beyond the November jobs data, Shedlock says the odds of the unemployment rate coming down anytime soon are remote.

Even based on generous assumptions of 150,000 new jobs per month, no double-dip recession and a declining participation rate as Baby Boomers retire, “the best I can do is suggest the unemployment rate will be over 10% all the way through 2015 and never dip below 8% all the way out through the end of 2020,” Mish says. (You can see the detailed analysis here on Mish’s blog and find a downloadable spreadsheet to make your own assumptions and predictions here.)

As confident as he is about the grim outlook for jobs, Shedlock was very reticent to make market predictions in the accompanying video, taped Friday evening at Minyanville’s annual Holiday Festivus in New York City.

“I think the best trade [of 2010] is for those that are nimble and able to roll with the punches whatever they come up with,” he said. “I don’t think realistically anyone knows what it’s going to be.”

In a subsequent email, Shedlock was more willing to take a position, as is more typical of the opinionated blogger:

“In the absence of a war outbreak in the Middle East or Pakistan — and/or Congress going completely insane with more stimulus efforts — I think oil prices are likely to drop, the dollar will strengthen or at least hold its own, and the best opportunities are likely to be on the short side,” he writes. “2010 is highly likely to retrace most if not all of the ‘reflation’ efforts of 2009. If things play out as I suspect, 2010 will be the year of the great retrace as the economic recovery disappoints.”