With the unemployment rate soaring alongside the U.S. budget deficit, the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats are struggling to solve the nation’s problems before next year’s midterm election.

Let’s get this straight.

Household credit is shrinking…
Profits are shrinking…
Employment is shrinking…
Housing values are shrinking…
The wage base is shrinking…

But the recession is over!

Whoa… how is that possible?

The just-concluded Group 20 (G20) meeting left us with a chorus of very “prudent” governments and central bankers singing the praises of easy monetary and fiscal conditions. So where can we take refuge when all the central banks in the world print money and governments run deficits in order to spend like drunken sailors? The answer is gold.

Stocks push the currencies higher…Norway pulls out of recession…Jackson Hole boondoggle…Oil helps rally commodity currencies…And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

We now know that Team Obama’s optimism about the power of ‘stimulus’ was misplaced. The official unemployment rate now stands at 9.5% – 20% higher than Obama claimed it would be without the $787 billion stimulus.

Oil dropped a dollar to below $66 a barrel today, Friday, after unemployment data hardened views economic weakness would sap energy demand and that last month’s rally was overdone.

For the millions of Americans right now looking for a job, the latest batch of employment statistics paint a rather grim picture.  As bleak as this all may sound, jobseekers (both employed and unemployed) shouldn’t be deterred: With a sound strategy, and four simple secrets, it’s still possible to survive – and even thrive – in a jobless recovery.

Markets salute mounting unemployment figures, Resources and euros: just two alternatives for the Chinese dragon, What happens when rates go up again? And three other ticking time bombs…

Those elusive “green shoots” that economic optimists had been digging up lately were buried under disappointing data from the Commerce Department in Washington yesterday (Wednesday) when it was revealed that retail sales in the unexpectedly dropped in April.

Consumer Credit Falls to Record Low in March; GM Burns Through $10.2 Billion in First Quarter; Commercial Mortgage Delinquencies Soar to 11-Year High; Retailers Report Better-Than-Expected Sales in April; FBI Will Add More Agents for White-Collar Crime; Boeing Loses Dream Deal