"Aftershock is a superb exegesis of how our damaged economy is in for further difficulties. Since the authors hedge their predictions not at all, a second event in which they will have been proven correct will lead to a very special stature."

Stanley Goldstein , Founder , New York Hedge Fund Roundtable
"Aftershock makes a compelling argument for a chilling conclusion. Their track record demands our attention."

Sam Stovall , Chief Investment Strategist , Standard & Poor's

Today’s “Unexpected” Unemployment Figures Are No Surprise

January 8, 2010

By Cindy Spitzer

While many optimistic analysts were surprised by today’s announcement that U.S. employers cut another 85,000 jobs in December, this “unexpected rise” in unemployment was fully anticipated by the prescient Foresight Group, which as early as 2006 correctly predicted the housing bubble pop, stock market fall, and the intractable recession—including rising unemployment—that we face today.

“Unemployment does not reverse itself simply because a certain amount of time has passed,” said Dr. David Wiedemer, Chief Economist for the Foresight Group, a macroeconomic consulting firm in Herndon, Virginia, and coauthor of America’s Bubble Economy (Wiley, 2006) and Aftershock (Wiley, 2009). “We expect unemployment to continue to rise because the conditions necessary for job creation do not exist and will not exist for quite some time. There have to be reasons for significant job growth and those reasons simply are not there.”

With massive stimulation by the federal government, include big deficit spending and increases in the money supply via quantitative easing, the economy may partially rebound and unemployment may begin to ease temporarily, said Wiedemer. But longer-term, the basic problems that are hurting the economy and killing jobs will not go away and unemployment will rise even higher than the current 10 percent.
“We’ve been relying on a somewhat artificial prosperity based on a multi-bubble economy,” said Robert Wiedemer, president and CEO of the Foresight Group. “As the bubbles continue to fall, massive stimulus spending will only kick these problems down the road, and in fact, make our later problems that much worse.” The government’s quantitative easing has effectively doubled the US money supply in less than a year, creating growing pressures for future inflation, while the total federal debt is now about $12 trillion, more than six times the government’s income in tax revenues. “At some point, we not going to be able to borrow anyone more and the party will be over.”