I toss this up for consideration and will appreciate any responses / commentary.

As Barrons has pointed out on several occasions, the current employment situation would be flashing serious danger signals were it not for model adjustments that have been adding significantly to non-farm payrolls.  Friday's loss of jobs would have been VERY significant - over a quarter million lost - if theoretical "new businesses" had not ADDED over 200,000 theoretical/model-imagined jobs.  Even goofier....about 40k of those theoretical jobs were in the construction industry!  Now....since I'm not (always!) a conspiracy theorist, I'll concede that the folks making these adjustments have no nefarious/political purpose -- but rather that they are simply off their rockers.  HOWEVER, I have serious doubts that those 200,000 theoretical new employees - and the other 100's of thousands added in recent months -- will be consuming any REAL goods and services with their theoretical pay. Consequently, I'm betting (along with REAL luminaries at Goldman and Lehman) that the actual state of the economy is far more dire than most analysts estimate, that consistent with ECRI numbers, the COMING recession will be at least protracted and possibly deep, that both inflation AND interest rates will be marginally lower six months from now, and that rates and economic activity will remain low/weak at least thru the first half of 09 - and maybe a good deal longer.

What do you think?

Thanks in advance, Dick