The US economy continues to improve in fits and starts. While industrial production was down 0.1% in January, much of it was weather-related, and December was revised up to a healthy 1.2%. Production surveys indicate that production is likely to continue its upward trend.

Inflation is turning back up. The ECRI Future Inflation Gauge has been up for three straight months and is starting to show that worries about deflation, absent a shock to the economy, are going away. Core inflation is still up only 1% from a year ago, while overall inflation is up 1.6%.



But I want you to note the chart below from the recent BLS release. Notice that inflation for the last six months has risen rather smartly. And for the last three months inflation on an annualized basis is running over 3%, if I did the math correctly.



The ISM numbers came out for January and they were robust. The number was back above 60 for the manufacturing portion, which is quite healthy. And the service sector showed a very respectable 59.4.



So, what’s not to like? Economy.com compared the ISM numbers with the National Federation of Independent Businesses small-business index; and small businesses, the driver of growth in jobs, just haven’t responded in the same fashion as their larger brothers.



But Where Are the Jobs?

And that lack of optimism is showing up in very weak job growth. While January’s abysmal number is likely due to weather and we should see a much better number for February, it is still not getting us the jobs we need. With governments cutting back on employees, it is likely we will need to see as many as 125-150,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth.

Ben Bernanke spun the recent drop in the unemployment number like this:

“Following the loss of about 8-3/4 million jobs from 2008 through 2009, private-sector employment expanded by a little more than 1 million in 2010. However, this gain was barely sufficient to accommodate the inflow of recent graduates and other new entrants to the labor force and, therefore, not enough to significantly erode the wide margin of slack that remains in our labor market. Notable declines in the unemployment rate in December and January, together with improvement in indicators of job openings and firms' hiring plans, do provide some grounds for optimism on the employment front. Even so, with output growth likely to be moderate for a while and with employers reportedly still reluctant to add to their payrolls, it will be several years before the unemployment rate has returned to a more normal level. Until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established.” (Hat tip: David Kotok)

The recent drop in the unemployment rate was not due to those million new jobs he referenced above, however. It was entirely due to rather dramatic drops in what is known as the participation rate. At the risk of repeating myself, if you have not looked for a job in the last four weeks you are not considered unemployed. You are not “participating” in the labor market. Look at the next chart and notice the significant drop since the onset of the recession.



That takes us to the next chart, which shows total civilian employment. Note that the total number of jobs, since we began to create jobs in late 2009, has risen by about a million and then gone sideways for the last six months or so.



It was not job creation that lowered the unemployment rate. It was people being so discouraged about the prospect of finding a job that they stopped looking. When and if we do see job creation, those people are going to decide to look for jobs again. And that means we could see a positive jobs report for months on end and not really attack the unemployment rate. It is a false measure in the current economic environment. The real measure is the one in the last chart, the total number of jobs.

Time for the Fed to Declare Victory and Go Home

The Fed has a dual mandate from Congress. One is to promote stable prices and the other is to foster employment. However, the Fed is in a tough situation right now. Unemployment in today’s economy is structural in nature, it is not cyclical. It is going to be a long time before we get back to 6% unemployment. If we could create 6 million jobs over the next four years, that would just about do it. But for that to happen, we need to see a string of solid job reports, better than we have had the last nine months.

As noted at the beginning of the letter, the economic data is improving. Normally that would signal the Fed to start raising rates. But look at the last sentence of the Bernanke quote:

“Until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established.”

There you have it. Bernanke tells us that rates are going to be low until we see stronger job creation. But with QE2 and rising inflation, there is the risk that the Fed’s two mandates may come into conflict.

It takes at least 12 months (or longer) for monetary policy to work its way into the economy. The current small rise in inflation is not due to QE2. That will show up later. It appears to me the deflation war, at least for the time being, is won (the next recession will bring that worry back). But now, it is time for the adults at the FOMC to stand up and say stop the printing presses.

I remember going to my Dad on a few occasions and asking for permission to do something he wasn’t happy about. He would look at me and say, “Son, not no, but hell no!”

I hope there are members of the FOMC who will vote “hell no” at the next Fed meeting. Further, if we leave rates too low for too long, what will the Fed do when this business cycle comes to its end, as they always do? We need to put some bullets back into the Fed arsenal. It is time to start thinking about raising rates.

This will help savers who are reaching for yield. “Junk” bonds are now at an all-time low of 6.84%. Less than 2 years ago it was north of 20%. Talk about a run! Why? It is yet another aspect of the Fed maintaining rates at too low a level, as the Boomer generation is trying to get as much as it can out of its savings, and the charts on high-yield funds show them going from the lower left to the upper right in quite a sporting fashion. As Rosie noted this morning, they were trading at only 55 cents on the dollar in early 2009. Now there is a 4-cent premium. Is there some more capital appreciation left in this run? Maybe. But the big move has been made.

We as a nation need to understand that the problems we face are not ones that can be dealt with by business as usual. Keynesian stimulus is precisely the wrong medicine. The problem is one of too much debt. We were promised by Bernanke in 2002 that if the Fed moved out the yield curve, long rates would come down. The opposite has happened. Since the beginning of QE2 mortgage rates have risen by 1%. The yield on the ten-year bond is up over 1% since the announcement of QE2.

It’s time for the Fed to declare victory and go home.

John Mauldin is president of Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Contact John at John@FrontlineThoughts.com.

Disclaimer
John Mauldin is president of Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor. All material presented herein is believed to be reliable but we cannot attest to its accuracy. Investment recommendations may change and readers are urged to check with their investment counselors before making any investment decisions.