Sentiment Up, Economy Still SluggishThe "sentiment" indexes have all remained elevated. For example, The University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Index for December (98.5) has not been this high since 2004. In her address to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco on January 18th, Fed Chair Yellen referred to the U.S. economy as being near "maximum employment." Yet, as pointed out above, there are 5.54 million unfilled jobs, and the biggest business complaint is that they can't find qualified candidates. Do we now have a new economic concept, “maximum employment” that dismisses those that are discouraged because “full employment” is too hard to achieve with current demographics and skill sets?

Source: Forbes February 03, 2017 20:07 UTC