So Much For That Turnaround

We kept hearing how sequestration and austerity wasn't hurting the economy. 

We heard how the 2% payroll tax hike in January wouldn't hurt consumer spending. 

We heard that the housing market is BACK and the markets are steaming at all-time highs and everything is ready to ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM.

And then we got this:

(Reuters) - American employers hired at the slowest pace in nine months in March, a sign that Washington's austerity drive could be stealing momentum from the economy.

The economy added just 88,000 nonfarm jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, well below market expectations for a 200,000 increase. The jobless rate ticked a tenth of a point lower to 7.6 percent largely due to people dropping out of the work force.

Analysts suspected some of the weakness was due to tax hikes enacted in January. While retail sales data had not shown a big impact earlier in the year, retailers cut staff in March by 24,100.

"The U.S. economy just hit a major speed bump," said Marcus Bullus, trading director at MB Capital in London.

Let's add in long-term unemployment for a whole generation of older Americans laid off from their jobs and probably never going to work again, the looming Medicare and Social Security cuts President Obama is dying to inflict upon working and middle class Americans, the continued problems in the Eurozone where unemployment is at 12%, almost every country is in recession and one or two are near depressions, the stealth inflation the Fed has created by printing money faster than the speed of sound, the budget crisis which never seems to get resolved, and we have a whole host of reasons why this summer could very well cool down after a very "hot" winter - just the way the last two summers saw cool downs after the economy looked to be turning around in January/February.