For comparison, the BLS reports an all-time high for unemployment (one-year period) in the US was about 25%. It was 1933, deep into the Great Depression. https

For comparison, the BLS reports an all-time high for unemployment (one-year period) in the US was about 25%. It was 1933, deep into the Great Depression. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LFU21000100&series_id=LFU22000100&from_year=1929&to_year=1939&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LFU21000100&series_id=LFU220... Markets really don't care about this number because it occurred in the past. Everyone knew the number would be very, very bad and it was. What markets care about now is what happens next. For their part, US stock markets are saying everything will be Ok. The S&P 500 is trading 16% from its all-time high. Unexpectedly (for me at least), everything is riding on how well the Fed can butcher the raging US dollar bull. It seems impossible, but there's a substantial shortage of US dollars, which has been wreaking havoc on the world economy for some time now, triggering negative yielding sovereign debt and other imbalances. If the Fed succeeds, the debts for this crisis will be eliminated through a weaker dollar (dollar holders will pay in purchasing power), and things can go on more or less as normal. If, however, the Fed is unable to bring the dollar down and hold it there for a long time, the ballooning debt will begin to choke the real economy. We'll see it first in interest payments to finance the federal government rising and eventually forcing cuts to entitlements and defense spending. This would appear to set up a situation in which the Fed will try to err on the side of "caution" - adding too much rather than too little liquidity into the economy. It's worth remembering that the Fed always gets what it wants in the end. See: https://www.lynalden.com/global-dollar-short-squeeze/ https://www.lynalden.com/global-dollar-short-squeeze/