Posted on 06/05/2004 2:59:13 AM PDT by kattracks
June 5, 2004 -- The American economy has created nearly 1 million new jobs in only three months — and economists predict that the pace is likely to continue in the coming months. "The labor market recovery (that) people have been pining for is finally here," declared Ian Morris, economist at HSBC."It's not great news for interest rates or bonds, but for everyone else, well it's time to break out the Champagne," said a Treasury bond trader.
Indeed, the Labor Department's announcement early yesterday that another 248,000 non-farm jobs were created in May sparked a stock market rally that propelled the Dow Jones industrial average up 46.91 points to 10,242.82, bringing the blue-chip bellwether closer to showing a gain for the year as a whole.
"Finally, the market seems able to accept that good news really is good news," says Art Hogan, markets strategist at Jefferies & Co.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Its great news,My wife and I just came back from a motorcycle trip up north and all the way up and back their were many signs asking for help wanted outside of business we checked newspapers and the want ads are their.
Probable NYT headline, based on this same story: Billions of Helpless Babies Die Every Nano-Second. Bush, Israel Blamed.
I knew the fact that the economy was roaring along was bad news. You just have to look for it and make it a headline.
From what I see the roaring economy is really sad. It creates so many problems. We would be much better off with the EU 0.4% growth than the US 5%, don't you think?
Please note that out of the 248,000 new jobs, only 6909 were in construction, and 14,505 were in manufacturing. The rest were in "service industries".
To put it bluntly, less than 9% of these new jobs were in industries that actually produce anything tangible.
There were almost 50% more new government jobs created (21,547) than manufacturing jobs (14,505).
Maybe that's why the stock market reversed yesterday afternoon after Wall St. read the fine print?
Disregard the previous post (except for the link). I was reading the wrong column in the data.
The whole economic issue raised by the left media (CNN) and Kerry is a farce.
It's a created issue that is necessary for a presidential hopeful that is desperately grabbing anything he can out of the air and going "Look look, I could do better" after the fact.
The US economy is roaring ahead despite all the negative news and made up problems by politicians within the Democratic Party who would like to present it that way.
The economy has grown tremendously under Bush, despite 9-11 which had a colossal impact. One of the biggest airlines in the world went broke and fear, lack of movement of goods and services had a huge impact. Yet things are looking good. Why? Because of a SOUND economic policy that is not driven by what the masses want this second but rather by what is known as economic principals and facts.
My only gripe is if the tax cut is not made permanent.
Iraq was and is a success story, the economy is a success story, the war on terrorism is a success story and some in the media, abroad and even in our own government "WANT" to paint it black. I just hope that the “American” can see the difference between the BS fed to him and reality.
Red6
Excellent news. Media furor aside, jobs are a lagging indicator of recovery, just as honest economists, and common sense, have always said. Yet more discredit to the media and the Dems. But for the attention-span-challenged, they've moved on to the next bogus criticism. Anything to get back in power.
Hate to rub it in, but except for the retraction, you show amazing aptitude as a NYT columnist, or Global Warming Expert!
Yet the numbers are fantasy.
I'm seeing a slowdown in the Restaurant Equipment business and subsequent repair service biz, but that could be just stagnation from my base of operations at the Bowery.
I'm going door-to-door starting Monday to drum up work.
But when you say that only X jobs were manufacturing, while all the rest were in industries that don't "actually produce anything tangible", you seem to indicate that non-manufacturing jobs are less important, lower paying, or less real than a manufacturing job.
Just is not so.
Recent polls (for what they're worth) show that Bush still has a problem with the economy. I'm hoping that the good economic (and Iraq) news will soon have a positive impact on perceptions and the direction of his poll numbers. It's been discouraging though.
Ouch! Well, OK, I deserved that.
Now that I have my head out of my Clymer, the real numbers are (change from last month):
Manufacturing = +37,000
Construction = +32,000
Total Goods-Producing = +72,000
Service Providing = +176,000
Government (subcategory of Service) = -27,000
I honestly agree with that.
The lawyers, accountants, bean-counters, government regulators, janitors, etc. are merely overhead for the ones who built America.
The test is simple: Who would still have a job if the other were to suddenly disappear? Example: If the people who design and build the airplanes at Boeing were suddenly to disappear, would the janitors still have a job?
No, they wouldn't.
But if you reversed it and made the janitors disappear, the engineers would still have a job.
The ratio of manufacturing to service jobs could be an indication of the gains in productivity in the manufacturing sector.
Please don't take this personally, but I find your argument childish and wrong-headed. If there were no trucks to deliver manufactured goods they would pretty much worthless, but trucker driving is classed as "service", while the person to takes the goods from packaging to the loading dock is classed as "manufacturing". In a complex economy, labor produces a variety of outputs. A person cooking a meal is actually "manufacturing", then is the waitress "service" or like the guy who moves stuff from the assembly line to the loading dock, "manufacturing".
I feel compelled to take Lonesome's side on this. I would even assert that a transition from tangible manufacturing jobs to service jobs while actual is a positive symptom of a wealthy well developed economy.
To borrow an example I once heard:
Suppose you have ten people living on an island who must spend all their time fishing with hook and line so they can have enough to eat.
One day someone on the island invents a fishing net, allowing him to catch enough fish for everyone.
Unfortunately this results in the loss of 90% of jobs on the island.
But, eventually the people on the island find other things they can do to make life better--some of them in more service orientated rolls, such as cooking the fish.
Unfortunately, engineering and technical jobs are becoming scarce in America, which is my entire point on this thread.
Truckers, lawyers, accountants and waitresses (e.g. service people) are all worthy people, but they didn't build America - they supported those who did: The engineers, scientists, technicians, and mill workers.
I stand by my biased position.
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