Posted on 06/04/2016 5:23:25 PM PDT by Lorianne
It would have been nice if we’d been correct to the minute, but we were two months early, and therefore wrong, when we wrote on March 30, If This Plays Out, Friday Will Get Ugly.
But it did play out today.
At the time, we suspected that the March jobs report, released in early April, would be a debacle. We based this on an analysis of the divergence over time between the reports issued by payroll processing company ADP and the jobs reports issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That divergence had been going on for months. Eventually it reverts to the mean. We postulated that March would be that month.
Instead, it happened two months behind schedule, so to speak, as today’s jobs report was precisely that sort of debacle.
This is what was “expected”:
The Labor Department was expected to report, according to Wall Street economists, a “moderate” gain of 158,000 jobs in May, “moderate” given that the Verizon strike kept 35,000 workers off their jobs. The “whisper number” was around 200,000 jobs.
And this is what we got:
The BLS reported that the economy had added 38,000 jobs, the lowest since September 2010. Furthermore, the April job gains of 160,000 were chopped down by 37,000 and the March job gains of 208,000 were chopped down by 22,000. Hence, with 59,000 jobs revised away, and with only 38,000 jobs “created” in May, the net total in today’s report was a net loss of 21,000 jobs. We haven’t seen that since the Financial Crisis.
“Shockingly weak,” and “In one word, ‘Ouch'” is how MarketWatch put it so elegantly.
It was ugly all around. A number of sectors, including manufacturing, shed jobs, and the labor participation rate dropped for the second month in a row, to 62.6%. Just about the only good number was the magic headline unemployment rate, which fell sharply, from 5% in April to 4.7%, the lowest since the Great Recession began, leaving some folks scratching their heads and searching for answers.
snip
unexpected
what if...what if...what if....
What makes it ugly is one thing: IT’S A LIE.
(the only good number was the magic headline unemployment rate, which fell sharply, from 5% in April to 4.7%, the lowest since the Great Recession began, leaving some folks scratching their heads and searching for answers)
No mystery there. The unemployment rate is a fake number as it goes up when discouraged people get back into job hunting mode, and goes down when more people are discouraged and thus are no longer counted in the rate (that’s why the labor participation rate is going down). In today’s environment, it’s going down because of terrible employment news!
And how many of those jobs were part time?
Wonder how Trump will handle this. He can’t take on an unemployment rate of 4.7 and drive it down ... he is going to have to “adjust” the number to the REAL number taking into account 94 million people not working. Call it a “not working index” or whatever. But he can’t let this continue into his new administration. Has anybody heard him say anything about this?
Then, within a week of Donald Trump taking office, the first set of unemployment figures of the Trump administration will be announced. The "discouraged worker" category will be lumped in with ordinary unemployed.
This will cause the unemployment rate to jump from around five percent to around twenty percent.
The MSM will go hog wild, hyperventilating about how the inauguration of Trump has led a sharp recession, with month-on-month job losses much worse than were seen in the Great Depression.
What you track you get.
Track unemployment, you get unemployment.
I think Trump will change the rules, rather than track how many people are NOT working, he'll change the baseline to the more honest and more relevant how many people ARE working.
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1. You invest you money into whatever is the best deal.
If you are in California, it would be PROPERTY.
Other place, perhaps T-notes/bills.
2. You look at the possibility of long-term part-time work.
3. You have the BEST medical coverage available.
4. You stay close to God, just in case.
5. You stay on top of things, like all good cherries.
SORRY!
The U-3 number is what the government uses...The U-6 number is more accurate...
If you can do it, hang on until you’re 66...
What makes it truly remarkable is that the BLS (Bureau of Lying Statistics) is the ethically and professionally challenged water carrier for His Arrogance and generally dummies up the numbers to make him look good.
Btt
If you can continue working - do it. I have health problems that changed my earnings when I was in my 50’s. Now I spend all my time penny pinching.
The unemployment rate has to do with those collecting benefits. If their benefits run out, it doesn’t matter if they are still unemployed. They are no longer counted. True rate is probably in the 20’s%.
???Well???
I would hope that if Trump takes office, he will have his appointees go through each agency and reveal all the lies and fraud. IMO, Trump would tell the truth and announce that the real unemployment rate would be closer to 50% than anywhere near 4.7%.
Ugly, awful president equals ugly, awful economy. President Jarret really should be impeached.
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