What did you think about the raising turf on paper imported from China? pretty inflationary to me. It is a sign that everyone should run away from US bonds; big sell off in treasure can be priced in with this week of good job number. It worked perfectly.
Ok, Tell me why they add between 27,000 and 31,000 to the construction jobs numbers actually reported EVERY MARCH? Do you mean to tell me they KNOW that another 27,000 to 31,000 construction workers get hired on every march beyond what are reported? Even THIS MARCH? Look at housing and lending. If you believe those numbers, then how can you believe these numbers? I just heard on TV in the last week or two that about 60,000 construction workers had been laid off recently. How can they justify throwing in a 27,000 POSITIVE adjustment when that industry is laying off 60,000? How do they know that there aren't small construction companies that can't get money to build another spec house out there that are no longer in business as a result? That's what happens when you tighten credit and there is a glut of homes already on the market, and home prices are on the decline. And if you want to lay a side bet, its non-residential construction that gets hit next. As projects wind down, new ones will be difficult to come by because without new housing developments you don't need new strip malls and office space to go with them. That's part of what business isn't reinvesting in this year, I'm afraid.
good one. I presume that this will ultimately end up as a job gain if the job is moved to a normal economy...
Wow When I read stuff like this, I am only further convinced that there is no need for conspiracies nowdays, cause even those with intelligence are easily brainwashed. The information on how government statistics are calculated is freely disclosed on the BLS website. Anyone with slightly above average intelligence can browse through and understand it. When they start assuming job growth from job cuts, that should signal to anyone who is not retarded that these statistics do not represent reality. Please note, the government DOES NOT LIE about any data. All assumptions, methodologies and footnotes are disclosed. It's up to you to make your own conclusions about how this data is gathered, calculated and derived. Most of the Street takes them at surface and allow themselves to be led around like sheep. Unemployment rate data requires making assumptions about "discouraged" workers, who are not part of the labor pool. If you are out of work for 6 months and can't find a job, you are no longer part of the labor pool. Shorten that period from 6 months to 4 months and the umployment rate goes even lower. I'm sure there is a study on which this assumption can be based, the government is free to do this and report it this way. As long as you accept it, there is no reason for them to stop. You can either use your own brain or allow Wall Street media & analysts think for you. All those wonderful revisions you speak of, well, from what I remember, in the revisions they were lowering the number of good high paying jobs and adding more "temp" jobs and low paying government jobs. See, in their methodology, if you work 20 hours a month through some temp agency, that is counted as job creation.
Kudu's for knowing how the most volatile/subjective component in the data is "formulated." No doubt there's a sub-culture of permanently unemployed. Always has been. Hence the report is consistent. Payroll is nothing more than a sample. Few get caught up in the "number" per se'. It's the trend that everyone is (or should be) looking for. Wall Street does their own polling. The JPM's of the world are not held hostage by the Dept. of Labor's ineptness. Along those lines, there's no evidence (presently) of the employment picture and/or wages eroding. Domestic car sales were down only slightly and in Europe sales are robust (except in GER where a new tax is causing some sticker shock) I see some conflicting evidence in SoFla. I'm starting an IB/CTA. I ran an ad for brokers. Received a single reply. In my small neighborhood there's three teardowns being rebuilt into new homes, two new hi-rises have broke ground and a luxury hotel is in the beginnig stages. While none of these projects may or may not make economic sense, the bottom line is that a zillion construction guys will be working the next year on these sites. Whether this is the last gig those worker's ever get remains to be seen. On the other hand I'm seeing store vacancies and "for rent" signs more and more frequently. IMO. the long end of the curve was pricing in recession. It's probably still coming but it's not here yet. Clearly continued global growth isn't allowing for any concession in the price of energies, food and materials. Bond investors are disillusioned. The trend in yield is higher. It may be a trend that's developing at a snails pace but a 4 year old could look at a chart and pick the trend. I'm short ZB and see no reason to not attempt milking it.
Nope, debt stil rising. FED released data on consumer debt on Friday. Its obvious they are just making the same adjustments they always make to add jobs to those reported, be it right or wrong until somebody tells them to change that method. I think that method might work just fine when you have that sector growing, like most were for a good part of the past 15 years, but when the sector goes into a recession it will produce inaccurate results. AGAIN, I say why aren't we just tracking it by PERSON. Each person has a Name and Social Security Number. We already track payments and benefits accrued using this. Why not just have a flag with the person's current status and add them up each month for each status. The additional reporting needed to come up with a very accurate count would be minimal. If you were fired or laid off your employer, who is required to file details by employee anyway with their tax payments, would identify each person no longer employed. The only people not included would be illegal immigrants and people working for cash to evade taxes. ANY attempt would be a dramatic improvement over the current GARBAGE put out by the government. They could take the wind out of the sails of these "conspiratorist theories" mentality if they'd just release accurate numbers in the first place.
There's two camps that concern the yield curve here. One being one that it, in this situation, is prediction recession. The other saying right now, with excess dollars flooding asian markets (from our hyperconsumeristic tendencies resulting from the greenspan liquidity flood), that Asian money managers have nothing else to do with the cash but buy our bonds. I'm of the second camp, since market prices are determined by numbers of buyers and sellers in the market, and really nothing else. The recession forecasting ability of the yield curve disappeared two years ago, obviously, since its been wrong for two years. It just seems to me a lot of people hang on to what they learned from their macroecon books in business school, and don't regard unexpected byproducts of imbalanced trade policy and hyperglobalization. Unless I'm wrong, and perhaps there is some correlation between time a yield curve is inverted and the time the following recession lasts. (in other words, maybe a slow evolution into a multi year recession) Doubt it, considering global growth on the horizon. The status of the dollar, independent of the bond market, is another deal entirely.