Same ol story. Dems fix the economy, GOP reaps the rewards (and fucks it all up again).
Lots of glowing reports about this jobs report. However, that report coincides with data on higher interest rates, higher health insurance rates, higher gas prices, higher commodity/food prices, a drop in housing purchases, and more corporate profit taking. We are heading into the summer/fall where Americansâ disposable income will get squeezed.
If this job report had been say off by 40 thousand to 193k, the report would not nearly be as glowing. It wouldnât have been terrible mind you, but I think youâd see a much higher number of skeptical commentary pieces. Adjustments like that happen all the time, just as the Q1 growth rate was revised substantially downward. Even this report says that the spur in hiring is being driven by export markets, the very markets that Trump is now threatening. In short, this glowing commentary is perhaps unwarranted and it fails to note that there are other trends which would appear to persist long after this jobs report. Weâre as likely to get a June jobs report where 140,000 jobs are created, and the 3 month moving average would be far lower than 2017/16 (it already actually is lower because the April numbers were a bit modest). This selective, arbitrary praise over a jobs report doesnât align with larger trends now shaping the economy in a Trump administration.
Itâs quite possible that this past month represented one of the last big punches of the Obama recovery, ironically driven by export demand (not domestic demand) from markets which Obama himself stabilized and sought to promote. Given the data on housing, interest rates, gas prices and other factors affecting disposable income, domestic demand and growth may be insufficient to buoy a high level of job creation. So when we do get a jobs report in June, July or August of around 140,000, 160,000 or 120,000, youâll see more talk about factors that are currently in place today and are affecting American families and employers.
Nancy Pelosi is right to ignore the report and focus on the danger signs and the unequal distribution of wealth.
Interesting article
Americaâs poor becoming more destitute under Trump: U.N. expert
The nationâs unemployment rate is at an 18-year low of 3.8 percent, businesses are struggling to find enough qualified workers, yet employers are not raising wages. This seems to indicate that the GOP economic dogma built around the infallible law of free market supply and demand is, shall we say, fallible.
Like most economic data, unemployment can be a noisy data series so a single report is not significant but in this case, the downward trend has been firmly in place for ten years so no surprise either; e.g., http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/U3Unrate.png
Ditto for economic expansion: a single quarter is not significant and, even if it does touch above 4% it is not likely to stay there. Regardless the trend is and has been in place for over a decade: if it can stay close to 3% I will be surprised and delighted but a real trade war (not the current performance art type) will bring that down fairly quickly.
Better news is the increase in pay rate and inroads into the ranks of previously underemployed or unemployed workers: thatâs real progress particularly since wages tend to be âsticky;â itâs hard to reduce them later. Amplifying this trend is my current favorite unintended consequence: anti-immigration policies are hindering business from hiring foreign labor thus increasing the leverage of homegrown labor. Republicans imagining Benedict Donald would be good for the bottom line of their businesses will have more painful lessons coming soonâŚ
NB: The Obama recovery was slow but is holding up and a good economy generally bodes better for the incumbent party. The big corporate tax giveaway has stolen some future expansion to give it to the present thus reducing the chance 3% plus growth is sustainable but the Republicans may have reason to hope come November that they can survive the blue wave in the Senate at least. My bet though is that the Mango Maniac cannot control himself well enough to leave any of this alone; Itâs not just incompetence or panic over criminal prosecution (although those too) as unable to control the impulse to smash. JMO
âCharacter is destinyâ âHeraclitus of Ephesus
The article seemingly omits the fact that this is just the US Unemployment Rate for lawyersâŚ
I agree with your points KHY. Hey low unemployment is great. But the other factors you point out are a growing concern. I would like to put more of my paycheck in my 401K or an IRA but I am also trying to build up a cash reserve. People are working making money but are they able to save? These tariffs are not helping. It is a House Of Cards in my view. I remember 2000 and 2008. In 2000 Fed started raising interest rates worried about the economic growth and inflation. Right when the dot.com boom was blowing up and we were going into a recession. In 2008 I remember a startling bad jobs report kicked off the beginning of the great recession.
No one knows when we are in a recession until after the fact. I remember the signs in 2008 before everything went sour. One of the first signs was of course people walking away from those sub prime mortgages. But I remember a bad AT&T earnings call where AT&T stated alot of people were cancelling their internet and home ph service. I also remember being in grocery store and noticing canned tuna and mac and cheese seemed to appear on sale all at once. IN 2000 I read a story about tech like routers being in over abundance in inventory.
I try keep on look out for early little signs of an economic down turn. BTW when TRump won in Nov 2016. That night gas was $1.69 a gallon here in Indiana. I made a special note to check the price that night. Now it is $3.04. Russia benefits from high commodity prices.
So what ⌠in the long run what tRump is doing to our economy will explode in EVERYONEâS faces. As pResident, heâs managing our country like he did his con-businesses and The Apprentice.
Re: not seeing/reading the sign before a big recession is here. I have a Norwegian cousin who worked in the international investment banking world (mostly in London and Oslo) - and a few years after the crash (2011) - during a visit to Oslo - he vividly describes conversations with various US counterparts who all claimed they had no inkling that crash was on they way - even a month before the first big tremors.
Stories like this one make me wonder if there isnât a little bit of subconscious attempts to self-destruct his presidency, while somehow maintaining a con-able fan base to feed his ego, and to keep a train of grift working. Because - this is dangerous and dumb rhetoric - along with the threats to Canada and Mexico.
Citing several unnamed European and US diplomats, the magazine said on Thursday that he told Macron in April he would stick to his trade policy for long enough until no Mercedes-Benz models were rolling down New Yorkâs Fifth Avenue.
I was working for a finance guy who would not talk to you unless you had 5 million to invest. He was telling his clients in 2005 to get out of realestate. He even told them to sell their homes and rent.
Or it may mean that the 3.8 % number is a false number, employers are not struggling to fill jobs and wages are stagnant as they should be if the unemployment number was rigged significantly lower.
They lie about everything else, why would they not have a way to rig and lie about this.