Tomorrow’s jobs report should be a masterful work of statistical sleight of hand, if any of the reports going into this are accurate. Take, for example, the report that “824,000 Jobs Will Disappear on Friday” that came out of Bloomberg on Wednesday.
At the root of this is something called the CES Birth/Death Model. It’s a forecasting tool used by the Labor Department to estimate the creation of jobs which would otherwise not be counted since the assumption is that small companies and startups don’t get properly accounted for.
When you look at the Birth/Death model you can see how the statistical ‘confessional’ last January took 356,000 jobs out of the previous year’s optimism.
A little quick time with a calculator shows that with the exception of the January 2009 reduction of 356,000 jobs, the CES Birth/Death Model alleged that 1,238,000 jobs had been ‘created’ in 2009.
To expect this huge creation was going on in the private sector seems absurd yet unabashedly, the CES numbers for 2009 claimed (ex-January ’09) that 154,000 construction jobs were created in the midst of the housing collapse.
Equally rich: The CES Model would have us believe that 312,000 jobs were creased in leisure and hospitality – no doubt from all those exotic vacations we could all afford in 2009.
Almost as good as: The 187,000 jobs created in the private sector in Trade, Transportation, and Utilities while trucking companies were going BK and the Ports were seeing major declines.
Have a glass of well-fluoridated coffee and look at the price of gold this morning (down) and the odds seem pretty good that the Dow today and tomorrow will have a hard time holding onto this week’s gains by week’s end when the reality of the jobs picture sinks in.
But don’t expect too much reality, too quickly: It wouldn’t be good for the sheep to come out and add back the faulty CES estimates because they would push the reported unemployment rate up around 10.7 to 10.8%. Can’t have that, now, can we?
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The key number to watch tomorrow will be the civilian workforce number. You see, in order to make December look like things were improving, that number alleged that 661,000 fewer people were in the workforce in December.
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The GOOD NEWS is that when I read the report out of the UK that “Internet surfers caught in a web of depression” suddenly made sense. While the report posited this:
“But it was not clear whether using the internet causes mental health problems, or whether people with mental health problems are drawn to the internet.”
Another answer comes to mind: The internet is a kind of touchstone for reality seekers. Except the reality we find on sites like the BLS/CES Birth/Death Model site isn’t exactly happy reading if you have half a brain and can find a calculator.
Notwithstanding: This does lay more and more foundation for licensure of the Internet. You can see the PowersThatBe trying to wrestle the ‘free ‘net” out of existence as fast as they can, witness the story in the NY Times Wednesday that what we need is a “driver’s licenses” for the Internet to counter online fraud, hackers and espionage, a Microsoft executive suggests.”
Next thing that will come is government reviewed content and restrictions on socioeconomic critics. Could that be one reason why we see such a drop-off in linguistic structures for the Internet from late 2011 onward?
The Communications Act of 1934 was the analog in the First Depression. I expect here in the Second Depression that the ‘Netstapo’ will be forming up any old time now. From the September 1929 market peak to the June 1934 roll-out of the Communications Act which allowed the PowersThatBe to squash dissident broadcasters in the Depression and consolidated social control via the radio networks (and later television) took almost five years.
So all you need to get the timing of the seizure of the Internet right is a calendar and a click over to Yahoo Finance’s historical monthly Dow data to find how to count out four year 9-months to when it’s all due to hit this time.
Of course, this will all take a little work, since Australia’s attempts to stifle the ‘Net have resulted – for now – in their government backing off plans to hijack the ‘net for the PTB there.
What does it mean? If you’re trying to infer what’s ahead, a check of last week’s Peoplenomics report “The ‘Art’ of Social Engineering” spells it out clearly. And just this week we see confirmation in the mainstream press that “Intelligence officials ‘certain’ U.S. will be attacked in the next six months“.
Need more evidence? Why sure! “Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyber attacks“. Expect in time licensing of spiders and off html/ftp activities first, but just watch where it goes… “Police want backdoor to Web users’ private data” says a CNET report today.
I can forecast with better than 50-50 odds that when ‘terrorist’ attack comes (once the reality of Depression 2 starts becoming obvious – when the Dow sinks under 7,000 again BTW) that the perps will be ‘found to be using the net’ and that will lead to a massive PTB hype campaign promoting net regulation and control. I can hardly wait to see how the ‘regulations’ will be crafted not so much to limit terrorists from embedding codes in .JPEG’s and such, but how the PTB will try to shut down sites which reveal their inner workings and which alert the public to the dangers of runaway government which long ago escaped the grasp of the electorate’s control.
And the study that reported the Brits think the net may draw mentally challenged folks? LOL….yeah sure, you bet’cha.
Truth-seeking is now an illness. Gee, that makes analyzing financial markets easier, doesn’t it? No need to bother with reality any longer. The world’s a sim and we are all but avatars, Citizen.
Morning Numbers Check
Market futures were down some earlier following overseas markets.
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The federal debt ceiling is tracking to bust limit by the end of this month...
Productivity
Who needs jobs, if productivity can go up fast enough, huh?
“Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 6.2 percent annual rate during the fourth quarter of 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This gain in productivity reflects increases of 7.2 percent in output and 1.0 percent in hours worked. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) This was the first quarterly increase in hours worked since the second quarter of 2007 (0.9 percent).
Productivity increased 5.1 percent over the last four quarters—more than during any similar period since output per hour rose 6.1 percent from the first quarter of 2001 to the first quarter of 2002 (chart 1, table A). Labor productivity is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of the combined hours worked of all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers.
Earnvanna: A mythical land from the Olde Testament of the Church of the Almighty Dollar where productivity and profits go up infinitely while employment costs go to zero (see chart above) resulting in a wonderful state of being for the promoters of globalism who search the world spreading the Gospel of Free Trade so long as they get a piece of the labor rate spreads so long as the Swiss, Caymanian, and Turks’ banks don’t out them.
Jobless Hike
I knew the jobless number was going to be up unexpectedly when it wasn’t promptly posted on the Labor Department site this morning. Bad news travels slow before the open of markets. Pure coincidental, you understand…
Retail: Mixed Bag
The retailers are starting to weigh in…and an AP story headlines “Retailers report modest gains for January” but just what that means is a little murky and we’ll have to get more detail.
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Problem is when retailers talk about small gain, are they talking about gains in unit sales which is different than a gain in cash sales especially if we don’t back out inflation from year ago numbers…you can hype this six ways to Sunday and still have a defensible position.
Bank Rates
The ECB and BoE have left rates unchanged. Obviously, to move anything in the delicate/precarious position of the global financial picture would upset things…
Useless News
Here’s an assortment of stuff that may have no bearing on your life but which makes the mainstream to keep the distraction pipes full:
- Shark attack in Florida. Don’t get many of these in Kansas…when we do, we’ll break in with a bulletin.
- Obama skipping Olympics. I didn’t know that was an Olympic sport but since they’re trucking snow to Whistler and flu’s due…
- Bosom Bombers: Women have explosive breast implants
- Pig-Man transplants coming within five years or so.
“Peter Piper picked a pig of pickled peckers…” leaving biotech researchers to wonder “How many pickled peckers were on the pig that Peter Piper picked?”
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Drop by tomorrow for the biotech adventures of Dick & Jane…
