With the market set to open in a few minutes, I expect there will be at least a few minutes of frenzied buying while the pro’s jack up things and then sell of their stakes to wait for what happens this weekend off Israel/Gaza (more in the Coping section) and this weekend’s G20 talks in Korea.
But in the interest of ‘form’ I suppose we should with the jobs report, since the PTB/MSM has programmed a whole lot of people to miss the big picture and focus on trading minutia….in fact one leading headline aggregator I looked at said “Countdown May Numbers” with a so let’s make this easy on you – and we’ll even toss in a flashy widely used animated .GIF file so you’ll go Pavlov just right:
“Total nonfarm payroll employment grew by 431,000 in May, reflecting the hiring of 411,000 temporary employees to work on Census 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Private-sector em- ployment changed little (+41,000). Manufacturing, temporary help ser- vices, and mining added jobs, while construction employment declined. The unemployment rate edged down to 9.7 percent.
Household Survey Data
The number of unemployed persons was 15.0 million in May. The unem- ployment rate edged down to 9.7 percent, the same rate as in the first 3 months of 2010. (See table A-1.)
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for blacks (15.5 percent) declined in May, while the rates for adult men (9.8 percent), adult women (8.1 percent), teenagers (26.4 percent), whites (8.8 per- cent), and Hispanics (12.4 percent) showed little change. The jobless rate for Asians was 7.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)
In May, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was about unchanged at 6.8 million. These individuals made up 46.0 percent of unemployed persons, about the same as in April.”
Of course, our usual attention is paid to the true un and under employment number which over in this table came in today at 16.1% (down from 16,6 percent last month).
Then there’s always the statistically claimed CES Birth/Death tables where made up (but we’re reassured statistically valid) new jobs are created out of the numbers ether. Check it out: 188-thousand new jobs created and 22,000 in construction? 63,000 in professional services and 73K in leisure? Sure…whatever….
Hand me the ViceGrips, I need to pinch myself while you read ‘em…
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So why do I think the Jobs Reports no longer matter? Because the market is wildly manipulated – most trading is machine vs. machine anyway -0 your money is ‘played’ by opposing ‘houses’ each trying to take money from the other.
While greed takes us ever-closer to a global confrontation over diminishing resource – made scarce perhaps deliberately – the student of news sees the die as cast and we’re just waiting on November unless something dramatically changes. No, jobs reports in this kind of world don’t really matter. No matter how many times Census workers get hired & rehired. Care for another example?
Highwaymen of Medicine
Want to read about how modern-day highwaymen are holding up a whole country? Try on “Big Pharma blackmails Greece; halts medicine supply over cash demands“.
Why it reminds me of that old PTB saying: “Greed and Greed Alike.” Why, it just makes me so damn proud to be a human, doesn’t it you?
Zero Trouble
The G20 meets this weekend in South Korea. The Brit’s chancellor of the exchequer is pushing for new capital and liquidity rules. Our own Tim Geithner will call for international stress testing - which is a joke since bank liquidity is basically government-sanctioned zero printing.
What’s really going on – as I’ve explained before – is that the Fed is trying to create enough money to keep the US economy from collapsing into deflation which one PTB source claims would be bad since “deflations breed revolution” while printing enough paper to essentially stepp on the gas hard enough to create jobs, rebuild bank equity in housing, yet not have it bite too hard at the gas pump and grocery store.
Growth in Federal Reserve M1 from April to April was 6.7% growth which is higher than GDP is growing, It would seem that the decline in the broader (reconstructed by Trader Bart) M3 is leveling off around the 10% decline level, and with the new Fed data out yesterday, there may actually be some improvement where M-3′s decline may be reversing, which would mean 3-6 months from the Fed being able to tighten.
Of course the Euro hitting a four-year low this morning hasn’t helped futures.
Gold Lines?
Several reports have popped up around the net about people lining up in Germany and Switzerland to buy gold. Since the stories popped up, gold climbed back over the $1,200 level.
McRecall
“McDonald’s recalls Shrek glasses ‘tainted with cadmium’” says the BBC. About 12-million of these were sold at $2-each…
Mexico’s California Takeover?
If you didn’t figure that California would eventually be ceded back to Mexico (and why I wouldn’t buy property in the Southland) consider the headline “Mexico opens California office to provide ID for illegals.”
A liberal would read this as “Gee, that’s a swell idea” whereas a conservative would ask “Isn’t this proof that California now really has two governments? How many offices will Mexico open?”
Oh, since Mexico IS opening office this satellite – and we expect more will follow - can we give them part of the state’s budget deficit?
GlobalRev Tax Angle?
Remember that cabbie shooting earlier this week? Odd email from a UK reader:
“Hi George,
There are reports today that the cab driver who gunned down 12 people before shooting himself was subject to a tax inspection.
There are reports that he had £60,000 in his bank that he hadn’t declared or would say where it had come from. There are also some reports that the first person he shot, his twin brother, had shopped him to the IRS.
The cab driver had apparently been worried that he could go to jail over the matter. So money and tax was a BIG factor it would seem. And the IRS won’t comment saying it is subject to data protection laws. Though now the guy is dead how does that protect him then?”
Sure enough – in the UK it’s the Inland Revenue Service and yup, he was facing jail time. Say, you don’t see a pattern with this and Austin, do you?
Vacation Driving Season
Another reader spied this out of the ordinary…
“…this is the first time in my 24 years of driving that i can recall that the price of gas has come down during a holiday weekend. not to mention that big oil spill in that little gulf, whenever there is a hiccup in the flow in any part of the world the the price goes up. not last weekend here on the south side of Chicago it went down .12 in 3 days. ??? “
See it starting in the Triple A Fuel Gauge chart, too…
Panama’s got the ranch while E and I head north in July – going for a family seafood festival while there’s still some left and meeting with Clif….which gets me to…
