Jobs Humbug

Here it is, well after July 1 and I haven’t done my first “bah-humbug” of the coming Christmas season – which, if you have a calendar handy has only 172-shopping days away.  Since it’s a little early to go-a-wassailing, I’ve instead decided to give you an early gift of the season to come in the form of this morning’s jobs report.  In the process, I’ve also decided to augment Santa’s sleigh this year with three new reindeer: “On Worker, on Warrior, on  Banker, and Blitzen!“  And with that, we unwrap your early gift:

 

“Nonfarm payroll employment continued to edge up in June (+80,000), and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Professional and business services added jobs, and employment in other major industries changed little over the month.

 

Household Survey Data

The number of unemployed persons (12.7 million) was essentially unchanged in June, and the unemployment rate held at 8.2 percent. (See table A-1.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for blacks (14.4 percent) edged up over the month, while the rates for adult men (7.8 percent), adult women (7.4 percent), teenagers (23.7 percent), whites (7.4 percent), and Hispanics (11.0 percent) showed little or no change. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.3 percent in June (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier.”

 

Almost 42% of unemployed folks have been out of work for 27-weeks, or longer, and  of course, that doesn’t count discouraged workers who’ve run out of extensions are just fall into statistical fairyland.

 

 

Speaking of which, as usual, we report the alternative measures of unemployment which means table U-6, which is the PhD’s flipping burgers un and under-employment rate which is up a tenth this month to 14.9%.

 

Then there’s the CES Birth/Death Model which estimates jobs into being:  A total this month of 124,000 new jobs, in fact.

 

If you’re thinking “Gosh, George, if made-up jobs were up 124K and real provable jobs were up 80K, does this mean net jobs were really maybe down 44K?“  Damn, you’re sharp this morning.

 

Markets ain’t too happy about the report, either: futures and gold have dropped:  Makes that wassailing sound pretty good. 

 

 

War-Baiting

The headlines crossing this morning were “Clinton slams Russia and China over Syria.“  I’ll be damned if I can figure why the West is so interested in seizing power from a dictator in Syria.  Sure, he may have put the dick in dictator and all, but what’s the motivation of the West here?  No WMD scam stories, no oil, sure they pass arms around but remember the US and Russia are the world leaders in that arena, so who’s really to blame?

 

So, no, this doesn’t make sense unless this is a rally-round-the-president ploy, which is a time-tested political strategy *(“don’t change horses in mid-stream”) way of doing things.

 

Near as I can figure it, the devil you know is better than a fresh unknown devil, although I’m not on the death industry campaign contribution receiving end.  Nor, come to think of it am I worried about higher unemployment by several percentage points if we didn’t have the “stick our noses in it” mindset that seems to run rampant.

 

External adventurism when we have financial problems at home (funding social security, creating new jobs, and so forth) is the wrong answer. Absent a specific and credible threat, let Syria’s neighbors deal with them… Of course that might dry up dollars from the arms dealers.

 

We’re not the world cops – although the State Dept. doesn’t seem to grok that.

 

But then again, on the other hand, if the US asnd Russia (and possibly China) are going into a full contact scrimmage shortly, maybe it’s best to have a low-value playing field which could be turned into glass without long-term ripples.

 

Yep, forget I mentioned it.

 

Rocket Science Finance

The IMF is planning to cut global growth forecasts.  Gee, gosh, golly, who’da thought?

 

If I’m muttering under my breath “sets the stage for an employment-driven war” don’t pay me no mind.

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By the way, another fine case of “circular finance” comes into view as the Wall St. Journal reports that Argentina is planning to use $4.2 b of international reserves (bail out dough) to pay international loans.

 

In a more honest world, there’d be reports on how countries are lent money and then have to pay it back…plus interest.  But in the global charade of globalista finance it’s not going to be framed that way.

 

But it would be like you overspending and facing bankruptcy, me lending you money to fool the leinholders, and then once the lienholders have wandered off, making you pay the money back.  That’s where cycles in economics come from:  When the lienholders wander back in a few years…then we get to go through the whole shooing match again…at interest.

 

Say, I’m not sounding sour and cynical am I?  You haven’t heard the word “transparency” lately, have you?  No?  Didn’t think so…but you’re not surprised, are you?

 

Just Another Bot Hit

Police search the Vatican on financial crimes probe.

 

My Wild Suggestion Confirmed

A while back I suggested that there would be no global warming problem if we could just get a fairly clean nuclear war going between the East and West.  Naturally, some people were none-too-pleased with my glowing clarity on the matter, but a reader in Canada spied this article in the Winnipeg Free Press claiming “Researchers say aerosols from small volcanic eruptions could cool climate.“  Same outcome, less the strontium.

 

Gotta wonder if that has touched off previous ice ages?

 

Them Criminal Brits

Sorry to see the headline in the UK Telegraph that “Paedophile spared extradition to US on human rights grounds.“

 

We are quickly losing respect for the UK’s ability to think clearly.  To my way of thinking, if you do the crime, you do the time, and if that means coming back to the USA to face charges, then so be it.

 

I have no idea while Brits put up with BS like this, but I never understood their kneeling and soap boxes, either.  It does suggest that in addition to being financially bankrupt, people in that part of the world are morally bankrupt, as well.  Maybe they collect pedophiles…just no telling.

 

“When evil becomes good and good becomes evil” you’re when?

 

Living in Mac Houses

I can’t tell you how much abuse I’ve had heaped on me over the years by Apple fans who think I’m a cretin (or worse) for being a strictly Windows-based operation.

 

So in keeping with eye-for-an-eye, I ought to to mention that Apple has fixed a corrupt update bug.  Maybe that will slow down the number of emails I get about being in the world’s largest paying beta test group.

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If you haven’t checked for that DNS re-direct virus, time is running out: Next week is when the bad servers go down.

 

Simple Science

Discovery is asking a pertinent question this morning:  What’re we going to do if that particle discovered this week is not the Higgs Boson? 

 

They didn’t come to my conclusion:  We call it the CERN Bozos and come up with a new theory….but maybe next week.  It’s Friday, after all.

 

 

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