An example is yesterday's Wall Street Journal story, You Know A Little About the Economy, by James Mackintosh, calling Friday's U.S. payrolls report unusual: "Not just because it was so disappointing (new jobs haven't been so far below expectations since November 2008, shortly after Lehman Brothers failed), but also because the miss might, just possibly, tell us something for a change."
And what that might be, kind sir? You can bet one thing: whatever it is will be some kind of attempt to soften or even fully negate the negative impact. And Mr. Mackintosh doesn't, unlike those payroll numbers, disappoint.
"Investors typically care far too much about the payrolls data, treated now as the most important economic release each month," he notes. "The figures are hyped up and then extrapolated, in Friday's case leading traders to cut the likelihood of a Federal Reserve rate increase this summer. This gave the dollar it's fourth-worst day in seven years against a basket of currencies."
Now here comes the but. Yet and but are from the same semantic school. They're like the jab in boxing designed to set up and disguise the real punch that's on it's way, the straight right hand. "Yet, these aren't numbers on which to bet the ranch. The payroll figures have a huge margin of error, are subject to big revisions and offer little in the way of guidance to the future," he writes.
First off what numbers the Fed follows don't have wide margins for error and don't get widely revised? Name them. And we don't recall anyone betting the farm on these obviously negative numbers. The market responded favorably by going up two days in a row. Most of that probably came from short term traders and hot money. There's an underlying feeling people want to push the indexes to new highs to sweep in maximum profits before the lights go out.
Seldom have we seen MSM print a similar disclaimer when the latest numbers favored their position. The intended message should be clear, things are not so bad as many as saying. Trust us in MSM. We know more about the economy than you do.
For a long time it was believed and pushed by MSM that the Bernanke-Yellen led monetary madness was leading the U.S. economy back to growth and that growth in the globe's largest economy would help lead others to higher ground. The EU was late to the money printing madness. So obviously some will note that. But bond yields in the EU just hit the lowest levels ever and that includes German bonds, a nation with some semblance of financial probity that was not hit nearly as hard as other EU members.
These low bond yields and negatives interest rates symbolize one and only one thing: central bankers around the globe are clueless and panic is their weapon of choice. Here's an interesting chart we came across at David Stockman's site that will shed some indirect light on those jobless numbers. And you can see from the time frames it's no aberration.
The number of male adults living with mom goes up during every recession and after all this time it's still rising.
In Italy it is more common for adult men to live longer at home with moms, they even have a term for it, but not in the U.S. If you're a bartender the job numbers might be on the upswing, but if one is seeking decent steady employment it's another story--and has been for a long, long time.
If a certain candidate takes over the White House in this fall's election, look for the next administration's Treasury to start printing "In MSM We Trust" on the currency.
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