FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
June 4 2010: Who on earth are we?
Bird on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast
Ilargi: Bureau of Labor Statistics today reports 431,000 added jobs, 411,000 of which are temporary census jobs. How temporary? John Crudele in the New York Post has stories of people who get hired and fired multiple times, which of course will go down as multiple job creation. Even without that deep black game playing, we’d be left with 20,000 jobs created, you would think.
But not so fast. The completely random, senseless and opaque birth/death model reports that the BLS added 215,000 jobs out of nowhere in May 2010. Hence, for all we know (the BLS refuses to divulge the criteria it uses for the birth/death numbers -which it changes all the time as well anyway-), 195,000 or more real actual jobs were lost in the US in May.
Which is why the euro, gold, oil, European stock exchanges and Wall Street are all set to lead us into a very dark weekend.
Here’s my main man VK on the US job numbers:
VK: The US jobs report showed what appears to be the largest increase in jobs in the last decade, coming in at 431,000 jobs gained for the month of May. Now before we bring out the champagne and rose tinted glasses, we must look closer into the report to show just how dire and full of propaganda it is..
Of the 431,000 jobs added, 411,000 were as a result of temporary census hiring. While another 31,000 jobs were added as a result of temporary help services, and another 215,000 jobs were added as a result of the horribly skewed birth/ death model. So where does that leave us? With anet jobs loss of around 226,000 jobs!
Yes, the real economy contracted by 226,000 jobs. The number of people employed actually declined by 35,000 month on month resulting in a figure of 139.42 million workforce. Those in the civilian labor force declined by 322,000 as these people simply gave up looking for jobs in this shambolic economy. While those "Not in labor force" increased by 493,000. Both figures are Month on Month. While the YoY figures for both metrics show that the Civilian labor force has declined by 1 Million people and that those NOT in the labor force have increased by about 2.5 Million people.
Ilargi: So, all’s fair that ends fair, or something. Except that markets all over bought none of it. Despite this priceless ditty:
Obama Hails Jobs Numbers Amid GOP Criticism
President Obama says the addition of 431,000 jobs in May proves "the economy is getting stronger by the day."
Yeah well, the economy lost 226,000 jobs, while 493,000 people gave up even looking for a job. How does anyone, let alone the president, have the audacity to tell a nation its economy is getting stronger by the day while jobs are lost left, right and center? That takes an accomplshed liar, if you ask me. The US has less jobs today, not more, and that is clear to anyone willing to see it.
And the stock markets are clear enough in their answer too, As I write this, markets are down a whopping wobbling 3% or more. For all I know, it'll all rise again at the end of the day due to interference of one kind or another (check: it didn't) , but the game is on. And with a US president telling blatant lies, there’s no reason to believe there’ll be any trading calm any time soon.
Back in the real world, BP goes for a $10 billion dividend shareholder payout, while an entire ecosystem, which until recently included millions of Americans, has died, even if they don't want to admit to it yet. And "the economy is getting stronger by the day", Mr. President? Really? Like, really?
Who says that getting elected to a post means you're free to lie to your voters for 4+ years? Who invented that one? Don’t please get me wrong, I don’t want any republican in that seat either, that would just lead to more and/or worse lies, but let's be honest, this is getting ridiculous.
A 20-odd year-old kid in Nairobi, Kenya can figure out what the US government BLS employment numbers really mean (hundreds of thousands of net job losses), and the US president goes on record saying "the economy is getting stronger by the day."?! Didn’t the man screw up Deepwater Horizon bad enough yet? Do we need more of the same incompetent lies on employment, on "the economy getting stronger" while in actual fact it’s tanking? What’s going on here? Who are we?
As I was writing and having dinner just now, US stock markets closed down over 3%, with financials hit especially hard, and the euro below $1.20 for the first time in a long time. But not to worry, your leader says the marketsh ave no idea what they're doing: "the economy is getting stronger by the day.".
Alright, I’ll stop for now. It’s just that I have no patience for lies, nor for the people who tell them. The US economy today took a big leap towards its inevitable demise. Watch your step, please. And no, it's not that the US is any worse off than anyone else. Europe is crumbling, so is China, Japan; again, you just name them. It’s only a matter of when the whip comes down.
Life as it was for hundreds of years in Louisiana and Alabama is over, and it won’t return in the lifetime of those who one knew it. Many more along the Atlantic will share their faith:
The cherry on your weekend cake: British home prices are back up to nearly their peak levels. Me, I’m just thinking: what's wrong with those people?
Be careful, dear people, don't end up like the birds in today’s photos.
And looking at those, I’ll ax of you one more time:
Who on earth are we?
Why are we as a species too stupid to understand even how not to annihilate ourselves, but then we turn around and still tell each other we’re geniuses? Why is that?
And why would we presume we can inflict this kind of mindless suffering without having it inflicted upon ourselves in return?
No comments:
Post a Comment