Strong U.S. job, wage gains open door to mid-year rate hike | Reuters

Posted by richrobinson 9 years, 1 month ago to The Gulch: General
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There has been a lot said recently about how the unemployment number is very misleading. Now we get this positive report. I am very skeptical of these numbers. I don't trust this administration at all. GDP was negative in Q1 then magically turns positive. More massaging of the numbers is my guess.
SOURCE URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/06/us-usa-economy-idUSKBN0LA02P20150206


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  • Posted by sfdi1947 9 years, 1 month ago
    The White House, since Gere Ford has only published the U3 Number (Unemployed and receiving unemployment insurance compensation). If you want the real bad news go to www;bls.gov. Taking the available to work number from the 16 + working 35 hrs + gives you a real general Number, dividing it by the total population tells you the real percent of unemployed, Est. is 18 - 22% +/- 1.5 %.
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  • Posted by evlwhtguy 9 years, 1 month ago
    there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I believe that it was Mark Twain who produced this quote.
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    • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 1 month ago
      I really wish that people would stop saying that, being one who uses statistics to see "reality."
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      • Posted by JaxGary 9 years, 1 month ago
        Like any other tool, statistics can be used or abused. Unfortunately the abuse always draws more attention that the use. Please do not take it personally as you obviously seem to be one of honest people in your profession. I am not a statistician, but I taught business stats for four years and I always hold statistical data "at arms length" since I know the propensity to exaggerate or support a prior claim is always present. I was a stock broker for 10 years and never once surrendered my integrity to do what my supervisor or firms wanted me to do; I always served my clients. It was hard to be in a profession where the norm seems to be amoral or immoral because those are the representatives who bring in the majority of the wealth to their firms. I finally had to realize that people who complained about brokers were not complaining about me! I was there to help clients and gain personal knowledge; I achieved both personal goals.
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        • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 1 month ago
          An honest stock broker. About as rare as a statistician that gives a straight answer! ;-)
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          • Posted by JaxGary 9 years, 1 month ago
            We seem to have quite a bit I common! I enjoy reading your posts; both those containing facts and those containing opinions. I am only guessing here, but I assume we have more readers than posters. To those of you are reading: if you do not understand what is being presented or find it hard to see the connections between what is posted and how you perceive reality, PLEASE post your concerns and/or questions. I believe it is incumbent upon those of us who post opinions to support them with facts and explanations. Some concepts require more effort than others to fully grasp.
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            • Posted by khalling 9 years, 1 month ago
              " I believe it is incumbent upon those of us who post opinions to support them with facts and explanations." I think we do a pretty good job of holding peoples' feet to the fire. Sometimes people just want the conversation and not have to cite everything they write. evidence and supporting arguments on Objectivist principles abound in here. welcome to the gulch jax...err robbie...no jax! :)
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            • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 1 month ago
              You're going to get people thinking that you are me under a different nom de plume. ;-)
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              • Posted by JaxGary 9 years, 1 month ago
                We are under different names! I could have chosen a more appropriate pen name, but I have been JaxGary since I first crawled into the web in the early 1990s. I had a few followers in those days as I posted an internet newsletter, Stocks du Jour. OF course, that was BEFORE I became a broker; I had to give up the newsletter as a requirement of becoming a registered representative to avoid any compliance issues. By the way, that pretty much encompassed all of my knowledge of the French language!
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  • Posted by $ Radio_Randy 9 years, 1 month ago
    I know of nobody who has recently received a wage increase of anything near 2%. Even the military is talking about a 1.something% increase.
    Of course...maybe they're referencing the ill-fated increases in the minimum wage (up to $15/hr) that many of our socialist state legislatures are phasing in?
    I have two sons that have been out of work about as long as Obama has been president. I'll start to believe the economy is improving when I see them back to work (and no, they don't live with us).
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  • Posted by TahoeDagney 9 years, 1 month ago
    Of course the bureaucrats of the State will lie to and steal from you. That is their job. They are professional confiscators of choice, property, wealth and freedom.

    As far as the Fed, let it be. Simply abolish the “legal tender laws” and free us all to use whatever we want as money rather than being forced at gun-point to use the Fed’s phony money. A simplex (‘tho certainly not easy) solution.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 1 month ago
    Are all the lefties in the world delusional? Don't they ever wonder why the snake they put in their back pocket keeps biting their ass? You don't have to be a professor of economics to see the lie. All I can think of is that it may be that the world is being run by people from an alternate universe.
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    • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 1 month ago
      Yes, because they refuse to call it a snake. That's what happens when you refuse to deal with reality - it has an ugly habit of asserting it's true nature even when libs don't want it too. It's why they can never get policy right.
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  • Posted by samrigel 9 years, 1 month ago
    If one counts all of those folks that have given up on looking for work and those that are working several part-time jobs to make ends meet then the actual unemployment number is between 12 - 15 %. The one thing I learned many years ago in my college Economics class was you can make the numbers mean whatever you want them to mean. It is all a matter of perspective!!
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    • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 1 month ago
      Reminds me of the time a freshman coed, puzzling over some Physics Lab data with a problem... she couldn't figure out why her data was so different from what was expected...

      After perusing the data points, I suggested that some of the 'timing variation' in the imprecise 'clock-ticks' could explain the discrepancies, but all she had to do was to smooth out the resulting curve, draw a red circle around the 'outlier data point' and provide an explanation of why she thought it WAS an 'outlier.'

      She saw the logic in that and got an A for the lab report. And an honest engineer was born.

      I believe that one of the Problems y'all are describing comes from the apparent inability of the folks plotting the data points and inferring the conclusions to be dead honest about which data points DON'T fit their theory and their refusal or inability to include their explanation of Why They Don't.

      Something about logic, integrity...something like that.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
    BS!!!
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    • Posted by wiggys 9 years, 1 month ago
      Zenphany you have it absolutely correct. this administration has done what previous administrations have done only in SPADES. the economy is as I have said before in the toilet and it has been flushed. I am sure the unemployment rate is probably 30 percent. wage increases to professional athletes is up but to the rest of the US economy it is non-existent. sales at retail abound. manufacturing is down. the price of oil by the barrel wouldn't surprise me if it were in the 30's before june of 2015. I just read that pork meat is now out selling beef, why because it is cheaper! oil and gas pumping companies are cutting back employees all over the country communities where these people live were gearing up to build more homes, not happening. the early big lie was when the government claimed a HUGH increase in tax revenues, gas prices will continue to drop because people aren't driving unnecessarily. and they aren't squandering the savings to buy new shirts, etc. the closer we get to the end of 0's term, can't come soon enough the worst the economy will get. recent history shows this. from the conservatives hero Reagan to bush 2 that is what we have seen, but if you thought things were bad then wait till this clown leaves office.
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      • Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 1 month ago
        It simply can't last, can it?
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        • Posted by wiggys 9 years, 1 month ago
          "can't last" if you mean the down turn in the economy; YES is can and will. the people in power function on the philosophy of altruism, collectivism, socialism as well as several other ism's. what seems to be lost in the conversation is a simple fact of their lives and that is they were all educated in government schools and accepted all of the doctrine. they know no difference, as for 0 he has a character deficiency where by he sees that is not only doesn't do anything that is bad but that he can't.
          then there are the rest of the congress also civil servants that will not rock the boat because one of them regardless of party wants to be where he is. keeping that in mind I would like to know how things can change. you might want to say the title of a 1960's broadway show and think about doing it :"stop the world I want to get off".
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    • Posted by 9 years, 1 month ago
      Ironically these numbers may cause the Fed to increase rates and that may cause a crash on Wall Street. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
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      • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 1 month ago
        Forget Wall Street. Since 2008 the Fed has increased the US money supply by about a factor of 4.5, mostly buy buying bonds the Treasury couldn't sell by pulling money out of its collective backside.

        That's 450% inflation. So far, only about 10% has reached us as price inflation, mostly because the Fed has been encouraging banks to keep their money on deposit at the Fed rather than lend to anybody. But with the so-called recovery, that is starting to change, and when it does, interest on the national debt is going to be more than the Treasury can pay. (Raising taxes won't help either -- we're above the hump on the Laffer curve.)

        We're headed for runaway inflation, folks. Get your assets OUT of anything denominated in US Dollars, before they get sucked down the black hole!
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        • Posted by JaxGary 9 years, 1 month ago
          Yes, our inflation is quite high if one agrees that inflation is an increase in the supply of money. However, the reason that we do not feel an immediate impact of that inflation is primarily tied to the fact that the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency and many countries use the USD as their own currencies. That means a great deal of those newly printed dollars are leaving our economy and not directly impacting prices in the US. Several major economic players, mainly China and Russia, are trying to replace the USD as the world's reserve currency. If they are successful, a boatload of those dollars that were previous being circulated OUTSIDE our economy will come home to cause all prices to rise and we will begin to see the negative effects of this Keynesian ideal of unlimited government borrowing, money printing, and spending. We have probably passed a reasonable point of return and should all be bracing for the inevitable - a collapse of the USD. It will happen; the only real question becomes when will it occur.
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        • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 1 month ago
          Yep, watched and read a prediction of that Crash just the other night... coming within the next six months!

          Oh, wait... that report was dated summer '14...

          Whatever... at the end of the 'report' were the subscription offers for their newsletters and reports.

          Why would anyone facing such huge potential gains in that kind of market be offering subscriptions to people who would be competing with them for the same profits?....

          Um, wait... I think an answer is coming through... :)
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          • Posted by 9 years, 1 month ago
            My concern is that we have not had a true market correction in about 5 years. They average about every 18 months. When we do have a downturn it could be huge. I'm not buying any subscriptions cause no one really knows when and how much it will drop.
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            • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 1 month ago
              And my graphical analysis tells me that we're around the middle of a 20-year relatively-flat DOW cycle (with the usual amounts of minor peaks and valleys) until around 2020-2025, after which the next phase should be 20 years of 'up and to the right'...

              I may be dead before that one is proven right or wrong, but I still recommend MarketMinder and Ken Fisher for their comments on things like 'the inevitability of market corrections' and such....

              One thing they both consistently say is, "historical data has virtually no predictive value for the stock markets."

              No matter how much we'd love that to be true.
              If there are any such cycles, I suggest that they are caused by political influences of/by government, and THAT may have some cyclical nature, and THAT may be driven by some calendar (like Presidential or Congressional election cycles?)...

              Figure that one out and you may get a Nobel in Economics... :)
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      • Posted by JaxGary 9 years, 1 month ago
        Do not expect the Fed to do us any favors. It is an institution that was created to transfer wealth by intentionally devaluing our dollar at the highest possible sustainable rate. Their intent is always to harm us; but to keep that harm to a low enough level that we will not rise up in revolt.
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        • Posted by 9 years, 1 month ago
          If the Fed buys in to the lie that the economy is doing better and they end up raising rates the stock market would probably fall hard. Difficult times we live in.
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          • Posted by JaxGary 9 years, 1 month ago
            What incentive does the Fed have for raising rates? The theory is to raise rates to cool a rising economy and to reduce rates to stimulate a slowly growing economy. I do not see any impetus for raising the rates at the present time.
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            • Posted by 9 years, 1 month ago
              If the economy is doing as well as the government claims the Fed has signaled a rate increase by mid year. They either have to disagree with the administration or crash everything.
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              • Posted by JaxGary 9 years, 1 month ago
                You are looking on the surface; try to see what is not so obvious. The real economic bugaboo to the Fed is disinflation, falling consumer prices, and that does not seem to be prevalent. The government claims of recovers are exaggerated but they are not saying a "hot" economy is driving consumer prices downward. A normal market economy (without government intervention) will always result in progressively lower prices as technological improvements and entrepreneurial skills will improve production efficiencies over time while consumer discretion will reward those firms that achieve efficiency - disinflation is a straw man. Most of us define inflation as an increase in the money supply rather than a rise in price levels as the Keynesians do. Either way, I still do not see any real incentive for the Fed to increase interest rates. I suspect they will actually return to some form of money-pumping as in quantitative easing; not because the economy is cold, but just because they can and lower interest rates makes it less painful for the government to pay the interest on it ever-increasing national debt! I would not be surprised at all if treasury yields enter into negative territory, meaning we would have to PAY interest to hold treasury bonds rather than EARN interest on holding them.
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      • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 1 month ago
        Rich, check MarketMinder.com or Ken Fisher... when rates rose after QE-whatever was tapered off in Europe, the stock markets didn't crash.

        Increased 'rates' might actually incent banks to loan money to US Murkins rather than squirrel it away in the Ultra-Safe-er Fed Notes... the ultra-low Guaranteed Rates still look safer to banks than the riskier 'free-market-risky' things that are alternatives, and banks get punished today BY the government regs for taking risks they would not have batted an eyelash at EVER in the past.

        More Unintended Consequences.... Surprise!
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 1 month ago
    I dont believe anything the pundits say. They all have hidden agendas. I would say that I think all that printed money is getting into regular circulation now, as opposed to just staying in the hands of the people who get first dibs on printed money. More traffic and more renting of buildings is something I have noticed in the last couple of months. A LOT more traffic here in Las Vegas (not visitor traffic but locals traffic). With all the money printed by Obama, it had to go somewhere and I think its come back to roost. I have also noticed inflation in prices accelerating faster at the same time. Everything from Subway sandwiches to items in Costco. Gas just went up 20 cents a gallon here in a week.
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  • Posted by mia767ca 9 years, 1 month ago
    devil is in the detail...for months, the breakdown of the age-group jobs numbers have shown that the jobs for the middle class have been decreasing (age 25-55) while the big increase is in PART_TIME jobs for 55 and older...the systematic destruction of the middle class
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
    I'm more interested in the NDP. Specifically what percentage was left after the intentional devaluation of the dollar and repudiation of the debt. I''m really not looking forward to working for Walmart just to survive but thank God and Greyhound there is one employer taking care of the elderly.

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