Wall Street doesn’t get more excited than when the US Labor Department puts out the monthly employment numbers. And tomorrow’s the day that happens.
Complex trend models are predicting that there was a gain of 190,000 jobs in March, so that’s what the experts and the financial markets are expecting.
BUT the government also starts arbitrarily adding jobs to the count in springtime because it believes — but can’t prove — that the better weather brings about the birth of a lot of new companies that need workers. So the figure could be stronger than expected.
BUT March usually isn’t a big month for those phantom jobs, which come from something called the birth-death model. Those jobs generally show up by the hundreds of thousands in the April, May and June numbers. Tomorrow’s report, however, could also benefit.
BUT the March number will be subject to something called a benchmark revision, which leads to erratic moves in the data. What the birth-death model giveth, the benchmark revision could taketh away.
BUT the seasonal adjustments, which happen every month, often lead to misleading conclusions. In recent years, these adjustments have been causing many economic numbers to look stronger during winter and weaker in the spring.
BUT that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t root for job growth. There are about 6 million more jobs now than there were at the depth of the recession.
BUT the country needs about 250,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with first-time job seekers. So when you take these folks into account, we’ll probably need 10 million more jobs just to get the workforce back to where it was in 2007.
BUT ADP and Moody’s Analytics said yesterday that 158,000 new jobs were created last month.
BUT even if that number is correct, it’s just not enough. And ADP/Moody’s doesn’t measure the same thing that the Labor Department does.
BUT the unemployment rate is declining.
BUT that’s not necessarily a good sign. If the job market was noticeably better, people would be getting more optimistic about finding work and they’d start reporting to Labor Department surveyors. That would cause the jobless rate to rise.
BUT if the employment situation gets bleaker, the good thing is that the Federal Reserve will step in and print more money. So bad news is really good news.
BUT the Fed has really done all it can and the economy just isn’t responding.
BUT, BUT, BUT …
Here’s what you really need to know: Anyone who thinks they can predict what tomorrow’s number will be or believes, after they see the number, that they understand what’s going in this screwball job market is — naturally — a BUTT-head.
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So, President Obama is going to give back 5 percent of his salary in support of furloughed government workers.
What a sport!
How about this: He and the missus and the kids coordinate their vacations for once so the taxpayer doesn’t have to foot the bill for Air Force One and other government aircraft making multiple trips to their vacation spots.
We’re talking about $20,000 savings from the salary give-back versus millions in savings — not to mention the carbon footprint factors — just by better vacation planning.
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Dear John: Cyprus — Can it happen here?
Taxing my already taxed money in my savings account? As it is I get 0.25 percent. Should I withdraw it all and keep it under the mattress?— B.H.
Dear B.H: It’s already happening here, except that Washington is a little more subtle in the way it is confiscating money from savers to bail out financial institutions.
The difference between the 0.25 percent you say you are receiving on your savings and what the normal interest rate should be is the tax. And this taxation, which is mainly on the middle class, has been going on for six years, ever since Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke decided to cut rates in 2007 in response to idea that the world financial system was in collapse.
The government of Cyprus, with a lot of prodding from the European Union, isn’t just taking people’s interest income, it’s taking the principal. That’s like clubbing someone over the head to take their wallet.
What’s going on here is more like picking someone’s pocket when they are sleeping: it’s not as shocking as outright mugging but the result is the same.
Would the US ever resort to a Cyprus-style confiscation of assets? Probably not. But Washington is on a potentially more dangerous path: printing money through the Fed’s quantitative easing program that covers our banking system’s shortfalls. It also harms our currency’s stability and risks inflation.