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Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Thursday, August 20, 2015
SVForum Disrupts Unemployment With i4j Panel
I checked out SVForum's "Disrupting Unemployment" event last night, part of the Innovation for Jobs (i4j) project. I drove on down to Microsoft's Silicon Valley campus to get acquainted with thought leaders cutting through the bleeding edge of career transformations. I had to get my fill of chicken fingers and dolmas before the intellectual action began. Check out my awesome badge selfie before I get down to business.
The official welcome laid out the global problem at hand. A whole bunch of people in the world are either not gainfully employed at decent incomes, or not totally committed to their chosen work. My Google search for "percent of global labor force not earning sufficient income" turned up a bunch of reports from McKinsey, the US Department of Labor, and Pew Research showing how global markets increasingly challenge ethnic minorities and low-skilled workers. I am intrigued with i4j's thesis that new digital career-matching tools will reduce job frictions and add to personal income at the microeconomic level, eventually boosting the US's lackluster macroeconomic growth. I recall from my undergraduate studies in economics (yes, I still have all of my textbooks and course notes) that structural unemployment is the stickiest part of the unemployment picture. Rapid tech changes will add to that problem. I will tune in to the i4jECO Summit in January 2016 to see how thought leaders are solving that problem.
Legendary tech guru John Hagel gave the keynote last night. I have followed his work for many years and we are connected through friends, but last night was the first time I came face to face with this guy. He is totally brilliant. I'm sure he would find my own brilliance impressive but I wasn't there to steal his thunder. Anyway, John laid out the three challenges of automation, accelerating skill obsolescence, and a substandard educational system that hinder more effective career matches. He thinks society still needs institutions that can scale learning for a mass market. His key is connecting work to passion. Got it, scale and passion go together, sort of like peanut butter and jelly but without the bread.
My friend Robin Farmanfarmaian moderated the expert panel. I have no idea where she gets the energy to organize all of these high-profile events. I would need a fusion reactor to generate as much energy as she manifests. Alrighty then, enough about my energy deficit. The panel addressed the US's national competitiveness first. I am disappointed that the US is dropping in rank on a leading freedom index. That's what we get for adopting bailouts and managed health care regimes as the new normal. At least one panelist finally recognized that Silicon Valley's penchant for solving the rich world's problems in speedy transport and gourmet meal delivery won't always convert to developing countries that really need basic WiFi infrastructure.
The one panelist who insisted on being a negative Nellie eventually struck a few nerves. He was on a roll panning major telecom companies as losers, and describing a mostly jobless future where automation forces more people to earn less. His argument with another panelist about how coal workers recovered from mine troubles would have made more sense if either one of them had cited hard data. One audience member rudely called baloney on the negativity by citing The Seamless City, about how public-private partnerships and smart metrics solve urban blight. He could have waited until the Q and A to make his point without interrupting. I'd like to see San Francisco become a seamless city, once the mayor takes on the non-profits who lock up city contracts and grants.
One audience member claimed that some measure of worldwide return on assets now exceeds the return on work. I find that hard to believe without a citation. Record ROIs worldwide are lately more a function of central bank monetary stimulus. Once that steroid infusion ends, the pendulum should swing back to worker productivity. The HR community has metrics for the ROI of workforce investments, especially for job-specific training. Look them up at SHRM for yourself. Come on, people, nothing is impossible. The entrepreneurs in the audience working on people-centric innovations can get it done.
I stuck around longer than necessary in case anyone needed to partake of my wisdom, or in case any attractive women wanted my phone number. No one took me up on either count. That gave me time to grab more food and drink. SVForum held my interest all night.
The official welcome laid out the global problem at hand. A whole bunch of people in the world are either not gainfully employed at decent incomes, or not totally committed to their chosen work. My Google search for "percent of global labor force not earning sufficient income" turned up a bunch of reports from McKinsey, the US Department of Labor, and Pew Research showing how global markets increasingly challenge ethnic minorities and low-skilled workers. I am intrigued with i4j's thesis that new digital career-matching tools will reduce job frictions and add to personal income at the microeconomic level, eventually boosting the US's lackluster macroeconomic growth. I recall from my undergraduate studies in economics (yes, I still have all of my textbooks and course notes) that structural unemployment is the stickiest part of the unemployment picture. Rapid tech changes will add to that problem. I will tune in to the i4jECO Summit in January 2016 to see how thought leaders are solving that problem.
Legendary tech guru John Hagel gave the keynote last night. I have followed his work for many years and we are connected through friends, but last night was the first time I came face to face with this guy. He is totally brilliant. I'm sure he would find my own brilliance impressive but I wasn't there to steal his thunder. Anyway, John laid out the three challenges of automation, accelerating skill obsolescence, and a substandard educational system that hinder more effective career matches. He thinks society still needs institutions that can scale learning for a mass market. His key is connecting work to passion. Got it, scale and passion go together, sort of like peanut butter and jelly but without the bread.
My friend Robin Farmanfarmaian moderated the expert panel. I have no idea where she gets the energy to organize all of these high-profile events. I would need a fusion reactor to generate as much energy as she manifests. Alrighty then, enough about my energy deficit. The panel addressed the US's national competitiveness first. I am disappointed that the US is dropping in rank on a leading freedom index. That's what we get for adopting bailouts and managed health care regimes as the new normal. At least one panelist finally recognized that Silicon Valley's penchant for solving the rich world's problems in speedy transport and gourmet meal delivery won't always convert to developing countries that really need basic WiFi infrastructure.
The one panelist who insisted on being a negative Nellie eventually struck a few nerves. He was on a roll panning major telecom companies as losers, and describing a mostly jobless future where automation forces more people to earn less. His argument with another panelist about how coal workers recovered from mine troubles would have made more sense if either one of them had cited hard data. One audience member rudely called baloney on the negativity by citing The Seamless City, about how public-private partnerships and smart metrics solve urban blight. He could have waited until the Q and A to make his point without interrupting. I'd like to see San Francisco become a seamless city, once the mayor takes on the non-profits who lock up city contracts and grants.
One audience member claimed that some measure of worldwide return on assets now exceeds the return on work. I find that hard to believe without a citation. Record ROIs worldwide are lately more a function of central bank monetary stimulus. Once that steroid infusion ends, the pendulum should swing back to worker productivity. The HR community has metrics for the ROI of workforce investments, especially for job-specific training. Look them up at SHRM for yourself. Come on, people, nothing is impossible. The entrepreneurs in the audience working on people-centric innovations can get it done.
I stuck around longer than necessary in case anyone needed to partake of my wisdom, or in case any attractive women wanted my phone number. No one took me up on either count. That gave me time to grab more food and drink. SVForum held my interest all night.
Friday, March 06, 2015
Monday, February 09, 2015
Financial Sarcasm Roundup for 02/09/15
History's infrequent inflection points bring the breakdown of ancien regimes. They also bring sarcasm.
Greek PM Tsipras once again threw an anti-austerity brick at the EU. He even upped the ante by demanding WWII reparations from Germany. The conventional wisdom is that a eurozone breakup is impossible. It's obvious to me that the new Greek government is buying time to put a post-euro contingency into place if they can't extort another bailout from Brussels. Angela Merkel must be getting tired of this charade. Credit ratings agencies are already sick of it, with Standard and Poor's downgrading Greece.
Japan's weakening current account surplus is bad news for Abenomics. They'll have to sell a lot more sushi and Kobe beef to make up for these numbers. Trashing the yen with monetary stimulus was supposed to boost exports, not reduce them. Japan's two-decade experiment with economic retardation shows no sign of ending. Economic stagnation is a gift to long-dormant militarists who are now beginning their push to re-arm Japan. I expect them to hire one of the more frightening Pokemon characters as a cheap scare tactic until they can afford serious weaponry upgrades.
Gallup told the truth about how the USDOL miscounts unemployment statistics. At least one CEO in America is willing to speak out; too bad he backtracked later on TV. Labor statisticians know the real numbers but their political appointee bosses won't allow them to speak out. Ordinary Americans suspect the numbers are false but don't mind as long as they can collect unemployment benefits. Lying goes a long way in this country for liars who can throw money around.
The three narratives above reflect ancien regimes that subscribe to "extend and pretend" debt rollover fantasies. The crackups needed to bring them all back to reality will be harsh but necessary. Bring on the great unwinding.
Greek PM Tsipras once again threw an anti-austerity brick at the EU. He even upped the ante by demanding WWII reparations from Germany. The conventional wisdom is that a eurozone breakup is impossible. It's obvious to me that the new Greek government is buying time to put a post-euro contingency into place if they can't extort another bailout from Brussels. Angela Merkel must be getting tired of this charade. Credit ratings agencies are already sick of it, with Standard and Poor's downgrading Greece.
Japan's weakening current account surplus is bad news for Abenomics. They'll have to sell a lot more sushi and Kobe beef to make up for these numbers. Trashing the yen with monetary stimulus was supposed to boost exports, not reduce them. Japan's two-decade experiment with economic retardation shows no sign of ending. Economic stagnation is a gift to long-dormant militarists who are now beginning their push to re-arm Japan. I expect them to hire one of the more frightening Pokemon characters as a cheap scare tactic until they can afford serious weaponry upgrades.
Gallup told the truth about how the USDOL miscounts unemployment statistics. At least one CEO in America is willing to speak out; too bad he backtracked later on TV. Labor statisticians know the real numbers but their political appointee bosses won't allow them to speak out. Ordinary Americans suspect the numbers are false but don't mind as long as they can collect unemployment benefits. Lying goes a long way in this country for liars who can throw money around.
The three narratives above reflect ancien regimes that subscribe to "extend and pretend" debt rollover fantasies. The crackups needed to bring them all back to reality will be harsh but necessary. Bring on the great unwinding.
Sunday, May 04, 2014
Monday, May 06, 2013
Financial Sarcasm Roundup for 05/06/13
There is a cure for nonsense in the business world. My sarcasm makes everything better. Central bankers need to hire me so I can liven up their currency-destroying meetings.
The EU's economics honcho is jawboning the French to get back on the austerity wagon. Didn't he get the memo? Austerity is so passe this season, what with the Reinhart-Rogoff thesis discredited after a couple of Excel errors. This season's fashion trend is all about renewed profligacy. Eurotrash are determined to paint the town some new shade of pastel before the euro is dissolved.
Warren Buffett assures us that all will be well after he steps down from running Berkshire Hathaway. Making his son the chairman is a good way to ensure the culture he created continues for a few decades. His rules for success are pretty simple: stay with what you understand, figure out if something has a durable advantage, buy at a discount to its intrinsic value. His managers seem to get this but most of Wall Street doesn't. That's why Wall Street doesn't deliver value like Berkshire.
Bond investors must be seriously stupid if they think the Fed can unwind its bond purchases without hurting their investments. That would require an even bigger fool than the Fed to buy all those junk securitizations, and I don't see any UFOs full of alien investors landing in Washington with cash in hand. The simple math that expanded supply (once bonds are dumped on the market) leading to reduced prices if demand stays constant is the kind of thinking that many bond investors just can't handle. Bond portfolio managers can't handle it either but they'd rather not spook their clients and lose their careers.
The headline screams "US unemployment rate down" but nobody reads the fine print. The fastest growing job sectors are low-paying hospitality and retail. People are working fewer hours and their take-home pay is shrinking. We're becoming the "dollar nation" I alluded to in one of my recent posts. Dude, where's my recovery?
Last week I got the chance to impress some people with my genius and wit at a San Francisco social event. I shocked them with my recollections of Notre Dame alumni as snobs who refused to give me career advice. I will continue to spread the word about the worthlessness of a Notre Dame diploma. I'd be happy to discuss my views on NPR's Marketplace.
The EU's economics honcho is jawboning the French to get back on the austerity wagon. Didn't he get the memo? Austerity is so passe this season, what with the Reinhart-Rogoff thesis discredited after a couple of Excel errors. This season's fashion trend is all about renewed profligacy. Eurotrash are determined to paint the town some new shade of pastel before the euro is dissolved.
Warren Buffett assures us that all will be well after he steps down from running Berkshire Hathaway. Making his son the chairman is a good way to ensure the culture he created continues for a few decades. His rules for success are pretty simple: stay with what you understand, figure out if something has a durable advantage, buy at a discount to its intrinsic value. His managers seem to get this but most of Wall Street doesn't. That's why Wall Street doesn't deliver value like Berkshire.
Bond investors must be seriously stupid if they think the Fed can unwind its bond purchases without hurting their investments. That would require an even bigger fool than the Fed to buy all those junk securitizations, and I don't see any UFOs full of alien investors landing in Washington with cash in hand. The simple math that expanded supply (once bonds are dumped on the market) leading to reduced prices if demand stays constant is the kind of thinking that many bond investors just can't handle. Bond portfolio managers can't handle it either but they'd rather not spook their clients and lose their careers.
The headline screams "US unemployment rate down" but nobody reads the fine print. The fastest growing job sectors are low-paying hospitality and retail. People are working fewer hours and their take-home pay is shrinking. We're becoming the "dollar nation" I alluded to in one of my recent posts. Dude, where's my recovery?
Last week I got the chance to impress some people with my genius and wit at a San Francisco social event. I shocked them with my recollections of Notre Dame alumni as snobs who refused to give me career advice. I will continue to spread the word about the worthlessness of a Notre Dame diploma. I'd be happy to discuss my views on NPR's Marketplace.
Monday, April 08, 2013
Financial Sarcasm Roundup for 04/08/13
Cyprus is out of the headlines but not out of trouble. There's enough going on in other countries to warrant continued sarcasm.
Portugal is going for austerity. Europeans can say goodbye to their precious social safety nets, which are really drags on productivity. No more nonsense like two months of vacation for those folks. What has Portugal done lately that warrants such generous benefits anyway? It's not like still own big chunks of the New World, for crying out loud.
Abenomics isn't going to work. The Japanese yen is at a three year low against the U.S. dollar. Other central banks aren't going to wait for Japan's export data before they retaliate with more printing. When that happens, Japan will be right back in stagflation and on its way to high inflation. Japanese exporters have window of maybe two or three months in which to use their windfall earnings to stock up on physical plant and inventory that will hold their value domestically.
U.S. unemployment is dropping only because frustrated job seekers are leaving the workforce. Federal spending cuts so far have been too minuscule to account for the hiring slowdown, so I wish the financial media would drop that meme. It's ironic that last week I attended a technology transfer conference with scientists and investors who would love to create new jobs. They need STEM graduates for high-tech work but American colleges are churning out indebted liberal arts grads. The mismatch won't last forever.
Australia is the latest country to go for direct currency exchange with China. Neither one wants to get stuck holding U.S. dollars when the run on that currency starts sometime. I'd like to know whether Asian multinational corporations are moving their cash holdings out of dollars. American and European multinationals were minimizing their euro exposure in 2012 and events will prove them to be prescient.
Today's good news comes from New Zealand, where the central bank promises to raise rates to fight inflation. That's the exact opposite of the Greenspan-Bernanke philosophy and the results for their economy will be very different from America;s current malaise. I haven't purchased any New Zealand dollars yet but stories like this revive the temptation.
My quest for sarcastic material will never be fully satisfied. Even "Mickey Ronin" knows that but he hasn't provided me with anything stupid to laugh at in recent days. Come on, dude, don't save all of your lies for your court appointment.
Portugal is going for austerity. Europeans can say goodbye to their precious social safety nets, which are really drags on productivity. No more nonsense like two months of vacation for those folks. What has Portugal done lately that warrants such generous benefits anyway? It's not like still own big chunks of the New World, for crying out loud.
Abenomics isn't going to work. The Japanese yen is at a three year low against the U.S. dollar. Other central banks aren't going to wait for Japan's export data before they retaliate with more printing. When that happens, Japan will be right back in stagflation and on its way to high inflation. Japanese exporters have window of maybe two or three months in which to use their windfall earnings to stock up on physical plant and inventory that will hold their value domestically.
U.S. unemployment is dropping only because frustrated job seekers are leaving the workforce. Federal spending cuts so far have been too minuscule to account for the hiring slowdown, so I wish the financial media would drop that meme. It's ironic that last week I attended a technology transfer conference with scientists and investors who would love to create new jobs. They need STEM graduates for high-tech work but American colleges are churning out indebted liberal arts grads. The mismatch won't last forever.
Australia is the latest country to go for direct currency exchange with China. Neither one wants to get stuck holding U.S. dollars when the run on that currency starts sometime. I'd like to know whether Asian multinational corporations are moving their cash holdings out of dollars. American and European multinationals were minimizing their euro exposure in 2012 and events will prove them to be prescient.
Today's good news comes from New Zealand, where the central bank promises to raise rates to fight inflation. That's the exact opposite of the Greenspan-Bernanke philosophy and the results for their economy will be very different from America;s current malaise. I haven't purchased any New Zealand dollars yet but stories like this revive the temptation.
My quest for sarcastic material will never be fully satisfied. Even "Mickey Ronin" knows that but he hasn't provided me with anything stupid to laugh at in recent days. Come on, dude, don't save all of your lies for your court appointment.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Americans Prefer SNAP Over Job Search, Medicaid Over Wealth
Recent economic data releases show the changing nature of work preferences in America, or rather, non-work preferences.
The BLS unemployment numbers from December 7 show that the civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.2%, the only really significant change from the previous month. That BLS report masks the true state of discouragement in the workforce. Check out Table A-16, which shows that the number of people not in the labor force is much higher now that it was a year ago. Multiple job holders are more numerous too. People give up on finding work when there's no work to be found. People take second jobs when one income isn't enough to pay for food and energy that the Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus has made more expensive. Stagflation is the new normal, until something breaks down and we head into another abyss.
Czars of government benefits programs like to see high unemployment because that drives demand for their programs. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aka the federally funded food stamps now delivered via EBT, showed an increase of 607,559 individual participants from August to September. The number of households participating increased by 289,235. That comes to about two people per household on the program, or in plain terms lots of single moms with one kid swiping their welfare card at Wal-Mart once per month. People respond to incentives, and many people are disinclined to look for work when welfare benefits are generous.
Some benefit programs are so generous, and the taxes levied to pay for them so onerous, that even productive people of means are looking for ways to opt out of success and become wards of the state. "Medicaid planning" is the hip new way for affluent people to become destitute enough to qualify for government-funded long-term care. People respond to incentives, and a blank check from the government for heroic end-of-life interventions care looks more attractive than a self-funded hospice stay.
It's hard for me to call poor people lazy when government EBT payments disincentivize them from seeking jobs. It's hard for me to call affluent people stupid when generous government care disincentivizes them from using their wealth productively. Public policy has become so perverse that many normal people are transforming from makers into takers because that's the financially sound thing to do. The 47% of our citizenry who see themselves as victims grows larger by the day. This will continue until the mass of takers overwhelms the productive economy's ability to support them through transfer payments.
My guess is that the madness will never cease of its own accord by reforming the policy system. The fiscal cliff negotiation pantomime under way shows us that Washington D.C. is not interested in anything other than the usual drama. The international bond market will have to be the adult in the room and stop this nonsense for us with a run on the dollar.
The BLS unemployment numbers from December 7 show that the civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.2%, the only really significant change from the previous month. That BLS report masks the true state of discouragement in the workforce. Check out Table A-16, which shows that the number of people not in the labor force is much higher now that it was a year ago. Multiple job holders are more numerous too. People give up on finding work when there's no work to be found. People take second jobs when one income isn't enough to pay for food and energy that the Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus has made more expensive. Stagflation is the new normal, until something breaks down and we head into another abyss.
Czars of government benefits programs like to see high unemployment because that drives demand for their programs. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), aka the federally funded food stamps now delivered via EBT, showed an increase of 607,559 individual participants from August to September. The number of households participating increased by 289,235. That comes to about two people per household on the program, or in plain terms lots of single moms with one kid swiping their welfare card at Wal-Mart once per month. People respond to incentives, and many people are disinclined to look for work when welfare benefits are generous.
Some benefit programs are so generous, and the taxes levied to pay for them so onerous, that even productive people of means are looking for ways to opt out of success and become wards of the state. "Medicaid planning" is the hip new way for affluent people to become destitute enough to qualify for government-funded long-term care. People respond to incentives, and a blank check from the government for heroic end-of-life interventions care looks more attractive than a self-funded hospice stay.
It's hard for me to call poor people lazy when government EBT payments disincentivize them from seeking jobs. It's hard for me to call affluent people stupid when generous government care disincentivizes them from using their wealth productively. Public policy has become so perverse that many normal people are transforming from makers into takers because that's the financially sound thing to do. The 47% of our citizenry who see themselves as victims grows larger by the day. This will continue until the mass of takers overwhelms the productive economy's ability to support them through transfer payments.
My guess is that the madness will never cease of its own accord by reforming the policy system. The fiscal cliff negotiation pantomime under way shows us that Washington D.C. is not interested in anything other than the usual drama. The international bond market will have to be the adult in the room and stop this nonsense for us with a run on the dollar.
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
Thursday, November 01, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Financial Sarcasm Roundup for 10/22/12
I should have refreshed my investment portfolio today but was busy with a series of meetings that occupied all of my daylight hours. Interacting with human beings can be a waste of time but sometimes it a necessary inconvenience. I won't get sarcastic about the political debate from earlier this evening. There are other matters to discuss.
Hey look, jobless claims are up again! Did you miss that while you were buying socks again, like some newscaster said you should? Getting past the noise on intermodal railcar loads brings us the revelation that shipments of metal and coal are way down. Reduced demand for raw inputs is not a sign of a growing economy.
Japan's exports are down, and IMHO the country faces another credit rating downgrade whether it goes for QE or austerity. Maybe they should rename the place Land of the Sinking Sun.
Stories on a probable market top in high-yield bonds remind me of similar stories I saw in early 2007 that wondered what was powering the high-yield market to seemingly impossible highs. I had the foresight to exit U.S. equities in mid-2007 just as the stock market peaked. Most people never saw it coming, nor do they see anything notable coming now.
Asia is now far advanced in its stealth run on the dollar. China's trading partners have slowly replaced dollar holdings with yuan holdings. Helicopter Ben has no idea what he started with his taunt to Asian central banks that they can just decouple. His overconfidence that the Fed can now take the place of foreign bond buyers in the market for Treasuries will be the undoing of the dollar's domestic value.
Stay tuned for my portfolio update tomorrow. I'm going to pull the trigger on a change I've hinted at making for some time now.
Hey look, jobless claims are up again! Did you miss that while you were buying socks again, like some newscaster said you should? Getting past the noise on intermodal railcar loads brings us the revelation that shipments of metal and coal are way down. Reduced demand for raw inputs is not a sign of a growing economy.
Japan's exports are down, and IMHO the country faces another credit rating downgrade whether it goes for QE or austerity. Maybe they should rename the place Land of the Sinking Sun.
Stories on a probable market top in high-yield bonds remind me of similar stories I saw in early 2007 that wondered what was powering the high-yield market to seemingly impossible highs. I had the foresight to exit U.S. equities in mid-2007 just as the stock market peaked. Most people never saw it coming, nor do they see anything notable coming now.
Asia is now far advanced in its stealth run on the dollar. China's trading partners have slowly replaced dollar holdings with yuan holdings. Helicopter Ben has no idea what he started with his taunt to Asian central banks that they can just decouple. His overconfidence that the Fed can now take the place of foreign bond buyers in the market for Treasuries will be the undoing of the dollar's domestic value.
Stay tuned for my portfolio update tomorrow. I'm going to pull the trigger on a change I've hinted at making for some time now.
Monday, October 08, 2012
Financial Sarcasm Roundup for 10/08/12
My Internet connection gives me a front-row seat to the end of the ancien regime, the post-Cold War era of U.S. dollar hegemony. The unpredictable vagaries of history will determine whether the American ruling elite gets thrown out with the currency they are about to throw away. Alright, let's get on with the sarcasm.
Lehman Brothers' diehard hedge fund creditors have reached some kind of legal milestone in their quest for $38B worth of assets. Yeah right. Legal judgments mean nothing if the money is long gone. Just ask MF Global's creditors. Most of the unsecured claims against rump Lehman will probably go nowhere and the smart creditors have already started throwing those claims away.
Dodd-Frank is being nickel-and-dimed to death by the financial predators who don't like being bound by laws. Tough luck for the little investor who hoped reform would have teeth. Our leaders like to mouth off about Dodd-Frank because low-information voters mistakenly think it matters.
The World Bank is throwing more cold water on the East Asia growth story. One factor they're missing is the tendency for authoritarian regimes to conquer their neighbors in search of new markets, cheap resources, and forced labor. China could just walk over its neighbors after a sufficiently robust military buildup masks its inability to generate GDP growth. That's another decade away but I didn't want to keep China exposure in my portfolio long enough to see that happen.
The latest U.S. unemployment report is complete baloney. I'm not sure whether it's driven by political factors. The simplest explanation is that a generation of mathematicians and economists are no longer able to recognize ground truth in statistics. Making seasonal adjustments, then throwing them out for new adjustments, then adjusting the adjustments based on prior adjustments that were never made can have that cumulative effect. John Williams easily deconstructs the silliness behind the adjustments that render these statistics meaningless.
I'm getting over the remnants of a headache I've had since last week and spewing this sarcasm really helps. I've got a pretty full plate of business meetings to attend this week, plus a stack of notes on previous meetings that I still haven't blogged. I'll get around to all of that as soon as people quit wasting my time.
Lehman Brothers' diehard hedge fund creditors have reached some kind of legal milestone in their quest for $38B worth of assets. Yeah right. Legal judgments mean nothing if the money is long gone. Just ask MF Global's creditors. Most of the unsecured claims against rump Lehman will probably go nowhere and the smart creditors have already started throwing those claims away.
Dodd-Frank is being nickel-and-dimed to death by the financial predators who don't like being bound by laws. Tough luck for the little investor who hoped reform would have teeth. Our leaders like to mouth off about Dodd-Frank because low-information voters mistakenly think it matters.
The World Bank is throwing more cold water on the East Asia growth story. One factor they're missing is the tendency for authoritarian regimes to conquer their neighbors in search of new markets, cheap resources, and forced labor. China could just walk over its neighbors after a sufficiently robust military buildup masks its inability to generate GDP growth. That's another decade away but I didn't want to keep China exposure in my portfolio long enough to see that happen.
The latest U.S. unemployment report is complete baloney. I'm not sure whether it's driven by political factors. The simplest explanation is that a generation of mathematicians and economists are no longer able to recognize ground truth in statistics. Making seasonal adjustments, then throwing them out for new adjustments, then adjusting the adjustments based on prior adjustments that were never made can have that cumulative effect. John Williams easily deconstructs the silliness behind the adjustments that render these statistics meaningless.
I'm getting over the remnants of a headache I've had since last week and spewing this sarcasm really helps. I've got a pretty full plate of business meetings to attend this week, plus a stack of notes on previous meetings that I still haven't blogged. I'll get around to all of that as soon as people quit wasting my time.
Thursday, October 04, 2012
Friday, July 06, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Faking Jobs Numbers Must Be Hard Work
The latest unemployment figures have finally (sort of) caught up to some semblance of reality. The U.S. job picture is deteriorating because winter was warmer than expected and employers thus did much of their spring hiring early. If the impetus to hire for the year has sputtered out already then the rest of the year will be one big fat disappointment.
Please note that hiring still isn't keeping up with population growth. Job growth must average 1% per year just to keep up with population growth and we haven't dug ourselves out of the Great Recession's job deficit yet.
The bad jobs numbers don't surprise regular readers of Shadow Government Statistics. John Williams' lone voice of sobriety provides investors with an excellent baseline for interpreting news. We'd all be better off if the "official" numbers caught up with what used to be reality.
Please note that hiring still isn't keeping up with population growth. Job growth must average 1% per year just to keep up with population growth and we haven't dug ourselves out of the Great Recession's job deficit yet.
The bad jobs numbers don't surprise regular readers of Shadow Government Statistics. John Williams' lone voice of sobriety provides investors with an excellent baseline for interpreting news. We'd all be better off if the "official" numbers caught up with what used to be reality.
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Jobs Recovery Not Turning Any Corners In Dec. 2011
Mainstream financial reporting still makes me laugh. Popular analysis of headline numbers is designed to brighten our moods and keep consumers spending during Christmas shopping sprees. CNBC wants us to think jobless claims are dropping unexpectedly. The "dropping" and "unexpectedly" memes are two different but related phenomena. Claims probably dropped because seasonal hires in retail and logistics can no longer file claims for jobless benefits. This is only unexpected to observers who've never worked in retail or logistics during the Christmas holidays.
Working as an extra sales clerk in a department store or pallet mover in a warehouse is a low-skill, low-pay opportunity that rarely leads to permanent improvement. I once worked as an assistant school custodian over Christmas break in 1989 during my junior year in high school. It was easy money for moving school desks and raking leaves at a local elementary school. The job does not belong on my resume and I had no ambition to move up the ladder to be a janitor. My holiday sojourn may or may not have been counted in the nation's employment statistics for 1989 but it wouldn't have mattered either way.
The end of the holiday shopping season will probably see jobless claims return to pre-November levels, once the numbers are reported around March 2012. Meanwhile, real unemployment as measured on Shadow Government Statistics remains around 22%. I'm eyeballing John Williams' charts because I don't have a subscription. His headline numbers are superior reflections of economic reality. Don't expect permanent improvement in this jobless non-recovery; Europe's banking system has yet to fully implode and take us all down once again.
Working as an extra sales clerk in a department store or pallet mover in a warehouse is a low-skill, low-pay opportunity that rarely leads to permanent improvement. I once worked as an assistant school custodian over Christmas break in 1989 during my junior year in high school. It was easy money for moving school desks and raking leaves at a local elementary school. The job does not belong on my resume and I had no ambition to move up the ladder to be a janitor. My holiday sojourn may or may not have been counted in the nation's employment statistics for 1989 but it wouldn't have mattered either way.
The end of the holiday shopping season will probably see jobless claims return to pre-November levels, once the numbers are reported around March 2012. Meanwhile, real unemployment as measured on Shadow Government Statistics remains around 22%. I'm eyeballing John Williams' charts because I don't have a subscription. His headline numbers are superior reflections of economic reality. Don't expect permanent improvement in this jobless non-recovery; Europe's banking system has yet to fully implode and take us all down once again.
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