Year to date spot gold is up ~54%

By comparison, Total Stock Market Index VTSAX is up 14.83% ytd through yesterday.

Total Bond Market Index VBTLX is up 6.4%.

... The [gold] rally has been driven by a cocktail of factors, including . . . a weak dollar. ... -- CNBC 

Would these people know a weak dollar if they saw it?

Trying to explain gold like this is just silly.

The Nominal Broad U.S. Dollar Index is 120.51, down 7.4% from the January all time high of 130.21.

The all time low for this index was under Obama in July 2011, at 85.46.

You remember the summer of 2011, right? 

The dollar was at its weakest, America lost its AAA rating, and precisely net zero jobs were created that August, the first time since WWII.

We have a strong dollar today, not a weak one.

 

In the absence of labor statistics because of the federal government shutdown, here's Initial Claims for Unemployment, not seasonally adjusted, for 48 states, DC, and Puerto Rico through 9/27/25

  The states continue to collect their data and it gets transmitted to FRED at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank for each state. You just have to hand-tally it since the Feds won't due to the shutdown.

My result for 9/27/25 for 48 states and DC and PR reported this morning: -2,229.

MA, AZ, and Virgin Islands initial claims reporting lags by a week. 

The largest downtick was in Texas at 3833.

The largest uptick was in Kentucky at 3049. 

Declining initial claims is good. 

Compare 9/20/25 at -14,822:

 

In the absence of labor statistics because of the federal government shutdown, here's Continued Claims for Unemployment, not seasonally adjusted, for 48 states, DC, and Puerto Rico through 9/20/25

 The states continue to collect their data and it gets transmitted to FRED at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank for each state. You just have to hand-tally it since the Feds won't due to the shutdown.

My result for 9/20 for 48 states and DC and PR reported this morning: -21,866.

MA, AZ, and Virgin Islands continued claims reporting lags by a week. 

Texas was down 4994, California 3562, Pennsylvania 2765, New Jersey 2351, New York 1439, Connecticut 1437, and Virginia 1275.

The largest uptick was in Michigan at 940, followed by Kentucky at 430.

Declining continuing claims is good. 

Compare 9/13/25 at -32,092:

 

ADP private payrolls fell 23k in June, 3k in August, and now 32k in September

The net gain since January now stands at 366k, or slightly fewer than 46k per month.

The net gain per month since May has been 46k.

The trend is clearly lower since October 2024 when 221k were added. 

 

There wasn't a spike in jobless claims last week after all: it was due to attempted claims in Texas which were fraudulent

I hope the Fed got the memo.

 

Federal government employment is down 97,000 since January in August 2025, state is down 31,000, but local government employment is up 104,000

 Here, here, and here.

Foreign born employment actually recovered by 50,000 in August 2025 while native born employment fell by 561,000, and the Trump administration, unlike last month, is pretty quiet about it lol

 

Looks like someone's fishing for a rate cut from the Fed with that seasonally-adjusted initial claims for unemployment disparity with not-seasonally adjusted

 

There's a lot of BS and fear-mongering being circulated about the preliminary total nonfarm payrolls benchmark revision of -911,000 from two days ago

It all betrays an inability to think. 

Bloomberg here said:

... The number of workers on payrolls will likely be revised down by a record 911,000, or 0.6%, according to the government’s preliminary benchmark revision out Tuesday. The final figures are due early next year. ...

No, it's not at all likely.

It's a preliminary number for crying out loud, the size of which reflects more on the increasing difficulty BLS is having gathering the monthly data in more or less real time than it does on the data itself. 

Bloomberg then followed that up with a scary chart of previous preliminary benchmark revision estimates, as if those represented reality, too. And then people who should know better repeated the scary chart.

This story went particularly hysterical about it: The BLS Hallucinated a Million Jobs. The Fed Can't Fix This. 

But we've known since February what the BLS really thinks the final numbers are, in thousands, and all these irresponsible sources just leave that out, because . . . clicks:

2024: -598, not -818

2023: -187, not -306

2022: +506, not +462

2021: -7, not -166

2020: -121, not -173

2019: -489, not -501

2018:  -16, not +43

2017: +135, not +95

2016: -81, not -150

2015:  -172, not -208.

 

But what does it all mean, Bertie? 

 

Over ten years BLS is saying it overestimated in its regular monthly total nonfarm payrolls reports by a net 1.03 million jobs, not by 1.722 million as in the preliminary benchmark revision reports.

 

The reality's not even 9,000 jobs a month too many, in a payroll universe where nearly 160 million people are working, but I'm supposed to be scared because they thought it might have been more like an overestimate of 14,000 a month?

 

C'mon, man. 

 

They're doing a damn good job at BLS, and it's time more people said "thank you" for a change.

 

If you want to politicize the February benchmark data, they show Biden's record over four years had a net 286,000 fewer jobs in reality, but Trump I had 491,000 fewer.

 

But you won't hear that from this flock of idiots. 

 

  

 

 

 

Friday's bad job report spooked Treasury buyers big time, pushing yields down 4.5% in the aggregate from the August average in a flight to safety

Average US Treasury yields by duration Fri Sep 5, 2025:

Bills 3.96

Notes 3.69

Bonds 4.75

Aggregate 3.98 (down 4.5% from Aug average).

The aggregate was already down 6.5% from January in August. The only yields still holding up had been in bonds, which gave up 11 basis points on Friday, yielding 4.75 vs. the August average of 4.86, down about 2.2%. 

The rosy scenario, which isn't rosy, is for stagflation. The worse scenario is for recession, possibly signaled by the revision to June payrolls, now down 13k.

You know, like in January 2001, but past performance is no guarantee of future results.

The point is, people are spooked. 

 

 

Trump says that a year from now the jobs numbers will be absolutely incredible

Yeah, that's what we're afraid of.

Story. 

U.S. Treasury yields tank in flight to safety after August 2025 jobs only +22k: Fed rate cut incoming

 

Donald Trump's dumb ass unemployment rate is 37.57% in August 2025, 103 million eating but not working

 

Just 49.44% had a full time job in August 2025

 You know, like in August 2016.

 

 

Let's compare the BLS' count of jobs added through August since December with the private sector ADP report

Total nonfarm gubmint: 74,750 per month

Total nonfarm private:  80,375 per month

Those rascally Democrats over at BLS, my word. 

 

Payroll report for August out this morning says jobs actually contracted in June by 13,000: Who will Trump fire now LMAO?

 Obviously more heads need to roll at the Bureau of Labor Statistics because in Trump's wonderful economy payrolls must have risen a lot more than 22k in August lololol.

 Payrolls rose 22,000 in August, less than expected in further sign of hiring slowdown

... Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 22,000 for the month, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for payrolls to rise by 75,000.

The report showed a marked slowdown from the July increase of 79,000, which was revised up by 6,000. Revisions also showed a net loss of 13,000 in June after the prior estimate was lowered by 27,000. ...

 

 

Biden killed off the Keystone XL pipeline, costing Alberta over $1 billion, construction workers over $2 billion, and the economy billion$ more, so Trump killing off wind is simply to be expected

 

Meanwhile, at least people aren't getting fired like crazy

 

If the Bureau of Labor Statistics is drinking the liberal Koolaid, ADP must be drinking it too

 

Since December ADP is showing +80k jobs per month through August, PAYEMS is showing +85k jobs per month through July, as if they were drinking what BLS supposedly drinks.

 

And that's a fact, Jack.

 

 

Trump is so bad that Gen Z is falling in love with the guy who didn't keep us safe on 911, invented the religion of peace, gave us Michael Brown, and abandoned free market principles to save the free market system

 

Gen Z Falling in Love -- With George Bush... 

 

... "Many comments on videos tagged as #Bushcore use past moments to contrast the current administration," Mohammed said. "Users are saying, 'These were like Bush's lowest moments. Somehow they tower over Trump's best,' or 'I would've NEVER thought 20 years ago … I wish he could be president again … I miss him,' representing how unhappy Gen Zers are with contemporary politics."

 

"A recent YouGov/Economist poll shows that President Trump continues to have a significantly low approval rating among young voters—61 percent disapprove. They use Bush's persona as relief, reminiscent of times when there was supposedly more empathy and community in politics," she added. ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

One would think that Gen Z would be more, I don't know, REBELLIOUS or UNGOVERNABLE if it's really true that they have experienced the following awful realities.

 

One of life's great mysteries. 

 

... a typical Zoomer on the apps is getting rejected by, and rejecting, more prospective partners in a week than a typical married boomer has in their entire life.

... Ella, a 20-year-old from Allentown, Pennsylvania, applied to 12 colleges and got rejected from 10. "I had so much hubris and unfounded confidence," she says. "I just thought, well, I'll only want to go to college if I can get into a 'prestigious school.' They ask, 'Why us?' obviously, and I couldn't tell them why besides it's Harvard." In a Substack post she published before her high school graduation, she described how at odds her tenfold rejection was with her belief in simply working hard to succeed. "I thought that I was going to be someone," she wrote.

... many Zoomers apply to more jobs in a day than many lucky Boomers have in their lives. ...

More.