Sunday, July 7, 2019
Peter Beinart September 2017 said mainstream left supported Antifa, now not so much
You can tell we're getting closer to the election when what the left said was definitely the case in 2017 is no longer the case in 2019, and we're just making it up.
The continuing crisis of housing bubble-itis
Housing prices in 2017 are overvalued north of 40%. The index commensurate with the pre-1993 period should be about 142 but is instead 203.
Adam Tooze notes US house prices relative to the rest of the world are low but still run ahead of Italy and Germany.
What would happen if 44 million German Americans and 17 million Italian Americans went back home looking for a bargain?
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Headline payrolls in 2019 may be overstating the real numbers by more than 25%
Months from now, the Establishment Survey will undergo its annual retrospective benchmark revision, based almost entirely on the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages conducted by the Labor Department. ...
The latest QCEW data are available through 2018, but note how much worse the 2018 QCEW data look than the Establishment Survey data, even though the two appear fairly similar in previous years, for which the latter has already undergone the requisite revisions. The Establishment Survey’s nonfarm jobs figures will clearly be revised down as the QCEW data show job growth averaging only 177,000 a month in 2018. That means the Establishment Survey may be overstating the real numbers by more than 25%.
Friday, July 5, 2019
Decrepit Newsweek Magazine skewers Border Patrol for pretending to show detention center while repeatedly showcasing French tanks from Bastille Day in Paris as if from a US July 4th parade
If you look closely you can see Mr & Mrs Trump and Mr and Mrs Macron applauding in the viewing area. Clearly the intent is to imply this is a #4thofJuly parade when it isn't.
There is no jobs boom but you'd never know it from the headlines
Are all these stories written by twenty-somethings? They are an offense to anyone with a knowledge of history:
"US adds robust 224,000 jobs in June" -- ABC
"Strong hiring in June: 224,000 new jobs, 3.7% unemployment" -- CBS
"Big month for jobs, big headache for Fed Chair Powell" -- NBC
"U.S. adds 224,000 jobs as hiring rebounds in June, calming worries about the economy" -- MarketWatch
"US labour market booms in June" -- BBC
"The US labor market rebounds in June, adding far more jobs than expected" -- Business Insider
"Jobs report smashes expectations" -- AOL
"Labor market comes roaring back as jobs see 'nice pop', economists say" -- MarketWatch
Meanwhile, the facts.
Trump has yet to put numbers on the board which distinguish payrolls as robust, strong, big, calming, booming, rebounding, smashing or roaring.
For roaring you have to look back to Reagan and Clinton. Trump is not in their league. So far he's not even as good as Obama for putting up big months (granted, over eight years), and is merely one term president Bush 41-league, the best comparison for comparable time in office. It ain't over 'til it's over, but 30 months in Trump has just two big months to his name, that's it, and the clock is ticking on the longest, but nowhere near best, economic expansion in history.
On a net population-adjusted basis there are as of 2018 5.2 million more Americans 16 to 64 years of age not in the labor force who used to be in it since low levels reached for respective age groups in 1989, 1995 and 1997, including one million fewer not in labor force age 25-54 since 1989. There are 2.8 million more 16-24 not in labor force in 2018 than in 1995 on a population adjusted basis, and 3.4 million more age 55-64 since 1997.
5.2 million people actually sitting on the sidelines added to payrolls in a real jobs boom would boost current monthly levels by 108,333 on an average basis over 4 years, in other words, well above 300,000 monthly.
The fools at CNBC write the dumbest headlines about jobs
"Strong job growth is back: Payrolls jump in June well above expectations"
The Civilian Employment Level is cyclical. It routinely bottoms in January and peaks in the summer with the cycle of seasonal part-time and full-time, the latter peaking in the summer months when millions of new graduates from high school and college get their first jobs.
So it is completely natural to have higher expectations for good jobs numbers in the summer, especially after four months of poorer performance than 224,000 Total Nonfarm Payrolls.
But if we were really having a jobs boom, "strong job growth", it would look like this, not like Trump's record so far with just two months out of thirty above 300,000:
Nine years after bottoming at 47% of population, full-time jobs still run millions behind
In the first half of 2019, full-time has recovered to 50% of population, still well below the previous average cycle high of 51.1%.
In the past full-time has recovered to 50% of population and above after just four years. We are in the ninth year and could easily have 2.7 million more working full-time in the first half of 2019 than we do presently at 50%.
It would take an extra 100,000 full-time jobs a month for another two-plus years straight to make up that difference, which just shows how pathetic it is that people routinely consider current job additions just north of 200,000 a month "strong".
Meanwhile population growth marches on, but those people are not being put to work.
Why continue to import immigrants then?
Why?
Our country is INSANE, doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)