The Golden Truth: Non-Farm Payroll Report

Friday, December 7, 2012

Non-Farm Payroll Report - Seriously?

73% of all jobs "created in the last 5 months are Government jobs: LINK

These are not GDP-producing jobs, as jobs created by the Government are a result of tax revenue generated by the economy: In fact, it can be argued that every Government job created subtracts from the wealth of this country.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics should be re-named the Bureau of Laughable Statistics. I wasn't surprised when the headline number was reported to be an increase in jobs during November of 146,000, well in excess of the forecast increase of 80,000. But I was shocked by the reaction to the number by the cast of clowns on CNBC, who were in total disbelief. I was shocked because typically CNBC hypes and promotes a good number and "spins" a bad number into a good number. To me that is emblematic of the extreme degree of implausibility with the BLS jobs report now assumed by everyone.

Of course, as usual, it doesn't take much digging below the surface to find serious holes and inconsistencies: BLS report Right off the top, the BLS posts a disclaimer saying that Hurricane Sandy did not affect the sampling results. Well, if that's the case, then why bother mentioning it other than in a footnote, like everything else? The Government has qualified every other weak economic report released since the beginning of July as being affected by the hurricane. This one isn't? LOL

The real shocker was the downward revision to October's reported headline number. Originally coming in at 171,000, it was revised down to 138,000. 31,000 jobs disappeared with computer keystroke at the BLS. Recall, very few analysts were not skeptical of the 171k reported and the BLS just confirmed why. I would suggest that we will see a massive downward revision to the number released today when December's headline is reported next month. Please note that the revisions are not typically reported in mainstream media news reports.

But I don't have to shoot holes in this report. The Census Bureau released a report yesterday in which it measures the unemployment rate at 8.3% vs. today's BLS' reported 7.7%. Furthermore, Gallup's index which measures the intentions of small businesses to hire in the next 12 months plunged to -4. The matches the all-time low for this index, which was hit previously in November 2008. You can see the details HERE

The truth is that we'll never get the truth out of the Government. If you delve into the depths of the BLS employment report, even their own more comprehensive measurement of the level of unemployment in this country shows 14.4% unemployment. The way that metric is calculated more closely resembles how the unemployment was calculated 30 years, before the real statistical manipulation of economic numbers started occurring.

Just one more point about this. It won't be too long before the number of people receiving some form of Government support payment will outnumber the number of people paying for those payments (taxpayers). The payees will outnumber the payers. Make no mistake about it, as tragic and catastrophic as this is for our system, it is going to get worse. I can guarantee you that it will mean more debt accumulation, more money printing/currency devaluation and much higher prices in store for precious metals.

Have a great weekend.

7 comments:

AnonymousFriday, 07 December, 2012
The IMF has just published the Eigenvector
Centrality Systemic Risk Index. It is interesting that the major risk seems to be coming from the UK and Europe in that order.

Barclays 0.431
JPMorgan 0.391
HSBC Group 0.388
Credit Agricole 0.259
BNP Paribas 0.255
Bank of America 0.253
Credit Suisse 0.244
Deutsche Bank 0.244
UBS 0.194
Uni Credit 0.192
Citibank 0.161
Societe General 0.157
Goldman Sachs 0.155
Wachovia 0.133
Lloyds 0.132
Morgan Stanley 0.132
Dexia 0.061
Standard
Chartered 0.051
RBS 0.049
New York Mellon 0.048
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GOLDTRADER COMMENTSSaturday, 08 December, 2012
Burger-building robot that makes 360 burgers every hour
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/20595874

SO, IF EVERYONE IS UNEMPLOYED TO WHOM ARE THEY GOING TO SELL THESE BURGERS?

A new burger-making robot that can create 360 perfect burgers every hour could threaten thousands of jobs in burger bars around the world.
The robot - known as Burgeon - can serve up a fully-loaded mouthful every 16 seconds.
The team behind the machine say it can do everything a burger-making human can do - only faster!
It grinds the meat and sends it along a conveyor-belt to be grilled. It toasts the buns and sorts the salad and sauce.
If that wasn't enough, it pops the finished burger in a bag!
http://goldtradercommentsaugust2010.blogspot.com/
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AnonymousSaturday, 08 December, 2012
HFT Study Pulls Back the Veil and the Bride is Ugly

This is a condemnation of the claim that HFT activities provide liquidity to markets and therefore benefit traditional investors who can make trades more easily. The HFT firms are taking money from the market and, on net, decreasing liquidity. This is akin to paying the local mob to protect your store while they are actually doing the shoplifting.

The three researchers are Matthew Baron, Princeton University; Jonathan Brogaard, Foster School of Business, University of Washington; and Andrei Kirilenko, CFTC economist.

While the study determined that HFT was profitable, it is not a wide-open field. In October a two year old HFT firm Eladian Partners shut down because of lack of business. The ever declining trading volume for U.S. stocks has apparently sufficiently reduced the number of traditional investors needed to support the skimming operations of HFT. When the flock diminishes the shearing productivity goes down and the number of shearers who can make a living is reduced. From the New York Times:

http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2012/12/06/hft-study-pulls-back-the-veil-and-the-bride-is-ugly
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BrianSaturday, 08 December, 2012
The last traces of integrity are vanishing from government. They manipulated the jobs number of behalf of Obama just before the election.
i
I celebrate this. I celebrate the creation of government jobs. This will bring about the economic collapse much sooner than it would otherwise occur.

I prefer the quick death to the slow death.
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AnonymousSaturday, 08 December, 2012
Another spot-on analysis, Dave. It's heartening to know that not everyone who ever worked on Wall Street is a rat. Keep 'em coming, bro, some of us out here are listening to you.

On gold versus silver, physical I mean, do you think there's more bang for the buck loading up on silver? If gold were to double on the next leg up, and some are calling for it, do you think silver will do just as good if not better? I've got my eye on a fair amount of junk silver (pre '65 half dollars) offered by my local coin dealer and would appreciate your thoughts on the matter. Thanks in advance.
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AnonymousSunday, 09 December, 2012
Let's see them try to keep the Euro together now that Monti is resigning and Berlosconi is running again.

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Add comment

Why Gold?

Gold is the world's oldest currency. You exchange your fiat currency (dollars, euros, yen, yuan) into gold as an insurance policy against catastrophic Central Bank and Government policies which serve to destroy the value of fiat currencies and destroy democracy.

Gold can ONLY be considered an investment to the extent that it remains significantly and historically undervalued in relation to the fiat currencies against which its value is measured. Otherwise it remains the world's oldest currency and is completely free from the counterparty risk associated with currency by Government fiat (i.e. fiat currencies rely on a Government's "full faith and credit.")

Quote Of The Month Courtesy of "Jesse"

Unfortunately for Larry Summers, Ben Bernanke, and their friends at the BIS, they have not yet figured out how to print physical gold, silver, and other essential commodities, and the world is reaching the point where it might simply start ignoring the New York based markets with respect to essential commodities such as basic materials, oil, foodstuffs, and the like, as they become increasingly irrelevant, fraudulent, and Orwellian. And then where will the financial engineers be, except with no more excuses and no place to hide?

Here is the link to his entire commentary, well worth a read:

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/07/gold-daily-chart-shock-and-awe-for.html

Great Quote From Jim Rogers On Govt CPI Reporting

JR: I mean, we have inflation now. If you go to the shop, whether it’s groceries, or education or insurance or health care, prices are going up for everything. The government lies about it in the US. Some countries lie, many countries don’t: Australia, China, India and Norway. Many countries don’t lie about it and acknowledge that we have inflation. Others lie about it, the UK and the US, but if you go shopping you know prices are up.

Q: Are you saying that the American Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics is a lie?

JR: In my opinion, yes, of course it is. Have you looked at it? They’ve changed their accounting several times in the past few decades. When housing was 20% to 25% of the CPI and housing was going up, they didn’t count it, saying rents weren’t going up, and then when home prices started going down, they counted it. It’s the same with many things. It’s staggering some of the tortuous reasoning that the BLS has used over the past 25 or 30 years. When the price of gasoline goes up, they say it’s not really going up because it’s better gasoline, better quality, therefore you’re getting more for your money. I mean, it’s endless, the stuff that they say and for some reason people sit there, although more and more people are catching on, and accept what the government says.

source: www.clusterstock.com

Quote of the Week

"The primary function of a Central Bank is to engage in the massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy elite. The Federal Reserve was set up to do this with the blessing and support of Congress." - Dave in Denver

If you refuse to believe the above, please read "The Creature From Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve" by G. Edward Griffin and then explain to me why the Senate voted down the Vitter Amendment and Congress refuses to pass a law requiring a full audit of the Fed, even though the Fed is using taxpayer-backed money to bailout Wall Street and Europe.