Let the good times roll? Well, IF you believe the latest figures out, then unemployment dropped dramatically tis month:
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 288,000, and the unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage point to 6.3 percent in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment gains were widespread, led by job growth in professional and business services, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and construction.
Household Survey Data In April, the unemployment rate fell from 6.7 percent to 6.3 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 9.8 million, decreased by 733,000. Both measures had shown little movement over the prior 4 months. Over the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons declined by 1.2 percentage points and 1.9 million, respectively.
Did everyone suddenly find a job? No. In fact, fewer people held jobs. 73-thousand fewer.
806-thousand people just raptured right out of the Civilian Workforce count in April. Mystery of biblical proportions, huh?
The change is mostly tipped off because because the Labor Participation Rate fell in the toilet. It dropped from 63.2% in March to 62.8% and the workforce fell more than 3/4’s of a million people.
So here’s how slick (bullshit politics) works: The number of American’s working in March was 145.742 million. The number working in April was 145.669 million.
Yet the unemployment RATE still “improved.”
What’s more, in order to make even these pathetic numbers, 234,000 jobs were estimated into existence this month. Last month only 75,000 were estimated into being.
Oh, and since so many 99’ers are coming off the count, the offishul (sic) un and under-employed dropped from 12.7% to 12.3%
Is it objective and “fair”of me as Ure business reporter to lump the data into a steaming pile and call it fair to mostly bullshit?
No, of course no. Instead, let’s use the right term here: Divisor Magic.
Wall St. may be a little slow figuring this out. Either that or – like previous weeks – maybe we’ll see a dump in share prices toward the close. For now, party on…don’t let the facts contradict the stampede.
War Weekend?
If you’re going to have World War III break out, what day of month would fit best? Well, how about the third? Which is tomorrow.
Of course, if you score World War III as being the Cold War (including Vietnam and such) then this would be World War IV, so we would take Russian entry to help their relatives on Sunday as a kind of “official judgment” as to whether this will be WW III or WW IV. Easy peasy.
And there might be something to it because the pro-Russia sides of things in eastern Ukraine today shot down a couple of helicopters and so this means the next step ought to be some tough-talk from NATO where we will threaten to send in forces to “help” the Ukrainians.
The Mainstream Media have gotten the story backasswards, though, in many ways.
For example, on the US government sponsored Voice of America website, for example, the pro-Russians are referred to as “rebels.”
“Hold’er Newt!”
How can you rebel against rebels who seized control of a country? Surely, there has to be a cleaner label that could be used: Counter-revolutionaries would be closer to point. But how many people will remember that the West wrote the checks to overthrow the legal government and now we’re itching to make a fight – and a buck – as quickly as possible?
Everything’s a Business Model I’ve told you (until your ears bleed).
As proof, already the IMF this week has come up with a $17-billion dollar “loan” to the rebel (not counterrevolutionary, pro-Russians) government.
This will open the way to an “emergency” pile of $3.2 billion which will promptly be spent by the Kievgov to buy its legitimacy in upcoming “elections.”
Now, if this sound a little suspect, congratulations and I’ll have Elaine send you a green star for the day. Wars are always about two things: Money and Power. What makes WW IV so nice is that we are all well-enough connected now that we can see the dealings for both on internet time.
Weathering: Two Foot Downpour
Hell of a mess in the Florida Panhandle and Alabama where places received up to 2-feet of rain this week.
One victim of the rain was a notable scenic highway. You’ll have to trade in that Class A pushers for a Cat D-9 to make it through, if the ground’s not so saturated to hold that…
Meantime, the latest peek at the National Drought Monitor shows that the Dust Bowl Replay is winding up a little tighter in the Texas Panhandle and into Oklafrackma.
One lesson to be inferred might be that having an area refereed to as “panhandle” is just begging for extreme weather to show up…since that certainly seems to be the case.
The other thing (and it’s sadly predictable) is that someone is sure to blame the rains on “Climate Change”.
Can you pronounce after me: I-D-I-O-T-I-C.
In clear thinking business terms, we don’t have climate change so much as we have a glitch in the distribution system. But no carbon tax hoax would be supported by that, no government “emergency” so forget I mentioned it.
Dig deeper. Help save the whales, spotted owl, dolphins, trees, cows, clouds.
Oklafrackma
Oh, sure. But the good news is there were only four minor quakes in frackland yesterday.
Not to be a turd about such things, but has anyone worked out where the fresh water for the planet is going to come from once we put everything decent into waste water injection wells?
But don’t listen to me.
Just a nutter in the woods. Lone voice of reason. We should be buying that energy independence right now as fast as we can, but are we? Nope. This is how America gets bent over, time after time, by the industrialists. Make problems and then offer the fix for big money….I mean it is a business model, after all.
YAGG: (Yet Another Gun Grab)
Constitution? Who Needs it? Oh, sure, it says very unambiguously that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
But now there’s a report over on InfoWars about how Eric Holder and the DoJ are coming up with covert banking sanctions against those who sell guns. We’re not talking felons and drug types. We’re talking folks like pawn operators who need access to banking services and if the Department of Justice loads them down with compliance, it’s a slick way to ban guns without that being the interest of any legislation.
Story is likely to be picked up from YouTube this weekend…
YANSS:370
“Yet Another Non-Story Story about MH370.”
In the latest “development” the possibility that the plain went into waters off Malaysia is being promoted. Oh, and passengers who lost loved ones? Being kicked out of hotels.
My three leading location candidates haven’t moved much: Diego Garcia, Tajikistan, or Pakistan, but what do I know being a nutter in the woods?
YADB
Yet Another Dead Banker. But if so, even though there seems to be a statistical blip in the number and ages of bankers dying, this article over at Wall Street on Parade reads like…gotta love it: Suspicious banker deaths are now trade secrets.