Although stocks were on hold for the middle of this week, we expect to see a return to bullishness to end the week now based on the latest data.
As you know, the ADP Hiring report for April showed a gain of 177,ooo jobs.
But wait till you read the Challenger job cuts report just out…
(continues)
Here it is, hot off the press release:
“The pace of downsizing decreased in April, as US-based employers announced workforce reductions totaling 36,602 during the month, according to the latest report released Thursday from global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
The April figure represents a 15 percent decrease from March, when employers announced 43,310 planned layoffs. Last month’s job cuts were 43 percent lower than the 64,141 recorded in April 2016*.”
Employers have announced a total of 162,803 planned job cuts through the first four months of 2017. That is down 35 percent from the 249,061 job cuts tracked during the same period a year ago. It is the lowest January-April total since 2014, when the opening four months of the year saw 161,639 job cuts.
“Although restructuring in the retail sector continues to shed jobs, we aren’t seeing the wide scale layoffs in other sectors, like energy or tech,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The retail industry announced 11,669 job cuts in April, the highest total among all industries, bringing the year-to-date total to 50,133. That is up 36 percent from the 36,977 retail-sector job cuts announced in the first four months of 2016.
*Challenger revised Energy sector cuts in Texas down 1,000 in April 2016″
This is all foreplay ahead of the federal Employment Situation report from Labor tomorrow. But it has the market perking up a bit with the Dow futures up more than 60-ahead of the open.
Great Again Glimmers
A few headlines of note:
Apple joins ‘Made in America’ trend with $1 billion fund to promote U.S. manufacturing…
Facebook is adding 3,000 FB hate reviewers.
The News-Free Diet
Buddy Oilman2 has a dandy idea: turn off the news channels several days a week.
He’s done this because of multiple reasons: If anything with long-term impact comes along, site like Urban (and a few others) will keep him posted and he can read/skim ’em quickly.
But where the big savings will be is T&T – Time and Tums.
People read a LOT of news. Maybe too much. Most news doesn’t apply to them and even if it does, not crap can be done about it. The Tums part? Less BS to worry about.
With this in mind, we’ll lean to our economic outlooks and meaningful trends and spend less time on gobbledygook like the pseudo-drama about Healthcare Reform (ain’t happening today, but you’d never know that by the headlines).
In fact, the only place where we see CRISIS flashing in bright red OLEDs is Iowa where it looks like no one will be getting a healthcare plan next year.
Other than FBI Director James Comey doing a four-hour soft-shoe on the Hill Wednesday, nothing of note in the District of Craziness. It’s still a swamp and the drains are mostly plugged.
Does it matter than a trio of codepink disrupters at the Jeff Sessions hearings was convicted to attempting to disrupt a hearing? To the perps perhaps, but as we’ve said before, the right of free speech is not the right to disrupt, bully, wage street warfare, or whatever.
This wasn’t about codepink – thought sure some marketing aspects – it was about maintaining the public order. Gotta wonder if other disruptive groups will get the drift here?
Doubt it.
Sanctuary City Legislation
Texas has become the first state in the nation to outlaw local-yokel efforts to run Sanctuary Cities by making it illegal to interfere with ICE enforcement.
Governor Greg Abbott is likely to sign Senate Bill 4 over the whining of liberals who see it as the end of the world.
We can only remind them that persons not in the U.S. legally don’t get the same protections (and some of us would argue should get no taxpayer-paid anything) as legal entrants or citizens.
Too simple? Sure! So expect a whine-in to follow. Lawsuits, too. Gotta million liberal lawyers I’m sure chomping to go against it. (Odd since I thought they understood law, but maybe not so much…)
Just remember, if persons are here legally, ICE wouldn’t be involved, know what I’m sayin? Must be too big a thought to wrap-around, huh?
Banko Rico
Yes, Puerto Rico has gone the bankruptcy route.
What we’ll be looking for will be investment opportunities (beachfront condo anyone?) when the fear and loathing make the rounds.
As Goes France, So Goes the E.U.
Which makes Sunday’s vote for president worth tracking. Try “MARINE LE PEN DEBATE KILLSHOT: ‘France Will Be Led By a Woman, Me or Mrs. Merkel’ (VIDEO)”
Wait! Does France have a voter ID law? Anyone?
Distractions, Distractions
Kneelers and sycophants will be yammering all day about Britain’s Prince Phillip stepping out of day to day duties.
Und zo?
And here we have the Chicago Trib offering “How to channel Brad Pitt’s National Park mindfulness.”
Side of Charmin with your ViseGrips today?
But Seriously:
From the L.A. Times: Detailed look at the global warming ‘hiatus’ again confirms that humans are changing the climate.
I don’t know about you but I am sick of all this ‘climate change” crap. What climate change there is can be attributed to the obvious: Cutting down the Amazon rain forests comes to mind, for example.
But instead of banging Brazil – schooling ’em on planned parenthood (too late!) or planting a single tree, we go off into computer simulation land and work ourselves into…..what? A polarized semi-religious fervor. Like that’ll help?
There’s an old saying “Analysis causes Paralysis” and with trillions of planned spending on the mind-twist about this stuff, the simple shit that would help is overlooked. Like adding solar panels to your home, driving a 40 MPG+ car, living closer to work, eating more veggies, supporting the community garden and shopping at an organic co-op….who’s running a scam here?
As I see it (from my solar powered office which has been 3.5 kw of grid-tie since 2008 – year 2008!!!) seems to me that “climate” – like gender-change and gayness before that – is just another thing to monetize.
Government is still the biggest long-term growth industry in the world. By orchestrating the social angles, their “take” from the we the peeps grows as their levels of control continue to grow.
We’re likely less than five years from internet content licensing, too, so be ready for that, when it happens, too.
Government makes a business out of turning Rights into Privileges which are then rented out. Like your drivers license. Property Taxes – mean you don’t own your home, the government does. (Don’t pay for a few years and see if I’m lying!)
Anything that can be monetized is up for grabs. If you can think it, monetize it!
Until tomorrow, then… (My ass has an appointment with a tractor seat and a burn pile today.)
Another thing I do is to review the Urban news aggregator which George so kindly put up. But even this you have to view with a jaundiced eye – remember that news is either worth your time or not – because much of it is simply generated, ginned up in a system designed to separate you from things you would otherwise enjoy doing, and drag your eyeballs or ears somewhere.
George says everything is a business model, monetized thoroughly. News is NOT an exception. That is why they try to serve hot button, emotionally polarizing bits, doom porn and polarizing opinionistas. Even the old reliable phys.org site has gone this way, but they still have some good nuggets.
Anything about LGBTQ, er…P?U?etc. you can likely shunt aside. Anything about congress doing something for you or your interests can be forgotten – if they do anything, it is for their high-dollar campaign contributors, which we are not. Global warming, self-driving cars, other countries threatening the US, tax reform, executive orders and military crap can be dumped. Until it happens, it isn’t news – it’s just conjecture designed to rope you into some circling discussion and raise your blood pressure.
I have to tell you that there are better things to spend your mind and time on – sweeter things to tug at your heart than all this madness generated by the search for money by your fellow humans and corporations.
And after all is said and done, after you have skinned it all down and tossed out the distractions, you will be left with the realization that the only single thing in this life you have control over is….yourself. What you choose to accept, how you deal with it and how you react to others – all controllable by you.
And controlling your ‘self’ is like a muscle – you need to exercise that or else it withers away.
You, sir, are oh so right. I quit watching and reading national/international news several months ago and am the better for it.
Like you, I get headlines and clips from a few aggregators and the five minute hourly breaks on AM radio. If something seems worth my time, then I go looking on the web.
This practice has made such an improvement in my mental/emotional health that I regret not having done it sooner.
Oilman, Thomas Jefferson essentially agreed with you over 200 years ago . . . little has changed:
“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
I believe, sir, that is called wisdom, and I appreciate you sharing it.
Everything seems to be ‘a business model’ until you either acquire enough skills and/or money to not need ‘business’, or until you just do not care anymore. Most who did not grow up ‘country and poor’ (as in disfigured toes from wearing too-small shoes because no one could afford to buy or make new ones that fit) do not understand this, as it is not part of their ‘experience pool’ from which they draw their ‘basic knowledge’.
George. our buddy oilman maybe onto something, I am a bit of a news addict if you will, but as of late I am being forced to turn it all off. The fact that the majors have all become openly partisan with there product has become a little too much to take. Oh how I miss the days of veiled corporate agendas.
MIT climate professor Richard Lindzen has released his position on global warming/climate change. It’s worth a read.
http://merionwest.com/2017/04/25/richard-lindzen-thoughts-on-the-public-discourse-over-climate-change/
Or…if you’re too busy, he says it’s a load of bunk.
I know that you mean well, however, human population growth will nix everyone of your suggestions. There are just tooooooo many people with different agendas on earth ;-(.
We will muddle through to the bitter end!!
Solar is one of the most unclean technologies out there. Fine if you want to use it, but you should know what you are using and what goes into it.
As for the article, he is not being irresponsible, he is stating his considered position. You just happen to disagree with it.
Butterfly effect is a theory. Sorry.
How about news published on M, W, F, and opinion pieces on Tu, Th, and Sat. Sunday would remain a day of rest. There would be a sifting out period while its decided which is opinion and which is news reporting, but isn’t there an AI genius out there that could solve for it.
bravo, oilman 2… really made my morning.
avoid the siren song.
aloha
b
George, impressive. You did great with the solar. Could you also use your tractor to bury your burn pile instead? I know you remain unconvinced, but until we get the definitive answer, shouldn’t we true conservatives err on the side of caution? Especially where so much is at stake? Mike
Let’s just try and stop all the lightning-caused forest fires, too! Oh, and let’s not forget to tax those volcanoes, calderas, and rotting vegetation and animal matter around the world, lest their carbon dioxide emissions become uncontrollable! Oh, wait… TOO LATE!
/SMH
Many equate global warming to changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, but I have always wondered if anyone did a study of the energy we are adding to the ecosystem in the form of watts, joules, and BTU’s. While not a perfect entropy, the Earth is for the most part, self contained. And if anyone has watched the TV show How It’s Made on a regular basis you quickly see that nothing is created for store shelves without a blast furnace. Start adding in heat from engines, friction from electric motors and electrons zipping around in a CPU, it makes me wonder if global warming has a more direct thermal cause.
Two quadrillion BTUs annually, worldwide, from air conditioning exhaust (although I can’t remember where I read it ‘cuz it’s been 20 years.) I haven’t stumbled across any of the others…
How much does -=formerly reflected=- solar energy that’s captured by photovoltiac and thermal arrays raise the atmospheric temperature? That heat has to go somewhere…
There are two sides to every coin. The easily-led never even realize the existence of the side they’re not shown, choosing instead to embrace the side they are shown as a replacement for religion…
Again: GCC is absolutely essential to life on this planet, and is cyclical. We are in a warming cycle, have been for more than 300 years, and will be for roughly 400 more years. Global warming (or global cooling, or global climate change) is a confidence game. It is not elaborate, or complicated, but it has zero chance of failure or discovery, within the lifespan of anyone now extant. It can only be disavowed, and only then by those who examine history and note, with common sense, the observations of people who lived long-ago — The Scandinavians who farmed Greenland, the British who casked the worlds finest wines, and so on.
The idea that anyone could look at a datapoint at one end of a mile-long graph (or more-precisely ONLY THE LAST 130 datapoints in a 3.2 billion datapoint set) and infer or extrapolate both sides from that point, is patently ludicrous. The “scientists” and “learned” people who try to do so, obviously never took a freshman class in any science, or in statistics or boolean algebra, because “F” grades do not a shining resumé make…
The largest factor affecting global climate is solar output, as that is what keeps us from being an icy rock in space – period.
The second largest factor is ocean temperature due to the heat storage effect of this large mass – second period.
Now I don’t know what the third period is, but if the first two are swinging in a certain direction, you can bet your undies the others will be trailing along in their wake.
I’m guessing Brazilian rain forests but I could be wrong (damn near unthinkable, tho)
I doubt it. Cutting a rainforest doesn’t appreciably change solar absorption, or diminish carbon dioxide to oxygen photosynthesis (hey, there’s foliage below the canopy.) What it DOES do is deprive native species of habitat (also alters the local climate, which can end species), and deprive humanity of potential (as yet undiscovered) sources for newer, better meds — potential cures for our physical ills. Often, forests depleted are forests which don’t return, and that sux…
May4/oilman2
I agree but probably the 3rd would be naptha in regard to a specific manner,is it a playoff between a staph or a shopper but it seems that were being misled by the spinner like Al Gore and those other entities as they were from mine perspective of understanding the way the world works this is pretty crazy you know I can slide at a moment’s notice on a guy and all the sudden the Earth becomes a moon flying to the solar system trailing a son so how’s work going through the universe trailing as a son we encounter unless that encounter is in a cycle then we can get George to chart that one for us but otherwise the price of silver will depend on the people who make your money system and you’ll be forced to savulate at when they give it to you
Like adding solar panels to your home, driving a 40 MPG+ car, living closer to work, eating more veggies, ”
Lol I have been preaching solar panels for a while now. When my mother passed on my brother made the statement.. isn’t it sad that at the end of your life all you have is a couple of boxes of assorted crap..a few photos and the memories of what you stood for.. my wife and I decided since we were both working odd hours and long days what would the kids remember us for…hey grab me a beer or get the remote..so we decided solar and wind..not that we are against coal or want to save the planet.. but that it’s the most logical thing to do. Not huge systems but smaller ones similar to Scandinavian countries. The cost of three big wind turbines would allow enough small systems to be put in place and instead of nine megawatts of power potential there would be 7600 megawatts potential for the same price..
To show what our power companies position they sent out a newsletter that basically said.. people with solar can see savings but their savings would cause the price of their neighbors electric bill to increase…lol
Solar is a no brainer in my opinion.. implement it gradually. A friend teased me for years about it not being practical for homes..then his power was cut off for two months on the east coast.when it reached 127 in his home he called and apologised.he now has solar after the incentives his final cost was so low it paid for itself in less than a year.
Agree moving ahead with as much tech as they allow us/sometimes we just have to create our own,,, thanks