EmpSit Data and Re-writing History a Bit

EmpSit:  Employment Situation Report

A couple of hours before the open this morning, Dow Futures were down a bit more than 30 points as the global market is awaiting on US data to see how this week will wind-up.

So, here’s the data and there may be a MAGA reality here we need to consider:

“Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 224,000 in June, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 3.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in professional and business services, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing.”

Our view of it:

• Total people working was up 4.6% compared with a year ago.
• Unemployment still a mere 3.7%  (Media is trying to sell 0.1% as a biggy…but we’re looking at real people working and see through the BS)
• And the participation rate is stable, too.
• Plus of the 224,000 jobs, the CES Birth-Death rate contributed less than half (102,000)

So it’s a damn solid report.  We look at the futures going down 70 and expect the pro’s may be buying as the day wears on.

The MAGA?

To listen to the (far) right, Trump can do no wrong.  A sure, while the job numbers are a matter of constant fidgeting by economic miscasters that can move markets, this had not really the case with a more steely-eyed view….until this morning’s report.

That’s because THE one number that matters most is the total number of people employed (and at what kind of hourly) because that’s really ‘the economy.’

The way to turn this  ‘data’ into usable ‘information’ is to look at year-on-year results.  Which we did a couple of weeks back for our Peoplenomics.com subscribers.  We told them that on a percentage of year-on-year job gains, despite all the hoopla, Barack Obama will had Trump beat.  Today that has changed.

Trump is leading, at least year-to-date.

What this data reveals is that until now biggest percent-change in total working was Obama’s 2015 compared with 2014. +2.08%. So, credit where due.

However, after this morning’s data, for 2019 YTD, Trump has now carded a YTD Job gains pace of jobs up 4.6% compared with year-ago levels.

This is not to bring politics to the breakfast table today.  Rather, it’s to point out that despite all the nit-picking, the annual rate of job increases is not a wildly varying number until now.

However, when you think about the rate of illegals crossing the border an even work Truth peaks out at us.  That is, with the illegals coming into the country at present run rates, we are essentially in a ‘no growth’ economy.

What comes into focus is that both political parties are lying scum.  They haven’t ‘fessed-up’ that the only reason America is “growing” is because the population base is going up

Since the jobs rate was up 2.08% from 2014 to 2015, we decided to ask our resident data expert what the population was doing in this period.

“Alexa, what was the US population in 2014?”

“The closest answer I have is 2013: 316-million.”

OK, real work.  Google, then.

“318.6 million (2014) and 321 million (2015)”

OK, up 0.75%.  Subtract population increase (0.75) from the jobs increase and the ‘real’ looks like 1.33%.

Let’s look at Trump’s best year..realizing he’s only had one complete year:  4.6% is what this year looked like year-on-year,

US Population today?  329.104,000  Last year? 327,200,000.

Same calculations:  Year on Year 2019 pop change:  +0.58%

So, with jobs up 4.6% (as of this morning) and body counts up 0.58%, we see the ‘real’ jobs are up nearly 4% on a population adjusted basis.

While the Trump-haters will scream about this, since Obama carded a 1.33 ‘real jobs’ and Trump on track for a 4.02% this year, there’s the matter of how accurate the body counts are.

Near as we can figure it, the variance between presidents is likely down in the ‘noise floor’ and that’s hardly something worth contributing money to ANYONE over.  Not that we’re stingy, but remember we are writing a book on Quality over on the subscriber side and one of the Great Unasked Consumer Questions is “What are we getting for our dough?”

Answer:  Not much.

On Economics:  There’s a very high correlation of population increase.

On Poverty?  Still the same mess as before the crooked Lyndon Johnson came along with the money-thieving Great Society program.

On Crime and Drugs?  What, as you kidding?  We have lost one relative to black tar coming to Las Vegas from Mexico in the past couple of years, so pardon our grim reminder about that.

On-shoring of American Jobs?  Whether the trade warfare will end up being a net positive is still with the jury.  But Trump’s way ahead of Obama now.

As you can see, once you understand that economic growth is sort-of related to the body count, then the rabid drive by the left to open borders makes behavioral economic sense.  But politically?  Environmentally?  Socially?  No way.

That said, it will take some gunfire and border skirmishing before this comes into focus, or a CDC team tracking-back a hemorrhagic fever (like Ebola) before the snowflakes and the delusional begin to ask the only question that matters.

Don’t forget:  We pay trillions in tax dollars.  So the only question is?

What are we getting for our dough?

Peace?  Nope.   Secure borders?  Nope.  Women’s right to choose during the first six weeks?  Nope.  Lower crime rates?  No, just some category shift.  Sensible (social) media?  No.  Motivational and industrial arts training for all so we get our heads out of the ‘darn-n-smelly’?  No, sir, not that, either.

Those are the real problems of America and while it’s nice to herar a Trump speech about “Future Belongs to the Brave” – we have to add a condition to that.

The future belongs to the honest, even more so.  Bravery without honesty is brutality.  Honesty without bravery is death.

Snews Scanning

Anything of a trend-worthy nature?  How about:

You know, the reason the PTB have allowed us “useless eaters” to hang around (and it’s why so much immigration is going on) is that the fundamental business model of more people = more profits has been holding up OK.

When it breaks, as it probably will in Europe first, since they are about topped-up with refugees and immigrants, then the Big Slide can get underway.  You don’t need a lot of job creation if the population base stabilizes or drops.  Consequently, when we read about how Europe Red After “Devastating” German New Orders, we think this is likely to be just the first red flag of a failing Europe going forward.

We managed to get our ‘earthquake alert’ spot-on when issued at 8 AM Saturday morning at the bottom of the Peoplenomics report.  That was followed by the ‘Vancouver’ (Island) quake and then the California quake.  “Even bigger earthquake” could hit California in coming days.”

I will let you know if I get the ‘earthquake tireds’ any time soon.  Because we live a quiet life, we’re very sensitive to changes in ‘the field’ out here.  Usually the sense of extremely tired shows up 12-36 hours before a major quake and then it’s almost always a a 7.0 or larger one.

Talking himself out of a nomination?  Biden expresses skepticism of Democrats’ leftward tilt and Ocasio-Cortez’s mass appeal.  (Her ‘mass appeal’ is a lefty media judgment, not yours and mine.)

Brits and oil have never been a particularly rational pairing.  Now we read Britain seizes Iranian oil tanker headed to Syria, furious Tehran summons British ambassador over ‘destructive’ action.

High & Bye:  CEO fired at world’s biggest cannabis company.

And perhaps the longest ‘throw-range’ in the headlines could be found in this: Trump picks another Fed member who believes in the gold standard.

Why we own a tree farm: Restoring forests could capture two-thirds of the carbon humans have added to the atmosphere.  Oh, except we figured this out in 2000, or so.  Maybe science is slow in addition to often being wrong.

Did Robert Service ‘Borrow’ Something?

According to Wikipedia, “The Cremation of Sam McGee“ is among the most famous of Robert W. Service’s (1874–1958) poems. It was published in 1907 in Songs of a Sourdough. (A “sourdough”, in this sense, is a resident of the Yukon.)”

We are often confounded by the history of our English language variant and why something things become ‘literature’ and while other works (like my books) make valid points yet go largely ignored.

What’s more, a goodly number of the literary wunderkind may have been just plain lucky as I found in my Thursday researches.

In order to understand this, you need to know that I recently bought an extensive electronic archive of the very earlier  Popular Mechanics magazines from an online source.

Right away, I vowed to study them all, since what we can think is directly-proportional to the size of our data input collection.

There, on page 167 of the January 1905 edition (Vol. vii, No. 1) was this intriguing little ditty:

It sounded just “too familiar.”

While we can’t accuse Robert Service of plagiarism,  per se, there’s little doubt around here that his closing line from “ Cremation of Sam McGee”  was likely a spin on the poem in  Popular Mechanics from two years before ‘Cremation of Sam McGee‘ was published.

On The Poetry Foundation /do website, we find what Service published two years later.  In the Cremation, Service recounts a terribly cold cross country run that ends with Sam McGee dying.  Service built him a crematory on shores of Lake Lebarge and lit it off…

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.

I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”; … then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.

It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

Your linguistic forensics may now be applied.

Our best estimate?  Popular Mechanics was widely circulated in the North as there was little to do but read when not working.  Women were few, whisky overpriced (so were the women), and magazines made the rounds when men gathered.

If you doubt my version of events, please turn to page 174 of that January Popular Mechanics and you will find another reason men read the magazine so thoroughly up North:

Since the archive of Popular Mechanics Vol vii #1 is pretty clear with the punchline (“Oh, please close that door…“) and pre-dates Service’ by two years, a statistical conclusion we lean toward is McGee’s “Please close that door” is nothing but a rewrite of the Popular Mechanics article.  Retold with a Yukon spin.

We leave it to the astute reader to define where ‘plagiarism’ ends and ‘creativity’ begins.  (We’d offer to refer the matter to the Supreme Court, but their ability to think clearly seems to be similarly frozen.)

Enough!  Time to rev up our big orange Husqy and mow down something besides English Lit.

“Moron the ‘morrow!“