Pre-Holiday Rally Ending?

There is one school of thought that the present rally is the start of a major breakout to the upside. But, we still have to close this week above the trend channel defining a Wave 2 correction off the February low and March-April rally.

Not that it matters.

In Long Wave economics, when you’re really living to the 50-90 year cycles, it is almost a moot point. That’s because there is a larger deal going on in the background; specifically the generational turnover.

Strauss and Howe discussed it in depth in The Fourth Turning, but if you are a fellow “gray” it’s easy enough to see. We don’t expect a major economic depression until almost all of those with first-hand memory of the Great Depression have moved on – out of nagging distance.

Those who remember the Depression never forgot it. It was a time of almost universal hunger. Local restaurants were often called “The Beanery” for a reason: Beans were cheap and a good source of protien.

Jobs were also scarce, such that the New Dealers were big on job sharing. I often wonder if that’s not a soft side to the Obamacare legislation as employers have reduced many workers to part time in order to avoid healthcare, but at the same time creating twice as many jobs for impacted categories. It’s a depressing thought, but not too much of a stretch.

When President Obama took office, civilian workforce numbers were 153.716 million and national employment was 134,580.

As of April of this year, the labor force was 158.924 million and employed was 151.004 million.

We are asked to believe that the workforce number has gone up 3.8% in 8 years. But a check of population data says 306.8 in 2009 and 323.636 now.

In other words, population is up 5.49 percent.

Where are the missing people, since workforce SHOULD be roughly equal to the general population growth that. But we see that in government statistics, it is not.

If you want to bury employment concerns, simply grow the labor force slower than the gen pop…and the difference is about what…2.69%?

If the workforce had grown proportionately, that would swell the workforce numbers by 5 million (just ball parking here) and that would show virutally no change in employment since the Bush days.

Ah, but the apologists will come screaming things are better.

Oh?

I don’t know about your children, but ours are all working at least one job – half are working two or more – and they are not able to save anything because costs have been going up faster than incomes for them.

And that’s the problem I wanted to mention this morning:

We need to elevated national record-keeping away from the political influences. As long as the Labor Department is headed up by an appointed Cabinet level person, those under that umbrella can only be trusted to put out what they are allowed to put out. As a result, with such glaring changes as the increase in Depression-era Job Sharing and the incredibly slow growth of the workforce compared to the population growth overall, public confidence will be eroded when people like me point out the statistical holes you could drive a Kenworth T6 through. (They are still making the T-6, aren’t they?)

Sure, there may have been some improvement in efficiency due to automation and computation. But those show up in manufacturing. Right now, only about 10% of the workforce is in manufacturing, the rest is in regulation, services, government, and so forth. Since manufacturing under Obama is nearly unchanged, we have become more regulated, socialized, insuranced, and serviced (yes, both meanings apply).

Not that we can change anything. The democrats are drinking the statistical Kool-Aid, the republicans under the Ryan Wing of the Obama-Corporate Party regurge the same pap. And thinking people wonder “What’s the point if everyone lies or shades the truth” at every turn?

Especially when you have a double-speaking leader who endorses sovereignty for Vietnam, but not for Syria where we continue to support the neocon insurgency regime change despite its miserable track record at creating new enemies for us.

Yeah…no point. Ure right.

On to this morning’s stats du jour from some government department which also reports to a Cabinet level.

“ New Orders

New orders for manufactured durable goods in April increased $7.7 billion or 3.4 percent to $235.9 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase, up three of the last four months, followed a 1.9 percent March increase. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 0.4 percent. Excluding defense, new orders increased 3.7 percent. Transportation equipment, also up three of the last four months, led the increase, $7.1 billion or 8.9 percent to $87.1 billion.

Shipments

Shipments of manufactured durable goods in April, up following two consecutive monthly decreases, increased $1.5 billion or 0.6 percent to $232.5 billion. This followed a 0.8 percent March decrease.

Transportation equipment, also up following two consecutive monthly decreases, led the increase, $1.0 billion or 1.3 percent to $80.9 billion. Unfilled Orders

Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in April, up three of the last four months, increased $6.3 billion or 0.6 percent to $1,137.0 billion. This followed a virtually unchanged March increase.

Transportation equipment, up two consecutive months, led the increase, $6.1 billion or 0.8 percent to $783.1 billion. ”“

Should I bother mentioning the past couple of days have seen the pre-Holiday rally and either today, or tomorrow, some of the money should come off the table as sane money doesn’t want to be around long with the ECB (European Crooked Bank) meeting on the 2^nd?

· Any central bank that does not maintain the purchasing power of its money is, in our estimate, a crooked central bank. Relativism doesn’t work in morals or money, but you may have worked that out for yourself. Except as a matter of convenience.

The futures were up 40 when I looked, but I went short at yesterday’s highs. We shall see if I’m right.

Campaigner in Chief

Obama: World leaders ‘rattled’ by Trump reports CNN. I will let you decide whether it’s the network or Obama doing the campaigning, or both.

But where is the critical coverage of Hil?  Instead we things like Politics|Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Rebuffs Report’s Criticism of Email Use. Awe, come on…

No, instead the liberal media try to make up headlines to beat the “women issue” against Trump with headlines like Donald Trump has a woman problem — 3 of them. All designed to take a non-issue (Trump and women) and reinforce it as a negative without doing so overtly. See how this works? Not as effective as Goebbels, for example, but effective, nonetheless.

Readings: Goebbels on the Power of Propaganda.  You may not like it, but there is the book

Meantime, you can read the report over here.  I assume you don’t need me to tell you what you’re reading.  I will leave that to the MSM.  I don’t need to fill time between corporate ads.

Reader  Note

No more food or water now until after the eye surgery early this afternoon.

The past four weeks have been a bitch: Only being able to see well enough to compose in 48 point font and having to copy into publishing apps, and so on.

I’d just like to say thanks for hanging in there. One thing that my eye problems have caused is a huge drop in the amount of information I can absorb and process, but that should begin getting back to normal in a week (or four) as the surgery and glasses to follow fall into place.

I appreciate the well-wishers and hope I haven’t bored you with too many details. I think it’s useful, however, since virutally everyone who lives long enough has to deal with cataracts, if you read a lot, fluorescent lights, not much eye exercise (outdoors, distance work).

The final configuration (left-operative eye) will be a new sewn in implant and glasses over. The right eye will be on hard contacts for a week, or three, and then I will transition to a new hybrid lens. These have a hard center lens, but they are surrounded by soft lens material for the long-wear comfort of the latter. The visual acuity of the hard lens is good, but glasses are still likely and at a minimum for reading and computer work.

So here goes kiddies…an update tomorrow.