Summer is Time for Fishing

Some left-overs from my national radio appearance last night before we jump into the fresh employment data:  We have noted with interest the empaneling of a grand jury in Washington to hear the allegations about Donald Trump and “Russian money.”

I don’t know how much you know about the grand jury process, but having sat outside Courthouses (at the county and federal level) to watch the witnesses come and go (an unindicted perp walk) I can tell you these are some great quotes about the Grand Jury Process that are useful at times like this.

A collection of 25 can be found over here, but let me give you a handful of my favorites since I didn’t have time for the whole list of them on CoastToCoastAM with George Noory, last night.

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The first one is simple enough and deals with the theory of empaneling the jury:

“In our system, grand juries take every charge, every lie, and they try to sort the truth from the lies, and then they move forward into the system. And that’s how the system ought to work. We should respect the secrecy of the grand jury so they can sort through what’s true and what’s not. And someone is leaking, and if they are leaking from the grand jury investigation, then that’s a violation of the law.”

That’s the idea of the Grand Jury.  But what of the reality of them, especially in these days when everything from the most intimate secrets of a sitting president is front-page innuendo? Quote #2:

“In 1994 the U.S. Court of Appeals decided in the case of Oliver North to permit the release of grand jury evidence, because it had already been so thoroughly leaked”

Ah, and so it comes into focus:  Of all the institutions in a democracy, this one is the most dangerous.

So much so that it has been said:

“A grand jury would ‘indict a ham sandwich,’ if that’s what you wanted.“

Of all of the quotes on A-Z Quotes, this is the one I most enjoyed hearing.

As George Noory asked last night when we were talking about the widespread involvement of ‘local money’ in overseas real estate deals: “Since when did THAT become illegal?”

Which gets us down to asking  “How’s fishin’ this summer?”  The grand jury need only hear a charge that if true would be a crime to report a ‘true bill.’  It won’t mean any crime has been committed nor that a conviction is in the wings.

My judgment on the timeline of all this is that world events – such as North Korea potentially setting off an enhanced-yield nuclear device – will likely overtake the glacial speed of the grand jury process.

Even so, no doubt in my mind that this does tip the balance of power one more notch against Donald Trump’s efforts to change “business as usual” in the District of Corruption.

The Swamp is, it turns out, bigger than anyone could have imagined and now that it’s getting on toward too late, we will just have to wait on events to unfold.

Count Your Friends Sept. 24th

Another topic we touched on is the astrological “sign” that is due on September 23rd.

Typical of the hopeful watchers is this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HisoMaIpNY .

But as I mentioned last night, we have see so many “End Times” and “[insert] Rapture [here]” forecasts that we’ve managed to become somewhat jaundiced.

While we expect that all of our friends will still be Earth-bound on September 24th, it could just be that we need to run with a better class of people…

On to the Jobs Report…

Nothing to spice up a sleeping “morning after” an all-nighter than to see the latest Labor Department jobs number.

“Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 209,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in food services and drinking places, professional and business services, and health care.

Household Survey Data

Both the unemployment rate, at 4.3 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 7.0 million, changed little in July. After declining earlier in the year, the unemployment rate has shown little movement in recent months.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (4.0 percent), adult women (4.0 percent), teenagers (13.2 percent), Whites (3.8 percent), Blacks (7.4 percent), Asians (3.8 percent), and Hispanics (5.1 percent) showed little or no change in July.

Among the unemployed, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.8 million in July and accounted for 25.9 percent of the unemployed.

The labor force participation rate, at 62.9 percent, changed little in July and has shown little movement on net over the past year. The employment-population ratio (60.2 percent) was also little changed in July but is up by 0.4 percentage point over the year.

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers), at 5.3 million, was essentially unchanged in July. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

Now to the details:  The CES Birth-Death Model (estimating jobs) contributed 158,000 to the employment roles for the month. which means 75.6% of the gains were estimated into existence.

U-6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force stayed level at 8.6%

Trade Data

A little bit of warmed-over data to dispense here, as well.  Press release, please?  This snip oughta tell you what you need:

Bet you feel better already.  Dow futures were +58 after the report.

RINOs and their Labels of Convenience

We notice the report over here by Americans for Tax Reform that republicans are fully in charge in 26-states now.

Once upon a time in this great Nation, that would ensure a land of lowering taxes and progressively shrinking central government.

But, like all fairytales, that one has aged poorly and has been pushed over the cliff; the evidence burned.

In our search for any core belief that bind the fraudster party together besmirching traditional republican values, we’ve only been able to identify a belief in the Easter Bunny and a taste for orange juice for breakfast as near-universal.  Other than that?  In Name Only.

Another Death-Knell for Cars

Touched on this in Thursday’s Coping section.  But seems to be more than a purely US-based phenom as “UK car sales fall 9.3% in July says motor trade body.”

And related to this morning’s report in Coping on my colleague Michael’s move to a hydrogen fuel cell hybrid, please note “VW to offer incentives soon for diesel owners to adopt cleaner models.”

More folks for the Toyota Mirai test projects?

Here’s a trivia item for you:  In 2010 the Cayman Islands had 33,083 cars, trucks, and taxis registered.  This in on an island only 22-miles long and with a population 55,507.  Just to think about how absurd the Western fixation on autos is and how deeply it runs.

Futuring: What Are They Telling Us?

Every so often a story comes along that seems to relate to an implied future.

This morning’s example is this: “Nothing cold about sub-zero rates, IMF researchers find.”

They’re talking about negative interest rates.  So, it struck us as odd…in fact plain old weird…that a central bankster group would be talking about negative interest rates so openly.

Is this planting the seed far and wide that the present economic depression (in terms of purchasing power parity which has failed in some respects to keep up with how things were back in 2000) has more and further to go?  That negative rates are in Janet Yellen’s just-in-case options when the mighty money-pumped market binge finally goes cold-turkey?

I expect it does, but noticing the “news” that “negative rates aren’t so bad and may be useful” at this juncture in world economic history seems curiously timed.  Perhaps a “heads-up” to the alert reader who may learn of the future from such reveals as this.

Free Marketing Advice

We found this of interest, as well:

“RBS plans to make Amsterdam its EU base after Brexit.”

Seems to us they will need to rebrand their bank.  If what was the Royal Bank of Scotland isn’t in the UK, wouldn’t this make it the “Royal Bank of Europe?”  We’ll watch the RBE with interest going forward.