The payroll jobs report for November from the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the US economy created 203,000 jobs in November. As it takes about 130,000 new jobs each month to keep up with population growth, if the payroll report is correct, then most of the new jobs would have been used up keeping the unemployment rate constant for the growth in the population of working age persons, and about 70,000 of the jobs would have slightly reduced the rate of unemployment.
The BLS JOLTS report, or Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey shows there are 2.9 official unemployed per job opening for October 2013. The headlines blare job openings are at the highest level in five years, but that's not the real story as hiring is way below pre-recession levels. Job openings have increased 80% from July 2009, while hires have only increased 24% from the same time period.
What is the Volcker rule? The headlines in the press describe a nebulously defined financial regulation as being the second coming of financial reform Yet the only thing clear about the Volcker rule is who it is named after, former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker. The Volcker rule was a last minute financial regulation rule in an attempt to stop speculative trading by Wall Street. It has been politicized, lobbied against, delayed, watered down and modified heavily.
Welcome to the wild weird current population survey unemployment report where dramatic monthly swings cause paranoia and doubt. We shed light on these woolly figures and this month there is much to flash that light on. First, the unemployment rate dropped 0.3 percentage points to 7.0%. This is the lowest unemployment rate since November 2008.
What a world, what a world, what a world. Wikileaks has published more secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement documents, revealing more and more how the United States represents large corporations and not the citizens of the nation. The Huffington Post said it best. They published a large front page photo of President Obama with the glaring headline, Company Man.
It is official. Detroit is bankrupt. Detroit is not only bankrupt they can now trash pensions owed to city workers. That is police, fire, hospital and a host of workers counting on those pensions for retirement. The U.S court ruling allows for a bankruptcy type for cities and towns, Chapter 9, to proceed and specifically puts pensions on the fair game bankruptcy chopping block.
In America today there is a crisis. That crisis is economic inequality. The U.S. workforce has been blamed and dismissed for the growing gap between rich and poor. Much effort has gone into blaming the victim. Americans have been called fat, lazy and stupid along with the never ending drumbeat claim U.S. workers are uneducated and do not have enough technological skills.
The BEA released corporate profits for Q3 2013 along with GDP and anyway you slice it, corporate profits are soaring to the stratosphere. Corporate profits after tax increased 2.8% from Q2 2013 to $1,871.7 billion. Corporate profits after tax are also up 5.8% from a year ago.
We've all been wondering how home prices could be soaring when wages are so low and an estimated 10 million foreclosures have been completed. Now a wave of reports are pointing to more trouble in residential real estate.
Q3 2013 real GDP had a blow out revision and is now 3.6%. Originally GDP was reported to be 2.8% for the third quarter. As estimated, dramatically increasing inventory accumulation was the main cause of the large upward revision to GDP. Changes in inventories accounted for 46.5% of Q3 GDP.
Are you confused about Obamacare? Sick of listening to spin when your life is on the line? We thought so. It is still difficult to obtain a concise, clear picture on what is happening to America's health care. We gather below a few critical snippets of information which point to more impending disaster for the individually insured.
ADP's proprietary private payrolls jobs report gives us a monthly gain of 215,000 private sector jobs for November 2013. This is the strongest growth for the year. The goods sector had the best showing in job growth since early 2012 and the service sector showed the largest job gains for the year. This report does not include government, or public jobs.
JPMorgan Chase has settled with the DOJ for bundling up and selling toxic mortgages as derivatives to unsuspecting investors. The settlement is $13 billion. The news prompted another round of #AskJPM twitter mega sarcasm.
The November ISM Manufacturing Survey shows PMI increased 0.9 percentage points to 57.3%. This is another year high. Overall manufacturing looks strong with 15 of the 18 industries reporting growth. The employment index is at a high not seen since December 2012. New orders and production both increased.
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