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  Jim Kingsland

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  General News, Jim Kingsland Market Commentary

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  10/5/12

  It is the usual smoke and mirrors, or the best employment report that incumbent campaign money can buy? I’ll gowith the smoke explanation. This data series hasbeen long suspect and ruined. The headlines are blaring that Unemployment has dropped to 7.8 percent. As the household survey portion of the unemployment jigsaw puzzle added a whopping 873 thousand jobs, of which 582 thousand are accounted for as part time workers.  Welcome to the part time worker economy.  What more can be said? For the good of the necks of those with a vested interests in seeing the numbers fudged, the numbers need to look better than they really are. That’s life.

  Jack Welch, the former head of GE, a republican leaning talking head and certainly NO stranger to offshoring American jobs attempts to gain credibility by tweeting, “Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers”

  There may be a kernel of truth in Jack’s statement, but the truth is eclipsed by Mr. Welch’s own track record. The U.S. laborer has faced challenges for decades. This just did not pop up in the last four years.

  Pictures say more than I care to write about this situation. This Chart has not yet been revised and reflects the composition of the labor market through August.

   

  Gold is down a modest $10 as the numbers are not conducive to QE forever, but we should also realize that once the big race for the White House is over, the figures will point in the other direction to say nothing about the distortions that will come along with seasonal  hiring.  This chart shows quite a concentration in recent activity, if you can call it that, in more people supposedly getting more part time jobs.

   

  To be purely objective and not get into the debate about just how fudged the numbers are, the Keynesians can put this report in the winner column, though I would caution that other big positive economic reports will be harder to come by.

  As for the stock market, I still see bullish signals. Some try to cover all the bases by warning of flash crashes, but as long as QE remains on the table there is not likely to be a crash for the overall market. I wuold bet on short and sharp pullbacks if the stock market become too over bought.

  *both charts courtesy of zerohedge.com.

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