BLS

Your comprehensive yet concise, one-stop summary of all the bullish and bearish events of the past week.

When people think of the conventional battery of options the BLS applies to fudge the monthly payrolls number, the labor force participation is the first thing that comes mind: after all the thesis is that old workers are increasingly dropping out of the labor force and retiring. Nothing could be further from the truth as can be seen in this chart of workers aged 55-69, i.e. the prime retirement age. But perhaps a far more important secular issue is the complete lack of pickup in the prime worker demographic, those aged 25-54, which in November dropped by 400k to 94 MM. This is a level first breached in April 1997, in other words in the past 15 years not a single incremental job has been gained in this most productive and lucrative of age groups!

What the granular data shows is that instead of a 146K gain in November, there was actually a drop of 114K jobs when broken down by worker "vintage." But where it gets simply stupid, is that of the 4 age group buckets (16-19, 20-24, 25-54, and 55-69), the biggest gainer continued to be America geriatric work force, which added 177 jobs. As for that key segment of the workforce, the 25-54? Jobs here declined by a whopping 359K in November. And this is good news?

Looks like Sandy was not an issue at all in the November jobs report which beat in both the number of jobs added, at 146,000 on expectations of 85,000, while the unemployment rate declined to 7.7% from 7.9%, where it was expected to post as well. Watch this space next month for prio revisions: September and October saw 49K downward revisions combined. November will suffer the same fate.

One month after what was dubbed the most anticipated jobs report of all time, we are getting what may be the biggest dud of a monthly NFP update in recent years. The reason is twofold: i) everyone knows it will be ugly, with consensus looking at a +87,000 print, far below the mid-100s seen in the recent past, whether due to a catch up to the pre-election "spin" or due to impacts from Hurricane Sandy and ii) the report will have so many 'adjustments' embedded in it, anyone with a 1st grade econ-propaganda education will be able to spin it upward as they see fit. What is certain is that the broader mainstream media will continue to focus purely on the quantitative aspect of the report, while the real story over the past 3 years has been a qualitative one: a shift to lower paying jobs, a painfully slow (if any) rise in average hourly earnings, a transformation of the US labor pool to "Just In Time" inventory as virtually all new hiring needs are met by temps, and finally a secular shift to an older labor force, as job creation in the 25-54 category since January 2009 is still negative!

Two months ago, there were various prominent pundits who were furiously mocked and ridiculed by those whose job in the media it is to mock and ridicule, for suggesting what most know: that economic data is widely nuanced, massaged, adjusted, goalseeked and outright manipulated by various political interests. That someone would feign outrage by this allegation is laughable at best (and sorry, the "too many people were involved to keep it a secret" excuse is now absolute rubbish following the confirmation of Liborgate, yet another conspiracy theory until it became a conspiracy fact), yet all the "serious" outlets of insight did just that. Now that the election is over, for one reason or another "unnuanced" normalcy is about to strike back with a vengeance, as soon as tomorrow with the official release of November jobs data. And if the just released Gallup unemployment data is any indication, the amount of outright goalseeking by the fine folks at the BLS was nothing short of startling. Because after recording an adjusted unemployment rate of 7.4% in October, the November unemployment rate, based on a random sample of 29,308 adults, soared by a whopping 0.9% in one month to 8.3%, the most since the Great financial crisis itself! And furthermore, at 8.3% the unemployment rate is now the highest since May. Is it time yet for all those sellsiders to admit they were wrong weeks after producing beautiful pitchbooks of how 2013 will be "different this time" and the economy will soar? Or should we wait a few weeks first?

And so the BLS and DOL are back to "seasonal adjustments." Because in a week in which the Sandy effect was supposed to fade, at least on a seasonally adjusted basis, nothing could spoil the party. And sure enough, the headline number dropped from an upward revised (how else) 395,000 to 370,000, well below the expected 380,000. The real story, however, is how the DOL is doing all it can to smooth the noise, because in the week ended December 1, Not Seasonally Adjusted Initial Claims soared by 139,678 - the highest since January, to a whopping 498,619. Compare this to the SA number of 370,000, and one can see why in the aftermath of Sandy, it is quite clear that between hurricane distortions and seasonal adjustments, the headline number is completely meaningless. Confirming this was the surge in Continuing Claims, which ripped from 2,835,671 to 3,301,200, an increase in continuing claims of 465,529, or nearly half a million, in one week! But at least the pre-election boost of those collecting extended claims is over, with those on EUCs down by 110K in one week, thereby ending the extended Uncle Sam handout for over a hundred thousand Americans, who will now be forced to seek solace in disability benefits.

Big news ahead of this Friday's NFP report:

• CITI TO CUT OVER 11,000 JOBS, TAKE PRETAX CHARGE $1B IN 4Q

"Sandy's fault?" Or maybe the economy is collapsing despite all the propaganda one is spoonfed. Considering the recent termination of over 50,000 by UBS we think we know the answer. And while C stock may jump on the news, the end result is that New York and the US have both just lost 11,000 less key taxpayers most of whom are almost certainly in the $250,000+ bucket. That said we can't wait for the BLS to take this data as somehow beneficial for the unemployment rate.

If truth in advertising were being strictly enforced, the BLS might be renamed the BS.

We find ourselves more amazed than ever at the ability of those in power to lie, misinform and obfuscate the truth, while millions of Americans willfully choose to be ignorant of the truth and yearn to be misled. It’s a match made in heaven. Acknowledging the truth of our society’s descent from a country of hard working, self-reliant, charitable, civic minded citizens into the abyss of entitled, dependent, greedy, materialistic consumers is unacceptable to the slave owners and the slaves. We can’t handle the truth because that would require critical thought, hard choices, sacrifice, and dealing with the reality of an unsustainable economic and societal model. It’s much easier to believe the big lies that allow us to sleep at night. The concept of lying to the masses and using propaganda techniques to manipulate and form public opinion really took hold in the 1920s and have been perfected by the powerful ruling elite that control the reins of finance, government and mass media. How many Americans are awake enough to handle the truth? Abraham Lincoln once said that he believed in the people and that if you told them the truth and gave them the cold hard facts they would meet any crisis. That may have been true in 1860, but not today.

The US dollar's recent losses are being extended at the start of the new week.  The announcement of the details of the Greek bond buy-back scheme has triggered a sharp rally in peripheral bond yields, while the euro area Nov manufacturing PMI is reported at 8-month highs, even if still below the 50 boom./bust level at 46.2.  The euro has completely recouped the knee-jerk losses scored in thin activity just before the weekend when Moody's announced a cut in the ratings for the EFSF, which follows its recent downgrade of France.

Get ready for the "it's all Sandy's fault" barrage, because the post-reelection status quo sure will desperately need it today. The latest initial claims data posted a multi-year high 104,548 surge in weekly NSA claims from 361,800 to 466,348, and even the Seasonally adjusted number soaring from 361K to 439K on expectations of a 375K print. In other words, a complete disaster for any economic data bulls. What is truly amusing is that the same Wall Street "experts" who set expectations were unable to foresee the Sandy effect that every "macrotourist" on Twitter apparently is so very aware of. Also, it is apparently also "Sandy's fault" (now that the Bush excuse is back in retirement) that the prior week's claims were revised from 355K to 361K. Basically, just as we said 3 weeks ago, ignore every negative data point: it is Sandy's fault. However, for the snapback, when there actually is good news to be had, well, "four more years." Finally, to all the Sandy apologists: is the logic here that: if Hurricane, then Fire everyone? Because that is what is implied. To summarize: a hurricane is good for GDP (lots of broken windows), but any actually negative news (surge in firings) is perfectly expected.

Whenever the case is made for a stronger U.S. dollar (USD), the feedback can be sorted into three basic reasons why the dollar will continue declining in value:

1. The USD may gain relative to other currencies, but since all fiat currencies are declining against gold, it doesn’t mean that the USD is actually gaining value; in fact, all paper money is losing value.
2. When the global financial system finally crashes, won’t that include the dollar?
3. The Federal Reserve is “printing” (creating) money, and that will continue eroding the purchasing power of the USD. Lowering interest rates to zero has dropped the yield paid on Treasury bonds, which also weakens the dollar.

All of these objections are well-grounded. However, the price of gold is not consistently correlated to the monetary base, the trade-weighted dollar, or interest rates. We have seen interest rates leap to 16% and fall to near-zero; gold collapse, stagnate, and then quadruple; and the dollar gain and lose 30% of its trade-weighted value in a few years. None of these huge swings had any correlation to broad measures of domestic activity such as GDP. Clearly, interest rates occasionally (but not always) affect the value of the trade-weighted dollar, and the monetary base occasionally (but not always) affects the price of gold, but these appear to have little correlation to productivity, earnings, etc., or to each other. Gold appears to march to an independent drummer.