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Hourly Compensation Crashes Most Ever, Labor Costs Drops By Most In 4 Years, Manufacturing Compensation Plummets By 7%
So much for the thesis of declining labor slack and rising labor leverage. Moments ago the BLS reported its Q1 labor costs which poured cold water over all recent hypotheses that the US worker's plight is improving. It isn't: productivity increased by 0.5% in Q1 in ling with expectations of 0.6% (on what is not exactly clear - everyone on their iPhones?) but it was labor costs which plunged -4.3% on expectations of a +0.5% increase driven by a 3.8% collapse in hourly compensation that was the stunner. This was the biggest labor cost drop in four years and the biggest collapse in hourly compensation in well, ever and confirms our observations from the last NFP report that quantity gains in jobs continue to be offset by quality declines in actual worker pay. As a reminder we were scratching our heads following the soaring Q4 labor cost and declining productivity data which made no sense in the general context of deteriorating labor conditions. Following this print, it all falls back into place and confirms the Q4 data was nothing but an outlier. Also,this may be the end of the core thesis behind David Rosenberg's recently developed reflationary argument.
But nobody was as punished as manufacturers who as ADP reported moments ago are not only losing their jobs, but are getting much less:
Unit labor costs in manufacturing decreased 10.0 percent in the first
quarter of 2013, due to both the 3.5 percent increase in productivity
and a 6.9 percent decrease in hourly compensation.
Oh well, time to export some more jobs to China or Greece, even as corporations focus on buybacks and dividends, instead of investing in growth CapEx or retaining workers. If one needed an indicator of what end demand truly looks like, this is it.
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yo what aboutz the record CONfidence numbers. i make less i feel good weeeee
Today, same as yesterday...It appears the the PM Algo's are running the same as Monday! When the news becomes irrelevant, the Algo's just revert...
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livesilver.html
DaddyO
Sure the have great confidence . . . that everything is going to hell.
I think there are legit reasons for the confidence numbers.
Self reliant makers are confident they own everything they need and know they can out perform other makers for scarce jobs.
Remaining makers are just waiting for an excuse to become a taker and are confident the gov teat is sweet.
Takers are confident that they are going to get more and more from the gov teat.
confidence numbers for confidence games...
These five questions, surveyed from a random sampling of about 1600 households, determine the Consumer Confidence Index. With the help of the MSM, corporate Bernaysian techniques and the Ministry of Truth in Washington, consumer confidence can be easily manipulated upon those who are unaware.
They must be puttin moar alcohol content in the Pabst Blue Ribbon or something.
confidence is the prol thinking it's so bad it can only get better - like the part time school bus driver taking out a car loan w/ his shotgun as collatoral...
"You begin to try to rationalize, well maybe it was our time for the sun to shine on us."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-qe3-subprimeauto-specia...
Dude...sun is not shining on the dead poultry factory workers in China, garment workers in Bangledesh, or Coptic trash collectors in Cairo.
Productivity has sucked since 2010.. have we peaked? this is a big deal we can't get productivity up more meaningfully .. and I have very low expectations we as a country will/can.
At least its in our own power to grow productivity in one's own home economy..whew.
Peak productivity coincides with peak oil. The only way to see similar or higher productivity again is for global adoption of another 100+ year energy source.
Productivity is like anything else - it can't grow exponentially forever.
You mean people are working in America? Which one?
Susan Rice just scored a pretty sweet gig.
threesome with Moochelle and Jarrett?
Thanks for making me dry heave.
Executive priviledge in 3,2,1.
Obozo is trying to cover his tracks on Bengazhi.
Correct, in this position, Rice will not testify.
at the company making the nightsticks used by the police to beat the unemployed.
Funny. Everyone I talk to says they are doing great. What inflation?
Meanwhile I'm lucky to get a COL increase and living hand to mouth trying to take care of two kids. On the bright side, my property taxes went up due to the housing recovery miracle. Winning!
Less is more! 30,000 > 60,000. Y'all oldskoolers aint got the message yet. We's in different times now.
Oh yeah, I agree. I have more leisure time now that business volume for me has declined by about 1/4, and I'm the only show oin town. Fuel costs eat up a full 1/5 of my gross income, but hey, my carbon footprint is Lilliputian.
A bottle of fermented tea costs almost five bucks at the store...why can't I make this shit at home?
Meanwhile, deflation eats away at earnings wehile Peak Oil eats away at savings...bullish!
"Over the course of your lives you will experience withering, but stealthy attacks on your quality of life, as government attempts to manage it's faltering finances. You will see declines in the quality of healthcare, the quality of education, the quality of public safety, and the quality of our currency"
"of course, this is a false prophecy, I am simply describing what is already happening."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLhqjOzoyE
hate to say i love this comment...but i really, really, really do. the rumor is the QE ideas coming out of San Fran are TRULY staggering. "just how big can you infinitize that thing?"
Wow at 14:00 it gets very interseting.
You can see the Soviet Style tactics of the Obama Administration via the IRS as they Audit the shit out of him.
Imagine if he was a tea party guy or conservative. He would have been butt-fucked with a stick and crazy glue.
Real unemployment is still brutally high. And unlike the gold and silver markets, supply and demand do affect the wages offered for the mostly service related jobs that are being created.
There goes the purchasing power of the average wage-earner ...
Go long payday loans!
It's going to be great for bankers and loan sharks.
People will have to borrow more just to make ends meet.
The ultimate goal of the federal Reserve and it's member thugs.
This surprises you? Many countries have been borrowing money, just to pay interest, how insane is that?
But they'll make it up in volume, of course.
So totally freaking screwed, we are.
feeling so confident now is the best time to buy a home
Where's Hari Seldon when you need him???????
must....destroy...the....ability...of....the...proles...to...buy...ammo....and...gold
Matt Damon's new movie, Elysium, is the logical conclusion of the current Zeigeist. The 0.1% build a space station where they live opulent lives while extracting resources from the 99.9%. It's the ultimate gated paradise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNhdDDTY6Lk
If they think being on a space station, or deep underground military bunker is 'oppulence' in any way then they're completely insane.
But the theme IS right, a small group of 1 species on earth has been living oppulently off all the rest for some thousands of years, largely un-noticed and living safely in the shadows...until recently.
lol. watch the trailer. #occupy_wallstreet => #occupy_earth
SD1, people knew what was going on back in Medieval times. They used to kick the usurers and early credit card pioneers right out of town.
Somehow that knowledge got lost, and we were convinced that our ancestors were silly, superstitious bigots.
> Somehow that knowledge got lost ... .
IMO, that was the intent of the Dark Ages. First they burned the library at Alexandria - then they sequestered everything else under the Vatican. It may still be there, who knows, but the long story short is that over the last thousand years (a very long time in Man years), Man has forgotten who he is and where he comes from because it's all been erased from our collective memory on purpose and for the purpose of control. He who controls the past, makes the future.
The Holy Trinity = Mind, Body and Soul (forget the other trinity they taught you)
Pythagoras believed in reincarnation. Early Christians believed in reincarnation (metempsychosis).
Personally, believing in reincarnation means I want to make the world a better place for my ancestors, and for me, too!
Belief in Reincarnation leads to a very differnet approach to life and living. You WILL be coming back so you want to leave things better - and since you ARE accountable for your life, you WILL suffer the consequences of your actions (now or in the future). The ledger book is always open - there is no 'forgiveness' - you need to redeem your past bad acts through good ones. It's a very pragmatic and rational approach to life. YOU are accountable for YOUR life and actions. And - this is a notable departure from most other approaches - there is ALWAYS hope. Even if you have made a total mess of this life, are irredeemable, serving life in prison for horrendous crimes, death is NOT the end. You will have other lives to offset past wrongs.
BUT if you think that living a 'good' life leads you to even 'better' future lives in a material sense, you're very wrong.... the whole point is 'learning'. And things even out. If you've had a very good material life this time, odds are you're going to be reminded pointedly JUST how 'goopd' in the next which will likely be one at the opposite end of the scale. So all thos epseudo Calvinist types who think they have a 'good' and affluent life BECAUSE they are 'deserving' - who might think they will have even 'better' lives in their next life - are in for a rude shock.
LOL the problem with "Elysium" is that they have Matt Damon cast incorrectly. There is no way he can save us in that role. I prefer him as the southie cop with the rough upbringing. This way I feel more connected to him.
Yeah, the trailer takes a turn for the worse, when they start to install that TV in the back of his head and a robotic arm, if I am not mistaken.
Unfortunately for the 0.1%, the 0.001% view them as vermin just the same as the rest of us.
No space stations for them I'm afraid.
They can cower underground for a while I guess.. Until their hired protection realises it's all over.
I thought the 0.01% cut a deal with one of the alien groups out there - TPTB get refuge in exchange for turning over an earth humans can no longer inhabit (though it's still usable for the aliens in question). The rest of the species gets turned into.... well, best not to think about that.
It's like watching a building falling to pieces while all cameras focused on 1 guy on a scaffold with a hammer and nail keeps yelling 'DON'T WORRY! I GOT THIS SHIT!'
Yeah, and the print on his shirt probably reads: "It's Tuesday!" ;-)
Cramer is yapping about a housing boom and how we should not even be talking about ADP, it's a "side show". The assclown says the only number that matters is non-farm payroll. What a fucking moron.
Cramer still alive? Thought he died of fucktardinitis
whatever does not kill you makes you moar fucktarded.
lol...only in America can that man still command an audience...very sad
Lehman is safe! Buy it here at $55! Don't worry in a few days it won't be -0- or anything!
Fuckin Cramhole...
He is a fucking moron that gets cheered by the rest of their equally moronic talking heads. His now- frequent daily appearances on CNBC largely attributed to the incredible decline in their viewing audience. They don't care though, Immelt could finance them indefinately even if they had an audience solely comprised of the staff and their immediate family. Oh wait....
Believe it or not Sloane I know people who still listen to him regularly. It's absolutely unbelievable. They think he is some guru, as if the assclown hasn't lost enough money for people.
That's scary, Doc. Its like wishing the court jester was king.
Sale on slaves!! Long sharecropping...
As Krugman would say - "winning"
Good thing that there is "no inflation"
< sarc off >
Fuck you Bernanke!
Of course labor must suffer. How else are we going to third worldize America?
all according to plan
A company is planning to build one of those giant ferris wheels in Atlanta. Today is the job fair. Pay rate $9-$13 per hour, including wheel maintenance technicians.Who wants to ride one of those things if its maintained by a $9-$13 per hour worker? Not me.
http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/22506878/giant-ferris-wheel-owner-seeks-atlanta-employees
US manufacturing jobs leveling the labor gradient with the 3rd world.
Soon, you may be able to compete with Mexican workers!
Who needs emerging markets? The US is becoming, yet again, an emerging market.
At 40, I got a job installing insulation- not the best job at 9 bucks an hour. I was the only Anglo on the crew. The Mexicans worked like fiends. They all worked on the buddy system, and everyone seemed to be related. I have done hard physical labor most of my life, and I'm in pretty good shape. This sort of work is a mental game, and it's one that takes some skill to master- how to distract one's mind from fatigue, etc. The Mexicans white-eyed me, kicked my ass. I have never seen such hard workers in my life. The only difference between us, I think, is that they were working for an opportunity I couldn't see. I was thinking, "How hard do i want to work for 9/hour?" while they were thinking, "I am in America and have a job that pays 9/hour!" I suspect that most white Americans simply CAN'T compete with Mexicans when it comes to working hard.
When you have to, you usually will ...
Interesting dilemma.
You were earning $9, they were earning $100+ pesos an hour!
It IS all relative. Work here is just as hard as the work back home in some remote rural village BUT they're paid a hell of a lot more. The overcrowded place they crash in at night is as good or better than what they left behind and they're going to bed with food in their stomachs.
Immigrants coming here from worse off places - be they the original English colonists, the Irish and German that followed or the later Italians, Poles, or whoever - worked therir tails off compared to the more complacent and established 'natives'.
I don't think you should have to kill yourself on a daily basis at work but am astounded at how lazy some Americans are - they feel 'entitled' in the worst possible ways.
Let's all work for free. A good place to start would be government. Cut wages to zero. Why not, these people are public servants and work for us. Anything more than zero is overpaying.
That's a pretty broad brush. But sure, why not. Oh look, here come all those (now unemployed) military and black ops personnel.
They are hungry, looking for work and trained to kill, without their prey ever seeing it coming.
Enjoy...
but...but... how will we pay taxes?
Companies prepping for Obamacare stocker shock.
I work in the manufacturing sector. My company (large global machine tool industry for automotive) has not hired a new full time employee (skilled trade) since 2007. They use contractors that make $10 less an hour, no benefits. This is the new normal. Our business has boomed since 2008, but mainly because other businesses have gone under leaving ours at the top.
That's right. The model goal is slavery. Of course there will be a revolt at some point.
I disagree. My company has provided excellent benefits for us for the 20 years I've worked there. In order to keep what we had, the company had to make a decision; either continue to hire new full time employees and lower the benefits for everyone, or to keep costs down and maintain the core base employee benefits use contract services and let them negotiate benefits/salary with their employees that we use.
I blame government and the Federal Reserve for declining standard of living, not the "evil" corporations. If slavery was their goal, we'd be working at minimum wage, 12 hours a day 7 days a week with no benefits.
Spoken like a true sheep. If corporations are people, why can't they go bankrupt like people. Yeah, those auto and auto-related manufacturing companies are very thankful for those government bailouts and incenties/subsidies. I might just shut the fuck up if I were you. Your automotive sector would be decimated if it wasn't for that rape of the taxpayer and bondholders. Go fuck yourself.
slimething still only sees a part of the problem. Its to be expected. No one likes to confront their own bias (myself included).
I dislike oversimplifying, but our current system could be referred to as: kleptomaniacal fascist oligarchy. There are a small group who are making the decisions (no, Obongo is not among them), they are looking out for themselves, and their modus operandi is 'cooperation' between industry (large multinationals, for e.g.) and government.
That because, IMO, the people making the decisions have the multinationals as their powerbase (they are, directly or indirectly, the majority shareholders) whereas government has been 'merely' compromised (although it has been compromised since either forever, or the JFK assassination was a tipping point). Point being, the people in government aren't the ones making the decisions.
So how they are guilty, except of treason (possibly), is beyond me.
Stop bullshiting. Allow me to simplify; When fraud is the status quo, possession becomes the law.
Prosecute the fucking fraud, restore real fucking consequences for bad behavior (at all levels of society).
Nothing fucking changes otherwise and until then I will remain long black markets, sharecropping, and all physical assets of real value (including skilled labor).
"If slavery was their goal, we'd be working at minimum wage, 12 hours a day 7 days a week with no benefits."
Well, that WAS the way things were before unions and worker's rights. You had some very violent battles getting those rights.
When you compete against slavery unit costs, it's the corporate goal.
The US has a long way to fall.
More gated communities and armed guards.
Bullish on guillotine blade sharpening services......... All the tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theory dickweeds seem to be about 5 - 10 minutes ahead of the crowd. Hedge and invest accordingly.
OK, who left this steaming pile of RECOVERY in the middle of the living room rug?
I'm not cleaning this mess up this time, you little brats!
This is a very good sign - greater pofits though deceased labor cost.
Sarcasm noted.
Back in the real world, more corporate profits means more money for the 1%. And less money for the 99%. Meaning, terrible for the economy.
Maybe last Q4 was overrated because it included banksters bonusses? The handful of %0.6ians was counted at the same time than Americians, and mixing data from entierely different countries like that fudged the numbers?
Once you understand the basics of the Talmud, you will understand the process of destruction and the desired result (it is what you see happening).
Once you realize that this philosophy is at war with copperation and assimilation for the improvement of ALL mankind, you can see the real tools necesaary to fight it. Eliminate our dependence on finance, credit and fiat currency. Minimize government and eliminate advisors from the decision process.
This implies small, cooperative economies in a web, working to supply necessary imputs and creating products. It is the free market and personal responsibility. Destruction, as policy, should always raise a red flag.
What we are experiencing is the penultimate scheme of the faux-Hebrew Babylonian Destroyers. This plan has been processing for centuries. After the rise and fall of China, the vast majority of world populations will be impoverished by economic destruction and fatigued by nuclear destruction, biological mass murder, political dissolution, starvation, and real environmental catastrophes.
In a word, fully prepared for the installation of their satanically-empowered World Dictator, as planned and forecast 500 years ago in the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. It is no longer a tin-hat conspiracy. The plan is clearly revealed in our history books (real history) and is being implemented in real-time in our daily news (real sources). The truth is right in front of you every day, if you will take the time to educate yourself, even a little.
The Lizard of OZ currently illegally squatting in the White Mosque on Pennsylvania Avenue has been installed by the banksters (Rothschilds, Sorosians, and their "useful idiots") to finish the social, economic, and military destruction of the U.S.
Their final phase for the weakening and removal of the U.S. as a world power was instituted in 1913 with the activation of the FEDERAL RESERVE BANK. Which is neither FEDERAL. Nor is it a reserve. Nor is it a bank. It is a moneysucking system that was, and is, intended to confiscate and consume the property, wealth, and energy of the American People. It was known at the time it was instituted that it was a mathematical certainty that it would eventually accomplish what it was designed to do.
Many people who opposed it and tried to warn the American people were murdered for their efforts. Henry Ford tried to sound the warning to the American People. He even purchased a newspaper in Dearborn, MI., so he could publish his warnings. After several failed attempts on his life, he finally ceased in his publishing efforts in order to protect his family.
The income tax is the mechanism which was instituted to raise money from the public to pay the interest on the money the FED creates out of NOTHING and loans to the federal government. What a Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! fraudulent monetary arrangement. What could be simpler than for the Treasury to create the nations money supply, as was intended by our founders.
We can no longer survive as a nation unless we excise the FED cancer from our midst. We are in the last stage of national life and are near collapse as an economic power.
The demoniacal international banksters have now ensnared nearly all developed nations into their central bank fraud. All developed nations are now in an involutional climacteric process of collapsing economically......fighting for economic survival by engaging in an insane, universal, devolution of their fiat currencies created by each of their central bank frauds.
It is very late. There will be much agonizing and gnashing of political teeth if people are to save themselves from this great Babylonian evil.
The alternative is tyranny. Choose quickly!
STARVE THE BEAST!!!
"money" is an illusion. It is a means to maintain, power and control of resources and real assets, period.
Except they are not faux hebrew, they are judahites/Zionists. While this is not a reflection of all hebrews, it is hebrew all the same. Besides this, I couldn't agree more.
The reason this ends in collapse and phoenix style rebuilding is because...
The US Gov't has made something like $220 TRILLION USD worth of promises, to people/corporations/etc. Now, it is glaringly obvious to you and me that stuff like pensions to military veterans will never be paid (or at least, they will be paid in 'New USD', $1 new USD having the same value as dimes currently do)
But the people who have been promised that money (SS, Medicare, pension payments, etc) have a fatal case of 'wishful thinking', and I don't think there's anything we can do to snap them out of it. They want to believe the government will fulfill its promises to them. They want to believe the government is looking out for them.
What changed to allow the US government to make such grand promises? There was a plan and a means to get us to this place, this plan is available for all to see: the protocols of zion ( there is NO connection that has been made between elders and the document, but the content is what is important).
The People want to believe, because they have been brainwashed to believe. Who is responsible for the brainwashing? It is not the government we want or thought we were getting.
Fuck this trashed market - this is a rigged casino that should be blown up
Green Shoots BTFD!
Yeah, inflation... right...
The two definitions of inflation aren't antagonistic, viz. 1. increase in money supply, and 2. increase in wages. It seems that real inflation would have to combine the two.
The Real estate "Boom" is just another banker's scam- "Where can I put all of this free money I got from the Fed? I don't want to loan it to slaves who have no means of repayment... I'll buy houses and rent them to the slaves..."
So if wages fall, and comsumer spending dries up, even as fuel and food prices rise, due to energy scarcity, how in the hell can this be an inflationary dynamic?
Less spending power means less economic activity... that means fewer companies can make money, there are less workers, and more of those being lower paid means impetus to the downward cycle of lower economic activity...
What if, purely out of fatigue, the Fed cuts ZIRP? If interest rates go up even one percent, the economy will crater. ZIRP is the drug that we can't kick. Yet ZIRP can't do anything except disguise the underlying deflationary dynamic, which is caused by systemic problems, not financial ones.Finance and economy are but symptoms of the essentially unsolvable issues of decreased energy supplies, environmental imbalances, and peaking (stalling) population growth.
It's like a wino with terminal, late stage alcoholism. His liver and other major organs are shutting down, but all the cells of his body have lost the ability to metabolize anything but alcohol. If he stops drinking, he dies, from cell starvation (acute DT's), but if he keeps drinking, his liver will conk out competely, and he'll die.
People don't have money, but the government does (thru borrowing) and the 1% do (through theft, fraud, etc).
So what does that tell you? Prices of goods purchased with debt have nowhere to go but down (housing), goods purchased with cash (food, energy) will only go up.
For a while I thought that meant inflation would only happen in things like Ferrarris, champagne, caviar, modern 'art'... And the 'few' areas government had its finger in the pie. For e.g. by providing food stamps the government is essentially a wholesale buyer of a wide variety of food. Once you realize the gov't has fingers in all pies you can see how widespread inflation can result even when most have declining savings and wages.
And of course, through the military, the US gov't is the world's largest single user of oil, so...
Explains why "Investing in our people" is the last line item on our corporate agenda this year. Might as well wipe that off the list all together. Farsical.
Wow is this ever horrible news.
NASDAQ100 is crashing - up 1.4 points.
Keep printing boys - MO POMO!!!
Makes sense. You can't run a business with flat revenues and rising wages and continue to increase profits. Oh, silly me. I forgot; Benny-economics allows for any set of data points to come up positive. Manufacturing is only about 15% of the labor force. So I guess everyone else must be getting the raises.
Interesting. Two reports from ADP. One up, one down. Which to believe?
Immigration reform (whatever that tursn out to be ) + Moar Globalization will reduce labor costs much lower....costs to build a house, for example, will be half what it is now.
Wait, you'll see. The carpenter down the street has not worked for months...he said he charges $50/hour but contractors can hire immigrants coming in for $6/hour. He can't compete.
In 1979 I was a non-union concrete laborer. Made $10.50 an hour. Over 30 yrs. later and I'd bet people are doing it for about the same. Might as well be in prison............
Corporations can't have their part time employees paying for ObamaCare. How could they get subsidized if they did that?
The Gov't subsidizing Wallmart model is out of the bag. Barry Bucks for Plutocrats.
EBT and subsidies (paying people who work at Walmart SS or medicare, for e.g.) means the government is directly tied to Walmart's profitability. Pretty disturbing. Considering nothing in Walmart was manufactured in the US, and the gov't is subsidizing them to continue business as usual!
Lower labor costs are deflationary.
Higher labor cost are inflationary.
It's interesting navigating all the crosscurrents, and Bernookie has created a lot of them.
See: biflation
OR
Ka-Poom Theory
You forgot one;
Increasing population (7+ billion and growing) looking for a better standard of living is inflationary.
This is all the Unions fault.... or the hippies, yeah, that's it, the fuck'n hippies.
I'm reading Richad Pipes' "Russia Under the Old Regime." As an aside, hes says (and he is a great historian, and helped rid Russia of the Soviets):
"Historical experience suggests that in the case of economies based on slave labour the decisive factor may often be the supply rather than the demand: i.e. that slave economies can come into being because of the availability of a massive supply of slaves for whom work must be found." (pg. 43)(he specifically excepts the "slave economies of the Americas")
Good times ahead!