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I saved three lives yesterday morning. No, make that four; possibly five.
You see, I was driving my car to work and there were these people crossing the street in Times Square. And I could have run them over but I didn't. So, I'm claiming that those four people, possibly five, are here today because of me. Got that twisted logic?
Now let's talk about tomorrow's report on jobs in this country.
The Labor Department's monthly tally of employment and unemployment is dangerously close to being an incomprehensible mess. For one thing, the government now admits what I've been telling you for years -- that it adds jobs to the count (in fact more than 700,000 so far in 2009) which probably don't exist.
[snip]
Then there is this problem.
The Chicago Tribune said yesterday that Obama's gang says the jobs of 473 teachers were saved in North Chicago.
But the paper pointed out that the district only has 290 teachers in total. How does that add up?
It's understandable that the Obama administration wants to take credit for not running over workers. Especially with this week's election bombs the newcom ers in the White House need to prove they are getting results.
The trouble is, the real ity of the labor markets isn't cooperating.
With tomorrow's Labor Department announcement, the US will have lost jobs for 22 straight months.
That amounts to about 6 million, even if you allow the government to put its finger on the scale and add 700,000 phony jobs.
Wall Street expects 175,000 more jobs to go missing and the unemployment rate to inch up to 9.9 percent in tomorrow's announcement.
But anyone looking for a job already knows this. The reality is uglier than the stats.
[snip]
My friend, Chris Whalen, who worked at the Federal Reserve and now analyzes banks for his own company, Institutional Risk Analytics, has always tried to prevent others from focusing on the overly pessimistic.
He was, for instance, peeved when a certain news organization insisted that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was going broke. The FDIC, Whalen said, could simply borrow money to cover the insurance that depositors get when they put money into banks.
My point: Whalen is careful when it comes to scaring people.
So, what he says in the following paragraphs should be considered carefully if you are thinking of investing in banks.
"Over the past two years, the US banking industry and the credit markets have experienced a level of instability and dysfunction previously thought a remote possibility, if not completely impossible.
"This difficult period suggests to some that the pain in the financial sector is now ended. The good news is that the credit cycle in the US shows signs of maturation.
"The bad new is that credit loss rates for US banks, already at record levels going back half a century, may not reach their zenith until well into next year."
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busines...#ixzz0W0czFrM6
You see, I was driving my car to work and there were these people crossing the street in Times Square. And I could have run them over but I didn't. So, I'm claiming that those four people, possibly five, are here today because of me. Got that twisted logic?
Now let's talk about tomorrow's report on jobs in this country.
The Labor Department's monthly tally of employment and unemployment is dangerously close to being an incomprehensible mess. For one thing, the government now admits what I've been telling you for years -- that it adds jobs to the count (in fact more than 700,000 so far in 2009) which probably don't exist.
[snip]
Then there is this problem.
The Chicago Tribune said yesterday that Obama's gang says the jobs of 473 teachers were saved in North Chicago.
But the paper pointed out that the district only has 290 teachers in total. How does that add up?
It's understandable that the Obama administration wants to take credit for not running over workers. Especially with this week's election bombs the newcom ers in the White House need to prove they are getting results.
The trouble is, the real ity of the labor markets isn't cooperating.
With tomorrow's Labor Department announcement, the US will have lost jobs for 22 straight months.
That amounts to about 6 million, even if you allow the government to put its finger on the scale and add 700,000 phony jobs.
Wall Street expects 175,000 more jobs to go missing and the unemployment rate to inch up to 9.9 percent in tomorrow's announcement.
But anyone looking for a job already knows this. The reality is uglier than the stats.
[snip]
My friend, Chris Whalen, who worked at the Federal Reserve and now analyzes banks for his own company, Institutional Risk Analytics, has always tried to prevent others from focusing on the overly pessimistic.
He was, for instance, peeved when a certain news organization insisted that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was going broke. The FDIC, Whalen said, could simply borrow money to cover the insurance that depositors get when they put money into banks.
My point: Whalen is careful when it comes to scaring people.
So, what he says in the following paragraphs should be considered carefully if you are thinking of investing in banks.
"Over the past two years, the US banking industry and the credit markets have experienced a level of instability and dysfunction previously thought a remote possibility, if not completely impossible.
"This difficult period suggests to some that the pain in the financial sector is now ended. The good news is that the credit cycle in the US shows signs of maturation.
"The bad new is that credit loss rates for US banks, already at record levels going back half a century, may not reach their zenith until well into next year."
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busines...#ixzz0W0czFrM6
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