Basically, Lying Statistics Strikes Again!
We all know that the markets react far too violently to the BLS jobs report and never look at the revisions. I have shared my opinions about the lack of value in these numbers because they are constantly being revised, and likely those revisions tell a story that doesn’t flatter the political ruling class. We had further proof yesterday as the BLS, Basically Lying Statistics data (really Bureau of Labor Statistics) has revised its annual jobs numbers, and they were revised LOWER by 818,000 jobs! That is close to 70K jobs a month!
This has gotten to a point where we must really look at this and either just shut the whole thing down and admit as an agency, we don’t know how to figure this out and rely on the ADP numbers; OR just fire everyone and bring in a clean slate of people to start from scratch and find a new method of calculating this information. The system isn’t broken, to be considered broken it must have worked at some point. The process and the people using it can’t produce reasonable results so either kill it or cure it. The status quo has to go!
The movers and shakers in the world of money are in Jackson Hole Wyoming for their annual meeting and it will be interesting to see what Jerome Powell has to say on Friday and how the markets react to it going into next week. So initial and continuing claims today and Powell on Friday could be interesting to see market reactions to this and the end of the Democrat Convention in Chicago. These are potential market movers so pay attention!
First full week under the new NAR agreement and seeing mixed bag of responses from the street. I am very interested in your feedback about what you are seeing in your markets and what, if any, noticeable changes you are seeing in contract structure and negotiations on your new deals. As always, you can share any questions or comments with me at: [email protected]
