Friday’s jobs report said that 278,000 Americans found work in June – up from 11,000 in May. This is one of the things that commentators use to justify the stock rally last Friday and today. But a single month’s number means nothing. It's just noise. Even honest numbers should be disregarded over smoothed series and trends; single points just don’t have any useful information. Worse, the Fed.Gov numbers are so manipulated, massaged and then sugar-coated, they're likely to make you sick. Or give you diabetes.
The only thing the DJIA proves is that all the talk about a financial crisis from the Brexit vote is much ado about nothing. The central banks, in their roles of controllers of All the Money in the World, have much more affect on these things than the mere machinations of countries. Countries voting to leave the EU and the beneficent mercies of the God-like European Central Bank? Who do they think they are? Sovereign governments that represent the people? Please.
Much like we didn't fully realize how valuable a real free press was until we lost it, we're going to have hammered into our heads how important real money is as an information system once this mess collapses.
73 today. My parents got married in 1933 and had it tough during the depression and WW II. Growing up I heard all the stories at the dinner table. With WW II my dad worked full time for the government so they bought a house. 5.25% interest rate and they knew that was a good rate. Imagine the fluctuation in interest rates since then. I bought a house in 1981 for 16% interest. today I pay 3.24%. The rate the fed charges banks is 0% or damn close. Never in history has it been 0% before. Good times, bad times never been that low before. It's hovered around that rate for 5-7 years. Why??? Because the feds have been taking extraodinary measures for over 7 years. What the hell is that all about. Never in our history has this been necessary before. They are still taking extraordinary steps to prevent it all from falling down around us. It is a Potemkin economy and stock market. We are literally in another great depression but the administration has chosen to prop it up with borrowed and printed money. All this has made it a hundred times worse. We owe over $19 trillion; an incredible amount of money. We cannot pay it back and never will. We cannot live without the borrowing we have proved that with every budget. And once the true interest rates regress back to something near normal we will not be able to even pay the interest on our debt. Our economy is the walking dead, it's just a matter of time before this cadaver begins to stink so bad that everyone knows it.
ReplyDeleteWhen thd time comes and thd curtains are pulled back there will have to be a "distraction". Another major attack like 9-11 or even wwIII. Must keep the people occupied. I think this time around though we will get the short straw. They have gutted manufacturing and have turned most kids into weenies. It won't be the strong rise of the greatest generation like wwII. imho
ReplyDeleteAmen, Irish. My father was 19 when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He already had the equivalent of a private pilot's license. He was made an Air Cadet, and trained on Stearman bi-planes. He graduated, was discharged and then re-enlisted as a Second Lieutenant in the AAC. He and his crew trained together in B-24's, but in 1944 when they prepared to get on a ship for England, he and his crew were transitioned into B-17s, because so many had been lost in Europe.
DeleteWhen he started flying bombing runs over Germany, it was January of 1945. He was 21 at the time. He turned 22 that May 18th. VE day was the 8th of May, IIRC, and according to one of his crew, he was asked (and volunteered) to remain in Europe a little longer to do some extra missions. One was called a "chowhound" flight, flying food to starving Belgians and another was to Yugoslavia, where he picked up a group of French POWs who had been used as slave labor there by the Nazis, and flew them back to France to be re-patriated. He was picked for those missions because his parents were French-Canadian (he was a US citizen, born in Rhode Island) and he spoke French (half of Belgium was French, called "Walloons").
I spoke with several of his crew, in their nineties but still kicking, a few years back, and they told me stories of what a great pilot he was. Imagine - pilot of a B-17 flying through flack and German fighters at the age of 21. Can you imagine "Millennials" doing that? Sure, there are few who have been raised properly and are capable and willing to fight for their country, but back then my dad wasn't even that unusual. Those men possessed a maturity and patriotism so sadly lacking in much of today's youth. If they are forced into a major conflict calling for a draft and mobilization, I think we will be in trouble.
Hi Reg. It's amazing what men and women did back then. Your dad's stories, if he told them, must have been amazing and he probably didn't think twice about it.
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