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U.S. Jobs, Pay Show Solid Gains in Trump's First Full Month (bloomberg.com)
Two anonymous reader share a Bloomberg report: U.S. employers added jobs at an above-average pace for a second month on outsized gains in construction and manufacturing while wage growth picked up, as the labor market continued its steady improvement in the new year. The 235,000 increase followed a 238,000 rise in January that was more than previously estimated, the best back-to-back rise since July, a Labor Department report showed Friday in Washington. The unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent, and wages grew 2.8 percent from February 2016. While unseasonably warm weather may have boosted the payrolls count, the data represent President Donald Trump's first full month in office and coincide with a surge in economic optimism following his election victory.
I mean he hasn't actually implemented any policies but let's go ahead and give him credit....
Still, it's "Trump!" and that'll be good for several hundred posts... I guess that's the whole point, ennit?
What does this have to do with Tech again? Or are people serious thinking that, after one month in office, Trump has had some effect, instead of the more logical conclusion that this is the result of US policy continuation over the past 8 years.
A lot of the economic optimism comes from the "little Trump" theory, where he doesn't interfere much as Congress lowers taxes and makes things more business-friendly. If investors start to think it will be "big Trump" instead - massive deficits, unnecessary trade wars, unnecessary actual wars - then the stock market will not be so rosy.
None of that has a single thing to do with Trump. Hell, there's things that Obama did in his first term that we'll just start seeing the effects of now. It's always been that way, the wheels turn slowly enough that it takes years for effects to become evident.
People have a hard time accepting that one person can be both really good and really bad at the same time.
To those who don't like Trump, he is all-bad, and they won't accept any attribution of benefits to anything Trump does.
And vice-versa, of course.
I abhor Trump's attitude towards, say, Snowden. I think Trump is an exploiter who doesn't care about justice, but just about power. On the other hand, my investment portfolio has been doing very well since he won. So, I recognize the good with the bad.
So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs? After all, if you can implement policy on day one and see that translate into an economic boost within a month, that is some good policy that governments would want to imitate all over the world.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Good thing we won't see the new inflation rate for a several more months, and pollution's latency has always been a classic.
Maybe this is good idea for a political platform: don't worry about conservative/liberal principles; just look for fast indicators that you can increase at the expense of slow ones. Right and left will become obsolete labels, and debates will be between short-termers and long-termers.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
combined with unconstrined spending
You are aware, right, that it's not the president that does the spending, it's Congress?
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. What's the lag between deciding to hire someone or increase their pay and it actually happening? Someone who doesn't realise who much one needs to demonstrate a causal warrant.
Because had we voted for Hilary there would be fewer robots?
Mythical reeducation for jobs that don't exist in the locations that were gutted by NAFTA. Complete with no help to relocate or adjust to fucking your kids lives up by transferring them across the country, nor help when dear old mum falls down the stairs and you're two thousand miles away working in your $8.50/hour job you weren't retrained for.
I love the dumb fucks who think people who have been screwed are voting against their best interests if they don't vote Democrat. Democrats aren't going to do shit for these people. This is why they've stopped fucking voting for Democrats.
Little known fact.. the Reps won that too.
It seems to me like most businesses are pretty unhappy when things are uncertain. Now that the election's settled, and it doesn't look like he's going away for a while, businesses are just relaxing the controls a little bit. Most business owners are Republicans, so I assume they feel they're going to get more of what they want for at least the next 2 years.
I work a lot with small business owners who rail on and on about "regulations" and the big evil government impeding their ability to do business. I just don't see it -- any cost there may be for complying with regulations are deductible from your profits as business expenses. For the average business owner who isn't running a power plant, oil pipeline or transportation business, it seems to me like the cost of what they see as an insurmountable regulatory burden is actually pretty low. Filing paperwork and paying a few fees should be a drop in the bucket if you truly are a "rockstar entrepreneur." Add to that the fact that businesses essentially pay zero taxes, and I'd say business owners have it pretty good in the US.
Now I haven't followed a damn thing he did but I don't recall hearing anything about specific job improvement strategies. Plus it's been ONE month. So is it safe to say this is just something that sort of happened?
With all due respect, you're comment betrays ignorance of both the Trump and Obama administrations respective stance on regulations. The Obama administration required cost-benefit analysis to be performed on new regulations, and required the benefit of the regulation to justify its costs. Trump, on the other hand, has issued executive orders requiring that the incremental cost of new regulation be zero, regardless of benefit.
Effectively, the Trump administration is enabling a scenario where privileged businesses (those who can influence regulatory change) will be able to externalize their costs (such as the costs of pollution) onto individuals and other businesses. From an economic perspective, this reduces growth and efficiency since the actor best able to reduce the cost has no incentive to do so.
Jobs are up. Stock market is up. Consumer confidence is up. Precious metals are down. If you really think the economy is about to hit the fan, then you can make a fortune by betting against the experts.
The forecast destruction of the American economy from one technological advance or another has been accurately forecast future economic strength exactly ZERO times, since the founding of the United States of America. Most economic reversals have come from financiers and banks (e.g., 1929, 2008, et. al.) lining their own pockets through variations on the Ponzi scheme.
Put your money where your mouth is and start shorting the market if you think it's so over-bought.
Investors must have been absolutely *terrified* for the past 8 years, running the stock market up to record levels.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
More well known fact: they already had it in the first place. Which I think was the GP's point.
Someone had to do it.
Right. Because all financial processes attribute to the current administration so precisely (and immediately) that we need to write "full month" rather than just "month".
Among the numerate, the earliest possible report card on the new administration is the end of the first year, and we might by then be celebrating the accomplishments of President Pence, who might by then be one fat month into his presidency. Given these larger uncertainties, I'm not going to take any macro-economic wiggles as usefully reflective on Life Under New Management for a full two full years.
On the other hand, for those of you who buy into this ridiculous one-month report card, just imagine how fabulous life will be once the new administration manages to fully staff up. They accomplished this small, immediate miracle with half their chairs empty. That's quite something, and portends greatness, does it not?
Bill Looman, the owner of U.S. Cranes, LLC, told a local NBC affiliate, 11Alive, that he put up signs on his company trucks stating:
"New company policy: We are not hiring until Obama is gone"
This link has a few photos of the signs.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
So what exactly did the US Government do in that first month to create all those jobs?
It's not what they did, it's what they promised to do - which is primarily to lower the absurdly high U.S. corporate tax rate.
Mind you, large corporations are already paying much less than the top rate. But here's the secret - all of us small and medium sized businesses without a building full of accountants WERE paying that top rate, or close to it. So the promise to lower that rate helps improve hiring from the large majority of job creation, small to medium sized businesses.... the rate lowering won't make life much different for the very largest corps since they were not paying a very high rate anyway.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Jobs are up. Stock market is up. Consumer confidence is up. Precious metals are down.
For the eighth year in a row. Thanks, Obama!
If you really think the economy is about to hit the fan, then you can make a fortune by betting against the experts.
"Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." — Warren Buffett
Trump has everything to do with "optimism".
They had it when Obama was pres too, which was the point.
Two little known facts there.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Put your money where your mouth is and start shorting the market if you think it's so over-bought.
I'm building up a cash reserve to buy shares of dividend-paying stocks on the way down. I never buy into an up market.
..and the state houses and governor mansions
..and you can thank the DNC for this, since they diverted money from local campaigns into the billion dollar fail known as the Hillary campaign. They spent over a billion dollars trying to get that witch elected in spite of the fact that the rank and file members of the party didnt want anything to do with her.
I believe the figures right now are that republicans now control 3/4ths of state houses and 2/3rd of governor mansions... but I may have these two backwards.
"His name was James Damore."
Ah yes... Creimer... the paid political troll.
I'm being not paid. I just love trolling the trolls on Slashdot. ;)
sorry but the problem with Obama era jobs is that shitty temp jobs replaced permanent. Meanwhile, perm job market is exploding here in the midwest, my friends that couldn't find job under Obama are now getting hounded
If jobs were really up already and the economy was booming then why was there such a big following for Trump by people who were out of work for such a long period of time? I'm not a Trump fan but his basic campaign was "everyone else sucks, I'm the only one who can get your old jobs back". The economy is great for me as an engineer, but it sucks badly for the unskilled laborers, it sucks for union jobs, it is rather lackluster for service jobs, etc.
More like from the 1950s...
Except that whole "Operation Wetback" thing.
It didn't work then, apart from causing all the civil rights issues that it did, and it would work even less now.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
You realize in order for you to win, someone else somewhere loses. That's how the game is played.
...
And that, folks, is the fundamental fallacy of Marxism: economics must be a zero-sum game.
And the chocolate rations were increased to twenty grammes per week.
Obama era jobs is that shitty temp jobs replaced permanent.
That's been going on for 40+ years.
Meanwhile, perm job market is exploding here in the midwest, [...]
I'm glad that the Obama recovery has finally come to the Midwest.
[...] my friends that couldn't find job under Obama are now getting hounded
That usually happens when recruiters can't find enough qualified people to fill out the head count and take anyone regardless of their qualifications. I was told by recruiters for two years (2009-10) that I was unemployable, and they started hounding me because they couldn't fill positions fast enough in 2011.
So happy our country finally has some true leadership that focuses on America and American jobs, not this shady ass globalist push from Obama.
Wrong, Obama had nothing to do with it, it's Trump hype driven. Whether that can continue and if Trump can really have lasting effect is of course another matter.
My argument which was, what exactly?
Ah, yes... that "the business world has an over-abundance of confidence in where the US is heading at this point which are driving these numbers" is not supported by "these numbers."
Also, Jan + Feb 2015 > Jan + Feb 2017, so you're doubly wrong.
No doubt the trains will all soon be running on time, too...
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Honest answer: the boom is not geographically distributed evenly. To an investor or worker in a coastal state, the economy is good. But there are large swaths of the middle of the country that are really struggling. That's why Hillary won the popular vote but lost the electoral college.
Wrong, Obama had nothing to do with it [...]
We're in the eighth year of an economic expansion that started on March, 9, 2009, the second longest expansion on record since WWII. Who was president for the last eight years?
[...] it's Trump hype driven.
The forthcoming recession will be Trump hype driven.
Obama did not fuel investor optimism in last few weeks, nor stock market rise. Those are what are creating the recent spike in job market. Don't know if Trump will be good or bad long term for jobs or economy, but Obama was the queen of the parasite and leech, and low quality jobs.
Little known fact.. the Reps won that too.
Little known fact: Trump isn't a true Republican. A lot of Republicans hated Trump, just like he got a decent size chunk of Democrat votes. He is an authoritarian, and Republicans tend to be more authoritarian (in general) than Democrats, but he is fiscally all over the place, some of his ideas are very fiscally conservative and some of his ideas are very fiscally liberal.
I think he is naturally more fiscally liberal- he has a tendency to want to spend, but he has a desire to appear fiscally conservative. He wants people to think he's the new Reagan, so he has some visible policies that are more conservative in nature. Socially he certainly wasn't a religious conservative until he was criticized for not being a Christian in the primaries- then he became more interested in attracting that demographic.
If I had to bet, I would bet that despite the authoritarian streak, Trump is more of a democrat than a Republican. The republican part seems more forced. He wants to be the new Reagan and have the popularity Reagan has.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The NASDAQ bottomed on March 9, 2009. Inertia much? Talk to me next year.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The threat of $15 minimum wage combined with lower costs to install machines causes businesses to hedge their bets and develop alternative solutions to insolvency and profit loss.
Keep in mind for many industries the discussion and exploration of cost effective machine replacement of humans was given a massive kick start by the $15 minimum wage talk. An unintended consequence is that businesses looked very closely at what they have to lose and gain in the realm of human employment and compared it to machine employment. Turns out they never knew it could be so cheap, and it takes care of the problem of government dicking with the pay floor.
You want someone to blame for that, blame the $15 minimum wage crowd, not Trump.
LOL at you completely confusing cause and effect, past and future. What a rube!
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Whatever is happening right now is Bush's fault. At least, that's what CNN has been telling me for the last 28 years.
I like the bit where you go "I don't know if what I'm saying is true, but it is true cause it is supported by my hate."
Cause that is where you both fuck up ANY credibility your data might have (cause you don't give a fuck about data) - AND you cement your judgment in hate and prejudice.
Guess what?
Republicans held those positions since Obama's second term, enlarging them from the lead they had since his first term.
If you think it's the "witch" - how come Republicans GAINED AND KEPT GAINING seats under Obama, starting from the last population census?
Two words.
Jerry and mandarin.
Oh and BTW, Democrats actually ended up with a net gain chamber-wise while most governor positions weren't even up for election.
But you just go on believing in witches bro. And enjoying yourself. After all, Trump won.
Why are you still so hung up on the other side losing? Get over it already.
Sing Hallelujah, come on, get happy... and all that jazz.
Don't be such a sore winner.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Those are what are creating the recent spike in job market.
If you look at the actual job numbers from month to month over the last 18 months, the numbers are fairly consistent in terms of job growth. These are the same numbers that Trump called "phony" and now claims as his own, even though he had nothing to do with them.
If you cared about data, you would know that seats != control.
"His name was James Damore."
The current economic improvements are not a black and white difference between Obama and Trump. Trump has done NOTHING policy-wise yet; he is resting on the policy foundations of the past 8 years of the Obama administration. Nevertheless, his mostly ignorant-of-economics, self-confirmation-biased "true believers" will happily consume the hash of lies and distortions they are fed. Are their incomes going up? Is life easier? All they have to do is make a trip to the mailbox to find out that *nothing* has changed. What's going to surprise most of them is how once Clown Trump and his circus get going, how they are going to be left behind.
We have a *structural* disruption in worldwide benefits to labor; that structural disruption is ACCELERATING. Clown Trump and his base are going to find that out soon enough, as labor becomes ever more the commodity and automation continues to hallow out jobs. Wake up!
But that's how it's been with the Democrats for the last 8+ years. Anything bad that happened under Obama was Bush's fault, even after he had been out of power for almost 8 years and of course everything that was good was all his doing. Now it appears that anything good that happens under Trump is Obama's doing and of course anything bad is all his doing as well. It's a no win situation, and people will do some serious mental gymnastics to try and prove it no matter what the evidence says.
No, in the stock market, it really is a zero-sum game. Money that comes out is money someone else put in.
The stock market isn't the economy.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
And that doesn't stand for "Bachelor of Science" in case you're wondering. The stock market rallied when Pence came out and said: We know Trump said he was going to do all these really popularist things like tariffs and healthcare for all but trust me, that ain't happening. Until then it was in free fall.
Obama's "You didn't Built it" was true and that stung like a motherfarker. There's a bumper sticker I saw the other day that made me laugh: "If you don't like socialism get off my public roads!". This is civilization. We work together to make things better. Remember the Dark Ages? A thousand years of no progress so a few kings and their retainers could claim everything themselves. Just keep telling yourself you're doing it for freedom, all the way back to monarchy and the divine right of kings. Good job.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Republicans tend to be authoritarian in different areas, and they constantly strive to deny it. But deny all they want, they have those social conservatives to appease.
Improved crop yields, milder winters... hurricanes, storms, floods, an influx of starving refugees from Mexico when their farmland turns into desert.
Remember, more heat means more evaporation - and what goes up, must come down.
Put your money where your mouth is and start shorting the market if you think it's so over-bought.
I'm building up a cash reserve to buy shares of dividend-paying stocks on the way down. I never buy into an up market.
I think you're confused as to the nature of "shorting" - the gist of it is: you sell shares other people have and make the difference when they drop. If you are certain the market will tank, just short everything. If you are wrong (you are) you will get margin calls and go broke, but in the off chance you're right you make lots of money.
Also doesn't help that they hate the so called "elites" and then vote for the most elitist and privileged persons in the country. Hillary's campaign problems seemed to ignore that huge swath, assumed that the typical blue collar union vote would go her way even if they were ignored, and preaching to the converted. Having obscure actress give a speech isn't going to sway a single vote. This goes for the repubican primaries too, they didnt take Trump seriously or take seriously the growing backlash (now though they're pandering and saying they loved him all along).
Sound like you've got it all figured out. I look forward to hearing about your newly earned fortune in a few months.
Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.
[Tab closed]
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Improved crop yields, milder winters...
Correct
an influx of starving refugees from Mexico when their farmland turns into desert.
What part of "improved crop yields" did you fail to understand? Why would they be starving with an abundance of food??
Do jungles have more, or less plant growth? The increase in warmth corresponds to greater moisture in the atmosphere. Mexico will be even more of a garden than it is now.
Go into any greenhouse. Do you find inside a desert, or thriving plants?
That's what I really despise about you warming alarmists. You constantly claim utterly contradictory things. You have not even a second thought to real science behind how heat and water interact, much less the rest of the complex system that is the climate. You are all just DOOM DOOM DOOM idiots used by those above you ,parroting completely asinine points that you plainly do not understand.
hurricanes, storms, floods
Maybe a bit more flooding but global warming reduces extreme weather. So I guess you are for more hurricanes and people dying over a bit of extra flooding? You, sir are a monster, caring only about your own dry feat while thousands suffer or die.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think you're confused as to the nature of "shorting" [...]
If you have read my comment, you would have realized that I'm the kind of investor who pays cash for stocks. The markets goes up and comes down. You need cash to buy on the way down.
Also, your premise that "extreme leftists" (which are then, by political definition, actually right-wing) are a root cause is also disturbing.
This should be used more often on this website nowadays: Mu.
-
The chances that this had anything to do with trump are about the same as the connection between this article and "news for nerds, stuff that matters".
and just to dissuade the bias read, I ( reluctantly ) voted for the man.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I took you for the kind of person who espoused political beliefs. That's antithetical to equities trading.
The stock market isn't the economy.
This can't be emphasized enough.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The current economic improvements are not a black and white difference between Obama and Trump. Trump has done NOTHING policy-wise yet; he is resting on the policy foundations of the past 8 years of the Obama administration. Nevertheless, his mostly ignorant-of-economics, self-confirmation-biased "true believers" will happily consume the hash of lies and distortions they are fed. Are their incomes going up? Is life easier? All they have to do is make a trip to the mailbox to find out that *nothing* has changed.
Sadly, this is what happens damn near every time a new president has been elected from the opposing party. Obama got a Nobel for doing nothing FFS.
GWB got the blame for the Dot-com crash and 9-11. Both were in the works before he even won the primary.
Reagan got credit for the Iran hostages being released. Even though they would have been released as long as anyone other than Carter would have been president.
It looked like the "blame everything on Clinton" to "blame everything on Obama" transition point was in December 2008. This behavior is not characteristic of just one party.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"Trump claiming credit for the Obama economy is like someone inheriting a bunch of money and then bragging what a good businessman he is."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
From Bloomberg "Just 157,000 people were unable to work in February because of inclement weather, compared with an average of 311,000 for the month, according to the Labor Department. In January, 395,000 employees couldn’t work because of the weather." The raw monthly counts are fairly meaningless unless you see the phrase 'Seasonably Adjusted'. ( https://www.dallasfed.org/-/me... ) i.e. "... outsized gains in construction ...", etc. And the real economic effect is Positions X Wages, and also what regions the growth is occurring in.
Sound like you've got it all figured out. I look forward to hearing about your newly earned fortune in a few months.
A few months? I'm not a day trader. Come back in 30 years.
I took you for the kind of person who espoused political beliefs. That's antithetical to equities trading.
What does political opinions have to do with investing?
Trump's power comes not from what he does but what he theatens to do. non-US businesses are among those who apparently are taking Trump's threats to enact new tariffs seriously which seems to be the only thing I can see from Trump to affect things, though there are probably private conversations I am not privy to as well.
One mental health company in my area grew to include general practitioners and merged with a pharmacy. My current health company includes a hospital among its facilities/complexes.
Competition and buyers and sellers are another way of looking at things. In this model you want to get good terms for you from people who in that other framework are friends who you might want to give some sort of "slack" to, and enemies who you wish some sort of harm to. In this other paradigm, people are expected to be more involved in making sure their side of the exchange is acceptable to them.
That businesses aren't hiring wasn't the only assertion. He further asserted that the reason that businesses weren't hiring was because they were punishing Obama and not for the more apparent to some that new regulations made it appear either less profitable or more risky to hire. That was the assertion he had a problem with.
What for implies something was given in exchange. Why is a more open ended question.
LOL.
The Unemployment rate was 4.6 in Nov.
And Obama's last month was 238K, though for the last 77 months, O has added ~200K jobs each month.
So, considering that unemployment rate increased to 4.7 from 4.6 and the retailers are having major issues, we shall have to see what will really happen over the next 6 months.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
huh.
As a Libertarian, I sit back and watch both of your 2 groups and I have to say, that nearly all of the lying is on the right hand side.
For example, the unemployment rate was 4.6 in Nov and 4.7 in Dec and then 4.6 in Jan. Now, with a 4.7 rate, the far right says that it is falling.
In addition, for the last 77 months, O has added slightly over 200K jobs each month, with around 235,000 each month for the last couple of months.
Yet, you neo-cons/tea* are jumping up and down and screaming that Trump is doing great, but that O was a disaster.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If you cared about data, you would know that seats != control.
If you cared about data AND if you weren't just guided by your irrational fears and hate - you'd know that two and two make four.
Thus... more seats == more control of legislative chambers.
But fuck kindergarten arithmetic!
Just looking at the graph shows that Republicans have been holding what they took under Obama.
But you'd have to use witchcraft to find that out. Like clicking on a link and reading what's there. Which is clearly witchcraft!
Creating text and images from thin air! BURN IT! BURN IT!
Granted... being not insane (paranoid and delusional) IS also necessary in order to actually understand what the squiggly line on the graph means.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
No, the $15 minimum wage needs to happen, and it needs to be indexed to inflation. Maybe it needs to be $20 to start instead.
Jobs that would be replaced by at $15 would still be replaced at $7.35, would still be replaced at $5, would still be replaced at $2, and would still be replaced at $0.50. It's not going to be stopped because we allow employers to pay slave wages.
All that allowing employers to pay ridiculously low wages accomplishes is to shift the costs associated with their shitty business practices to the public, while privatizing the profits.
Wait, at the end of last year there were 90 million people out of the workforce. Did they all get hired last month?! :)
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Yo, I did not make a judgement call on whether or not a $15 minimum wage needs to happen or not, homie. Pick a number and go with it for all I care.
Just realize that there will be consequences of changes to the minimum wage. It really is that simple. Right, wrong, should, shouldn't...completely irrelevant to what will happen as a direct result of changes to the law.
And, before you reply with "No" as your starting statement, yet again, you unnecessarily contrary contrarian, just have a long think about how you would mitigate job replacement through properly crafted legislation *before* pushing for wage increases that would put millions of people out of work. The problems start when people confuse ideals with reality. If you can't face reality you can't prepare for the repercussions of the changes you want before you make them.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
you should be asking how the parasites function, and the answer is the Obama-type, who takes from me and gives to them