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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?
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?
Because had we voted for Hilary there would be fewer robots?
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.
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.
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
It seems to me like most businesses are pretty unhappy when things are uncertain.
Of course they are. When the NDP were elected in Ontario in the 1990's the TSE tanked overnight and we lost two ranks to our credit rating. When the Liberals were re-elected in Ontario ~3 years ago, it also cost another rank to our credit rating. Why? Because the liberals have fostered an anti-business environment and created an excessively expensive electricity market, while raising taxes through the roof, and spending like a drunken sailor. Businesses have fled Ontario over the last decade, even "clean" businesses like IT. When the NDP won Alberta they lost a ranking to their credit rating overnight, when the NDP won British Columbia same thing. Why? Because the NDP are anti-capitalism, pro-heavy regulation, pro-taxation. Businesses and investors believed and rightly so as it's turned out in every case that it would be exceptionally negative, and the economies stalled nearly overnight.
Om, nomnomnom...
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
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
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.
Way to put up some strawman arguments, shoot them down, and call everyone who disagrees with you dumb fucks. This may be the least insightful comment yet for this article.
No proposed solution to our economic problems will solve everything, and claiming Democratic voters think otherwise is asinine. Re-education of workers helps displaced workers, but it won't work for everyone. Relocating to areas with more jobs helps displaced workers, but it won't work for every family dynamic. Improved safety net systems helps those who fall through the cracks, but it can't be the solution for everyone. More equitable primary, secondary, and post-secondary education will also help, but it won't be enough for everyone. We need all of this and more to solve our problems.
On the other hand, the are almost literally no programs suggested by the Republican platform which will help the working class. Gutting public schooling won't help, reducing financial assistance for health care won't help, economic protectionism won't help, reduced clean air and water regulations won't help, the list goes on and on.
The Democratic party is far from perfect, and has been almost as disastrous for the working class as the Republican party has been. Emphasis on almost though, since after you strip away false rhetoric the Republican platform is nothing but the party of the wealthy elite.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Vote out the incumbents until things change. Eventually things will either change or we'll die.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
Too bad Obama was such a lying bastard and didn't put in single payer during his first 100 days like he promised to.
Everything that becomes of health care subsequent to the Affordable Care Act is directly related to how terribly this law was written, publicized, and implemented. Sorry, but when democrats overwhelmingly support the largest taxation bill in history disguised as a health care reform bill, and it doesn't fix the problems with health care, massively transfers wealth to insurance companies and big pharma, and actually makes some of the worst problems of health care worse any attempt made after that to fix it is just icing on shit.
You only get one chance to do something right the first time. If you do there is no need to fuck with it after that. Popular support for it will keep it in place. Just look at medicare, social security, etc., ad nauseum. They were socialistic measures that some would call un-American. They worked because their initial implementation didn't completely fuck the people they were intended to help. Why is the ACA up for massive revision and even repeal without a huge groundswell and grass roots outcry against changing it? You guessed it! Everyone knows it is shit.
Now people are used to the idea of meddling with it. Its not a fix it once and be done with it. We will get revisions to health care every 4-8 years now, in perpetuity.
And the result? You fucking idiots just put our collective heads in the noose. By turning health care into a political football our government now gets to hold health care hostage from us. They get to decide who gets heath care, when, from who, and for how much. You trust these people with this power? I sure don't.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
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.
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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.
"any cost there may be for complying with regulations are deductible from your profits as business expenses"
Uhhhhhh, yeah, and its profits which determine the success or failure of a business. Thus, higher costs and lower profits are generally a bad thing, especially when the expenditure has zero ROI. Plus, you not only lose profits, but also revenue because you're wasting time dealing with regulations when you could be running your business.
You work *with* small business owners? Have you ever tried running a small business yourself? The government bureaucrats & their nitpicking bullshit regulations are a pain in the ass even when you're running a sole proprietorship. If you do any sort of manufacturing, the problem is seriously compounded. The amount of additional red tape involved in growing your business from '0' to '1' employees is insane. And we wonder why domestic businesses don't create more jobs?
"businesses essentially pay zero taxes"
Maybe giant corporations who can bribe elected officials for some special favors in the tax code and can then hire full time accountants and tax attorneys will figure out how to pay zero taxes. Small & medium sized businesses pay plenty.
Big corporations have it very good in the USA because they have the capacity to deal with the heavy hand of big evil government. Small and medium sized businesses who can't afford full time regulatory compliance officers, accountants, lobbyists and lawyers get the shaft.
That's the problem with big government worshipers. They think their big government is going to protect them from the evil big corporations. The reality is that the big corporations own the big government and can use that as an instrument to undermine their smaller competitors. Any new government regulations will always have a disproportionate impact on the smaller businesses.
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.
the Republican platform is nothing but the party of the wealthy elite
As a lifelong Republican, I'd like to point out that Trump's electoral victory - achieved against the streneous efforts of the GOP hardliners and the majority of GOP congressmen - may well incidate that the average conservative voter seems to agree with you. That Bernie got as far as he did against the polished, powerful Clinton machine (so powerful that she forced the Democratic party leadership to cut a deal with her so she'd stop challenging Obama's run for nomination,)and the DNP apparatus, indicates that the left wing is tired of their elitists too.
Look for common ground - right now, I think you're likely to find it.