International Forecaster Weekly

Lies, Lies and Yeah, More lies

So Friday was jobs day. The “Non-Farm payroll report” it’s called. And as usual, when the headline hit, it seemed acceptable. Well that’s what the headline’s supposed to do, give you a quick hit of “good” so that you wander off thinking things are pretty good out there.

They said that overall, 261,000 jobs were created and that was better than the estimates. Even taking out any Government employment, it was still up 230K, better than they hoped.

But as usual in this day and age, the report was total crap. Lies and distortions of epic scope. First off let’s look at that headline number. Okay so 261K jobs were created. Or… were they? Uhm, NO. In fact our friends at the BLS sprinkled so much of their fairy dust on the report, it was unreadable. Let me explain.

The Bureau of Labor each month takes verified job numbers, and counts them. But they also figure “hey there are probably jobs out there that we didn’t get proof of yet, so we need to calculate them into the mix.”  This is called the “Birth/Death” model.

You can go to the BLS website and read the mumbo jumbo about how they come up with these extra jobs, but it’s an exercise in futility.  They’ll give you all these fancy equations and academic mental gymnastics, and it won’t make a lick of sense. Let me sum it up for you…

Basically what they’re saying is that for every “X” amount of businesses that close (that’s the death part) Some “X” amount of those now unemployed employees, will go out and open “X” amount of new businesses. Well new businesses need employees, so they take a random-assed guess about how many that comes to also.

Bob Rinear | November 5, 2022

So Friday was jobs day. The “Non-Farm payroll report” it’s called. And as usual, when the headline hit, it seemed acceptable. Well that’s what the headline’s supposed to do, give you a quick hit of “good” so that you wander off thinking things are pretty good out there.

They said that overall, 261,000 jobs were created and that was better than the estimates. Even taking out any Government employment, it was still up 230K, better than they hoped.

But as usual in this day and age, the report was total crap. Lies and distortions of epic scope. First off let’s look at that headline number. Okay so 261K jobs were created. Or… were they? Uhm, NO. In fact our friends at the BLS sprinkled so much of their fairy dust on the report, it was unreadable. Let me explain.

The Bureau of Labor each month takes verified job numbers, and counts them. But they also figure “hey there are probably jobs out there that we didn’t get proof of yet, so we need to calculate them into the mix.”  This is called the “Birth/Death” model.

You can go to the BLS website and read the mumbo jumbo about how they come up with these extra jobs, but it’s an exercise in futility.  They’ll give you all these fancy equations and academic mental gymnastics, and it won’t make a lick of sense. Let me sum it up for you…

Basically what they’re saying is that for every “X” amount of businesses that close (that’s the death part) Some “X” amount of those now unemployed employees, will go out and open “X” amount of new businesses. Well new businesses need employees, so they take a random-assed guess about how many that comes to also.

So, we have “some” amount of businesses that close shop, but they don’t know how many, and “some” amount of those laid off - out of work employees (but we don’t know how many) are going to go out and open “some” amount of businesses ( but they don’t know how many) and hire “some” amount of employees for this new business. ( but they have no proof of these businesses, or these employees, there’s no tax forms, unemployment insurance numbers, etc)

Well for this particular jobs report that says 261K jobs were formed last month, take a WAG (wild assed guess) at how many jobs the birth/death model injected into that total.  Go ahead, take a shot at it.

455,000.  Yes you read that right. The BLS put 455K jobs into this report. Jobs that there’s no proof of. Jobs that don’t exist. Phantom jobs. But the headline read we created 261K jobs!  Yes, because they’re masters at lying.

Want to know what really happened? The Number employed decreased by 328,000 but somehow we added 261,000 jobs? Right. Sure, you bet. Oh watch this: full time employment tanked by 433,000. The only thing that had a real gain was part time.

Do you see why I have such distain for these people? Central banks lie to us for decades. The labor dept. lies to us every month. Our politicians lie to us, hell, even our medical system lies to us in volumes we almost can’t comprehend.

The market on Friday, was about as volatile as you’ll ever see, and not just because of the stupid jobs report. Everybody and their brother is focused like a laser on when the Fed is going to pivot. As I’ve been saying for months and got confirmation of Wednesday, they are NOT going to pivot.

They’re now into a game of good cop/bad cop. Powell was very vocal and forceful that more rates hikes are indeed coming, and the absolute kicker that many people didn’t catch at the press release was this statement: THE ULTIMATE LEVEL OF RATES WILL BE HIGHER THAN PREVIOUSLY EXPECTED.

The second I saw that headline I sold the DIA call options I had bought. There’s no way the market was going to remain buoyant after they realize that he’s going to jack them higher than they originally said. But that was back on Wednesday….what happened Friday besides the jobs?

Just this:  Boston Fed President Susan Collins suggests she is ready to slow the pace of Fed rate increases from here.   Well that little quip got the market all manner of hot and bothered and up we went. Like up -up. Almost 600 DOW points. But then something else happened.

This same “person” was quoted again. Only this time it was “Rates will end up being higher than I previously thought in September” which is exactly what Powell said on Wednesday. So, from up 600 we went RED for a while.  From there it got silly. We bounced for 100 green points. We gave it all back and went red. We bounced again for 59, but rolled over and went red. It was a sloppy mess, as bulls and bears tried to figure out what is really happening.

You and I know what’s happening. The Central banks are hell bent on destroying us and this time they’re not here to save you. The Feds know that hiking rates is NOT going to stop this inflation, because it is not an inflation based on outrageous demand. It’s a steady demand that’s competing for lack of product. Store shelves are still bare in spots. Car lots have no inventory. I know people waiting months for a fridge. It took a friend of mine 6 months to get a replacement air conditioner for his RV.

Well if the feds know their rate hikes can only help stop the inflation if they truly destroy the economy, that can’t be the plan, could it? Bingo, get the cigar, you’re a winner. That’s the plan.

The economy is NO where near as robust as this stupid White House wants you to believe. But it isn’t just here folks. This is a coordinated GLOBAL attack on people.

BASF of Germany is a chemical company that makes hundreds of different chemicals for all manner of industry. They announced that they’re going to have to all but shut down production in Germany because of energy issues and try and move things to… yeah, China.

Or how about this one:

France's glass manufacturer Duralex suspends operation for 5 months due to surging electricity bills.

"Our bill (for gas and electricity) has gone from 3 to 13 million euros per year, or 46% of our turnover," the CEO of Duralex said.

So, as the evil sanctions against Russia do NOTHING to Russia, but cripple all of the European Union, you can see that the game globally is to wreck things. The Bank of England hiked rates the most in 30 years. Are they healthy enough for that sort of hike? Nope.

By the way, speaking of strange things, did you know that the Chinese have police stations here in the US? They do. Or how about this little blurb: Chinese Election Observers To Be Housed At Carter Center In Atlanta. Nature of the Observers is not fully understood because Memo of Understanding with China and Fulton Country has been hidden under seal.

Why on earth are Chinese elections observers going to watch over our elections? And when asked about it, “sorry that information is under seal of secrecy.”  Really? Yep.

So here we are folks. In a world of poop. I cannot stress to you enough, about how I think preservation of your assets is paramount. Yes we all want to invest and make money. But there’s times when all I want is assurance that my “money” ( assets of all kind) is still there. This is one of those times.

Would it be wrong to buy some long dated puts on the DIA’s. SPY and or QQQ’s and just sit on them? If they’re out of the money enough they won’t break the bank. Hey if nothing goes bump in the night over the next 6 months, okay you lost some gamble money. But if something major does go down, and my “spidey” sense says something’s coming, at least you’re “insured.” 

No I’m not a broker, nor an advisor. I’m not licensed to sell you any stocks or even tell youwhat to do. I’m just some guy that’s been watching these criminals for 30+ years and thinks we’re in some inning of their end game.  For me, preservation is now more important than trying to make investment money. That’s not to say I’m against making money, get a better job, open a small business, etc that’s fine. But in Wall Street land, things could get sour easy.

Good luck out there. With the way things are, we’ll all need it.