The devil, they say, is in the details.
On the face of the most recent BLS jobs report, a massive short covering, and a high-frequency trading rampage, the world is breathing a collective sigh of relief. Or maybe that's just hyperventilating.
After all, both rock star status central bankers, Ben Bernanke and Mario Draghi, disappointed big time in their respective moments on center stage this past week. Ben reiterated his ZIRP policy and said the Federal Reserve was ready to act.
Mario reiterated his promise to plan a promise to plan and added that the ECB was “really” ready to act.
Thus, it fell on the shoulders of the BLS to deliver a body blow to negativity and there was certainly no disappointment.
Kudos goes to the bureaucrat who sat in the little one-light bulb room at the BLS with his green eyeshade and created those 163,000 jobs for the month of July.
As a matter of fact, to get those so-called jobs, a seasonal and birth/death adjustment had to be made to the tune of 429,000 employed.
Traveling as much as I do, I can certainly attest to the fact that the service I’ve received at Starbucks, Burger King, and Taco Bell has been greatly elevated by the alleged addition of more service employees.
Even though this is the largest seasonal addition in over a decade, I find the BLS statistics absolutely believable!
I also find no difficulty in understanding that those who are actually being employed are doing so without the advantage of any employee benefits.
After all, why should someone who is counted as a part-time employee and works one hour per month anticipate anything more than just their paycheck.
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Why should members of the media, such as me, ever find fault with part-time or full-time employees being blended together?
All things considered, a job is a job.
In addition, the BLS-Barack Obama position that the U.S. has added 1.8 million jobs in the past twelve months definitely gives me a very warm and comfortable feeling, but sooner rather than later, all the empty commercial square footage in this country will only be filled with eager working bumble bees.
The added bonus to all of this is that both the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) say that the housing turnaround that we’re experiencing will employ all of those construction workers that are currently out of a job.
It may not be true, but if the bureaucrat at the BLS believes it, you can be darn sure the numbers will reflect it. The mainstream media can keep their Obama, Merkel, Draghi, or Bernanke moments all to themselves.
For me, however, the most important person on this day, August 3, 2012, is that lowly bureaucrat with the jobs pencil at the BLS who was expected to deliver and most certainly did.
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