Saturday, January 9, 2016

Slow Saturday Special: Same Old $hit

And it's not my choice of titles that's offensive:

"December jobs report caps off robust year" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff  January 08, 2016

Strong December hiring propelled the US economy to its best two years of job creation since the late 1990s. But can it continue?

Did they count the layoffs yet?

As the nation heads into a presidential election year, most analysts project the economy to maintain its momentum and continue the steady expansion that has added jobs for 63 consecutive months — or more than five years. Strong consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of US economic activity, is expected to keep the US economy on track as unemployment falls and incomes rise — despite the slowdown in China and turmoil that has followed in financial markets.

That's the narrative they are going to be running with this year even though all the indicators say it isn't true.

“The US job market seems to be on a roll,” said Nariman Behravesh, the chief economist for IHS Inc., a forecasting firm in Lexington. “Despite everything that is going on around the world, we are still doing pretty well.”

The percentage of adults employed is at decade-low levels, but you know.

US employers added 292,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday, while unemployment held steady at 5 percent.

I'll wait for the revisions, whatever they be.

For all of 2015 the nation gained nearly 2.7 million jobs, after adding 3.1 million in 2014, for a total of 5.8 million . It was the strongest two-year period of job growth since 1998 and 1999, when the economy created 6.2 million jobs. 

That does it. They just went too far with the shoveling. Trying to say this economy is on par with the dotcom boom. 

Maybe this is what the elites of Bo$ton and beyond care to read, but for those of us in the real world it's rubbish. The claim is so over the top it renders everything that spews forth as unbelievable and incredible -- more than it is already.

Economists project the economy will expand at about the same rate as 2015 — 2.5 percent — although hiring will increase at a slightly slower pace, according to a Bloomberg survey. Forecasters expect the nation to add an average of 184,000 jobs a month this year, compared with about 220,000 in 2015. 

So who do you think will win the football games this afternoon and evening?

Unemployment, which averaged 5.3 percent last year, is expected to slide to 4.8 percent in 2016.

Despite strong job gains, the labor market still has pockets of weakness. Millions of Americans are working part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time work, or have abandoned job searches. Wages, meanwhile, have barely risen for many workers.

Yes, and those who have abandoned are not counted anymore, thus making the numbers look good! 

It's all cooked books propaganda, folks, and if they would lie to you about the economy there is nothing they won't lie about.

The upbeat news out of the Labor Department was in sharp contrast to the reaction on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average fell another 168 points Friday, following Thursday’s rout of nearly 400 points. The Dow lost more than 6 percent of its value over the week, closing at 16,346.

Makes sense. Every time unemployment goes down the stocks go up, and vice-versa.

Related:

"A wave of late selling pummeled US stocks Friday and pushed the market to its worst week in four years. The dismal start to the new year comes as investors worry that China’s huge economy is slowing down. That has helped send the price of oil plunging to its lowest level since 2004, the latest blow to US energy companies. Industrial and technology companies such as Boeing and Apple that do a lot of business in China have also fallen sharply this week."

Also seeBoeing sales flying high

Hey, after a while you get used to the mixed me$$ages and smell of pre$$ shi...

Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo and Co., in Charlotte, N.C., said the sell-off was driven by international events, primarily the turmoil in Chinese markets, a slowing global economy, and plunging oil prices, a sign of weakening global demand.

Look who the pre$$ turns to for analysis, and that last bit is most important. 

Economies are contracting. That is why there is an oil glut. It was begun to hurt Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, and it has worked to some degrees there; however, it has also backfired on the Saudi Arabian a$$holes who are now flailing about to get a war going. 

And yet we are told the AmeriKan economy is excellent.

These developments will hurt American companies that sell in foreign markets, but international trade accounts for a small share of the US economy, which is primarily driven by domestic consumer spending.

Wait a minute. Where do you think those products are coming from? 

Look at this. They are claiming we are isolated from globalization after 30+ years of it, of outsourcing, of offshoring, and all the rest. Now they are telling us we are damn near self-sufficient. 

Stone cold serious when I say this, but how can anyone take this corporate swill seriously anymore? 

It's rank insult and offensiveness, nothing more, proving it is only being written for a certain select audience -- and not me.

Economists say the nation appears to have entered a cycle in which falling unemployment increases income, which in turn supports consumer spending, which increases demand for goods and services, and leads to more hiring by companies. And while plunging oil prices have upset financial markets, they are putting even more money into consumers’ pockets.

Sigh. It's the same old sh** we have been seeing for decades in the corporate pre$$. 

It's not happening, but why upset the narrative?

“We’re not immune to what goes on in the rest of the world,” Vitner said. “But we can go an awful long time without worrying about what’s going on in the rest the world.”

Unless it's going to get the "terrorists" or the "terrorists" coming here or global warming or whatever.

With that the stench of slop propaganda is now overwhelming.

Job gains in December were spread across most industries, including construction, health care, professional services, and food services. Job growth in health care — a leading Massachusetts industry — was particularly robust. The industry added an average of 40,000 jobs a month in 2015, compared with 26,000 a month in 2014, according to the government.

That right there renders whatever was said meaningless.

At K.A. Recruiting Inc., a Boston company that helps hospitals and health companies find nurses, physician assistants, and other workers, cofounder K.C. Carpenter said demand from employers has been “almost overwhelming.” Last year was the busiest in the company’s eight-year history, Carpenter said, and it shows no sign of slowing — he currently has 500 positions to fill.

“Every indication from our clients is that is going to continue,” he said.

But even as demand for workers has grown nationwide, wages are increasing slowly. Over the past year, average hourly wages rose by 2.5 percent, still well below the roughly 3.5 percent pace that economists say is typical for a healthy economy.

Then it is not a healthy economy, is it?

Economists expect wages to increase further in 2016 as the country nears full employment — about 4.5 percent, according to some estimates — and businesses are forced to compete more fiercely for workers. Those gains, however, are likely to be concentrated among workers with higher skills and levels of education, economists said.

How Orwellian is that? 4.5% unemployment -- the official undercount, mind you -- is considered full employment (used to be 3% when I was growing up).

And why the semantics and shell game? 

A pool of unemployed people guarantees that wages will be kept down for the lower classes.

That's the genius of our $y$tem. 

Didn't you know?

Frederick Goff, chief executive officer of jobcase.com, a Cambridge company that connects workers and employers in lower-skilled fields, said the benefits of the expansion are not shared evenly. He said he is seeing home improvement companies and banks needing to fill more entry-level jobs, but millions of people are still struggling to find work, he said.

About 6 million people in December were stuck in part-time jobs, even though they preferred full-time employment, unchanged from the previous month.

“A subset of Americans are enjoying full employment,” Goff said. “But we are far from full employment.”

Oh, she spent a paragraph on that above before becoming more upbeat. 

Anything can be fudged and figured into a subset to sell $hit propaganda.

--more--"

And there it is again.

Maybe they could get a job delivering Globes before running off to the manufacturing and construction job (no wonder American citizens can't find work):

"Mass. advocates call for a stop to deportations" by Maria Sacchetti Globe Staff  January 09, 2016

“Raids that terrorize the community and separate families ... are not the answer,” said Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, while flanked by a rabbi, an imam, church pastors, and community activists. “We urge the administration to use executive authority to protect those from unsafe countries in Central America.”

As she spoke, lawmakers and advocates rallied at the White House, calling for the same relief for Central American immigrants, intensifying pressure on Obama in his final year in office to keep a promise he made during his first: To tackle the problem of illegal immigration.

No offense, but get in the back of a long, long, line -- fools.

This week, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson defended last weekend’s roundup of 121 immigrants primarily in Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina, saying the federal government must enforce the law. He said the arrests only targeted recently arrived immigrants with deportation orders. The government of El Salvador said US officials also detained 22 Salvadorans but did not deport them because the consulate and lawyers intervened.

Some advocates viewed the deportations as an attempt to avoid a repeat of 2014, when thousands of immigrants and their children surged over the southern border. The numbers of those crossing the border later dropped, but started to rise again last year.

Advocates gathered in the Church of the Covenant in the Back Bay on Friday said the deportations are endangering immigrants, including children.

There they go again, waving kids at us. 

When the agenda-pushing Jewi$h War Pre$$ starts waving around dead Palestinian kids I'll start taking notice; otherwise, however tragic this is, I am not responsible. 

The ones who are responsible for mass migrations are the same people benefiting from them as well as proclaiming to be humanitarian saviors of immigrants.

This week El Salvador reported that its murder rate had increased nearly 70 percent, apparently replacing Honduras as the highest in the world. The US State Department has said these two nations are so dangerous that travelers should not travel there.

They just happen to be the U.S.'s closest allies in the region, too. 

So WHAT IS IT about the AmeriKan $y$tem and model that brings violence and corruption everywhere it goes? 

And why would we want potential criminals, rapists, drug dealers, and such possibly slipping in as children?

Of course, we all know this is one huge effort to bring about the New World Order (for lack of a better term).

The MIRA Coalition said over 100,000 children and parents have come to the United States over the last two years fleeing violence in Central America.

The Rev. Wendy von Courter, parish minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead, said at the press conference that Obama should display the same compassion for Central American children as he did this week when he wept for child victims of gun violence in America. 

A staged and contrived action if there ever was one.

“Mr. President,” she said. “How can it be that some children are worth crying for and others not?”

Nice comment, but it doesn't come close to all the tears he's brought to thousands upon thousands across this planet with his wars of aggression and covert efforts at regime change.

Opponents of illegal immigration say the type of temporary protection advocates are calling for is typically reserved for nations engulfed in war or natural disaster. In Central America, the violence is largely due to gangs, drug trafficking, and other crime.

“Generalized violence is not the rationale for refugee status,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based nonprofit that favors limits on immigration. “And that’s what we’re talking about here.”

But even Krikorian said it’s possible that Obama will grant unauthorized immigrants temporary protection.

“This is his last year in office,” he said. “And this is something he actually does have statutory authority to do.”

On Friday, at the Church of the Covenant, the immigrant and religious leaders urged the president to act soon.

Rabbi Victor Reinstein, of the Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue in Jamaica Plain, drew comparisons between today’s deportations and the US decision in 1939 to reject refugee Jews on the St. Louis from a port in Florida. The ship returned to Europe and over one fourth of the passengers died in the war, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

How shameless of them to cite that event.

“We know what happens when people are turned back,” Reinstein said. “That is the standard our country faces now.”

JWhose country?

I'm ANXIOUSLY AWAITING the FIRST SHIPS from GAZA (or from a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria or Lebanon)!

--more--"

More to come -- literally.

Norovirus cases close Worcester County school

Was it the immigrant kids or Chipotle (being cleaned up as I type)?

Of course, you know they way to get rich in America, right (no, no, not fantasy sports)?

Kind of takes your mind of the ever-increasing wealth inequality, doesn't it?

Okay, time to go back to Mexico (my printed piece was.... oh, never mind)

UPDATE: 

Campbell Soup to begin placing GMO labels on product packaging

That didn't make print in my paper, and I would stop eating Campbell Soup if I were you. 

I don't know the Heimlich maneuver so you better look over the Chipotle menu again.