February Jobs Numbers - Granite Grok

February Jobs Numbers

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With reported unemployment flat, we must now wait to see where the state data comes in for the same month.  (not due for another week).  If the states are still shedding jobs, the national data will begin to appear meaningless which is unfortunate.  The unemployment situation is political as a barometer of measuring how policy and perception are affecting market decisions that impact employment, but if the BLS becomes politicized under pressure from the Chicago politics in the White House, all we are doing is inflating an unemployment bubble that will eventually pop. 

Think Barney Frank and top democrats insisting that the GSE’s were stable for years, and then watching them blow up and take the economy with them.  It’s hard to not think that this kind of politics has infiltrated the Bureau of Labor Statistics given months of bad state jobs figures while the national number seems to drift along as if nothing significant has changed. 

Honestly, I’d like to hear about job growth.  Real growth.  But none of the egg heads orbiting the halls of power in DC can connect the problems of uncertainly created by their legislative agenda with real world decisions about growth and jobs.  As has been pointed out (and ignored) repeatedly, as long as the people who hire are left with huge potential costs lingering over their balance sheets, they are not going to invest their own money in anything unless they have to.  And no amount of government money will fix that.  As long as there is no real need, fabricated need for even paltry political points will have no lasting impact on the actual economy or on real job growth.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  All that spending will weigh the economy down for years, maybe generations, as people have to work harder for less just to pay off the fiscal train wreck of the Obama Presidency.

Cross Posted from NH Insider

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