My Job . . .
Have you ever discovered a leak in your home? The only thing worse than discovering your water supply is not working for some reason, is finding out you have water where it should not be. Your first thought might be to stop the leak, followed quickly with concern about potential damage to your home.
The reason I pay so much attention to anything that could be a “leak” is clear; I realize a small financial loss is to be expected sometimes in the real world. However, by paying attention every second of the day, the big “Leaks” can be avoided.
A Currency Crisis?
The Democrats and many mainstream commentators claim that the US economy is "resilient." According to Joe and his team, everything is peaches and cream, as Laura Ingraham phrased it.
Peter Schiff painted a less rosy picture during his appearance on The Ingraham Angle, saying the coming currency crisis is going to fuel the inflationary fire.
Ingraham opened the conversation by pointing out that the savings rate had reached its lowest point since the Great Recession. Americans are accruing debt in the meantime. Significant layoffs are beginning to occur, particularly in the tech industry. Is this an indication of a robust economy?
Mr. Schiff had this to say about comparing our current economic mess to the 2008 crisis:
“It’s actually going to be much worse than that. This is just the beginning. I think we’ve been in a stealth recession all year. But I think the recession is going to get much worse in 2023. But what’s also going to get a lot worse is inflation. Because one thing that has kept the lid on consumer prices in 2022 has been the strength of the dollar. But I think the dollar has lost that strength.”
Ingraham pointed out that consumers aren’t particularly optimistic. She also noted that with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve having been drawn down, we’re about out of ideas in terms of controlling energy prices. Lew Rockwell
The Jobs "Boom" Isn't so Hot When We Remember Nearly Six Million Men Are Missing from the Workforce
In response to the underwhelming employment figures, proponents of the "all is wonderful" narrative have dismissed them as a result of worker retirements and other demographic changes. These explanations, however, call for us to ignore the fact that millions of men between the ages of 25 and 54—that is, males who are of working age—have quit their jobs. The unemployment rate is lowered and the number of jobs overall appears more remarkable when so many men—men who would have been employed 20 or 30 years ago—are not even attempting to find employment.
In reality, as of September of this year, it appears that there is a discrepancy of almost six million men between the number of men in the prime-age group - 25 to 54 - and the number of men in the prime-age group who are really employed. Depending on the reason they're not working, that might be very terrible news for the economy as well as for society as a whole.
The number of job openings (10 million) and the total number of unemployed (6 million), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are separated by four million. Even if all unfilled positions were miraculously filled by the unemployed population today, there would still be 2 million unemployed people. Let's now include the 5.8 million males who aren't working at all back into the labor force. When all job opportunities had been filled, there would still be 7.8 million unemployed people in the country. By reaching 4.7 percent, the jobless rate would be at its highest level since September 2021. - Mises
U.S. Productivity Posts Biggest Ever Annual Drop in Second Quarter
The Labor Department started tracking worker productivity in the United States in 1948, and in the second quarter, it plummeted at its sharpest annual rate ever. At the same time, unit labor expenses grew quickly, suggesting that strong wage pressures will continue to support high inflation.
According to the agency, nonfarm productivity, which gauges the output per hour of labor, decreased by 2.5% from a year ago on Tuesday. Additionally, it fell significantly in the second quarter at an annualized rate of 4.6% after falling by an upwardly revised 7.4% in the year's first three months. - Reuters
