Once again going the wrong way. And as discussed before, the prior numbers (and this one) are probably horribly fudged by the 'seasonal and cyclical' adjustment attempts. Many analysts believe last week's adjusted rate of ~350,000 was about 75,000 lower than reality.

I didn't watch this live this morning, so don't have additional color commentary from analysts.

All the normal stuff -- until we get below 350,000 and stay there, and start pushing the U6 underemployed-and-underemployed rate down, this all means nothing. We're losing jobs still, de-facto. Regardless of the much touted 'top line' politicized number of 8.5%.

 

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You forgot the word 'unexpected' or for the more serious analysts, 'unexpectedly'.

As an aside, have you been following Davos this year? I'm half expecting the Chinese delegation to leap up out of their seats and shout "What the fuck is wrong with you people?" It would be fun but they're far too polite.

 

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I've never heard really vitriolic Chinese swearing. It would be a great clip for the evening news...

 

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I'd even go for a heartfelt and loud "Its the Year of the Dragon, suck it up!!"

Anyway, the ubiquitous 'they' are looking for/at/magical thinking re new growth models for established economies. You know what this means, don't you? New mechanisms for looking at sad data so it appears to be cheerful. Christine Lagarde keeps pointing to the Eurozone, specifically Greece, and saying repeatedly "We're all in this together!" with China's response being "Wait, what??"

The Basel core group is there - they've been very quiet since their announced study of forced liquidity rules and 'unintended ccnsequences'. For that read 'unexpected' consequences.

Anyway, Davos is always worth following. Hope you are able to catch some of it.

 

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