So who do you think is lying?
A private company tallying up actual layoff announcements by other private companies and presenting this factual data without seasonal adjustments, phantom birth/death adjustments, or data smoothing?
OR
A corrupt federal government run by apparatchiks doing the bidding of politicians trying to paint a rosy picture of economic recovery?
The numbers presented by Challenger this month and year to date prove beyond a shadow of doubt the US economy is in recession. Every Fed manufacturing index shows recession. Corporate revenues and profits are falling, showing recession. The stock market has fallen 12%, portending recession.
If it walks like a recession, talks like a recession, and smells like a recession, it’s a recession.
You how to tell if a government drone or politicians is lying? When they open their mouths.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/01/2015 08:43 -0400
Does not compute.
That may be the best way to summarize the discrepancy between the statistically-massaged, seasonally-adjusted initial claims data reported by the DOL, which moments ago printed at 277K in the latest week, modestly higher than the 267K reported last week, and just above the 271K expected, however as the chart below shows, the claims trend remains at the lowest level seen in decades.
Even more curious was the drop in Continuing Claims which declined from 2244K to just 2191K, below the 2,230K expected, suggesting tomorrow’s NFP report should have no problem priting above 200K.
Which on the surface is great… and then one looks at the Challenger Job Cuts report released just an hour earlier, which painted a dramatically different picture. From the Challenger report:
The third quarter ended with a surge in job cuts, as U.S.-based employers announced plans to shed 58,877 in September, a 43 percent increase from the previous month, according to a report released Thursday by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
The September total was third largest of the year behind July (105,696) and April (61,582). It was 93 percent higher than the 30,477 planned layoffs announced the same month a year ago.
In all, 205,759 job cuts were announced in the third quarter, making it the largest job-cut quarter since the third quarter of 2009, when planned layoffs totaled 240,233.
It gets even more confusing when looking at the full year trend, where one notices that so far in 2015, employers have announced 493,431 planned layoffs, 36 percent more than the 363,408 cuts tracked from January through September a year ago. The year-to-date total is actually 2.0 percent higher than the 2014 year-end total of 483,171. “The Q3 total was 40 percent higher than the previous quarter’s 181,213 job cuts. It was 75 percent higher than the third quarter of 2014, when 117,374 job cuts were announced.”
Some commentary: “Job cuts have already surpassed last year’s total and are on track to end the year as the highest annual total since 2009, when nearly 1.3 million layoffs were announced at the tail-end of the recession,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.”
Most damning was the report of layoffs in the west, which according to Challenger just spiked to the highest in over three years, on the back of the mass terminations announced by Hewlett Packard in September, just so the company can buy back more stock.
And some concluding observations from Challenger:
For the year, the biggest job cutting sector is energy, which has announced 72,708 job cuts since January 1. Most of the energy cuts occurred in the first half of year, with just 12,208 job cuts recorded in the latest quarter.
“While oil cuts have slowed, the issues that helped drive oil prices down in the first place are still impacting the economy. We continued to see the ripple effect of low demand last month when heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar announced plans to reduce its workforce over the next year- and-a-half,” said Challenger.
“We could see more fallout, which appears to have its origins in China, which after years of building up its national infrastructure appears to now have far too much capacity. As a result, manufacturing plants, retail stores and even entire apartment building are sitting empty.
Someone is lying, or perhaps the US Department of Labor simply did not get the memo?
“Who are you going to trust me or your lying eyes,” your government.
Bob.
Some time down the road, years from now, some “genius” will put together a historical report/study that states the 2007 recession and 2015/16 collapse were part of a larger overall depression that was hidden by Federal Reserve and Congressional shenanigans.
Said person will be louded as revolutionary in some circles, heretical in others. I suspect time will support the former, and it will eventually join the “new standard” for historical lessons.
Also, whoever writes that report will almost certainly be a European….probably Eastern bloc.
The government is being truthful. All tHeir reports must pass the Debbie Wasserman Schultz logic and truthfulness test.
All those people are retired and living the high life in Belize, Costa Rico, etc
They have so much money they don’t need to work.
The success of the recovery is based on one simple principle: Keep everyone still suffering the recession thinking he is the last one still suffering and it will reach him soon.
A principle that worked for Mussolini with his “on time” railroads.
When China started shutting down manufacturing, which, btw, is AMERICAN corporations, but 51% Chinese owned, it was obvious the cover up and collusion are finally nearing the end.
So much “American” manufacturing has become nothing more than assembly or packaging or food. Where Chinese factories go, so lies OUR consumers and the true necessary manufacturing. I can tell you plant auctions have started to ramp back up AND the machinery is going dirt cheap. Difference between the auctions this time around, versus the early 2000’s, is the Chinese aren’t here buying. But I’ll bet the metal scrappers are.
All I can do is try to point out to the suffering that contrary to the entertainment complex version of life, we are not alone and MANY are hurting.
Meanwhile the spoiled unions are striking for bigger pieces of the rapidly shrinking pie and realtors are touting, “best time to buy!”as liar loans and no down make a second coming.
Ah, the Overlords plans are nearing completion. It’s finally looking like multiple fantasies are simultaneously reaching their inevitable implosion. Ponzi on.
I bet there are plenty of people hoping Hurricane Joaquin turns out to be “OMG!! SUPERSTORM JOAQUIN!!!”, so they can use it as an excuse to explain away the bad economic indicators.
My son, 35, a survivor of oil industry cuts, is feverishly trying to get in place a risky venture for water well drilling in South America while still doing his oil job offshore. We’re ramping up all prep stuff on our little place a bit west of the middle of nowhere because we’re convinced our presently-favorable dollar income situation needs to be offset by generating income locally in the near-worthless local currency in the event that the US falls down boom, a possibility we no longer dismiss as we did not long ago. TE’s points are well taken: thanks. I’m 69, comfortable for the moment, but no longer complacent; my kid, with his two kids, is anything but complacent in spite of the fact that with respect to his contemporaries back in the USA, he’s sitting pretty. I’m glad he feels that way, because the Magic 8-ball seems to be reading “Get thee behind me”, an unfavorable position to be sure.
Personal experience. Prior to 2008, if i needed something done, we hired someone to do it. If someone left, we hired someone to fill their spot without thinking about it. I haven’t hired anybody new in 7 years. We find ways to get things done with the people we have. Everyone I know operates the same way.
Sad state of affairs for our country, especially for the younger set. No jobs, Obamacare higher medical costs, and student loans.But the Big Corporations, Banksters, Hedge Funds, and Private Equity Groups have made a killing. Wouldn’t you like to borrow 100 Billion Dollars at 0.25% interest.
The gov’t birth-death algo for new small business employees gained is computed on 1970’s structure, where the real economy was still chugging along nicely. In the current environment, it spits out BS numbers.
Ditto Starfcker, we do the same thing here, instead of everybody on the job wearing one hat we all now wear three or four. If you don’t like it, tough shit, there’s the door. Amazing how much more profitable we have become as a result.
Peaceout
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Admin – Your welcome.
Whenever you see the term ‘seasonally adjusted,’ mentally replace it with the term ‘rectally extracted.’ Makes watching the business news more entertaining and accurate.
I think that ALL numbers published by ANY government are manipulated. Why wouldn’t they do it? They lie about everything else, why believe a single statistic they present?
This is from a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury Jack Joo Lew to CONgress about raising the debt ceiling:
‘…the latest corporate and individual tax receipts received by the Treasury were lower than previously projected…’
Yeah, looks like a recovery to me! Ha!!! What a crock of bullshit! The economy is falling over, and it ain’t gonna be pretty…
It’s getting worse — it’s been bad for years, but it’s getting worse. My evidence? The number of coupons and sales I’m getting emails about from retailers the past 6 months (who cater to people who like to overpay for useless items) that never used to offer them.
It looks like the government was lying based on this morning’s BLS report.