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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (1286)	3/5/2004 11:30:01 AM
From: CalculatedRisk	Read Replies (7) \| Respond to of 116555

Just to chime in (lp stole my thunder - I was going to point out that all of the new jobs were government jobs!) Good job everyone! This is far worse than I expected. Not only were zero net public sector jobs created, but January was revised down 15K (all public sector jobs). I didn't see anything in the report that would be encouraging. Average weekly hours remained the same at 33.8 hours per week. That needs to move up some before there is any significant hiring. Another "anomaly"! Once again, good job everyone!

To: mishedlo who wrote (1286)	3/5/2004 11:39:06 AM
From: Chispas	Respond to of 116555

Does it matter yet? Mr. Mizoguchi will decide when the end comes... Slow news day...Dow down (or was it up?)...Gold up...dollar up... Buy a Hummer...Take out a mortgage...Have a good weekend... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The half-a-trillion dollar trade deficit? Doesn't matter. The $1.5 billion-per-day federal deficit? Doesn't matter. Consumer debt-to-income levels the highest in history? Doesn't matter. Total debt levels at 350% of GDP? Doesn't matter. Jobs outsourced to India...lost to China...? Doesn't matter. Dollar down 25% last year? Doesn't matter. Gasoline rising 3 cents/gal. per week? Doesn't matter. Does anything matter? Well, nothing matters...until it matters. Or, as Bill Gross suggests, it never rains in sunny California, either...until it pours. Nothing matters now, according to the Financial Times, thanks to largely to one man, Zembei Mizoguchi. Without Zimbei...or someone like him...the dollar would have fallen a lot more than 25%...gasoline would be much more expensive than it is now...the U.S. wouldn't be able to finance its trade and federal deficits, homeowners wouldn't be able to refinance their houses, and consumers wouldn't be able to continue borrowing and spending...and George W. Bush would be sweating re-election far more than he is now. "Mr. Mizoguchi is not a campaign strategist, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman or even an online pundit," the FT explains. But he is the man who matters more to preserving Americans' self-delusions than the president himself. "He is vice-minister in Japan's Ministry of Finance..." the report continues. "Mr. Mizoguchi decides how many American dollars Japan will buy each week. Every dollar he buys has a direct impact on long-term interest rates in the U.S. And long-term rates this year will go a long way towards deciding who walks into the Oval Office next January. "If you think this is an exaggeration, consider that, in January alone, Mr. Mizoguchi bought a record $70bn and poured nearly all of it into the U.S. bond market. He has the authority to buy $100bn more this year and a bill moving through Japan's parliament would double that figure - more than enough to cover even the wildest estimates of next year's U.S. budget deficit. And that is exactly what is happening. Without Mr. Mizoguchi, U.S. rates would have to rise sharply in search of other buyers." Last year, Mr. Mizoguchi spent $250 billion. His goal was merely to keep the yen down...so Americans would continue buying Japanese products. The effect was to coax them further into debt and stimulate a hiring boom in China. Of course, the debt doesn't matter now. Nor the dollar. Nor the job losses in America. None of it matters...until Mr. Mizoguchi decides that it should matter. Then, it will matter a lot to a lot of people. But not to us, dear reader. It will be the end-of-the-world-as-we-have-known-it. But it was a fraud anyway. Good riddance. dailyreckoning.com