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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (14139)	4/12/2004 12:00:35 PM
From: JakeStraw	Respond to of 81568

Careful Kennth, You're not helping yourself by making a statement like that...

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (14139)	4/12/2004 12:01:05 PM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

"The current unemployment rate remains lower than the average unemployment rate during the 1970s (6.2 percent), the 1980s (7.3 percent) and the 1990s (5.75 percent)."

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (14139)	4/12/2004 1:28:26 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Respond to of 81568

Employment Games and Other Silly Statistics by John Mauldin April 9, 2004 This week we take a look at what value really means, and I offer a few thoughts on the recent employment numbers. They may not be what you think. I am taking a little R&R this weekend, and have asked my friend Lynn Carpenter who is the editor of the Fleet Street Letter and The Optionist to give us her thoughts on value investing. It is a wise and witty essay, and I commend it to you. But first, let me make some brief comments on the recent employment numbers. The market went crazy on Friday as the Bureau of Labor Statistics told us 308,000 new jobs were created, far beyond the expectations of even the most wild-eyed optimists. As an aside I should note the futures market went crazy about 90 minutes before the announcement of the official figures, as S&P futures were up big and fast before anyone supposedly saw the numbers. Now, the Fed, the White House and various relevant agencies saw the report the evening before, as well as the guys at the BLS. I am sure no traders got to see an early "hint." It must have been some optimistic traders starting a trend and then someone wondering what they knew and then some program trading kicking in, with the momentum guys all jumping on the bandwagon. These things can happen. It is just that they don't usually happen 90 minutes before a BLS announcement, many of which have been quite disappointing in recent months. Even so, inquiring minds would like to see a print of the tape and know who was buying and why. If it was innocent, it was a gutsy call. But that doesn't tell us anything about the underlying employment numbers. Employment Games and Other Silly Statistics I remember seeing the BLS report headlines flash across my screen and thinking, "Finally, some good news. About time." Ever the optimist, I should have waited a few hours. Bill King sent this note out to his readers: "We have never seen such a grossly misinterpreted Employment Report in our 30 years in this biz... "...About release of the report, we immediately noticed some huge red flags. How could non-farm payrolls explode 308k when a) the unemployment rate increased to 5.7%; b) wage growth was less than expected at 0.1%; c) the "employed population ratio" actually FELL to 62.1% from 62.2%; d) the "employment participation rate" was unchanged at 65.9%; e) total employment was unchanged at 138.3m and most importantly f) the average workweek fell 0.1 to 33.7, which is near a 40-year low (33.5)! "When dissecting the numbers we learned that NSA (non-seasonally adjusted) service job wages fell 8 cents and they accounted for 230k of the 308k job growth. Leisure & hospitality wages NSA fell 4 cents; and NSA avg hours worked fell 0.3. Something is obviously wrong. Healthcare contributed 36k jobs, leisure & hospitality 28k, retail 47k, government created 31k and the phantom jobs estimated to be created by small business was 153k! This is now known as the business birth/death rate. Apparently a large number of workers entered the workforce in order to force the unemployed rate higher, but still something seemed incredibly wrong." Lacy Hunt of Van Hoisington Management tells us what the "wrongness" is (as did several others on Monday, after digging through the data over the weekend. Of the 308,000 jobs created, 296,000 are temporary or part-time jobs! " In March, the number of persons who worked part time for economic reasons increased to 4.7 million, about the same level as in January. These individuals indicated that they would like to work full time but were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find full-time jobs." investorsinsight.com