Gold Investors Have No Fear, Job Numbers Skewed

In what was undoubtedly a plant in the latest notes from the Fed meeting, along with the so-called big beat in jobs creation, it makes you wonder why the price of gold, and silver for that matter, shrugged off the news and not only held steady, but moved up a little.

The obvious reason is investors know that this is a bunch of nonsense. The Federal Reserve isn't going to stop printing money, and the jobs number were so fudged it's almost a certainty that they will be downwardly revised; probably in a big way.

Concerning the Fed notes, that was an attempt to keep investors in gold and silver at bay while the central bank kept its loose money policy in play. While those in the know understand the ploy, the mainstream financial media are now using the comments in the notes as talking points, repeating the mantra of the possibility of the Fed stopping its stimulus strategy. This is all orchestrated, again, for the purpose of planting uncertainty in the minds of investors, whom the Fed and government want to have believe the economy is growing at a strong pace.

Part of this is for the reason of manipulating commodity prices so inflation doesn't overwhelm the country in an obvious way, in which even the uninitiated could be confused as to whether or not it was economic weakness and the consequences of the failing Keynesian monetary policy implemented by the central bank.

So hopefully most of you reading this won't believe for a moment that the Fed is going to stop stimulating. It's not going to happen any time soon, and that can be absolutely counted on, no matter what tactics are used and what the mainstream media reports. Neither can be trusted in these matters.

As for the jobless numbers, they're somewhat laughable.

Dave Lutz, the head of exchange-traded fund trading and strategy at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore, and one of a number of experts who put the numbers in perspective, said, "Today’s report showed the so-called participation rate, or the percentage of working-age people in the labor force, slipped to 63.5 percent, the lowest since 1981."

Another say this:

 

According to the household survey (on which the unemployment rate is based) the economy added a healthy 170,000 jobs. However, a whopping 446,000 of those jobs were part-time jobs. Simply put, the economy shed 276,000 full-time jobs.

The BLS labeled those 446,000 part-time jobs as "voluntary". I am not so sure.

A Gallup Survey yesterday on Jobs show the percentage of workers working part time but wanting full-time work was 10.1% in February, an increase from 9.6% in January, and the highest rate measured since January 2012.

Gallup notes "Although fewer people are unemployed now than a year ago, they are not migrating to full-time jobs for an employer. In fact, fewer Americans are working full-time for an employer than were doing so a year ago, and more Americans are working part time. Although part-time work is clearly better than no work at all, these are not the types of good jobs that millions of Americans are still searching for."

There are a couple of conclusions to come to. The data are correct and the job market is robust, or there are a growing number of people have their hours slashed because of Obamacare parameters, and are going out to get a second job. At this time it appears the latter of these two scenarios is the reality.

That tremendously skews the jobs numbers, which will will a certainty result in a significant downwardly revised report.

Obama's Job Numbers Terrible

While the mainstream media allies of Obama are attempting to make it appear there were about 103,000 jobs added last month to the American economy, the fact is, 45,000 of those were simply workers from Verizon (NYSE:VZ) getting rehired after a strike.

A headline from the Associated Press, amazingly said that the additional jobs were "calming recession fears." No kidding. This press agency is in the tank for Obama when it makes that much of a irresponsible remark.

No one that understands the U.S. economy believes that assertion, making it obvious the AP is trying to ease the outrage against Obama and his failed economic policies and presidency. Unemployment remains at 9.1 percent.

The next thing we'll see concerning unemployment is temporary hiring for the Christmas season, whereby media outlets like the Associated Press are sure to tout the surge in hirings, while shortly after the New Year they'll have to back off as workers are all let go by retailers. Some of that is already being reflected in improved hiring by temporary employment agencies, which added about 20,000 jobs in September.

For the job market to break even, it takes about 125,000 new jobs a month. To bring down the unemployment numbers it takes much more than that.

The underemployment rate, which includes those who are working part time and who want full time jobs, soared to 16.5 percent from 16.2 percent last month. That's the worst performance since December.

Obama continues to not take responsibility for the economy, as he does in other areas where his policies are a dismal failure, such as the so-called green energy sector.

He is attempting to blame Congress by making it appear they're not getting behind yet another stimulus bill, this time being touted as a jobs bill, with a price tag of $447 billion.

The usual idea of spending on public projects like roads and schools is all that Obama has to offer. He wants to do that by taxing productive businesses and individuals while redistributing the wealth to the public sector. The country is already basically bankrupt, and to spend even more money on government jobs is an outrage that shows Obama is getting desperate as the 2012 election draws closer and his former allies abandon him in droves and the American people look for real leadership.

Monster Worldwide (NYSE:MWW) Not Concerned Over Slow Job Market

Monster Worldwide (NYSE:MWW) has exploded in growth since bottomed out a $10.22 a share on August 25, soaring by over 100 percent since then.

And even though the job market continues to be a disaster, they aren't too concerned going forward.

Canaccord commented saying,, "The online careers and recruiting firm dipped after a U.S. government report showed unemployment increased in November and employers added fewer jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate crept to 9.8% last month, as job availability in most major industries was little changed. This contrasted with Monster’s own gauge of labour demand, released a day earlier, which showed a decrease in November but a gain from a year ago. According to Monster, its employment index fell to 134 points in November from 136 in October. The monthly dip was mostly due to weakness in the finance and insurance sector, which dropped 4% from a year ago, Monster said. Seventeen out of 20 industries and 18 of 23 occupations saw monthly increases, highlighted by the retail trade industry, up 22% from a year ago, due to robust demand for seasonal workers in advance of the holiday sales period. While both the Labor Department report and proprietary index paint a moderately negative jobs picture, (see comment above) Monster is not overly concerned; “The outlook...continues to be one of modest recovery with job availability generally higher over the year across most sectors as we approach 2011,” noted the firm. Yes, the November reading was lower than October, concluded Monster, but it is still 13% higher than a year ago, and marks the 10th-consecutive month of year-over-year growth."

Monster closed at $23.23 Monday, up slightly by $0.03, or 0.13 percent.

Economic Forecasters See U.S. Economy Slowing Even More

Confirming the fact the U.S. economy is far from recovering and still in a recession, a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's survey of 43 professional forecasters revealed they expect the economy to slow down from prior estimates, and unemployment to continue on at present levels.

When asked about economic growth in the fourth quarter, forecasters said they see it dropping to an annual rate of 2.2 percent, down from the previous estimated economic growth rate of 2.8 percent.

The unemployment rate is expected to remain at the current level of 9.6 percent, even though seasonal hiring for the Christmas season has added some temporary jobs to the economy.

Don't be fooled by the increase in jobs in the private sector recently, they're going to be gone not long after January 1, 2011 arrives, as retailers and others get rid of their temporary help.

For the next year, job creation is expected to be lower than before as well, with nonfarm payroll employment estimated to grow at about 86,600 this month, and 104,200 a month after that. That's down significantly from the 114,100 projected for this month, and 159,300 from there. That's about 55,000 less a month than anticipated before.

In what is sure to be faulty conclusions, those forecasters looking forward to inflation see it coming in at 2.2 percent over the next decade, as measured by the CPI.

Of course that's largely a bogus measure, as it doesn't include food and fuel, which has already risen in price strongly, and will continue into the future.

Gold Rises on Weak Housing Report

Although it'll take a little time to sort out because of conflicting economic reports which attempt to mask the extremely weak U.S. and global economy, the weak housing report again reminds us of the importance of holding gold in the face of major risk associated with the economy.

The appearance that there is uncertainty as to which direction the economy is going is exasperated by news reports that imply this is the case, when in reality, now that the faux recovery is exposed as soon as the government props are lifted away from various sectors of the economy, gold will again be seen as the one place investors can place their money and retain it.

If you have trouble believing that, just look every time the data come out and the ubiquitous and dishonest word "unexpected" is added to it. Every single time we get down economic news the financial press, especially mainstream financial press, somehow can't ever figure out what's going on, and they are caught off guard by the "unexpected" economic news.

How could anyone be that ignorant, for example, concerning the housing market in the U.S. As soon as the tax credit was ended housing started predictably plummeted, as they did again in the latest data, where they were down another 5 percent in June, which was the lowest in eight months. How can that be unexpected?

Now they're saying there will probably be a double dip recession in housing if the job market doesn't improve any time soon. We also know that's not going to happen, as the wasted 100s of billions allegedly already spent has done nothing to create jobs, as government money never can.

All we've got from that, for the most part, is more government employees feeding off the hard work of the private sector, and which they can't afford to do any longer.

How that all affects gold is this: housing starts plummeting, and if no jobs are created, we're going into another recession. Unless you think a miracle is going to happen or spending another $1 trillion or so will solve it, you're in for a world of hurt as the "unexpected" circumstances overcome you. Gold will explode upward again as the realization comes that we've been lied to again. There never has been prospects for a recovery, there has never been a recovery, and there isn't going to be a recovery for a long time. Gold will be the beneficiary of that as the realization grows on the investing community.