Paris shooting: Many people killed and injured after 'Kalashnikov and grenade attacks' across French capital...Many people killed after several shootings and explosions across central Paris

 

 

The strong job growth in October paves the way for the Fed to hike the fed funds target rate in December... Job growth occurred in a range of industries last month, including professional/business services, health care, retail trade, food services, and construction.

Job growth has been strong for the past several years, while inflationary pressures remain subdued. In the past 12 months, job growth has averaged 230K per month. Average hourly earnings rose 2.5% year over year.  The Fed is very likely to raise the fed funds target rate in December. The strong of job growth implies that there is no reason to keep the fed funds target rate at near zero level. However, the pace of tightening is likely to restrained and gradual going forward as inflationary pressure remain subdued. Long-term interest rates should still stay at historically low levels, after rising slightly with monetary tightening, due to still low short-term interest rates, subdued inflationary pressures, elevated size of the Fed’s balance sheet, continued strong demand for safe assets, low long-term interest rates in overseas advanced economies and quantitative easing in the euro zone and Japan.”... USA jobs data, some odd anomalies which are difficult to interpret IMHO. There has to be a reason why corporate America has gone all gung ho, soft and cuddly over hiring the over 55's versus younger workers. Unless (puts on tin foil hat) there's something mischievous with the job figures and those over 55 are simply considered as working unless they state they're not. Perhaps it's just considerably cheaper to hire the over 55's...theories anyone?  In October the age group that accounted for virtually all total job gains was workers aged 55 and over. They added some 378K jobs in the past month, representing virtually the entire increase in payrolls. And more troubling: workers aged 25-54 actually declined by 35,000, with males in this age group tumbling by 119,000.  Since December 2007 workers aged 55 and older have gained over 7.5 million jobs in the past 8 years, whilst workers aged 55 and under have lost a cumulative total of 4.6 million jobs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced today that the US economy created 271,000 jobs in October, a number substantially in excess of the expected 175,000 to 190,000 jobs. The unexpected job gain has dropped the unemployment rate to 5 percent. These two numbers will be the focus of the financial media prostitutes.  What is wrong with these numbers? Just about everything. First of all, 145,000 of the jobs, or 54%, are jobs arbitrarily added to the number by the birth-death model. The birth-death model provides an estimate of the net amount of unreported jobs lost to business closings and the unreported jobs created by new business openings. The model is based on a normally functioning economy unlike the one of the past seven years and thus overestimates the number of jobs from new business and underestimates the losses from closures. If we eliminate the birth-death model’s contribution, new jobs were 126,000.  Next, consider who got the 271,000 reported jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, all of the new jobs plus some—378,000—went to those 55 years of age and older. However, males in the prime working age, 25 to 54 years of age, lost 119,000 jobs. What seems to have happened is that full time jobs were replaced with part time jobs for retirees. Multiple job holders increased by 109,000 in October, an indication that people who lost full time jobs had to take two or more part time jobs in order to make ends meet.  Now assume the 271,000 reported jobs in October is the real number, and not 126,000 or less, where are those jobs? According to the BLS not a single one is in manufacturing. The jobs are in personal services, mainly lowly paid jobs such as retail clerks, ambulatory health care service jobs, temporary help, and waitresses and bartenders.

The Centers for Disease Control researchers say it is one of the strangest and most unsettling cases they have ever encountered. The researchers say that scans of a very ill man in Colombia revealed what "looked like cancer, but the tumors were composed of cells that were not human," NPR reports. The tumors had come from the man's resident tapeworm, which had developed cancer and somehow spread the disease to its host, according to the scientists, whose study published in the New England Journal of Medicine describes the "invasion of human tissue by abnormal, proliferating, genetically altered tapeworm cells" as a "novel disease mechanism." The man died 72 hours after researchers pinpointed the cause of the tumors, Live Science reports.

The Colombian man had HIV, which meant the tapeworm's growth in his body was not halted the way it would have been by a healthy immune system, Live Science notes. A CDC pathologist tells the Washington Post that it took dozens of tests to reveal the cause of the illness, and finding tapeworm DNA in the tumors was a huge surprise. "This is the first time we've seen parasite-derived cancer cells spreading within an individual," he says. "This is a very unusual, very unique illness." The Post notes that the study raises questions about what other parasites dwelling in the human body can develop — and spread — cancer. (For more tapeworm horror, read about what caused this man's headache.)

The EU is so "wonderful" I feel like I need to post here all day about how great it is, taking in thousands of migrants, helping Greece out with more austerity, spending our taxes without a care in the world and creating tons of red tape regulations.  Its marvelous isn't it?, how could anyone not love the EU?, I've got nothing better to do than tell you that all day long....Positive for the EU I am sure but positive for the member states ? - Never! It (the EU) is nothing but a giant con trick pretending that it believes in democracy while taking it away with every decision it makes. The majority of Europe fail to see it because very few of the countries are used to living in a democracy, they have lived under dictators of either right or left.  The sooner we leave the better as they must be the most incompetent organization and system of government ever....Actually one set of nations that are beginning to see through the EU are the Visegrad and, to a lesser extent the Baltic nations. These are all nations who survived the USSR and managed to recover sovereignty. They realize what that means, are highly sensitive and caring of its value and are disenchanted by attempts to steal it away....Pierre Moscovici, the EU's economics chief is a typical EU Commissioner - a failed politician in France whom the French couldn't wait to get rid of, so chucked him into the Brussels garbage bin....No wonder there is so littele love for the EU. The Moscovicis of this world are the last ones to answer embarrassing questions about how his host will survive without other hosts to leach from.  It's fun to see this French-created EU backfire in their faces, but it is a shame Merkel hasn't the guts to ho whole hog (she looks the part) and tell them to abide by the same rules as Italy, Greece and Iberia.

A weaker global growth outlook and renewed falls in commodity prices could keep interest rates on hold until at least the end of 2016, the Bank of England has signalled.  Bank policymakers kept interest rates at a record low in November, as policymakers voted 8-1 in favour of maintaining Bank Rate at 0.5pc, with Ian McCafferty, an external policymaker, the only dissenter.  Low rates will lead to increasing pension deficits, putting companies solvency at risk. When it comes to it, to save the corporates, government will put through policies to to allow funds to default on their pension obligations. So ZIRP and QE may lead to your pension being hammered...How is it that I, an indifferently-educated prole in flyover country USA, have bested the esteemed DT economic correspondents 100% of the time in predicting the actions of the Fed, BoE, etc.? Could it perchance be due to the fact the hapless DT reporters have become stenographers for the banksters, whereas any thinking person can see exactly what game is being played here?...it is important to note that even in the Great Depression interest rates were never lowered to this absurd level, in effect having been negative for 7 years; that is what shows that in reality we are now in a much greater Depression than the so-called Great Depression, and other than tinker around the edges (actually making things worse) they have no idea what to do to address the problems they have now created....Central banks are the Oligopoly's chief instruments of plunder against the 99%. The banksters have no more efficient means of larceny at their disposal than ZIRP (soon to be NIRP) and QE-to-Infinity. Hence these policies will be maintained until some exogenous factor, i.e. "investors" balking at buying debt that is going to be printed away, forces the hand of the ECB, Fed, BoE, etc., despite the incessant jawboning to the contrary by Draghi, Yellen, Carney and their ilk, or the corporatist media.

Many years ago when Alan Greenspan first proposed using monetary policy to control economies, the critics said this was far too broad a brush.  After the dot.com crash Alan Greenspan loosened monetary policy to get the economy going again. The broad brush effect stoked a housing boom.

When he tightened interest rates, to cool down the economy, the broad brush effect burst the housing bubble. The teaser rate mortgages unfortunately introduced enough of a delay so that cause and effect were too far apart to see the consequences of interest rate rises as they were occurring.

The end result 2008.  With this total failure of monetary policy to control an economy and a clear demonstration of the broad brush effect behind us, everyone decided to use the same idea after 2008.

Interest rates are at rock bottom around the globe, with trillions of QE pumped into the global economy.  The broad brush effect has blown bubbles everywhere. 

The underlying problem is that the global monetary system has failed with too much debt in existence.

The current monetary system has the following characteristics:

1) It is debt based, new money can only be created from new debt

2) It uses compound interest

Compound interest is an exponential function that, without prudent lending, will run away to infinity at some point.  When money creation lies with banks, there is always the over-whelming desire to increase profits by lending out more than would be prudent (their profit comes from the interest received).  The temptation of jam today, makes borrowers forget about the penury tomorrow.

The system relies on prudent lending by bankers who are purveyors of the debt products, e.g. loans, mortgages, etc ...