"A clueless political personnel, in denial of the systemic nature of the crisis, is pursuing policies akin to carpet-bombing the economy of proud European nations in order to save them."Yanis Varoufakis
The big tickle today was the jobs report. They went back and greatly revised the numbers for at least all of 2014. I really did not have the time today for the kind of analysis I would like to give a change of that magnitude.
But let's just say that the skepticism about the employment picture I have had for the past few weeks, as so well expressed by the CEO of Gallup, has not abated one bit. I think we are dealing with very frightened public figures who have become inured to lying to get what they want. They have been using contacts and deceit and special privileges and arrangements most of their lives.
Stocks were in rally mode, but backed off hard into the loss category into the close. The SP futures have taken multiple runs now at the near overhead resistance around 1265-1270, and they either punch it through next week, or we may just go back down again for a reconsideration of the whole rally effort.
I expect geopolitics involving the Ukraine and Greece to dominate the news for the next few weeks. The Street will forget about it, and rally up now and then on some bubblicious news item related to dodgy accounting and ridiculous company market caps and growth estimates, and then tumble on back down again.
Some of the lesser reported news today was the 'emergency meeting' in Moscow between Merkel, Hollande, and Putin with regard to the fighting in the Ukraine.
The US and the UK are calling for 'Nato unity' in taking a hard line, and are concerned that France and Germany might strike a compromise that cedes a portion of the Ukraine and Crimea to Russian influence.
We are losing our humanness in the States, and are being actively conditioned to be 'hard' and ruthless in our quest to order the world. That is of more concern to me perhaps, that the gap between perception and reality will continue to widen to some tear in the social fabric.
But life goes on, and human spirit endures.
Have a pleasant weekend.
