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A remarkably 'clean' report with the only anomalies being a lower than normal Birth-Death imaginary jobs adjustment from the BLS, which subtracted 43,000 jobs, and a seasonality adjustment that appeared a little on the high side.
An exogenous factor was the addition of 45,000 striking telecommunication workers who returned to their jobs. So the organic jobs growth was weak.
"Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 103,000 in September, and the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The increase in employment partially reflected the return to payrolls of about 45,000 telecommunications workers who had been on strike in August. Government employment continued to trend down."
The jobs recovery is there, but very nascent and probably fragile. GDP will tell us much more.
The next two years will be a bonanza for satirists.
I have concluded from my reading of history that the greatest periods of change, the turning points, are best marked by and most notable for the remarkable inability, and sometimes tragic failure, of contemporary observers to understand them.
They do not see their causes, and fail to mark their progress and direction, in the time at which they happen. The big moments in history are written with letters so immense that they are perceptible only to the most ingenious minds of the day, and by the rest at a much more considerable distance, if even then.
Commercial first, then enjoy the show.
In a similar vein, here is a video interview about financial reform and Occupy Wall Street with with Chris Hedges on the CBC
"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before."
Jacob Riis
Gold had another up day with stocks, as it was 'risk on' with renewed hopes for fresh infusions of liquidity as we saw from the Bank of England.
I tended to view this action as more 'technical' than fundamental.
I don't like the headline correlation between stocks and the metals like gold and silver which would normally function as a safe haven in a time of increased risk.
Notice the new lines of broad support and resistance levels on the gold chart. We have not yet broken to the upside, so caution is advised.
"Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better. Interweave all these communities and you really have an America that is back on its feet again. I really think we are gonna have to reassess what constitutes a 'hero.'"
Studs Terkel
Big up day, third in a row, ahead of the Non Farm Payrolls report.
It was 'risk on' today. Let's see if it can hold through the weekend.
