July 3, 2025
"But the big picture remains one of surprising resilience — strong job growth, low unemployment and little sign that tariffs and uncertainty have so far derailed the labor market."
That feels like a grudging admission, in "Live Updates: U.S. Hiring Remains Solid, Sign of a Resilient Economy/Employers added 147,000 jobs in June, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1 percent, suggesting that tariffs, interest rates and other headwinds are not yet causing employers to pull back significantly" (NYT).
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83 comments:
Newly minted economists hardest hit…
Of course, these "jobs reports" can be manipulated any number of ways. They're almost always revised downwards later, when the NY Times isn't looking.
Grok: "Over the past 12 months, revisions to job growth estimates show a clear trend of initial overestimation, with a significant downward adjustment of 598,000–818,000 jobs for April 2023–March 2024, reducing average monthly gains from 242,000 to around 174,000–192,000. More recent months (February–April 2025) saw smaller but still notable downward revisions (e.g., 65,000 for March, 30,000 for April), with May 2025 showing a slight upward revision of 5,000. The trajectory suggests a labor market growing more slowly than initially reported, stabilizing closer to the 100,000–150,000 jobs per month needed to match population growth, with potential improvements in data accuracy by mid-2025."
What this shows is that the NY Times just doesn't understand how to use technology to build a proper anti-Trump narrative.
The part they miss, and the part that creates opportunity, is that he isn’t the Democrats in charge…and there’s no propaganda that changes that. It’s earnings and assets and always only those two things…
"Newly minted economists hardest hit…"
Experts hardest hit. Experts are 0 and 12,367 since 2016.
There is all sorts of nonsense and slack in the nominal "science" of Economics. See every word written by Paul Krugman to start. Economic "laws" are largely derived from human psychology, emotions, and cultural/national/social psychology. They just dress this up with formulas and numbers.
As tariffs had been a taboo topic since WW2, the world economy can surely tolerate a modest change to the rules. Big, sustained tariffs likely would bring back the old problems they caused. But, that effort would have to be led by someone other than Trump -- his bluffing, bluster, and constant mind-changing undercuts his own theses.
rehajm said...
Newly minted economists hardest hit…
You should see the old economists who taught them.
@Enigma:
"An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today." - Laurence Peter
"not yet causing employers to pull back significantly."
But just wait, just you wait. Right Rich?
The thing about predicting doom and gloom is eventually, you'll be "right".
Tariffs are not a novel conception. They are, however, effective tools to mitigate the progress of shared/shifted economies based on labor and environmental arbitrage schemes.
Robert Reich, Expert - Wrong
Thomas Friedman, Expert - Wrong
Paul Krugman, Expert - Wrong...also pathetic
Lawrence Summers, Expert - Wrong
Alan Greenspan, Expert - Not just wrong, but complicit
Janet Yellen, Expert - Wrong
Economists say trendlines and regression analysis don't lie, so...
I'm beginning to think that we need a new and better crop of experts.
its kind of encantations and divinings, like those taught at hogwarts,
All of this with interest rates that the President thinks are way too high. If they were lowered significantly, that should heat up the economy right in time for the midterms. Never going to happen. That's because the head of the Fed has the same plenary power as the Senate parliamentarian.
Over the years I've done very well via investments of all kinds. The only mistakes I've made are 1) trusting professional investment advisors, and 2) not trusting the American economy enough. In 2010, I could have made a fortune in real estate, and considered it, but chickened out. Probably the best opportunity of my lifetime and I missed it, although I did buy a floundering company that that year that eventually did very well. My first experience with a scary stock market, I sold - big mistake . After that I held on and waited - smaller mistake. Now I buy in. In 4 decades of investing, not believing in the resiliency and drive of Americans has been my biggest mistake, which I no longer make. No matter the reasoning, which often seems sound and wise at the time, expecting American business and workers to fold, or even take an extended break has been dead wrong every time.
they get paid very well to lie, see janet yellen, and well about summer and sachs advice to the Russian govt, well lets not
revisit that too closely,
Writing and publishing those words musta hurt.
My Never Trumper buddy has been screaming about "Trump promised to lower the price of eggs--and he didn't". That screed was among other things. Eggs were back below $3 a dozen in my local Krogers yesterday. The yolks on him!
Economists really are worthless (or worse).
Check the numbers for yourself: this is mostly state and local government hiring. Not sure why, maybe spending it while they've still got it.
Head or tailwind? Fair winds and following seas.
🟢 830k new jobs for native-born
🔴 348K jobs lost for foreign-born
🟢 437k gain of new full-time jobs
🔴 367k loss of old part-time jobs
Major reversal of the Biden era
Seems like the big conceptual error made by the "experts" was the assumption that the current state of trade arrangements represented some kind of fair and natural equilibrium, and that, by insisting on more favorable terms for America than currently existed, Trump was forcing other countries to retaliate in ways that would bring about economic ruin. However, it appears that Trump was right: America HAD been getting hosed on trade deals for a long time; most countries need trade with America more than America needs trade with those countries; and, rather than engage in a ruinous trade war with the U.S., most countries would prefer to enter into new trade deals whose terms were more favorable to the U.S.
I have always been particularly enamored of Nassim Taleb's metaphor for economic analysis:
"A turkey is fed for 1,000 days by a butcher, and every day confirms to the turkey and the turkey’s economics department and the turkey’s risk management department and the turkey’s analytical department that the butcher loves turkeys, and every day brings more confidence to the statement. But on day 1,001 there will be a surprise for the turkey..."
Experts hardest hit.
why do they ever lose a professorship, a consulting gig a slot on a network, it's a cushy racket,
Things are bad: Trump's fault.
Things are good: Just one of them things.
Original Mike said...
🟢 830k new jobs for native-born
🔴 348K jobs lost for foreign-born
🟢 437k gain of new full-time jobs
🔴 367k loss of old part-time jobs
Major reversal of the Biden era
And now that X is public square everyone knows.
This is the kind of jobs data that wins elections for generations.
jim said...
Check the numbers for yourself: this is mostly state and local government hiring. Not sure why, maybe spending it while they've still got it.
That is some pretty stupid cope and lies.
Howard said...
All of this with interest rates that the President thinks are way too high. If they were lowered significantly, that should heat up the economy right in time for the midterms. Never going to happen. That's because the head of the Fed has the same plenary power as the Senate parliamentarian.
But we have the power of the public square now.
If Powell goes against Trump on this then the Fed will be the loser.
I am really hoping that Powell keeps being a bad political actor.
The Fed needs to be destroyed and replaced with algorithms.
"not yet." Heh. Keep hope alive, NYT!
FormerLawClerk said...
Of course, these "jobs reports" can be manipulated any number of ways. They're almost always revised downwards later, when the NY Times isn't looking.
True during Democrat administrations. Surprisingly, during Republican administrations, the numbers are regularly revised upward.
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/sudden-and-unexpected-thursday-july
approx 74000 JOBS private sector,its okay but Powell will not cut rate ,maybe in September. Politisizing the FED constantly is a trump thing.
I generally prefer not to get personal in my comments, but Achilles do you ever actaully say anything? 80,000 state and local gov. jobs.
Actually dinkster, it's way bigger than "a trump thing".
The Fed has been a disaster. It should be audited, and the audit will reveal it should be shut down. Millions already think so.
END. THE. FED.
it was ostensibly put in power because of the crash of '07, but it's track record is woefully bad,
Poor Kak/Richsockpuppet! Hope his ActBlue puppetmasters paid him for every "bUt mUhTaRriffs!" failed troll attempts by the line, before their USAID slush fund racket was shut down.
On that note, anyone done a welfare check on PedoFredo?
Haven't seen him post since the SCOTUS said you can't show porn to minors anymore...
"The long-term influence of the banking cartel is incalculable. Their biggest coup was the establishment of the Federal Reserve System in the United States. The big New York banks really didn't like the idea of genuine competition, so a small group held a secret meeting at the private resort of JP Morgan on Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia [in 1910].
Their scheme, devised by Paul M. Warburg, and subsequently adopted by Congress, is a legal private monopoly of the US money supply operated for the benefit of the few under the guise of protecting and promoting the public interest.
To put it bluntly, the Congress transferred its sovereign constitutional right to create money to the sole custody of a group of private bankers. The magnitude of the heist is unprecedented in the history of the world - the numbers now are in the high trillions."
- Paul Theodore Hellyer (August 6, 1923 - August 8, 2021).
Never forget
When they ask for more
The fiat printers
Give your credit score
Of course, good news is never described as “surprising“ when the Democrats are in charge.
Getting rid of the dual mandate as we’re getting rid of the Fed’s Obama appendage would go a long way…
Reporting on the economy is like predicting the weather, no accountability except whoops I guess we missed that one.
"... are not YET causing employers to pull back significantly." But they keep hoping for failure.
The devil is always in the details as the Althouse commentariat is apt to point out, and it's important to ask what kind of jobs were added so here's a brief breakdown of the BLS report.
Of the 147,000 jobs added:
- 73,000 were government jobs of which 40,000+ were in local state education (likely due to Department of Education changes/cuts)
- 39,000 jobs were added in health care, primarily in hospitals and nursing/care facilities
- 19,000 were in social assistance employment
When you look at value-adding or growth industries, the news isn't great:
“Employment showed little change over the month in other major industries, including mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; construction; manufacturing; wholesale trade; retail trade; transportation and warehousing; information; financial activities; professional and business services; leisure and hospitality; and other services.”
In other words, the US economy isn't steaming ahead and these job numbers are just the inevitable result of Trump's gutting of the federal government which is shifting the social burden onto local governments.
But the big picture here is continued resilience.
The NYT goes MAGA.
MAGA fever. Catch it!
their sorcery has failed to work, throw in more eye of newt,
RSM--a good analogy re: turkeys.
Except that the farmer ain't feeding them for 1000 days. My son raises turkeys. More like 150 days, if I recall correctly.
"throw in more eye of newt"
Donald Trump turned all the experts into newts, but they didn't get better.
Poor little Bich- how underwater are your shorts, Bich?
If you are going to dive into details of the BLS report, why stop where Kak did. Go one paragraph further:
Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 8 cents, or
0.2 percent, to $36.30 in June. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased
by 3.7 percent. In June, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory
employees rose by 9 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $31.24. (See tables B-3 and B-8.)
People are making more money! Wait... workers are making more, than that should mean inflation... except inflation was less than the growth in income, which means more purchasing power for the employees.
Maybe they are working more... let's go the next paragraph:
The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged down by 0.1 hour to 34.2
hours in June. In manufacturing, the average workweek held at 40.1 hours, and overtime was unchanged
at 2.9 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private
nonfarm payrolls declined by 0.2 hour to 33.5 hours in June. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)
They are making more and working slightly less. Not seeing the devil in these details. Maybe this another one of those things were they tell us something now only to revise down in the future. Let's read on:
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for April was revised up by 11,000, from +147,000 to
+158,000, and the change for May was revised up by 5,000, from +139,000 to +144,000. With these
revisions, employment in April and May combined is 16,000 higher than previously reported. (Monthly
revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last
published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.)
The last two months job growth was revised up. Wait, they were revised up and there was still more growth this month!
The expert economists have correctly predicted fourteen of the last three recessions.
"Their scheme, devised by Paul M. Warburg, and subsequently adopted by Congress, is a legal private monopoly of the US money supply operated for the benefit of the few under the guise of protecting and promoting the public interest."
From the Federal Reserve's FAQs on its website:
Q: "What is the purpose of the Federal Reserve System?"
A: "It [the Federal Reserve] was created by the Congress to provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system."
"More stable"? Since the Federal Reserve was established, the dollar has lost 97% of it's value. How much more stability do you think the dollar can stand?
Luck, my friend is where opportunity meets preparation.
Buying anytime for the long term wins 100% of the time. Remember, the stock market comes back 100% of the time.
@ Leland: But job growth was very concentrated in June. The big three sectors of government, health care and leisure/hospitality accounted for all (actually, more than all) of the job gains last month.
If you squint, you can find things in this report to worry about. Private-sector hiring slowed, esp. outside of health care. The labor force shrank. The number of people who have been out of work for more than six months rose.
Looks like Trump's tariff long-game wins will also eliminate some of our massive public debt.
Democrats sad.
Kak-a-phony
You were all doom and gloom about the stock market. you sure have changed your tune.
After the absolute worst, most corrupt regime in US history got kicked to the curb - America is back.
Leftist democratics call it "luck."
Tossers.
"How much more stability do you think the dollar can stand?"
That's not a question for the Fed, it's a question for all of us. How much more of their "stabilization" can we stand? It's the money in all of our pockets and wallets and purses that's losing value, at this point daily. How much longer are all of us going to let this continue? How much longer are we going to let them pay for entitlements we don't need with money printed from thin air robbing value from promised future production that never meets the expectations they set or doesn't materialize at all?
The assumed answer is not promising, and far far too few elected representatives of the people take this seriously.
All of that newly printed money goes, through the big banks, to the big corporations. Those of us with money to invest in those corporations see big gains in our portfolios--the wealthier investors moreso. At the cost of the middle and working classes, who bear the brunt of inflation without the sweetener of investment gains.
We are being bought off. With our own devalued money.
Part of the explanation is increased deportation. Whether you pay a fair wage or you use slaves to the work, dat cotton gotta be picked.
@boatbuilder: "The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation" - Vladimir Lenin
Congratulations Fed and Congress. Mission accomplished.
Achilles says "The Fed needs to be destroyed and replaced with algorithms."
I assume when you say the Fed you also mean all of the banksters and hedge fund money changers who become redundant in the face of AI.
I definitely think that's the overall battle and the split between musk and Trump concerns me that the algorithm is losing to Davos.
"How much more stability do you think the dollar can stand?"
My DODFX fund likes Trump’s devaluation of the USD.
at best, the Fed is like the ministry of silly walks, I know it's a private syndicate of banks, at worst it has enabled the inflation,
Janet Yellen was previously at the Fed, before the Treasury,
in the 90s Greenspan's rate spike popped the tech bubble, and furthermore triggered debt defaults as far south as Argentina,
On this day of record high stock market numbers, some might find it self-reflectively informative to go back and read what they had to say in this Althouse thread on a day of peak ant-Trump gloom porn. Much to learn about what daily current events can do to the mind.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2025/04/vietnam-offers-to-drop-us-tariffs-to.html
Can't wait to see the streets of Hanoi flooded with Ford F150’s.
“It is my opinion that the SUV or, as it is sometimes referred to, Large Engine Vehicle, which does so well in the United States, will be a wonderful addition to the various product lines within Vietnam,” Trump wrote.
It’s hilarious how much of a simpleton he is.
I think that Trump’s logic is because the trade deficit is so large with Vietnam that even this misbalance in tariffs (20% vs 0%) works for Vietnam.
they already neuralized themselves,
⬆️ "Vietnam will pay.."
There's your problem.
@narciso, the "revolving door" of incestuousness between Treasury, Fed, Wall Street, and K Street is well-known by all. The entire house of cards is the Peter Principle on steroids. These people only ever fail upwards. They screw up one institution so well they're recruited by other screw-ups to screw the next one.
Robert Conquest was friggin' right: "The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies."
yes almost every country has a central bank, and they operate as effectively as ours does, the Bank of England, loyal to Threadneedle Street same with the others,
"not yet causing employers to pull back significantly."
The companies I work with are optimistic as hell. There is a high level of capital spending particularly in implementing advanced manufacturing. I can’t recall a better time, although there have been times as good.
Real estate was damaged by quantitative easing and will take time to clear the effects of very low interest rates. I am not screaming for lower rates because I like low inflation, and it’s better to save your only bullet for when you really need it.
The main point of QE is to make rich people richer.
"The companies I work with are optimistic as hell."
Same here. Our company is experiencing a surge in business like we have not seen in years from new customers from new industries, especially construction and related things like signage, infrastructure, and utilities. Lots of entrepreneurial energy out there. It seems the dead weight of Covid has finally withered away to dust.
Over the years I've done very well via investments of all kinds.
I had and undergrad finance professor who, besides spending an entire class telling us Bank If New England was going tu so if you short you can pay for your tuition…he said regardless of what you do you’ll be an expert in some industry somewhere, so use the that expertise to your advantage in investing. If you work in any field where you sell something you have a head start on government data. Doesn’t matter if you’re an Amazon picker, barista or tour office overlooks the mall parking lot…well, not so much the last one anymore but you get the point…
beetlejuice
sigh…
Off?
"- 73,000 were government jobs of which 40,000+ were in local state education (likely due to Department of Education changes/cuts"
Meaning admin bloat chasing federalism?
"That feels like a grudging admission." I think the snark is implied, so I will refrain from accusing you of having a keen grasp of the obvious.
It’s hilarious how much of a simpleton he is.
Posted by Kak, about Trump, immediately after Bagoh links an early April post in which Kak brilliantly and repeatedly predicted the complete crash of the market and the failure of Trump's tariff policy.
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