Unemployment Claims Surge To Highest Level In Nearly A Year; Nothing To See Here -- Analyst; It's Just Global Warming -- March 5, 2015; And That's The Way It Was, 1972, Walter Cronkite

Updates

Later, 8:23 p.m. CT: and tomorrow, Friday, we will get the monthly jobs report; one analyst's prediction:

He expects the addition of 228,000 jobs and the unemployment rate unchanged at 5.7 percent. The big data point for the week is the February U.S. jobs report, released before the bell on Friday. Analysts expect about 240,000 nonfarm payrolls, below last month's 257,000. Hourly earnings and unemployment will be key indicators for investors seeking insight on the Fed's timing of an interest rate hike.

Later, 6:30 p.m. CT: the jobs recovery (what recovery?) is not as good as it seems --Yahoo!Finance. the article does not mention the 800-lb gorilla (ObamaCare) or the other 600-lb gorilla (the anti-business President, vetoed Keystone XL). 

Later, 2:00 p.m. CT: It appears Bloomberg continue to try to protect this administration.

Headline over at Bloomberg today: stronger dollar is hurting your job prospects.

Talk about spin.

For all those welders and construction workers, President Obama's recent veto of the Keystone XL pipeline did a lot more to hurt your job prospects than the "strong dollar."

ObamaCare is clearly hurting your job prospects.

All things being equal, the strong dollar is the least of our concerns.

Original Post

It's going to be fun to see the spin today. And here it is:

“It’s really the weather, I wouldn’t go crazy about it,” said Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, who forecast 325,000 claims. “There were some storms in the second half of February that hit a variety of areas in the United States, and if people can’t work, they file. Anybody who’s involved in doing anything outdoors and they’re unable to work, they’re going to file paperwork.”  

Yeah, "I wouldn't go crazy about it." Nothing to see. LOL. Except, according to Bloomberg (the linked site):

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level in more than nine months, a sign harsh winter weather may be stalling the job market’s progress.

Jobless claims increased by 7,000 to 320,000 in the week ended Feb. 28, the most since May, from 313,000 in the prior period, a Labor Department report showed Thursday in Washington. The median forecast of 52 economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected claims of 295,000. 

Yeah, "I wouldn't go crazy about it." It's just the highest level in almost a year. And completely unexpected.

The four week moving average of claims rose 10,250 from the previous week to 304,750.

And, actually, the news is even worse. Not only did unemployment surge, but productivity for the fourth quarter was even worse than originally reported. Productivity fell 2.2% vs just 1.8% reported earlier.

Stock market? Up today. Janet Yellen isn't going to raise rates in 2015 (or 2016) with numbers like this, and even if she raises rates a quarter percent, will it even matter?

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Global Warming

Climate Change

Ice Age Now

I got a late start today. Our city of Grapevine (suburb of Ft Worth - Dallas, just west of DFW airport), had the record amount of snow in the area overnight: 7 inches. It was also a record for the city of Grapevine. We slept in late; everything was shut down. The 7 inches must have been on the north side of the lake or around the west, south, and east side of the lake, because in our immediate area it was barely 3 inches. I easily rode my bike over to the granddaughters' home where they were celebrating another day off from school.

Don sent me the following:

On September 11, 1972, Walter Cronkite cited scientists’ predictions that there was a “new ice age” coming.

He called that prediction from British scientist Hubert Lamb “a bit of bad news.”

“But then there is some good news,” Cronkite continued. “That while the weather may be just a little colder in the immediate years to come, the full extent of the new ice age won’t be reached for 10,000 years. And if you can stand any more good news, even then it won’t be as bad as the last ice age 60,000 years ago.

Then New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis, were under 5,000 feet of ice. Presumably no traffic moved and school was let out for the day. And that’s the way it is, Monday September 11, 1972.”

And that's the way it was: when there was still a bit of sanity in the world.