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Friday, July 6, 2012

Jobs -- June, 2012

Updates


July 8, 2012: Timing is everything; this is quite incredible. Earlier, "anonymous" sent me a note telling me that the unemployment numbers were better under those politicians than any politician I had voted for (I don't know how "Connie" knows who I vote for, but I digress.) I don't post Connie's comments due to spelling, punctuation, grammar, and language. I wish I had posted that comment. It is now being reported that unemployment dropped in every state that elected a Republican governor in 2010. Just saying. This won't be reported in the mainstream media.

July 8, 2012: Forget the blame game. I don't care who is responsible or what your myth is -- the point is this: this is a jobless recovery and the trend seems to suggest things have gotten worse, and the mainstream media continues to try to spin it.  A reader sent me this: The new job increase in Jan, Feb and March averaged 225,000 PER month. April, May, and June  was 217,000 TOTAL ... for all three months. Spin it any way you want. Those are the facts. Blame anyone you want. But we will see
July 8, 2012: Forget the blame game, but with regard to jobs, this is the worst recovery in modern era following the end of the recession. There are multiple reasons, but it was predicted a while back it would be a jobless recovery. We all have our myths on why the recovery is "dead last" in modern history. 

July 7, 2012: This subject just won't go away. Now we learn that the president has used the same line regarding the "jobs number" for 30 months

Later, 10: 30: I have to laugh. Someone said my blog should be re-titled to "reflect reality." Shortly after receiving this comment, this story appeared in the LA Times: "Obama: The jobs number is a step in the right direction." If his goal is a government-centric, welfare state, ala Europe in the 1930's, he is correct. I have been reading the Stephen Spender autobiography which reminded me of that.


Later, 9:45 a.m.: I am going to try doing a better job and make sure that each and every post has something to do with the Bakken. Apparently a couple of readers did not like this post because a) it had nothing to do with the Bakken; and, b) it "did not reflect reality." (I cannot make these things up.) Anyway, to tie this post in with the Bakken, from PennEnergy comes this story: US offshore oil and gas potential limited only by regulators.  It should be noted that the comment period for regulating fracking in the Bakken has been extended until September 10, 2012 (earlier story). Sometime after the end of the comment period, Federal fracking regulations will redun-date the state regulations. At that time we will have a controlled experiment: we can watch the oil activity in the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation vs the oil activity in the Dickinson, North Dakota, area.

Later, 9:00 a.m.: By this afternoon, the Drudge Report front page will have changed, but right now, the Drudge Report is full of "cup-half-empty" stories. It is quite incredible how bad this story -- the jobs story -- really is. No matter how you paint it, it's bad, bad, bad.

Original Post

Holy jobs market, Batman!

Remember: the magic number is 200,000.

I have not read the story. I read the headline. I skimmed a few paragraphs. Unemployment still at 8.2 percent. Only 80,000 jobs created. The magic number is the mainstream media's agreed-upon number for number of new jobs needed each month to result in full economic recovery by .... drum roll ... 12 years.  So, if we give the Obama team three terms, ...
For the first six months of the year, U.S. employers added an average of 150,000 jobs a month. That's fewer than the 161,000 a month for the first half of 2011. And it shows that the job market is weakening.

"It's a disappointing report," said George Mokrzan, director of economics at Huntington National Bank in Columbus, Ohio. He said the job gains are consistent with sluggish economic growth. 
But based on a comment from Curt yesterday, he's happy with how things are going. His cup is half-full. 

The "market" must be a "cup half empty" also -- the market fell upon the news.

I'm an eternal optimist. With regard to the jobs report, yes, my cup is half-empty. And dropping. But on most things, my cups are half-full.

[Update: this came in as a new comment for Curt. I would not have had time to look for it, but thanks to another reader: "Fox business news came out with 2 different statistics today.. Jobs created in April 2012, 66,000; May, 70,000; June, 80,000."

So, with that, let's go back to some folks with a half-full cup. We will go back to March, 2012: this Washington Post story was just one of many reporting how good things were getting. And this from the New York Times, May 31, 2012.

200,000 jobs/month is the "magic number."  April + May + June =  216,000.

Yup, my cup is half empty when it comes to jobs under this administration. The recession officially
 ended in 2009.]

22 comments:

  1. Fox business news came out with 2 different statistics today.. Jobs created in April 2012, 66,000, May Jobs 70,000 , June jobs 80,000.

    The other was active number of people claiming/collecting Disability thru Soc. Sec. is now at 8,733,461.

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    1. Don, I saw something just a few minutes ago that may be of interest.....this was in Investor's Business Daily today.....

      "The disability ranks have outpaced job growth throughout President Obama's economic recovery. While the economy has created 2.6 million jobs since June 2009, fully 3.1 million workers signed up for disability benefits. In other words, the number of new disability enrollees has climbed 19% faster than the number of new jobs created during the sluggish recovery."

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    2. Don and I have discussed this in e-mails. This will eventually be researched by sociologists and eventually reported by the mainstream press.

      This is what is going on.

      1. Workers do not want to be "classified" as disabled; it pretty much eliminates ever getting hired in the future.

      2. One cannot ask certain questions in an interview, but collecting disability on social security is discoverable; employers are not likely to hire someone collecting disability.

      3. Unemployed folks would not consider reporting a disability in the past, knowing that they would be working again. However, now with many of the unemployed chronically unemployed, they know they will never find work again, and are willing to declare themselves disabled.

      4. The chronically unemployed have exhausted their savings and retirement accounts, and are now looking for alternate revenue streams, including disability.

      5. As the number of chronically unemployed rises, they discuss their issues over coffee and learn from each other how to apply for disability.

      6. The largest "medical" cost in the US is mental health. Stress from chronic unemployment is "normal" and predictable. Many of the chronically unemployed now are suffering from mental health disorders which will often manifest as somatic complaints, particularly back pain. It is not difficult to find a physician that will help with the paperwork in the application for disability.

      7. I assume that the local social security offices have been much more helpful during this recession and helping people apply for disability. It is only natural for folks to help other folks.

      8. I expect disability numbers will continue to go up; whether researchers will report the source of the disability or not is hard to say.

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    3. Regarding the mainstream reporting of this jobless recovery vs Bush's jobless recovery. You may remember the monthly numbers averaging 250k a month and the new media says ya but they are hamburger flippers. Not real jobs. The media slant is unbelievable!!1

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    4. Also, I believe it was reported that up to a third of the new jobs were "temporary hires."

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  2. The East and West media found it curious on why peole would flock to ND and live in a man camp/ or in a travel trailer in Winter in ND.. well the Job creation numbers posted for the first 6 months of the year tell you everthing..
    I wonder how bad the unemployement would be without the Bakken, Niobrara, EagleFord, Mississippian Lime, the Marcellu, and the Utica Shale Drilling jobs..
    Can anyone furnish this info..

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  3. I assume we will eventually see a story on why the disability numbers are rising. I assume the big reason is that folks with long-term unemployment are talking among themselves and learning the benefits of disability through Social Security. In the past, one would not want to claim disability; it would guarantee no chance at getting employed. Now, with no chance of getting employed regardless, folks are claiming disability.

    Being unemployed, folks have more time to work with Social Security office to figure out how to claim disability benefits.

    Being chronically unemployed leads to several mental health/stress issues --> disability through Social Security.

    With regard to 66K, 70K, and 80K, I need to "flashback" to those optimistic articles back in March when the pundits said things were going great.

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  4. Clever. Does "ObamaCare"?

    In the military, our new health care system is called "Tricare." When we first heard that, the medical folks all said that would be apt -- in the military with long waits for appointments and huge bureaucratic challenges, they all knew it would stand for "try to get medical care."

    With regard to whether Obama cars about unemployment or now, his killing the Keystone XL told me all I needed to know about this Chicago community organizer.

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  5. I think it would be impossible to find this data. The derivative jobs are endless: think of the diners across the street from the factory building all the rail cars.

    Hey, did I hear a story the other day, there is a shortage of truck drivers?

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  6. Yeesh, coming to this site for real news about ND is like going to the Apollo for country music.
    I really wish you'd have a separate RSS feed for only Bakken news. Considering this site is supposed to be "(All Bakken All The Time)" and is actually "Some Bakken some of the time" tempts me make my own site that pulls only Bakken Content from your site.

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    1. Sorry.

      Not really.

      My "welcome" and my "disclaimer" posts explain the site.

      I just posted a long non-Bakken story -- I try very hard to let folks know if a post is not about the Bakken -- you definitely don't want to read that post. Smile.

      If you are having trouble finding stories about the Bakken or about North Dakota on this blog, a suggestion:

      The Bakken Shale Discussion Group never gets off-topic. It's linked at the sidebar at the right.

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    2. Oh, by the way. If anyone is having trouble finding news about North Dakota on the blog, I changed the format slightly. I now aggregate a lot of the North Dakota stories in the "Minor Bakken News" section:

      http://www.milliondollarwayblog.com/2012/06/vegetable-oil-to-cut-down-dust.html

      There were just too many similar stories being reported that I felt posting each story was cluttering the website.

      When I am not on the road, I generally post about 10 stories a day and almost all of them are only about the Bakken. In addition, I update not less than 10 previous posts. I find it difficult to believe anyone is having trouble finding news stories about the Bakken or North Dakota on this site. But then, except for Indio, California, not much surprises me any more.

      And, despite being on the road, and relying on wi-fi, I still managed to post a lot of stories throughout every 24-hour news cycle.

      If I post only the Bakken, I find I get zero -- zilch, none, nada, zip -- comments, except from a few dedicated readers. The only way I know other folks are reading the blog is through feeback and non-Bakken posts get the most comments.

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  7. Perhaps you should change the title to reflect reality.

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    1. I have thought about doing that.

      I kept the title as it was for the longest time to help folks find it if googling, but it appears I no longer need. Great suggestion. Thank you.

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  8. Bruce, My sugestion would be to keep the blog as it is. I find all the info posted fasinating and have no problem weeding out the "non-bakken" stuff if I choose to.
    I personally look forward to all the posts, whether Bakken related or not.
    Providing a bigger picture with your world view is just another way one can gain perspective.
    Thanks again for all you do and keep on blogging.

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  9. Did I say I was happy with how things were going? I'm not at all happy that this congress has done nothing at all to help create jobs but I am much happier than I was at this point 4 years ago when it appeared we were heading straight into a depression. (By the way, my Republican friends back then would say 'What recession? The restaurants are all full.' at a time when we really were in a recession.)

    I am just curious as to what your cup was 4 years ago? Half full or half empty?

    p.s. I love the Bakken information. The other stuff I can get at Fox (-:

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    1. Let's see: Congress has spent -- is it a trillion dollars? on stimulus? I don't know what the Senate has proposed, but I do know the House is doing everything it can to roll back regulations, the biggest impediment to getting the economy moving.

      The president's party controls the Senate.

      See: http://www.milliondollarwayblog.com/2011/01/minnesota-and-dakotas-what-washington.html

      I am not happier at this point. In fact, folks should be quite concerned. The recession officially ended in 2009, and the recovery (?) appears to have slowed down, and there is every chance that we are headed for another recession. The number of unemployed, and under-employed, is worse by any objective measurement. The "headline" number of 8.2% is just that: a "headline" number. It is much worse among certain segments of the population.

      The chronically under-employed is a much bigger problem and greatly under-reported and understood.

      So, I am not happier now than I was two, three, four, or five years ago, at least to the extent I can recall.

      I probably would not have become this energized about "jobs" if it had not been for the killing of the Keystone. I have no financial interest in the Keystone. In fact, TransCanada is a competitor of the companies I invest in and it is better for me personally if the Keystone is not built. As time goes along, that appears to be more and more true for me, specifically, and for many investors in the Bakken, in general.

      But the killing of the Keystone told me all I needed to know about the mindset of the present administration.

      Prior to the Keystone, I was already concerned about the administration's attitude toward the oil and gas industry. As you know, just prior to the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf, Obama made pro-oil speeches and seemed to be doing some great things for the oil and gas industry. But the administration's response to the spill did more harm than the spill itself.

      I might have gotten over the administration's response to the spill -- though I doubt it -- but the killing of the Keystone tells me all I need to know about the administration's feeling regarding jobs.

      I have no problem with the concern over the Sand Hills, but politics is all about compromise, and he easily could have said he wants to have a beer with the CEO of TransCanada and map out a 100-mile detour around the Sand Hills and get that project rolling.

      Now that I know you can get this information over at Fox, I will provide a link at the sidebar for the Fox News site. (My blog was designed for my use when traveling so that I can quickly access sites without bookmarks or googling. I never, never go to the Fox news site; I never watch Fox television [I don't even have access to cable television now except at sports bars] but now that I know other folks visit the Fox news site, I need to get that link up.)

      Just kidding. I'm not going to link to Fox.

      By the way, I'm glad you love the blog. I love the New York Times also, but I don't read the front page -- it's editorial page. Likewise, with the blog, I try very hard to identify postings that don't apply to the Bakken. I've noted ad nauseum why I post non-Bakken stories.

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    2. Good on ya!
      Can't please all the people.
      Curt wouldn't be happy if hung with a new rope.

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    3. I apologize for delayed response. Out here in California, my wife limits me to blogging only in the morning (today will be an exception; she has plans with friends all day).

      With regard to politics, we had dinner with our best and closest friends (my wife's college roommate and her husband) in California. They are very, very well off financially, but I was surprised how far left they leaned (well, California, maybe not). They live in a very upscale neighborhood where 6 out of 7 are strong conservatives, but our friends are not, and they are very, very pro-Obama. I mostly listened. My wife is also very much pro-Obama. Yes, it was best I remain silent.

      However, it reminded me that once we have our "myths," (our worldview as JRR Tolkien would call it), we won't change. They are for a strong federal government and are willing to pay more in taxes for a socialist state. The word "socialist" did not come up, but that would be the word I would use.

      To say the least, I was quite surprised; they don't mind paying more taxes. I could tell by the looks on their faces they did not understand that folks in North Dakota, or Utah, or Wyoming might want to run their own states with less federal involvement. States' rights were not a phrase they used, it appears.

      Bottom line: one's worldviews will not change. We all have our own myths. And that's why the Krugmans of the world feel we need to spend another trillion dollars on stimulus and some of us feel, "probably not."

      Anyway, I appreciate your kind comments and at least a few of us feel the recovery is going a bit worse than we had hoped.

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  10. Bruce, Your site is perfect just as it is! People don't need to read it if they don't like it! I like all the extra stuff. My Dad was from Tioga area. He passed away in 1966. But he was born in 1922, like your Dad. I thank you for giving me a connection to this state of North Dakota. I was just 8 years old then. Miss him still.

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    1. Thank you for your kind comments. Sorry for the delayed reply. My wife is limiting me to early morning blogging only while in California for a month. Smile.

      Yes, I have great memories of the Dakotas. Most of my readers have ties to the area and provide similar feedback as yours.

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