Unemployment Rate Drops Below 6% For First Time In Six Years; Employers Add 284,000 Jobs -- October 3, 2014

Updates

October 4, 2014: on further review -- oh, oh. 
 

Original Report

This is a huge jobs report. Investors need to read a recent article on what this means for the Fed.
This is not an investment site. Do not make any investment or financial decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

The bigger story in today's unemployment rate is the number of new jobs added: 284,000. Remember, the "magic number" is 200,000.

This is a huge report; first time in six years the rate has dropped below 6.0%.

How do we get to 5.9%? Easy: remove 93 million people from the labor force.

While by now everyone should know the answer, for those curious why the US unemployment rate just slid once more to a meager 5.9%, the lowest print since the summer of 2008, the answer is the same one we have shown every month since 2010: the collapse in the labor force participation rate, which in September slid from an already three decade low 62.8% to 62.7% - the lowest in over 36 years, matching the February 1978 lows.

And while according to the Household Survey, 232,000 people found jobs, what is more disturbing is that the people not in the labor force, rose to a new record high, increasing by 315,000 to 92.6 million!

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Ebola And Crude Oil

US imports from Nigeria:

• July, 2014: 2 million bbls
• June, 2014: 3.5 million bbls
• May, 2014: 3.7 million bbls
• April, 2014: 5.6 million bbls
• March, 2014: 3.5 million bbls
• Feb, 2014: 1.6 million bbls

US imports from Angola:

• July, 2014: 5 million bbls
• June, 2014: 5 million bbls
• May, 2014: 5.5 million bbls
• April, 2014: 3.5 million bbls
• March, 2014: 3.6 million bbls
• Feb, 2014: 3.2 million bbls

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Active Rigs:

	10/3/2014	10/03/2013	10/03/2012	10/03/2011	10/03/2010
Active Rigs	188	185	188	199	143

RBN Energy: this is another very good article. I think it's a must-read for those interested in the Bakken to better understand what's happening on the West Coast.

During the last week of September, reports surfaced that Alaskan oil producer ConocoPhillips (COP) has recently exported an 800 MBbl cargo of Alaska North Slope (ANS) crude to South Korea. This is the first such export since 2006 and marks a new development in the evolving debate over US crude oil exports that are heavily restricted by regulations that date back to the 1970’s. Today we look at the fundamentals behind COP’s export shipment.

ANS crude – a medium sour grade with 31.5 degrees API gravity and about 1 percent sulfur - is produced from the Prudhoe Bay field on the northern coast of Alaska beside the Beaufort Sea. Production started in 1977 after the Mid-East oil crisis raised crude prices enough to justify construction of an $8B pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez marine terminal. From there ANS is shipped to refineries in Washington State and California by a dedicated fleet of 11 “Jones Act” tankers. We have previously documented the decline in ANS crude production (according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) from its heyday 2MMb/d in the 1980’s to 515 Mb/d in 2013. So far this year average ANS production is down to 505 Mb/d according to daily tallies from the Alaska Department of Revenue.

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I've Never Understood This Issue

The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

Nearly two-thirds of abortion clinics in Texas must close immediately after a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the state could enforce its law requiring those facilities to be built to the same stringent standards as hospitals.

The requirement is part of a sweeping piece of legislation called House Bill 2, which includes several measures that undermine women’s access to abortion. The mandate was struck down in late August by a federal judge in Austin, who ruled that it was unconstitutional because it put an undue burden on women seeking healthcare. He put the requirement on hold while the state appealed.

But on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel’s injunction, which allowed Texas’ estimated 20 abortion clinics to continue operating during the appeals process. Without that injunction, only seven or eight clinics will remain in business.

The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit said the central question it considered was “whether the state has shown a likelihood of success” in fighting Yeakel’s ruling “regarding whether the ambulatory surgical center provision is unconstitutional. We conclude that it has.” The panel repeatedly criticized Yeakel’s decision as “unclear” and “confusing.”

The law requires, among other things, that physicians providing this service have admitting privileges at a hospital in case complications arise. I assume that arrangements could be made for physicians who do not have such privileges, that they could arrange for back-up from a surgeon who has such privileges. For me, this is all about the dictum, "First, do no harm." 

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ObamaCare

The other day I posted the link regarding the huge win for states' rights. I knew it was a big win, but I didn't know this little data point:

Tuesday's decision is the latest in a wave of court losses for Obamacare.

Currently, over a hundred lawsuits have been filed against Obamacare - and Obamacare has lost 91% of the cases decided to-date, (71 losses out of 78 decisions).

I think that's why we're not hearing much from the GOP/Tea Party on ObamaCare. It's the law; both parties are parties of law, and now it's playing out in the courts as it should.

Generally speaking, court cases take precedence into account. In fact, I believe British common law is based almost 100% on precedence, at least at one time. I think I read that in How The Scots Invented The Modern World, The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything In It, Arthur Herman, c. 2002, perhaps one of the best books I've ever read. I've read it twice; I need to read it again.

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The ISIS Beheadings

I see there's another one over at the Drudge Report and then there's a link (which I did not visit) suggesting (or implying) that the next beheading will be a "US veteran."
 
There have been many comparisons of President Obama's administration with the waning days of the President Carter administration.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, the "ISIS beheadings" are starting to take on the "feel" of the Iranian hostage situation, at least for a few of us.