US Added A "HEALTHY" 234,000 Jobs In January -- AP -- January 31, 2018

Updates

Later, 2:25 p.m. CT: it appears the AP's article was a bit under-stated. Here's what CNBC had to say about the jobs report today:

• numbers crushed forecast
• forecast: 185,000
• actual: 234,000
• "well above expectations"
• service-related industries led, but sectors with high-paying jobs also did well

Original Post

Jobs, jobs, jobs. Link here.  Data points:

• "US businesses continued to hire at a healthy pace"
• "a sign that the economy is off to a solid start for the year"
• 234,000 jobs added, according to ADP; we will get official government figures tomorrow
• "businesses are optimist about the economy, particularly after the President Donald Trump's tax overhaul was approved last month
• the recover that began shortly after the steep recession in 2008 is now the second longest in US history
• "at this point in the cycle, it's really impressive to still be generating this many jobs"

I assume CNBC's Steve Liesman has been able to find the downside in all this.


I haven't watched CBNC the past two days and won't watch it today. I purposely won't watch CNBC during major political events, and I won't watch it during particularly volatile days on the market. The hyperbole of the talking heads is almost too much to take on a "normal, quiet day" in the market; on anything but quiet days, it's impossible for me to watch CNBC; the inanity increases exponentially.

I assume CNBC's senior markets commentator is still talking about overshoot, and I assume Steve Liesman is really, really flabbergasted by the most recent ADP numbers, probably suggesting that the official government numbers coming out tomorrow will likely show something different.

The CNBC crew continues to suggest this "bull market" is long in the tooth, and they don't understand how it can continue. It seems they have not looked at the 100-year Dow chart:

History does not predict what the market will do next, but to say that the current bull market has never happened before or is somehow different or has "overshot," or is frothy or is "different this time," seem(s) to be somewhat inaccurate.

There are many, many story lines in the chart above. Note: the y-axis is non-linear. If it were linear, it would be even more staggering.

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A Note To The Granddaughters

I read Michael J Behe's first book many years ago, and read it only once, though I probably read sections of it more than once. I forget.

I was happy to see Behe write a follow-up book but on first reading I was disappointed in the book for a number of reasons: it seemed to be a repeat of what he had already said, and it seemed very repetitious in and of itself. However, now that I am re-reading it very, very slowly, I am very impressed.

It's very much an argument between Michael J Behe and Richard Dawkins. Now that I am reading The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism again, it seems to me that Dawkins deals with the little questions about life, while Behe addresses the big questions about life.