April Employment Increase: Nothing But Menial Jobs

Readers of this blog know that Washington's employment data should be scrutinized. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is notorious for crushing down the labor force participation rate in order to make it appear that the unemployment rate is falling, and the agency's survey methodology is fundamentally-flawed, according to a former BLS leader. But, even if you take the government's word on unemployment as the "Gospel truth", a 50,000-150,000 monthly net increase in jobs--as Uncle Sam has been reporting for years--is woefully insufficient. At this rate of increase--with the unemployment rate dropping by a tenth of a percent each month--, it would take until 2017 to get back to the lower end of the "full employment" range. And that's IF the economy has no additional difficulties and WITH the help of a crushed-down labor participation rate. And, that's if you consider 5% unemployment and 10% underemployment "full employment".

But the raw jobs numbers don't tell the full story anyway. What does it matter if 50,000 or 150,000 or even 1,000,000 jobs are created each month if the jobs are menial in nature? And make no mistake: we've been seeing for years little but a monthly increase in low-wage, low-skill jobs. The April jobs report showed more of the same.

The overwhelming majority of jobs created last month were in leisure and hospitality (waiters, bartenders, hotel employees, etc.) and temp jobs. Industries that actually produce something, whether it be information or physical goods, actually lost jobs:

There was a net decrease in jobs for Americans of prime working age, i.e. there was a net decrease in "career" jobs. But there was a net increase in jobs for Americans of prime restaurant worker and Walmart greeter ages:

In fact, the number of jobs for Americans of prime working age (i.e. career age) has been flat since the economy collapsed:

Seth Mason, Charleston SC

The New, Bigger Housing Bubble In 4 Charts

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's "solution" to the country's economic woes, a new, even larger asset bubble, is becoming evident in several sectors of the economy, from equities to real estate. The following charts suggest that the bubble the Fed is inflating in the housing market will eclipse the last one, which was big enough to plunge the country into an economic depression when it burst.

First, the year-over-year increase in home prices since 2008 has been steeper than the YoY during the last housing bubble:

Second, the inversely proportional decrease in mortgage standards and increase in demand for mortgages has been starker than it was during the last bubble:

Third, apartment and condo starts have been skyrocketing at a rate far eclipsing that of the last bubble:

Fourth, investors are throwing cheap, Fed-provided money at housing at a rate far exceeding that of the last bubble:

Libertarian Talk Radio: It's A Matter Of Differentiation

I recently wrote about how libertarianism is growing and how conservatives, terrestrial talk radio's bread-and-butter demographic, are becoming more libertarian. In the article, I argued that there's a growing under-served demand for libertarian terrestrial talk radio. Today, I'd like to add to that argument from another perspective, that of differentiation.

Fox News, the only television news provider gearing to those on the right side of the political spectrum, enjoys strong ratings for the simple fact that it's the only conservative news alternative. (Fox Business is a business news--not "news news" network.) As you can see in the following graphic, most television news clusters around the left side of the political spectrum. Fox News, on the other hand, enjoys a monopoly on the right.

The same principal applies to political talk show hosts on terrestrial radio. As you can see in this graphic, most hosts cluster around the social conservative/neoconservative side of the conservative political spectrum. There's only one prominent host on the libertarian side of the spectrum, Dennis Miller, and his show doesn't get particularly good ratings.

The previous 2 graphics, combined with the changing political landscape on the Right, suggest that it's time for program directors to put more libertarians on the air.

Seth Mason, Charleston SC