Automatic Job Storm Coming

 

Almost every weekday, some arm of the US government issues some sort of economic statistic. News media and financial analysts review and report it. Then 99.9% of the adult population, and probably 90% of the financial industry, forget all about it. And they’re probably right to do so.

The monthly jobs report isn’t like that. Yes, any single month doesn’t tell us much. Yes, the Labor Department’s methodology has some flaws, both major and minor. But imperfect as it is, the jobs report is our best look at the economy’s pulse. Jobs matter in a visceral way to almost all of us, as you know well if you’ve ever lost one. Almost any survey that asked questions around employment would reveal the angst that many Americans feel about the possibility of losing their jobs.

Right now, automation tops the list of things that might threaten our jobs. Artificial intelligence and robotics technology are rapidly learning to do what human workers do, but better, faster, and cheaper.

How Trump’s Nominee for the Fed Could Turn Central Banking on Its Head

 

President Donald Trump on July 10 nominated Randal Quarles to be one of the seven governors of the Federal Reserve System, the central bank of the United States.

Before I get to Quarles and his qualifications, it’s important to understand the Fed and what it does. Its decisions are vital to every person on the planet who borrows or lends money (pretty much everybody) since it has enormous influence over global interest rates. Its board of governors also influences most other aspects of the global financial system, from regulating banks to how money is wired around the world.

The Fed Has the Economy in a Liquidity Trap

The Federal Open Market Committee, in its latest meeting Wednesday, reiterated the same message to spellbound investors that’s been in place the last eight years: The Fed is committed to maintaining a massive balance sheet through bond buying, but someday that balance sheet and near-zero interest rates will revert to normal levels.

Former Fed President: All My Very Rich Friends Are Holding A Lot Of Cash

If you put together a list of the world’s most brilliant, most famous investment experts… they were all at John Mauldin’s Strategic Investment Conference last month.

My head is still spinning with all the information and investment ideas I heard at the conference, but the consensus among the majority of speakers was that things are going to get ugly.

Lacy Hunt, David Rosenberg, Neil Howe, Jim Grant, Mark Yusko, Gary Shilling, and even John Mauldin (watch video interviews with these speakers on Mauldin Economics’ Youtube channel) painted a very pessimistic picture for the stock market—but the most alarming comment came from Richard Fisher.

We Still Aren’t Sure What Will Cause Janet Yellen to Pull the Trigger

One way or another, rates must go up.

 

The central bank is facing a communications problem.

The effectiveness of the Federal Reserve’s communication strategy is clearly questionable when the outcome of a Federal Open Market Committee meeting is considered a coin toss among economists who closely follow monetary policy.

What’s missing from the central bank’s communication strategy?

Fed: All calendar references removed

Following through on indications in March, the Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday offered no changes to its zero interest rate policy.

Not only did it not hike rates, it also removed all hints for what may lie ahead. Calendar references were deleted completely from the post-meeting statement.

The FOMC indicated after its March meeting that a rate hike in April was unlikely. The U.S. central bank has kept its key funds rate anchored near zero since late 2008, amid the financial crisis.

BIS: The most powerful bank in the world announces the crash

The following is an article published originally in German, translated in the best way Google can offer. Because this is fresh off the German press, don’t expect it to hit American news outlets until another week or so — and likely not on the major national outlets.

When the BIS speaks, markets listen. This is essentially a jaw dropper of an announcement. They realize that all the QE heroin injections are not working and that there is no way to financially turn the American economy around — it’s mathematically impossible. They also know that the US financial leadership knows. The day of reckoning is near and it’s not just the US that will be affected and, although it will suffer the worst, the entire world over is going to go through a change unheard of in its entire history.

(Für die Lesern, dass deutschen sind, klicken Sie bitte auf dem original Link.)

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is the current situation on the financial markets as worse than before the Lehman bankruptcy. The warning of the BIS could be the reason why the U.S. Federal Reserve decided to continue indefinitely to print money: Central banks have lost control of the debt-tide and give up.

The decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve to continue indefinitely to print money (here ) might have fallen on “orders from above”.

Apparently, the central banks dawns that it is tight.

Very narrow.

The most powerful bank in the world, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has published a few days ago in its quarterly report for the possible end of the flood of money directly addressed – and at the same time described the situation on the debt markets as extremely critical. The “extraordinary measures by central banks” – aka the unrestrained printing – had awakened in the markets the illusion that the massive liquidity pumped into the market could solve the fundamental problems (more on the huge rise in debt – here ).

Risk of 1937 relapse as Fed gives up fight against deflation

The US Federal Reserve has jumped the gun. It has mishandled its exit strategy from quantitative easing, triggering a global bond rout that it did not anticipate, and is struggling to control.

It has set off an emerging market shock and risks “blowback” from a fresh spasm of the eurozone debt crisis, and it is letting all this happen at the same time, before the US economy is safely out of the woods.

It has violated its own counter-deflation strategy, tightening monetary policy even though core PCE inflation has fallen to the lowest levels in living memory and below levels deemed dangerous enough in the past to warrant a blast of emergency stimulus. It is doing so even though the revival of bank lending has faded.

The entire pivot by the Federal Open Market Committee is mystifying, almost amateurish, and risks repeating the errors made by the Bank of Japan a decade ago, and perhaps repeating a mini-1937 when the Fed lost its nerve and tipped the US economy into a second leg of the Great Depression. “It’s all about tighter policy,” was the lonely lament by St Louis Fed chief James Bullard.