The April Jobs Report and My Encounter With Ben Bernanke – Ep 81

* First official jobs report of Q2
* Wednesday's ADP private payrolls were below expectations
* March was revised down, indicating a softer labor market
* Challenger job cuts numbers well above previous month, biggest year over year increase in 10 years
* The jobs number came in at 222,000 jobs with unemployment down to 5.4%
* The media is spinning the headline number
* The picture underneath the jobs report is not as nice
* The March downward revision by 41,000 jobs causes one to question whether today's job number will be revised downward given all the negative underlying data
* The stock market recognized this; sensing the Fed will remain on pause
* Average Hourly Earnings increased only .1%, half expectations
* Numbers of Americans who have left the labor force is now at a record high
* When employers are changing the nature of the workforce replacing full time workers with part time workers it distorts the net number of jobs
* The Household Survey indicates the breakdown of full time vs. part time
* The government makes no such distinction
* In April we created 437,000 part time jobs - biggest gain in part time employment since last June
* The number of full time jobs declined by 252,000 - the biggest drop of the year
* The bad news of full time job loss is buried beneath the superficial layer of part time jobs
* The demographic breakdown indicates workers 55 and older gained 266,000 jobs in April
* Workers 25 - 54 lost 19,000 jobs
* This blows a hole in the notion that labor force participation is going down because of retiring baby boomers
* Other bad news to hit this quarter's GDP:
* Wholesale Trade numbers: inventories expected to rise by .3% but rose by .1% - smallest gain since March of 2013
* Wholesale Sales expected to break 3-month losing streak; instead increasing streak to biggest year over year decline since November of 2008
* Earlier in the week, Q1 Productivity down 1.9% following 2.1% decline last quarter
* Unit Labor Costs rose more than expected +5%
* Challenger numbers show a big explosion in layoffs
* The reality is that the economy is weakening rapidly
* The Fed and the media don't want to acknowledge this because they are afraid of how the market will react
* Recent encounter with Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke
* Ben Bernanke was a speaker at the SALT conference
* I introduced myself to him after his presentation, told him "I am probably your biggest critic."
* He responded, "You have a lot of competition."
* Later that evening at a cocktail party I approached him and he offered to pose for a photo.
* Photo got more views and likes that most other photos on Facebook
* I tried to give him a cliff's notes version of my take on the Fed's part in the housing bubble
* Bernanke blamed regulations, Fannie & Freddie and the sub-prime mortgages
* I said the Fed created the conditions for Sub-Prime mortgages because low interest rates made them affordable
* I asked why he did not warn us in advance of the regulations, Fannie & Freddie and the Sub-Prime Mortgage business?
* Bernanke originally denied the housing bubble existed
* Ben Bernanke had no clue that the Fed's policies created the bubble even after it burst
* In hindsight, he lays blame on aspects of the market that he should have identified in advance
* I asked him, "how can can you be sure you were right, when interest rates are still at zero and the Fed's balance sheet still hasn't shrunk?
* Is there anything that might change your opinion that your decisions were right?
* He evaded the answer, but I believe he was sincere about his opinions
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