Sunday, February 03, 2019

Trump's Magic Wand: Job Growth Surges in January, Stocks Soar Higher, Despite Government Shut Down

Plus, instead of TDS, favorable headlines?

Name this publisher: Today’s Huge Jobs Report Number Shows that Donald Trump Has Been Right About the Fed
"First, after wrapping up on their two-day meeting on Thursday, Federal Reserve officials announced that they would not hike interest rates and signaled they would pause further increases going forward, in light of recent turbulence in the financial markets, signs of trouble with global growth, and relatively muted inflation. The shift relieved investors and sent stocks rocketing higher."
The Daily Signal? Breitbart?

Another clue: "Then, on Friday, the Department of Labor delivered an unexpectedly strong jobs report. Employers added 304,000 workers to their payrolls in January, compared to the 170,000 forecasted by economists surveyed by Dow Jones.

Companies mostly seem to have shrugged off this winter’s government shutdown. In fact, the numbers showed that hiring has sped back up after a lull in the summer and early fall. The economy tacked on an average of 241,000 jobs over each of the last three months, compared to an overall monthly average of 205,000 since the beginning of 2017."

Washington Examiner? FAUX News? Nope. Try Slate. Yes, that Slate.

And Slate isn't the only one. There's more good news - or at least good headlines - as in not Trump Derangement Syndrome amid the good news.

From CBS: Job growth in January roared ahead despite government shutdown
 Reuters: S&P near eight-week high after upbeat jobs data
  The AP: A robust job gain in January shows US economy's durability
Politico: U.S. economy created 304,000 jobs in January
   
CNBC: Those recession fears now seem way overblown after 'scorching' jobs and manufacturing data
"The labor market is still scorching," said Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies. "If you look at the payroll data, the economy continues to pound out job growth. Wage growth is for real..."

"The perpetual pessimists have been calling for the next recession since the last one ended, and at some point they'll be right," said McCarthy. "If we don't get a trade deal, we could slow significantly but I don't think we're going into recession, and if we do get a trade deal we're going to be growing again."

McCarthy said the Fed's actions show that it is hedging against potential negatives, like the trade wars, China's slowdown, a government shutdown and a possible debt ceiling fight. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell affirmed a dovish stance when he briefed the media after the meeting."
Granted, few to none of the news articles even mention Trump by name, let alone give him any credit for creating a healthy business environment with fewer repressive regulations and lower tax rates, but that's OK. As former potus Barack Obama said in 2010: "You know, one of the things I think you understand as president is you're held responsible for everything, but you don't always have control of everything, right?"

Also in 2010, Obama warned of his concern about very high unemployment being "a new normal" in the United States: "And as a consequence, we keep on seeing growth that is just too slow to bring back the eight million jobs that were lost. That is a danger. So that's something that I spend a lot of time thinking about."

Hmm. Methinks that was a policy feature of your administration, not a bug. I'll just leave ya'll with, "Those that can't, 'spend a lot of time thinking about.' Those that can, find their magic wand."