North American economy in retreat

I wonder how much of the sales rebound is from one time government handout?

At May 6 was reported that the IRS sent 159 million stimulus checks

www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance...tions-answers-2020-4

Have you heard, big mistake in job numbers, they were much worse

Unfortunately, after delving into the footnotes of the numbers, it now looks like the jobs report has been inaccurate for the last two months. BLS has admitted that government household survey takers mistakenly counted about 4.9 million people as employed, although they were unemployed.

Had the mistake been corrected, the unemployment rate would have risen to 16.1% in May. The corrected April figure would have been more than 19.5%—rather than 14.7%.

www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/06/0...oyment/#4c0b250f60d3

No guesses this month, here is the numbers. Surprise

The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to 13.3 percent in May, down from a record high in April, indicating the nation's economy is recovering faster than expected from the coronavirus lockdown.

The Labor Department said in its Friday report that employers added a stunning 2.5 million jobs in May -- the biggest increase on record. The economy shed a combined 22.1 million jobs in April and March.

Gambler, you were close

Nonfarm payrolls in March fell by 701,000 and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4%.
The numbers just begin to capture the beginning of the job market collapse brought up by efforts to contain the coronavirus.

This was the first decline in payroll growth since September 2010.

I will guess -180k

any guesses at the job numbers for March, out tomorrow. Estimates all over. I think it goes by about mid March so not full impact yet. I am going with -500,000 I woner if government will just pencil in a bad number to put it in the history books, like -10 million

This is a good read. Canada will be crucified with our weak leadership and a non confidence vote is around the corner

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/03/08/...irus-quake-reshapes/

The worlds geopolitical order will be unrecognisable once Covid-19 has done its worst. Long-standing regimes will be badly compromised. Political systems that have never fully recovered from the Lehman crisis will suffer a second body blow.

Those Western democratic governments that have been most complacent or incompetent will be torn to shreds by unforgiving electorates. Social media will see to that.

Covid-19 is turning into a strategic contest between the social control model of Chinas Communist Party and the unruly, free-spirited pluralism of the West. How that comparison plays out will shape the global order in the 21st Century.

In this country, Brexit scarcely matters right now. Decimal points of GDP are irrelevant. Boris Johnson will be judged on whether or not his administration allows avoidable decimation of the elderly -- and the not so elderly -- and whether the National Health Service buckles in catastrophic institutional failure.

Korea has six times as many intensive care (ICU) beds per capita, and Germany four times as many. What we know so far from Lombardy is that 13 percent of infected patients require ICU treatment, typically for two to three weeks.

The outbreak is already overwhelming the system in Italys best equipped region. ICU patients are being sent to Tuscany because beds have run out.

The Italian society of anesthesia and critical care says it may be necessary to reserve "very scarce resources" to patients with a "higher chance of survival and more years of life to come." The unthinkable is happening.

"Italy should be a warning to everybody, everywhere," says Professor Massimo Galli, head of infectious diseases at the Luigi Sacco hospital in Milan.

He is scathing about those still playing down the threat. "It was never anything like flu. People uttering such things are sowing confusion among those who wish to be confused," he said.

If the British government can buy vital weeks to "flatten the peak" and stretch the epidemic into the less contagious summer (we hope), it might have a chance of preventing a national disgrace -- starting with a shortage of respirators, one variable explaining why reported mortality rates in Wuhan are 5.8 percent, 2 percent in Beijing, and 1 percent in Shanghai, but rising everywhere as slow deaths come in.

GB, great call, number came in at 225k

www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/business/january-jobs-report.html

Hourly earnings up 3.1% on the year so moving the right way

My guess is always way off, so I go 168k

US job numbers today 160k expected. Everything seems to be going up, so maybe 210k for todays number

Debt, debt and more debt, how high can the US go

According to the latest figures from the Treasury Department, the U.S. fiscal deficit exceeded $1T in 2019, marking the first time it has passed that level in a calendar year since 2012. The future is not looking better. For the fiscal year, which began in October, the shortfall is already at $356.6B, an 11.7% increase from a year ago.

ah ha, when we guess higher, it is lower

Points

December’s payroll and wage growth missed expectations.
The Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls increased by just 145,000 while the unemployment rate held steady at 3.5%.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for job growth of 160,000. The jobless rate met expectations for staying at a 50-year low.
A more encompassing jobs rate that includes discouraged and underemployed workers fell to 6.7%, the lowest it’s ever been in records going back to 1994.