Posted on 11/08/2004 5:27:51 AM PST by OESY
...Nonfarm payrolls added 337,000 jobs in October -- almost double expectations. Revisions also added 113,000 more new jobs for the months of August and September, meaning that the economy has generated 2.1 million jobs in the past year....
Both outlays for heavy machinery and business construction now look perky and, given the huge amounts of cash that companies are sitting on, capital spending should continue to post gains....
The good jobs news might also be due in part to slowing third-quarter productivity growth -- to 1.9%....
Although real growth of 3.7% was slower than expected, any growth over 3.5% will generate a faster pace in job creation. And it pretty much insures that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again, by another quarter point to 2% this Wednesday....
Although this expansion is now in its third year ... recent stock market performance shows that investors are expecting the good news to continue.... The Standard & Poor's 500 finished the week at a high for the year, the Dow ended the week just a tad under its 2004 high, and the Nasdaq is now up 1.8% for the year.
The bad news is that the dollar ended the week at a nine-year low against the euro. Recently, the dollar has been drubbed by selling from Middle Eastern investors and others....
In part, the trade deficit reflects that the U.S. is growing faster than the rest of the world, China excepted....
Republican gains in Congress mean that the pro-growth reforms that are part of Mr. Bush's "ownership society" agenda have a chance to become law. These include the expansion of the private market for health care, such tort reforms as restrictions on class action lawsuits and limits on medical malpractice, and perhaps even limits on corporate liability in asbestos-related claims....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
How many more jobs does Bush need to break even with this phoney labor dept report?
Maybe a couple more above 200,000+/month in Nov, Dec, and Jan and he won't have that "loss" in his first term.
It sounds bad ...no wonder the Democrats won
The deficit was aprox 800000. Subtract from that 100000 increase in prior months and 337000 = 365000 yet to be made up...should be no problem in 2 months
Summary for history:
more or less 250000/month
Actually, the deficit was 560,000, leaving about 140K jobs to be made up in 3 months.
This is good news but some reporters are saying that most of these jobs were temporary or governmental. I would like to see more commentary on whether these are real jobs. I would have to think so as our currency is dropping.
As our currency drops, our manufacturers become more competitive in the export market. Euroweenies must be really feeling the pinch right now: high unemployment and their products are becomming too expensive on the world markets as their currencies rise.
Hoppy
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