Non Farm, Non Encouraging Payrolls

Was I too tough on President Obama this weekend, perhaps being a bit unfair about how responsible he now is for this wreck of an economy?  Maybe.

But here’s a fact:

President Obama sandbagged The Street and many economists last Wednesday by telling us in his remarks to expect a “strong jobs number on Friday”.  These comments, which other Presidents have been smart enough not to make so close to an economic release of data, encouraged many analysts to take their numbers up for the May non farm payrolls release.  Goldman went up into the 600 thousand range with the consensus in the low 500 thousands.

This sandbagging led to a 3% bludgeoning of the nation’s wealth when all major markets sold off as a result of the data being anything but an upside surprise.

The President’s off-handed comments, combined with his weaker-than-expected recovery’s job gains, were the proximate causes of this massive sell-off.

Fact.

Here’s Ex-Wirehouse, writing at the Davian Letter, with the only take on Friday’s number you need to read:

The unmitigated disaster that was the most recent release of the NFP report leaves me in such a grim mood I will skip the cute part and get right to the issue at hand. For the month we created 435,000 jobs of which 411,000 were part time census workers for a total of only about 20k private sector jobs created. The consensus was any where from 150k to 200k(note to self short anything out of VP Joe Bidens Mouth) so it was a miss by a country mile.

I say it again, stop making speeches and start giving businesses a reason to hire.

Sources:

That NFP # Is Going To Leave A Mark (Davian Letter)

Mr Obama, It’s Your Economy Now (TRB)