4 things to expect in Friday’s jobs report
Economists surveyed by CNNMoney predict that the economy gained nearly 200,000 jobs in March.
Source: 4 things to expect in Friday’s jobs report
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Kanye’s new album is now on Apple
Kanye West’s ‘The Life of Pablo’ is now available on Apple Music just weeks after the hip hop star said that such a thing would never happen.
Source: Kanye’s new album is now on Apple
Tesla reveals its $35,000 car for the masses
The Tesla Model 3 will start at $35,000 and have a range of 215 miles.
Source: Tesla reveals its $35,000 car for the masses
How we lost jobs to Mexico
A huge wage gap between American and Mexican workers stands center in the debate over how the U.S. has lost so many blue collar jobs.
Source: How we lost jobs to Mexico
California first state to OK $15 minimum wage
California has become the first state in the nation to approve a statewide $15 minimum wage.
Source: California first state to OK $15 minimum wage
Apple: An unbreakable phone is ‘impossible’
Apple engineers say phones will always have some vulnerabilities, and that law enforcement should share its methods for accessing the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooter.
Source: Apple: An unbreakable phone is ‘impossible’
Visualizing The Automation Potential Of U.S. Jobs (Fast-Food Workers & Truckers Beware)
By Tyler Durden
WHO’S IN, WHO’S OUT?
The interactive visualization above charts specific careers on their automation potential (out of 100%) along with the hourly average wage of the job.
What is most interesting about the analysis is that automation potential doesn’t correlate with low-skill, low-wage jobs as much as one may think. While it’s true that the three million fast food workers across the country have an automation potential of 74%, and that heavy truck driving activities can be 69% automated, there are also great counter-examples: for example, only 7% of manual labor and 22% of janitorial activities could be automated.
Likewise, high-paying jobs are not necessarily robot-proof.
Doctors (23%), nurses (29%), and even CEOs (25%) all have significant amounts of their jobs that can be automated with current technology. Almost half (47%) of what pharmacists do can be done by a robo-pharmacist, and 72% of commercial pilot activities can be done through computers.
Not interested in having a robot fill your shoes? Mckinsey notes at the end of their analysis that both creativity and sensing emotion are extremely difficult to automate. Focus on building skills and competencies in these categories, and you’ll be just fine (for now, at least).
Source: Visualizing The Automation Potential Of U.S. Jobs (Fast-Food Workers & Truckers Beware)
The Rebellion Will Not Go Away
By Tyler Durden
The Sanders- and Trump-led (for now) political rebellion is not going to go away. There are only two questions going forward:
- Will it remain a political rebellion, one that expresses itself through the electoral process, or will it abandon the electoral process as useless after 2016?
- Will it be led by humanitarian populism from the left, or authoritarian populism from the right?
Why is this rebellion permanent, at least until conditions improve? Because life in the U.S. is getting worse in a way that can be felt by a critical mass of people, by enough people to disrupt the Establishment machine with their anger. And because that worsening is seen to be permanent.
Bottom line, people are reaching the breaking point, and we're watching that play out in the 2016 electoral race.
Yes, It Is a Rebellion
There's no other way to see the Sanders and Trump surges except as a popular rebellion, a rebellion of the people against their “leaders.” If one of them, Sanders or Trump, is on the ballot in November running against an Establishment alternative, Sanders or Trump, the anti-Establishment candidate, will win. That candidate will cannibalize votes from the Establishment side.
That is, Sanders will attract a non-zero percentage of Trump-supporting voters if Cruz or Paul Ryan runs against him, and he will win. By the same token, Trump will attract a non-zero percentage Sanders-supporting voters (or they will stand down) if Clinton runs against him, and she will lose to him.
(In fact, we have a good early indication of what percentage of Sanders supporters Clinton will lose — 20% of Sanders primary voters say they will sit out the general election if Clinton is the candidate, and 9% say they will vote for Trump over Clinton. By this measure, Clinton loses 30% of the votes that went to Sanders in the primary election.)
If they run against each other, Sanders and Trump, Sanders will win. You don't have to take my word for it (or the word of any number of other writers). You can click here and see what almost every head-to-head poll says. As I look at it today, the average of the last six head-to-head polls is Sanders by almost 18% over Trump. In electoral terms, that's a wipeout. For comparison, Obama beat McCain by 6% and Romney by 4%.
Note that Sanders is still surging, winning some states with 80% of the vote (across all states he's won, he averages 67% of the vote), while Trump seems to have hit a ceiling below 50%, even in victory. The “socialist” tag is not only not sticking, it's seen positively by his supporters. And finally, just imagine a Trump-Sanders debate. Sanders' style is teflon to Trumps', and again, I'm not alone in noticing this.
Whichever anti-Establishment candidate runs, he wins. If both anti-Establishment candidates face off, Sanders wins. The message seems pretty …read more
Source: The Rebellion Will Not Go Away
AsiaPac Data Deluge: China Good, South Korea Bad, Japan Ugly
By Tyler Durden
An avalanche of data from AsiaPac tonighht was a very mixed bag…
South Korean trade data continued to shrink:
- *SOUTH KOREA MARCH EXPORTS FALL 8.2% Y/Y
- *SOUTH KOREA MARCH IMPORTS FALL 13.8% Y/Y
And deflation is wahing ashorer…
- *SOUTH KOREA MARCH CONSUMER PRICES FALL 0.3% M/M
* * *
Japanese data was a disastrophe…Every single aspect of the Tankan survey missed expectations – from Large manufacturing business outlooks to small service business current conditions…
But Finance Minister Aso had some helpful things to say…
- *ASO: CAN SEE SOME WEAKNESS IN ECONOMIC SENTIMENT IN TANKAN (umm, yeah!)
- *ASO: OVER LONGER TERM, AM VERY COMFORTABLE REGARDING ECONOMY (oh ok then, we won't worry)
So rest easy my friends, Japan is safe to take leveraged long bets on for one more day. Oh one more thing, that whole NIRP, low rates, encourage lending, transmission mechanism thing… FUBAR!!
FinMin Aso had some comments on that too..
- *ASO: BANKS HAVE MONEY, DON'T HAVE ANYONE TO LEND IT TO
So the entire Keynesian model just hit the endgame of debt saturation? That explains why he said this….
- *ASO: MONETARY EASING, FISCAL STIMULUS HAVE LIMITS
Which directly contradicts Kuroda who just yesterday said…
- *KURODA: DON’T THINK THERE IS LIMIT FOR BOJ EASING NOW
So Limits or No Limits? Who cares – just buy moar stuff.
* * *
And then came China…
Cheers were heard from around the world as China's Services PMI jumped off 7 year lows (from 52.7 to 53.8), however this is still below January's levels – not exactly an exuberant bounce after a trillion of fresh credit injections…
- *CHINA NON-MANUFACTURING PMI AT 53.8 IN MARCH
And then Manufacturing hit with a big bounce back into expansion…
- *CHINA MANUFACTURING PMI AT 50.2 IN MARCH
This is a major problem for Janet, because if China is back in recovery, then The Fed no longer has to worry about China's economy when deciding on the next rate hike.
Of course what all this means is that Caixin's China PMI (due in 30 minutes) will be a miss to baffle everyone with bullshit.
Source: AsiaPac Data Deluge: China Good, South Korea Bad, Japan Ugly
Worst Case Scenario: 73% Down From Here
By Tyler Durden
As Main Street dies, Wall Street has been paved in gold.
The S&P 500 soared to all-time highs, with 40% gains from the September 2012 QE3 launch until its cessation in October 2014. Like a heroine addict, Wall Street has experienced withdrawal symptoms ever since, and begs for more monetary easing injections. Yellen and her gang of central bank drug dealers keep the patient from dying by continuing doses of ZIRP and psychologically comforting dialogue designed to cheer up Wall Street bankers.
QE3 ended 17 months ago and shockingly the S&P 500 is exactly where it was 17 months ago. How many bull markets go flat for 17 months? As John Hussman accurately points out, we are experiencing a topping formation in the third and biggest bubble of the last 16 years. It’s a long way down from here.
With the S&P 500 Index at the same level it set in early-November 2014, and the broad NYSE Composite Index unchanged since October 2013, the stock market continues to trace out a massive arc that is likely to be recognized, in hindsight, as the top formation of the third financial bubble in 16 years.
The chart below shows monthly bars for the S&P 500 since 1995. It’s difficult to imagine that the current situation will end well, but it’s quite easy to lose a full-cycle perspective when so much focus is placed on day-to-day fluctuations. The repeated speculative episodes since 2000 have taken historically-reliable valuation measures to extremes seen previously only at the 1929 peak and to a lesser extent, the 1937 peak (which was also followed by a market loss of 50%). Throughout history, at each valuation extreme – certainly in 2000, 2007 and today – investors have openly embraced rich valuations in the belief that they represent some new, modern and acceptable “norm”, failing to recognize the virtually one-to-one correspondence between elevated valuations and depressed subsequent investment outcomes.
So we’ve had the stock market going nowhere for 17 months, with valuations at obscene levels based on all historical precedents, corporate profits falling for three straight quarters, real wages of working people stagnant at 1988 levels, and home prices soaring to unreachable heights due to hot money from China, Wall Street hedge funds, and the ever resilient and late flipper class. Consumer spending, which accounts for 67% of our economy, is dead in the water as Obamacare, soaring rents, rising food costs and 0% interest on savings accounts drain the life out of middle class households. The average person (not Wall Street bankers, government apparatchiks, or other parasites of the establishment) is experiencing and has been experiencing a recession for years.
Low interest rates and double talk from clueless academic Federal Reserve lackeys cannot and will not prop up the stock market forever. Corporate buybacks, financed with cheap debt, by insanely greedy CEOs is the last leg in this wobbly stool. This will come to a …read more
Source: Worst Case Scenario: 73% Down From Here
