The propaganda coming out of CNBC this morning would make Alfred Goebbels blush. I heard today that the weak jobs data, which shows non-farm payroll numbers declining by 80,000 jobs last month, was good news. See, according to this guy, lower numbers are due to retiring baby boomers that are leaving the work force. He went on to say that in the future even modest job gains would be considered very strong news.

This kind of spin is nothing new. The job data that is presented is a work of creative fiction anyway since the computer generated numbers are based on a formula that seems to be disconnected from the economic reality. Now when the numbers come in weak, they just move the goalposts and talk about how its all good news anyway.

What is real story? Well, consider the news yesterday, when a sharp rise in people applying for unemployment insurance was reported. That news was just one day old, yet it must have been forgotten. If it was retirees that were accounting for the lower employment numbers, then why are the people on unemployment insurance rising so sharply?

Even if it WAS largely the effect of older workers retiring from the workforce that generated the lower numbers today, stop to think was is going on. The people who are highly skilled and highest paid are leaving the workforce, and the jobs that are around to replace them are generally lower paying service economy positions. We have an entire generation of new employees that better get used to asking, "Would like you fries with your order?" But its all good news right?

What should be discussed is that a declining work force is a dangerous sign of a contracting economy. It means we have one more bit of data that shows the over-leveraged consumer is going to be facing even greater stress. Why is it such a mystery to the people who report this stuff, that people who are unemployed cannot pay their bills? And if the jobless claims are rising, we are NOT at the bottom, as the breathless commentators on CNBC keep trying to suggest.

And on a related footnote, how funny is it that a panel on CNBC is set to discuss how a blitz of rumours and short selling could have been to blame for the debacle at Bear Stearns? In the precious metals sector we have put up with that sort of thing for years, and so much of it was directly generated by the clueless bozos that appear daily in the CNBC commentary. These guys that are set to disocver the truth could not find two socks that match, and here they are ready to expose the back room dealings at BSC? I guess now that BSC will not be funding anymore advertising on the network, its okay to go out and shine the light of day on that entire grimy story.

Where the hell are the Emperor's clothes?

cheers!

mike