The April Jobs Report and My Encounter With Ben Bernanke – Ep 81

* First official jobs report of Q2

* Wednesday's ADP private payrolls were below expectations

* March was revised down, indicating a softer labor market

* Challenger job cuts numbers well above previous month, biggest year over year increase in 10 years

* The jobs number came in at 222,000 jobs with unemployment down to 5.4%

* The media is spinning the headline number

* The picture underneath the jobs report is not as nice

* The March downward revision by 41,000 jobs causes one to question whether today's job number will be revised downward given all the negative underlying data

* The stock market recognized this; sensing the Fed will remain on pause

* Average Hourly Earnings increased only .1%, half expectations

* Numbers of Americans who have left the labor force is now at a record high

* When employers are changing the nature of the workforce replacing full time workers with part time workers it distorts the net number of jobs

* The Household Survey indicates the breakdown of full time vs. part time

* The government makes no such distinction

* In April we created 437,000 part time jobs - biggest gain in part time employment since last June

* The number of full time jobs declined by 252,000 - the biggest drop of the year

* The bad news of full time job loss is buried beneath the superficial layer of part time jobs

* The demographic breakdown indicates workers 55 and older gained 266,000 jobs in April

* Workers 25 - 54 lost 19,000 jobs

* This blows a hole in the notion that labor force participation is going down because of retiring baby boomers

* Other bad news to hit this quarter's GDP:

* Wholesale Trade numbers: inventories expected to rise by .3% but rose by .1% - smallest gain since March of 2013

* Wholesale Sales expected to break 3-month losing streak; instead increasing streak to biggest year over year decline since November of 2008

* Earlier in the week, Q1 Productivity down 1.9% following 2.1% decline last quarter

* Unit Labor Costs rose more than expected +5%

* Challenger numbers show a big explosion in layoffs

* The reality is that the economy is weakening rapidly

* The Fed and the media don't want to acknowledge this because they are afraid of how the market will react

* Recent encounter with Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

* Ben Bernanke was a speaker at the SALT conference

* I introduced myself to him after his presentation, told him "I am probably your biggest critic."

* He responded, "You have a lot of competition."

* Later that evening at a cocktail party I approached him and he offered to pose for a photo.

* Photo got more views and likes that most other photos on Facebook

* I tried to give him a cliff's notes version of my take on the Fed's part in the housing bubble

* Bernanke blamed regulations, Fannie & Freddie and the sub-prime mortgages

* I said the Fed created the conditions for Sub-Prime mortgages because low interest rates made them affordable

* I asked why he did not warn us in advance of the regulations, Fannie & Freddie and the Sub-Prime Mortgage business?

* Bernanke originally denied the housing bubble existed

* Ben Bernanke had no clue that the Fed's policies created the bubble even after it burst

* In hindsight, he lays blame on aspects of the market that he should have identified in advance

* I asked him, "how can can you be sure you were right, when interest rates are still at zero and the Fed's balance sheet still hasn't shrunk?

* Is there anything that might change your opinion that your decisions were right?

* He evaded the answer, but I believe he was sincere about his opinions

* Later that evening,

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