The more straightforward point is that the recent jobs report, whose creator Trump just fired, didn’t really show much of anything. That’s because with a domestic workforce of around 50 million workers, +/- even 100,000 jobs is a difference of only 0.2%–which is well within the margin of error for this statistical projection.
The most important thing I see from the report is not the idea that the economy may be slowing (why wouldn’t it be if the tariff rules are constantly changing, so companies can’t really plan?), but the panic that totally benign figures are creating in the Oval Office. That’s the scary part, to me.
How so?
In early 2000, I had owned shares in an IT powerhouse for ten years and was trying to figure out, in the wake of the Internet Bubble collapse, what to do with my large holding. So I went to the company’s annual analyst meeting, where the founder and the newly-minted CEO would be available to answer questions. The founder was asked what I thought was a really stupid question–what he thought was his greatest accomplishment at the company. His answer–“Being able to give jobs to my friends.” Yikes! Then the CEO (in an angry voice) about profit prospects “None of you can imagine how hard it is to get a big company to grow at 5% yearly.”
I left the room and sold my entire holding.
The stock flatlined for well over a decade until, after several years of effort, activist investors ousted the CEO and installed someone who wasn’t the founder’s college friend. The stock is up over 12x in the decade since.
I mention this mostly because my experience has been that this happens a lot. Three friends start a company. Two are geniuses, one gets the coffee–on the days he can find his way to work. Unless coffee guy blows a hole in the bottom of the boat, all get very rich. Coffee guy enters politics and becomes governor of New Jersey or, as a big donor, gets a presidential cabinet post.
Anyway, my point is that I think the Trump cabinet is long on coffee guys and media figures whose main positive attribute is a botoxy physical appearance. It’s short people with actual competence in the areas they’re responsible for. So it’s not that surprising that the administration wouldn’t have anyone who can interpret and explain the BLS numbers.
What’s maybe the most telling thing is the evident panic created in the administration created by BLS figures that don’t have a huge amount of information in them.