There were a large number of economic reports this week, headed by Payrolls, which were released on Friday, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time:
- Nonfarm Payrolls: headline +261k, expected +200k; new high, positive.
- Personal Income: +0.70% month/month (m/m) (prior +0.40 m/m); new high, positive.
- Auto/Light Truck Sales: +9.17% m/m; positive and recovering from a sharp dip.
- Existing Home Sales: -6.60% m/m, new post-pandemic low. Pop.
- GDP: +1.75% quarter/quarter (q/q), adjusted for inflation (GDPC1): +0.75% q/q. I don’t believe the GDP “inflation” adjustment of 4%. “GDP growth” is all inflation.
More detail about payrolls: average hourly earnings +0.55% m/m, which is a big move higher. Workers are getting raises. Also, “working part time/economic reasons; only part time work available” (FRED: LNS12032196): -6.49% m/m, dropping to a new post-pandemic low. The part time/economic series is one of my labor force “recession indicators.” Right now, it is signaling the exact opposite of recession. It tells us the the economy is either super strong, or the labor force is suffering from a shortage of workers.
Wolf provided a chart which helps show this visually; I’m gonna copy it and insert it here, I liked his chart just that much. It clearly shows a “shortfall” of workers vs the pre-2020 trend: about 3.5 to 4.0 million workers. This shortfall is causing the labor shortage, which explains both “part time work” numbers at 20-year lows, and the average hourly earnings at all time highs. Wolf has a lot more detail in his post here (Source – Wolf Street).
And here is one more labor-market chart, which I contend presents an explanation for half of that workforce shortfall. Fred series: LNU01074597, population 16+ either working, or looking for work, with a disability, jumped almost 2 million since 2021. While it retreated slightly this month, it remains very near the all time high. The change since 2021: +1.95 million people, “with a disability”, in the labor force. That accounts for half of Wolf’s labor shortfall. (FWIW: I suspect Wolf does not agree with me on the particulars of my explanation!) Note that the 2 million new workers “with a disability” are incapable of doing some set of jobs – usually the in-person service jobs. Guess what? Services is where inflation is these days.
Another cause for the worker shortage: the number of people who died since 2019 – average U.S. lifespan dropped by a massive 2.7 years during that period. I blame (for the most part) forced vaccination for this, supported by Ed Dowd’s work detailing the massive increase in working-age person-deaths in 2021 and 2022, confirmed by the large amounts of money lost by life insurance companies who had to fork over a ton of money due to the shocking increase in working-age-person deaths.
So, what’s the deaths number? If we use Steve Kirsch’s under-reporting factor (URF) (41) for the VAERS data, that’s about 15,000 x 41 = 615,000 killed by the shot, which provides an estimate for the deaths immediately following vaccination. Rough estimate: we must double this, because of the second (5-month) peak in “stroke” and “cancer” deaths following vaccination, which are not likely to be reported to VAERS. Call the total about 1.2 million, of which perhaps two thirds (800k) were in the labor force when they died.
Curiously, the CDC has yet to release the “CDC Wonder” death data for 2021. And here it is, almost the end of 2022. Why haven’t they released the 2021 death data? Anyone have any idea? If I had the CDC death data, I could provide you some receipts. Maybe that’s why they haven’t quite managed to add up the 2021 death numbers just yet. I’ll keep checking back. As always, a coverup implies a crime was probably committed, and it is also a tacit admission of guilt. If they get caught – is that fraud? Malfeasance? Is it criminal? One would hope so.
Anecdote: a friend told me that someone in his friend group (50-60) died from a stroke. What are the odds? According to CDC death data, 33.5/100,000, or about 1:3,000. Death from accidents are about twice as common for that age group. Cancer deaths are 8 times more common. Back in 2019-2020 anyway. But my friend saw a very unusual stroke death; no cancer deaths, no accident deaths either.
Last bit: how many former-heroes-now-zeros healthcare workers that simply refused to accept forced injections and were fired or took early retirement as a result? The total number impacted by the mandates, according to The Biden Teleprompter, was 10.5 million (Source – fiercepharma). How many did they lose? Rough calculation: from 1%-5% of that 10.5 million number (Source – fiercepharma), assuming you believe the optimistic-looking numbers provided by the Pharma-corrupted hospital systems. Guess: call it 250,000.
So, conservatively, 1.95 million newly disabled, plus 615,000 who died post-vax, plus another 615,000 who “died suddenly” at the peak five months following vaccination, plus 250,000 no-longer-heroes who quit rather than submit to forced-injection (and that’s just in healthcare – not counting airlines), comes to around 3.5 million. Powell suggests: gains in the stock market and housing market facilitating early retirement, as well as people too scared of COVID to go back to work, could account for the remaining 0.5 million.
It is a complex picture. According to my guesstimate, at least 80% of the problem is vaccine-related. Powell’s rate increases can’t create new workers, although the open southern border is probably helping to supply new entry-level people. Below is a vaccine uptake chart. Given this, we should see the 5-month spike in perhaps Feb-March 2023 from the Oct-Nov 8-mouse booster uptake, and then hopefully it will be “over”. Unless the WEF/Biden-Handler/Pharma team come up with yet another forced-deadly injection, in which case – the workforce will shrink in two impulses once again, tightening the labor market further.
Ok, on to interest rates and more Payrolls effects.
The CME Group shows a 78% chance of a 50 basis point (bp) rate increase on Dec 14th, plus a 22% chance of a 75 bp rate increase (Source – CME). That’s not much of a change from last week. This hints that the “Fed Pivot” may not be a thing after all.
Market tea-leaves from Payrolls Friday: equities sold off but then rallied back to even, the same for gold and the Euro, while copper and silver both sold off, then rallied strongly to end Friday at new highs. Silver [+1.64%] and copper [+0.86%] both ended Friday looking strong. Crude faded, but that happened end of day. As usual, crude is marching to the beat of its own drummer. From the equities standpoint, payrolls did not confirm a “Fed pivot”.
On the week, gold rose 40.80 [+2.32%] to 1802.60. Open Interest (OI) actually fell slightly during the rally – very unusual – it remains near its recent lows. That’s bullish. Note that gold also squeaked back above its 200 moving average (MA) – by 40 cents. That’s bullish too.
The buck fell 1.42 [-1.34%] to 104.50. The buck – mirror image to gold – ended the week below the 200 MA, for the first time since mid-2021. That’s bearish. Curiously, most of the dollar’s decline happened on Thursday, not on Payrolls Friday. There was no one event that caused Thursday’s decline – at least not that I could see.
Silver was the star – at least for me (I’m long) – it rallied 1.58 [+7.33%] to close above 23 for the first time since April 2022. It is now well above its 200 MA. As with gold, the OI fell during this week’s big rally. In the chart below, see how the blue OI line usually runs right alongside price? But now, there is a divergence; OI is falling when price is rising. Is it a “short squeeze”? Maybe a shortage? Delivery issues? It looks bullish – at least long term. Shorter term, a model I’m working on right now suggests (short term now) things might be a bit toppy in silver. This reminds me: during rallies, I’ve heard it is probably wiser to buy the dips than the breakouts.
And the miners did well too. XAU rallied 5.19%, and it too closed back above its 200 MA, which as we know by now, is a long term bullish signal. The candle print is mildly bearish, but the miners look to be in a reasonably strong uptrend. Other precious metals (PM) tea leaves: gold/silver ratio: -4.67% (bullish), GDX:Gold ratio: +2.75% (bullish), GDXJ:GDX ratio: +0.42% (bullish). Money moved into PM, the miners, and especially silver this week.
Copper also rallied, rising 0.22 [+6.00%] to 3.85. Copper has yet to close above its 200 MA, so it is a bit behind gold, silver, and the mining shares. I’m guessing here that the market wants to believe that the CCP will back away from “Zero COVID” (because – protests), but copper may be lagging because it is very difficult to predict with any accuracy what the CCP will actually do. And one other thing. Open interest also went nowhere for copper during this week’s rally. In fact, OI has been a bit untethered in copper since mid-2021. I suspect the banksters do not want to be short copper either.
Crude oil rose 3.70 [+4.85%] to 79.98, moving up four days out of five – Monday through Thursday. While this week’s candle print was bullish (“long white”; 48% bullish reversal), crude remains below both the 50 and 200 MA – it is still in a downtrend. But there’s that open interest thing again. OI remains around the 8-year low we saw last week. The banksters do not want to be short crude. Or gold, silver, copper. Its almost as if the banksters are explicitly reducing short-side futures-market risk across an entire group of instruments. It feels like something is up. It is all very curious.
And those WEF/Biden-Handlers just can’t stop draining the SPR. Here I thought they’d quit on November 8. Nope. It was a drain of 1.4 million barrels this week. How much does that make? The Biden-Handlers have drained about 40% of the SPR (650m down to 389m) since arriving at 1600 Pennsylvania in 2021. And they are not stopping the drain, because – “emergency”. Maybe the emergency is, that the U.S. remains a superpower? Maybe China has an emergency need to top up its oil reserves? Maybe The Big Guy has an emergency purchase he needs to make before he’s removed from power? No idea. It’s kinda like the Covid “emergency.” It is never-ending, and it gives them power.
The S&P 500 Index (SPX) rallied 1.13%, managing to close back above its 200 MA, similar to many other items this week. Most of the gains for SPX came on Wednesday, not Friday, on some comments that Powell made that were interpreted by the market as a possible pivot signal. This was not followed up on Friday (SPX closed slightly down Friday) after the payrolls numbers came out. No confirmation = bearish. This week’s spinning top candle was mildly bearish. Sector map was mixed; communications and discretionary led, while financials and energy did worst. Crappy debt (JNK) also rallied this week (+0.66%), but it remains well below its own 200 MA. JNK is laggng behind SPX, and is not confirming risk on.
Last: rates. This week I added the 10-year to the list, which rallied strongly – the 10 year rate fell 19 bp, which was a fairly strong move. Note that the 1-month yield also fell hard too, down below the Fed Funds rate. The 10-year rally hints at a recession, so does the 1-month. Yield drops tell us that money is pouring into bonds – domestic money, not foreign money, given the fall in the buck. Money moving into bonds is a risk-off signal.
WEF:
Netherlands to close up to 3,000 farms to comply with EU rules (Source – telegraph); WEF-planet-saving-science: cow farts = bad, private jets = good.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s first post-scandal public interview was a mesmerizing spectacle (Source – vox); Sam “had a bad month.” But no worries, he appears to have a Hunter Biden level of immunity from prosecution. The WEF-Biden-Handlers no longer prosecute criminals that work for them. They don’t even pretend to. They are “flexing” – this is a power display, similar to normalizing pedophilia, raiding Bad Orange over nothing, and imprisoning J6 defendants without trial for almost two years. This is long-term-stupid, but the consequences will take time to manifest.
Amid protests of unprecedented scale, Fauci tells CNN that China’s totalitarian Covid lockdowns would be fully justified so long as the purpose was to “get all the people vaccinated.” (Source – twitter); Fauci is the embodiment of the WEF-Biden-Handler worldview.
Cha-ching! EPA quietly quadruples regulatory cost of carbon emissions in new war on fossil fuels (Source – JTN); “Social Cost of Carbon estimate jumps from $51 to $190 per metric ton, creating future impact for Americans’ wallets and a new headache for the oil and gas industries….At the $340 price point, for instance, there would be a $2.99 tax/penalty per gallon of gasoline and $3.47 per gallon of diesel…” Saving the Planet for their Private Jets.
US Poised To ‘Dramatically Expand’ Training Of Ukrainian Forces (Source – ZeroHedge); The Vietnam War Playbook: first “support”, then “training”, then “advisors”, then 500,000 U.S. combat troops and 50,000 U.S. deaths. We have moved into the “training” phase. Because Ukraine is a key ally. More or less. Actually, not at all.
Washington pressed Ottawa to shut down ‘Freedom Convoy’ blockades (Source – politico); WEF-Biden-handlers: protests against government policy = Verboten.
The EU tries desperately to keep the censorship regime in place (Source – Turley); WEF-controlled EU: Free Speech = Verboten.
Let the ‘Revolution’ Begin: Elon Musk to Publicly Release “Free Speech Suppression Files” on Twitter (Source – gatewaypundit).
It’s about to get weird in here. An appeal for your patience (Source – taibbi/substack).
Elon Musk Unveils Twitter Censorship Machine in 2020 (Source – ET); Dubbed “The Twitter Files,” Taibbi published his reporting in a thread on his Twitter account, which he said was based on “thousands of internal documents obtained by sources” from the social media platform.”
1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES (Source – taibbi/twitter);
Intel, the Biden-Handlers, and the WEF (who are clearly trying hard to get their flunkies in Brussels to execute on the censorship), must be upset. The standard censorship mantra – “a private company can do whatever it wants” – has now come back to bite them. I read this as an “L” for the WEF. Well played 5-d chess by Musk.
“Health”:
CDC knew COVID vax associated with myocarditis but left off post-vax surveys (Source – JTN); specific “free-text” information coming soon. Like with Pfizer/FDA and their proposed “75 year delay”, there is a reason the CDC covered this information up; that is most likely where a smoking gun is hiding. Coverup = a crime has been committed. A ticking clock.
6 MILLION Americans have been infected by flu and 3,000 have died since OCTOBER as country is stung by worst outbreak in a decade (Source – dailymail); “Flu vaccine uptake is also lagging with 150 million doses having been dished out to date — 13 million lower than at the same time last year. To boost uptake the Biden administration has launched a more than $475 million drive that will last for six weeks.” IFR = 3k/6m = 1/2000.
Effectiveness of the trivalent influenza vaccine [2014] (Source – paper); This short paper from Canada shows NNTV (to prevent one infection – not one death) ranges from 12-37 (in a well-matched year) and in seniors, NNTV=40, and the shot is completely ineffective in a poorly-matched year. Math says NNTV to prevent one death (based on the 1/2000 IFR provided by the Daily Mail): best case, in a well-matched year, is 24,000. That is, it takes 24,000 flu shots to prevent one flu death. In a well-matched year, best case. And the WEF-Biden-Handlers have chosen to push the flu shot (with $475 million of our dollars) as the best remedy they can come up with. They really are the “B” team. Maybe the “D” team.
Randomized Study of the Efficacy and Safety of Oral Elderberry Extract in the Treatment of Influenza A and B Virus Infections [2000] (Source – sagepub paper); mostly, people were symptom free in four days (black bars), vs. 8 days in the placebo group (grey bars). Of course, the WEF-Biden-Handlers have no clue what an “elderberry” might be, since it wasn’t mentioned it at Event 201, you don’t inject it with a needle, and it is not patentable. A guess: they probably all get their flu shots.
Biden Administration to End Monkeypox Emergency Declaration (Source – ET); “As of Friday, 19 people have died from the monkeypox outbreak in the United States. The country has seen more than 29,500 cases.” For those keeping score at home, that’s 1/200th as impactful as “influenza”.
Anti-vaxxer nurse who injected up to 8,600 elderly patients with saltwater instead of Covid vaccine walks FREE from court in Germany (Source – dailymail); we will only know the true impact of her actions many years from now. The lack of a severe punishment could be a directional indicator on the sentiment regarding the Holy Shot.
Domestic:
Republican Senators Demand a Vote to End the Military Vaccine Mandate Before Voting on Defense Bill (Source – breitbart); The effort is being led by Sens. Rand Paul (KY), Rick Scott (FL), Lindsey Graham (SC), Mike Lee (UT), Ted Cruz (TX), Ron Johnson (WI), Mike Braun (IN), Roger Marshall (KS), Tommy Tuberville (AL), Marco Rubio (FL), Steve Daines (MT), Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS), and Josh Hawley (MO).
House votes to avert rail strike, impose deal on unions (Source – apnews); The WEF-Biden-Handlers are pro labor! More or less. Actually, not at all.
Markets:
S&P 500 Surges Above Key Level On Fed Chief Powell, But Inflation, Jobs Report Loom (Source – investors.com); “The pace of rate hikes could start to slow at the December meeting, Fed chief Powell said Wednesday, providing more-explicit support for a smaller increase at the upcoming meeting.” This caused equities to spike higher on Wednesday. As I mentioned – no follow-through on Friday.
Interview- Alasdair Macleod (Source – KWN); tidbits:
- Gold OI hits new lows. Suggests the market is very oversold.
- Hints of negotiations re: Ukraine (CIA meets Russian counterpart in Turkey); maybe U.S./RU try to come up with some sort of agreement?
- If true – buck plunges, gold rallies.
- No silver coin stock in London at all. This hints at possible shortages.
China Update – Temporary COVID Hospitals (Source – YT); starts@0.46, 4m of 8m video. Quick summary [note: youtuber lives in China; you must read between the lines]:
- “Temporary COVID Hospitals” = quarantine camps, construction of which qualifies as “infrastructure spending” for local governments, who must meet national government assigned spending targets. Building camps are a useful construction option if local government can’t sell land to developers due to the (Evergrande) housing bubble pop.
- Local governments borrow money (via bonds) to construct these camps. It is not a small amount of money; for some provinces, it is billions of dollars.
- The local governments then charge their own citizen-inmates to be placed in the camps because – Zero Covid – which covers interest payments.
- Zero Covid + camps + testing = a profit center for local governments.
It didn’t take much searching to reveal just how worthless the “influenza” vaccines really are. I mean, the Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNTV)=24,000 to save one life? And that’s in a good year! It kinda makes me flu vaccine hesitant. The mainstream isn’t there yet, given the uptake of 150 million injections ahead of the “low vitamin D” season in the northern hemisphere. Assuming that number isn’t just propaganda, of course.
There are a lot of conflicting signals in the markets right now. Something is going on with silver; the low open interest, the big rally – far more than gold – hints of shortages. At the same time, I’m guessing that the MSM’s assessment over Powell’s “pivot” is probably wrong. That labor market remains tight, and unless we have a severe slowdown, that tightness will probably continue. The other market-moving event: the possibility of negotiations on Ukraine. If it happens, the buck will probably plunge, and so would the price of U.S. natgas. Metals would rally, and probably so would SPX. General Winter will play a part. So, will that new BRICS currency. Perhaps negotiations will start when that currency gets closer to launch?
I continue to look for an explanation that makes sense for Zero Covid. This latest one – that Zero Covid is a profit center for local governments – probably explains a chunk of the local government enthusiasm for the policy. Also, the citizen-inmates appear to have figured out the scam. “You must pay to get tested, and if you fail, you must pay to be sent to a concentration camp.” My questions: 1) what happens to the local government debt taken on to build all these camps if/when Zero Covid ends? And 2) does focusing scarce resources on this “infrastructure” program make long term sense in terms of Comprehensive National Power for China? Maybe 3) this is a clever way to get local governments to build a concentration camp infrastructure. “For later. Just in case.” Consider: the camps in Germany started out as work camps. Sure didn’t end up that way, however.
“The Twitter Papers” release appears to be an agreement between Taibbi and Musk to publish the details of the government-Twitter censorship campaign via Twitter itself. Structure is: Taibbi gets the exclusive, Musk gets the traffic, and publication cannot be shut down. It is a win-win-win. This is a modern, self-published “Pentagon Papers” event, dribbled out slowly over time – just like the 47-volume Pentagon Papers, published a few pages at a time in the New York Times, back in 1971. Just think of the traffic! The Twitter Papers release makes all the anti-Twitter people look like fascist censorship worshippers. And it probably recruits a bunch of former Twitter users who previously fled Twitter in protest. The WEF/establishment is really unhappy with this outcome.
A lot of stuff is coming out. More every day. It all erodes confidence in “The Experts”. Even the Uniparty factotums in the Senate are now saying we shouldn’t force-vaccinate our troops. I don’t think the current outcome was a part of Event 201. How will they deal with all these new wrinkles?
My answer: I’ll close with a chart of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. I believe much of the WEF as well as most of the Biden-Handlers, and most of the Covid Nazi enforcers, are located in the red circled areas. They really aren’t that bright (their “test score” is pretty lame; they are basically “C” players, who only got into position due to their willingness to be a corrupt factotum), but they believe they are actually top thinkers. Another name for it: Mount Stupid. “I’m gonna fly my private jet to COP27, so I can save the world from Climate Change!” Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern, Rochelle Walensky – they epitomize the WEF/Dunning-Kruger Effect. That is who has been placed in charge, due to massive corruption. At least for right now.
Dunning-Kruger Effect. It’s a real thing. The stupider you are, the more likely you are to overestimate your own performance.
by vtgothic