So if you’re looking for a good trade that has a decent likelihood of paying off over time, and it might actually improve your life as a side effect, reducing chronic disease might be a great option. I mean – up to $13k/year for the next 30 years = $390k, and that’ll be money-printing-inflation-adjusted too. Maybe ask your financial advisor. At first glance, it seems tax-free – at least until “our” democracy (sickcare owners) get pissed off enough to start taxing people who have actual health.
Consumer Economy
Nonfarm Payrolls (PAYEMS) 159.5M +22K (+0.01% m/m)
Auto/Light Truck Sales (ALTSALES) 16.1M -478K (-2.97% m/m)
ISM Services (Index) 52.0 (prior 50.1); 50 = flat.
Headline Nonfarm Payrolls of just +22k looked pretty bad – but the unemployment rate (UNRATE) just inched up 0.1% to 4.3%. As context, UNRATE=4.3% was better (lower) than any UNRATE level from 2003 to 2016. So our current unemployment rate is “just fine”, even though in absolute terms, nonfarm payrolls are no longer growing.
While Powell “noticed” this in his speech in passing, the Fed seems Baffled as to why.
Of course, if the workforce (Looking+Employed) is mysteriously not growing – then a flat payrolls makes sense, and it would match with the tiny change in UNRATE, which still remains better than the entire period 2003-2016. If it’s like 2008, then only when it reaches 5% are we possibly concerned about a recession.
While overall auto/light-truck sales are mostly just chopping sideways at reasonable levels, heavy truck sales broke down to a new 4-year low (-4.60% m/m). It is not recessionary yet, but the trend looks bad. I use HTRUCKSSA as one of my recession indicators.
With a Disability
CNP (LNU00074597) 35.129m -760k -2.12%
CLF (LNU01074597) 8.809m -69k -0.78%
EMP (LNU02074597) 8.052m +64k +0.80%
NILF (LNU05074597) 26.321m -689k -2.55%
Overall, CNP (population) with a disability plunged, down 2% (-760k). That’s nominally good news. Is this a seasonal move (summertime = disability recovery) and/or all those “up-to-date” folks that panicked and got their boosters back in December/January, ahead of the horrible Conspiracy Theory Kennedy being sworn into HHS, and so their 2/4/6 month death+disability impulse has passed?
by sand_puppy 
