Don't Believe the Hype

This is supposed to be good news?

The Labor Department said the economy added 274,000 jobs outside the farming sector in April, the fifth-largest gain in five years. Wall Street had expected an increase of 174,000 jobs, according to a survey by Bloomberg News.

Bulls are trying to use one month's probably outlier data to support their theory that the economy is doing fine. Look, stupids, it's not. The Fed is going to keep tightening rates which will put a damper on business. But the other culprit is corporate America, which has not been investing with its profits; it's been kicking them back to investors in the form of dividend payments and share buybacks. Yet the NYT describes the situation as:

the increased hiring hints that the economic slowdown reflected in other recent data may be no more than a pause.

I don't know where this reporter pulled that idea from, or if she has any background in economics, but anyone actually following the economy knows this to be an untruth. The rest of the article continues on in equally rosy language about the entire economy, disregarding every single bit of evidence contrary to this.

What is even more annoying in this type of economics reporting is the seeming market worship. The market has become people's new god and cult. They assume that the market will wreak what it will, and damned be the causes of what happens. There was not any analysis in that entire article as to what is really going on in the economy that would have sparked an outlier like that. People assume that the market will always yield the most favorable and natural outcome for all, but that is blatantly not true.