Well, well. Notwithstanding all the gloom and doom from the leftist media, it turns out businesses in the U.S. are doing great. Actually, the economy is humming; who would have seen that coming?
“US companies’ earnings are growing at the fastest pace in four years, defying predictions that President Donald Trump’s trade war would trigger a slowdown across corporate America.”
Not only are earnings growing, they have outpaced expectations. Goldman Sach’s equity strategist wrote in a recent note, “In our 25-year data history, this frequency of earnings surprises has been surpassed only during the Covid reopening period in 2020-2021.”
Moreover, the party isn’t over. Analysts expect ongoing above-trend earnings growth in the fourth quarter, too.
But what about all those gloomy reports of job cuts? Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas (truly, one of the great names) made headlines recently with the sobering news: “JOB CUTS SURPASS 1 MILLION; HIGHEST OCTOBER TOTAL SINCE 2003. COMPANIES CITE COST-CUTTING, AI IN OCTOBER”.
Yes, a bunch of companies laid off workers in October, and AI is definitely having an impact, which is worrisome. (I recently wrote a piece for FoxNews.com about how job losses to this incredibly fast-moving new technology could bolster the Socialist wave.
But less highlighted is that government job losses are the dominant factor in the Challenger report. If people bothered to go beyond the headlines, they would find that of the one million job cuts announced to date, 307,638 were from the government. Technology is the other big loser, with more than 140,000 jobs lost.
Don’t misunderstand – those jobs lost by government workers are just as painful as those from the private sector. But those cuts are not reflective of a softening job market or slowing economy. In fact, eventually they should mean greater private-sector growth. Here’s the Challenger report, if anyone is interested. .
Pundits and analysts are freaking out over the lack of official government data, delayed by the government shutdown, which is meant to tell us what is really happening in the jobs market. I find that funny because the employment reports have been completely wrong month after month; I cannot at all understand why we (and important folks like Jay Powell at the Federal Reserve) keep treating the BLS month job tallies as the Holy Grail of information. I’d rather rely on private sector reports, like this from Bank of America, which came out this week:
“According to Bank of America internal data, jobs growth held steady in October, with easing wage pressures and no spike in unemployment. Bank of America internal data suggests that, in our view, there was no significant further slowdown in the labor market in October.”
Everyone should be non-stop suspicious of all left-wing media reporting on the economy. Understand: Bloomberg, CNBC, and all the rest are absolutely committed to helping the Trump White House fail. They know that the midterms, and Trump’s ability to push forward with his agenda, will hinge on the economy and – as important – people’s impression of it, which they can manipulate.
My advice: do your own homework and challenge every report you see!
