Well now this is interesting.
ADP’s private employment report came in negative, down 23,000. That wasn’t expected, and it sent the futures down a bit when released.
The pump monkeys have been telling us for the last month that we would see not only the census hiring this month (which we will) but that in addition private, full-time employment will be positive.
Uh, maybe not eh?
I’ve been saying since the start of this cock-and-bull game being played by the media that there is no real recovery happening in the economy. I can’t find it anywhere – I find some evidence of a leveling off of the declines, but that’s not the same thing as growth.
The dishonesty in the media in this regard has been breathtaking. Just yesterday Bloomberg ran the following article:
March 30 (Bloomberg) — The two-year slide in tax collections that opened a $196 billion gap in U.S. state budgets has stopped, easing pressure on credit ratings and giving leeway to lawmakers as they craft spending plans for next year.
This sounds like they actually measured the end of deterioration, right? You’d be wrong:
The 15 largest states by population forecast a 3.9 percent gain in tax revenue in fiscal 2011, budget documents show. The 50 states on average may increase collections by about 3.5 percent, the first time in two years the figure is expected to grow, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com,
FORECAST? By MOODY’s?
The very same Moody’s that claimed that all those subprime and ALT-A mortgages were “AAA” yet were laced through-and-through with fraudulent origination, hiding of debts, overstated incomes and bogus appraisals?
If you continue to read through the story you see that essentially all of the so-called “gains” are in fact predictions, not reality.
Yes, corporate tax receipts increased 3.4% – but remember, corporations pay taxes only on profits – and those profits have improved to a material degree. How? By firing people, that’s how! Yes, this means that some tax revenue comes in from corporate income taxes, but the fired employees in turn don’t pay taxes.
As in the 1930s, the truth always comes out.
It is just a matter of time.
