Mr Soros Trumps Mrs Watanabe

While the dominant flow of policy action from the Japanese has, until last week, been of the jawboning variety, the actual selling pressure on the rapidly devaluing currency has come from foreign sources. As the following chart shows, the last few months have seen not Mrs Watanabe (euphemistically selling her JPY to find better returns elsewhere) but the likes of Mr. Soros and Mr. Bass who see the endgame disorderly collapse of a currency (or perhaps it is the rest of the G7 central bankers unwinding JPY-based reserves to ‘help’ their fellow central planner out). The bulk of JPY selling pressure has come during non-Tokyo trading hours, as the Japanese, until last week at least, appear much more timid about Abenomics’ chances of success.

 

 

(h/t @InsideGame)

Zero Hedge

Mr Soros Trumps Mrs Watanabe

Oh no she didn"t! Advice on "Working with Bitches"

Dominance displays, posturing, submissive behavior — sound like anything you’ve seen at the office? Psychologist Meredith Fuller specializes in a certain subset of these behaviors — usually exhibited by women — behaviors we all know rather well. Cattiness. Dismissive, snide remarks. Cliques and talking behind people’s backs. Most of us associate this kind of stuff with high school, but it doesn’t end there.  It can make your life miserable at work. Fuller’s written a new book about this with the eye-catching title of “Working with Bitches.”

Fuller says she chose to use the word “bitch” in her book title for two reasons. First, everybody knows what you mean when you say ‘I work with a bitch.’ And second, the “new bitch” is fun and can be a positive thing. She says there’s nothing wrong with a woman who is assertive and tough in the workplace, but she wrote her book for more polite, concerned, earnest women who need a way to deal with the sort of behaviors that are more manipulative and cunning.

Fuller identifies eight different types of so-called office mean girls at work (find out about the different types of bitches and what you can do about them by clicking on the photo above).  She says low self-esteem is the reason some women engage in these devious behaviors.

“For a lot of us, we’ve got fears, anxieties, depressions, worries and we mask that. So a lot of the bitchy behavior is because [bitches] don’t know how to feel good enough and so they’re relying on these covert behaviors. But there’s always something they want. For example, that micro-managing boss who’s always saying this isn’t good enough, do it again, slashing with a red pen — often it’s their anxiety and they feel they’re going to mess up. They look at you and if you’re not very neat, that just screams terror for them that something will go wrong. And they’re worried that they’re not in control. The more they feel in control, the less they have to hassle you,” says Fuller. “So give them those updates before they ask, make your desk look neat every time they go back. That helps bring down their anxiety. It’s working at what is driving their behavior underneath what they’re showing you and try and resolve that for them so they don’t need to have that unconscious nastiness triggered.”

Men also exhibit alienating behaviors — like lying, narcissism or exclusion. But they are much more overt than women. To some men, engaging in manipulative behavior can almost seem like a game.

“We all engage in behavior to get a need met, but often what you notice is that it’s more subtle with women. It’s harder to read them,” says Fuller. “Women are more selective and are more able to play it so subtly with several mutterings and nonverbal behavior that a lot of the men don’t necessarily engage in. It’s more like it is what it is with a lot of men.”

Part of the issue with some women in the workplace is they have a desire to be liked whereas men are more likely to want to be feared at work.

“We’ve got mixed motivations [at work] and I think that’s what we pick up. What we’ve noticed is that historically women have felt they need to be more sly, surreptitious, cunning, manipulative and that’s what they’ve been rewarded for,” says Fuller. “What I really like, a lot of the young people we’re getting through — the more Gen Y’s — they’re actually saying, ‘Oh blow all of this. Let me be who I am and part of me is a range of behaviors.’ And that also allows men to have their range of behaviors.”

Fuller says she’s starting to see a massive paradigm shift where a lot of the old, rigid structures are beginning to be broken down. But we’re still in a period where bitchy behavior is something some workers have to cope with.

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Oh no she didn"t! Advice on "Working with Bitches"

Jobs +88,000, Unemployment Rate 7.6%, Household Survey Employment Drops by 206,000

Initial Reaction

The surge in employment fueled by part-time jobs and the Obamacare effect may finally be over. Although the establishment survey showed a gain of 88,000 jobs, the household survey, off which the unemployment rate is based, showed a loss of 206,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate edged lower by .1% because a whopping 496,000 people dropped out of the labor force.

Last month, voluntary part-time employment rose by a reported 446,000. It’s plain to see that last month’s numbers were a statistical aberration. This was a miserable jobs report from every angle.

March BLS Jobs Report at a Glance

• Payrolls +88,000 – Establishment Survey


• US Employment -206,000 – Household Survey


• US Unemployment -290,000 – Household Survey


• Involuntary Part-Time Work -230,000 – Household Survey;


• Voluntary Part-Time Work -163,000 – Household Survey


• Baseline Unemployment Rate -.01 – Household Survey


• U-6 unemployment -.05 to 13.8% – Household Survey


• The Civilian Labor Force -496,000 – Household Survey


• Not in Labor Force +663,000 – Household Survey


• Participation Rate -.02 to 63.3 – Household Survey

Recall that the unemployment rate varies in accordance with the Household Survey not the reported headline jobs number, and not in accordance with the weekly claims data.

Quick Notes About the Unemployment Rate

• In the last year, those “not” in the labor force rose by 2,069,000


• Over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by 1,266,000


• In the last year the number of unemployed fell from 12,686,000 to 11,742,000 (a drop of 944,000)


• Long-Term unemployment (27 weeks and over) was 4,611,000 – a decline of 186,000 from last month’s total of was 4,797,000


• Percentage of long-term unemployment is 39.6%. It has been hovering near 40% for at least a year. Once someone loses a job it is still very difficult to find another.

March 2013 Jobs Report

Please consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) March 2013 Employment Report.

Nonfarm payroll employment edged up in March (+88,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment grew in professional and business services and in health care but declined in retail trade.

Click on Any Chart in this Report to See a Sharper Image

Unemployment Rate – Seasonally Adjusted

Month to Month Change by Type of Job

Average weekly hours rose .1 to at 34.6 hours. A year ago average hours were 34.5 hours. Average hourly earnings rose $ 0.01 to $ 23.83.
In 2013, average hourly earnings are up $ 0.05.
Real wages have been declining. Add in increases in state taxes and the average Joe has been hammered pretty badly. For 2013, one needs to factor in the increase in payroll taxes for Social Security.

For further discussion of income distribution, please see What’s “Really” Behind Gross Inequalities In Income Distribution?

BLS Birth-Death Model Black Box

The BLS Birth/Death Model is an estimation by the BLS as to how many jobs the economy created that were not picked up in the payroll survey.

The Birth-Death numbers are not seasonally adjusted, while the reported headline number is. In the black box the BLS combines the two, coming up with a total.

The Birth Death number influences the overall totals, but the math is not as simple as it appears. Moreover, the effect is nowhere near as big as it might logically appear at first glance.

Do not add or subtract the Birth-Death numbers from the reported headline totals. It does not work that way.

Birth/Death assumptions are supposedly made according to estimates of where the BLS thinks we are in the economic cycle. Theory is one thing. Practice is clearly another as noted by numerous recent revisions.

Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2012

Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2013

Birth-Death Notes

Once again: Do NOT subtract the Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.

In general, analysts attribute much more to birth-death numbers than they should. Except at economic turns, BLS Birth/Death errors are reasonably small.

For a discussion of how little birth-death numbers affect actual monthly reporting, please see BLS Birth/Death Model Yet Again.

Household Survey Data

Decline in Labor Force Factors

1. Discouraged workers stop looking for jobs


2. People retire because they cannot find jobs


3. People go back to school hoping it will improve their chances of getting a job


4. People stay in school longer because they cannot find a job

Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 10%.

Part Time Status (in Thousands)

click on chart for sharper image

There are 7,638,000 workers who are working part-time but want full-time work. A year ago there were 7,664,000. There has been no improvement in a year. This is a volatile series.

Table 15 BLS Alternate Measures of Unemployment

click on chart for sharper image

Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.

Notice I said “better” approximation not to be confused with “good” approximation.

The official unemployment rate is 7.6%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 13.8%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Duration of Unemployment

Long-term unemployment remains in a disaster zone with 39.6% of the unemployed in the 27 weeks or longer category.

Grossly Distorted Statistics

Given the complete distortions of reality with respect to not counting people who allegedly dropped out of the work force, it is easy to misrepresent the headline numbers.

Digging under the surface, much of the drop in the unemployment rate over the past two years is nothing but a statistical mirage. Things are much worse than the reported numbers indicate.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Jobs +88,000, Unemployment Rate 7.6%, Household Survey Employment Drops by 206,000