Peter's Blog

Labor Market Showing Cracks as Job Openings Decline More Than Expected

Despite back-to-back contractions in GDP, President Joe Biden, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and all of their supporters in the corporate media insist the US economy isn’t in a recession. But the only data they ever point to in order to back up their assertion is the “strong” labor market. The problem […]

This Jobs Report Revealed Strength in Inflation, Not the Labor Market

The January jobs report came in much stronger than expected. According to the labor department, the US economy added 467,000 jobs last month. This was significantly better than the 150,000 job projection. But there was some bad inflation news buried in the Labor Department data.

December Jobs: All but One Category are Way Behind 12-Month Trend

November had been the weakest jobs report of the year until a meager 199k were announced for December. As shown below, over the last 18 months, only December 2020 was weaker. This was right when the Covid second wave was wreaking havoc and before vaccines became available to the public.

Study: Enhanced Unemployment Benefits Enhanced Unemployment

Incentives matter. All of the political grandstanding, media spin and wishful thinking won’t change this basic economic principle. Both Janet Yellen and Joe Biden insisted “enhanced” unemployment benefits weren’t incentivizing people not to work. But as we recently reported, analysis of continuing unemployment claims after a number of red states cut enhanced benefits undermined this […]

Incentives Matter

Economics 101 – incentives matter. But politicians often seem to forget this. Or simply ignore it. “Generous” unemployment benefits provide the perfect example. With the US government handing out enhanced unemployment checks, we ended up in a bizarre situation with high unemployment even as job openings hit record levels.

Markets Are Moving on a Fantasy

We’ve seen a sharp selloff in both gold and silver. Gold was down over $40 an ounce Friday. Meanwhile, the US dollar saw a sharp increase, along with a rise in long-term Treasury yields. The catalyst for these sharp moves was a better-than-expected jobs report and expectation that it will spark a quick pivot to […]

Government Jobs Account for Nearly a Quarter of July Gains

The BLS provides an employment picture of the US on the first Friday of every month. It estimates how many jobs were added or subtracted by sector. While some of the assumptions may be controversial (e.g. the birth/death model) and job numbers are prone to revisions, it remains the most widely anticipated statistic each month by […]

How Long Can They Keep This Thing Going? SchiffGold Friday Gold Wrap July 9, 2021

This week, the IMF undercut the Fed’s “transitory” inflation narrative, warning about the possibility of sustained inflation in the US. But the real question remains unanswered – what will the Fed do about it? In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about the options on the table. None of […]

Peter Schiff: The Jobs Report Was Weaker Than Headlines Suggest

Despite the addition of a better than expected 850,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate ticked up to 5.9%, The anticipation was that it would drop to 5.6%. The media spun this as a fantastic jobs report, focusing on the headline number of jobs “created.” Peter Schiff talked about it in his podcast and said […]

Government “Job Creation” Is a Big Drag on Society

The labor market is a mess. Millions of people are collecting unemployment. Meanwhile, businesses across the country are having a hard time filling positions. In what kind of world does this make sense?