NO STRINGS ATTACHED NEWS THAT MAINSTREAM JUST WON'T COVER.
Before his death in 2002, Thomas told his daughter he regretting putting that much pressure on her at such a young age.
https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/wendys-founder-dave-thomas-apologized-to-daughter-for-naming-chain-after-her
Meanwhile In Canada: "Terrible" Jobs Report, Worst Since The Financial Crisis
As the US was basking in the warm glow of the best jobs report since January, it was a different story over in Canada, where BMO's chief economist Robert Kavcic had one recommendation to clients: "avert your eyes." Here's why: Canadian employment unexpectedly tumbled by 71,200 in November, the biggest decline since the financial crisis.
For those hoping that the details might serve up better news, they too were disappointed: Full-time employment was down 38.4k, and the private sector shed 50.2k. The jobless rate also rose sharply, up four ticks, and also the biggest monthly jump since the recession, to 5.9%.
Hours worked fell 0.3%, and remain an area of persistent disappointment—they’re now up just 0.25% y/y, much more muted than the 1.6% annual job gain. Oddly enough, the one area of strength was wages, with growth accelerating to match a cycle high at 4.5% y/y, according to Kavcic.
Putting it together, BMO's "grading system" gave this report a 12.1 rating out of 100, which is pretty much as bad as it can possibly get (it is in fact the worst rating in about six years of tracking).
The BMO economist wasn't alone in slamming the report: it’s a "terrible jobs report," said Wells Fargo strategist Brendan Mckenna. "There’s really not much you can point to that is positive about those numbers. We’ll probably hover around these levels til year-end."
With that said, the LFS has been known to have some violent swings, and we could be getting a lot of payback for previous outsized strength in one fell swoop. Looking at 1.6% y/y job growth, and an average monthly gain of 26k through November, those numbers look pretty consistent with underlying economic performance.
The "terrible" number may force the BOC to reassess its monetary policy. Earlier this week, the Bank of Canada presented a strong defense of its decision to stand pat on its policy rate for a ninth straight meeting. Deputy Governor Timothy Lane said policy makers believe Canada’s economy is near capacity. Recent developments, both domestic and global, have bolstered the central bank’s confidence that growth is poised to accelerate over the next couple of years, despite “enduring” uncertainty, he said.
In response to the jobs report, and anticipating a resumption in central bank easing, the loonie plunged as much as 0.7% to 1.3259 per dollar, its biggest decline since October...
.. putting it in a neck-and-neck race with the British pound for the No. 1 spot among major currencies in 2020 and threatening its status as one of this year’s top performing major currencies. Both the loonie and the pound have strengthened close to 3% this year against the greenback.
Tyler Durden Fri, 12/06/2019 - 10:57 Tags Business FinanceBuchanan: Democrats' Diversity - But, Only In The Back Of The Bus
Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,
The “Our diversity is our strength!” Party is starting to look rather monochromatic in its upper echelons these days.
The four leading candidates for its presidential nomination — Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg — are all white.
The six candidates who have qualified for the Dec. 19 debate — the front four, plus Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer — are all white.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are both white, as are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Whip Dick Durbin.
The chairs of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees managing impeachment, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, are both white. And as Congressman Al Green railed Wednesday, all three experts Nadler invited to make the Democrats’ case for impeachment were white law professors. How come?
Absent affirmative action by the DNC, neither Cory Booker, the leading black candidate for the nomination, nor Julian Castro, the leading Hispanic, will be on the stage Dec. 19.
But though there is zero racial diversity among the top six Democrats in the presidential field, there is gender, ethnic and ideological diversity.
Warren would be the first woman president; Sanders, the first Jewish nominee; and Buttigieg would be the first gay nominee.
Yet the lack of racial diversity across the party hierarchy is going to put immense pressure on Joe Biden, should he win the nomination. If he hopes to reunite the Obama coalition, a woman and/or person of color as his running mate would seem an absolute imperative.
And before Biden gets there, he has other problems.
His “No Malarkey” bus tour across Iowa is all about his fear that, if he loses Iowa on Feb. 3 and New Hampshire on Feb. 11, he may not survive to reach his South Carolina firewall on Feb. 25.
Though he leads in the national polls, Iowa and New Hampshire polls have Biden running as low as fourth. Never has a candidate contested and lost both those states and then gone on to win the nomination.
Nor are these Joe’s only problems.
Call them what you will — gaffes, mental lapses — his repeated verbal miscues, some of which have caused debate rivals to laugh out loud at Joe, are a cause of alarm among Democrats who fear a Biden-Trump TV debate could produce a debacle for their man.
Nor are the other front-runners without racial-ethnic problems.
African Americans are a bedrock constituency of the Democratic Party. In recent presidential elections, they have voted 90% for the party’s nominee, and even higher for Barack Obama.
How is Mayor Pete doing with this constituency?
While running first in some polls in Iowa, his share of the African American vote in South Carolina, in a recent poll, was zero. Buttigieg had no black support in a state where African Americans constitute more than 60% of the Democratic vote.
Bernie Sanders, an unapologetic socialist who went to the Soviet Union, Reagan’s “Evil Empire,” for his honeymoon, is holding on to half of the loyal base from his impressive 2016 race against Hillary Clinton.
The other half of Bernie’s base, however, has been captured by Warren. In October, she took the lead in national polls, only to lose that lead when she could not explain how, without major new taxes on the middle class, she could abolish private health insurance and put the entire country on the Medicare rolls.
And, like Bernie, she is weak with black Democrats, who will decide South Carolina one week before Super Tuesday, when 40% of all the Democratic delegates will be chosen.
How did Democrats arrive at this pass?
As the 2019-2020 campaign began, the party divided into two camps.
There is first the moderate-centrist-pragmatic wing, whose goal is the removal of Trump, and who will go with the Democrat who is the most certain to deliver that. Biden, who spent four decades in the Senate and as vice president, was liked by many and offended few, and was first in the polls, was their natural choice.
Then there is the ideological left of the party that wants not only to win but also to remake America. It was to this huge slice of the party that Warren and Bernie have made their radical appeals.
The promise of victory offered by Biden and the ideological agenda offered by Sanders and Warren trumped the ethnic appeal of Booker, Castro and Kamala Harris.
Now, with the arrival of moneybags Mike Bloomberg and his tens of millions of dollars in ads, almost certain to reach hundreds of millions before Super Tuesday, there is the possibility that four or five candidates will survive to the convention, with no one having a majority of delegates. And the horse-trading will begin.
My view: Super Tuesday will cut the field to two or three. And the nominee will be one of the six palefaces on the stage Dec. 19.
Tyler Durden Fri, 12/06/2019 - 10:35 Tags PoliticsHere Is The Main Reason For Today's Blockbuster Jobs Report
Following a disastrous ADP print two days ago, which showed that the US economy added just the second fewest number of private payrolls since March 2010, and a sellside "whisper" number that was about half the consensus expectation of 183K, moments ago the BLS stunned markets and delighted the administration with a blockbuster jobs report, according to which the US economy added 266K jobs, the biggest monthly increase since January, and leading to a near record divergence with what ADP indicated.
To be sure, peaking behind the headlines revealed some questionable data, like only an 83K increase in employment according to the Household survey, a 7K drop in mining jobs, a 4K decline in wholesale trade, a stagnant construction sector, lot of seasonal hiring, a catch up in census worker hires, and so on.
Warts aside, many are confused what was behind the surprise upside print, and how the payrolls print came 29K jobs more than the highest forecast among 78 economists. The simple answer: a surge in manufacturing workers. As shown in the chart below, 54K manufacturing workers were added in November, the most in over two decades, or since 1998, as a result of about 41K GM striking workers returning to their jobs. That said, the November surge was an offset to the 43K slide in October, so on net, the print was largely a wash between the two months.
So besides the one-time surge in manufacturing workers, where else did the jobs come from? Well, as the chart below shows, excluding a drop of 7K miners and 4.3K wholesale traders, every single job category was positive in November, as follows:
As has been the case for much of the past decade, in November the biggest job gains came from health care, which added 45,000 jobs, following little employment change in October (+12,000). The November job gains occurred in ambulatory health care services (+34,000) and in hospitals (+10,000). Employment in professional and technical services increased by 31,000 in November; this included 4.8K new temp jobs. As noted above, manufacturing employment rose by 54,000 in November, following a decline of 43,000 in the prior month. Within manufacturing, employment in motor vehicles and parts was up by 41,000 in November, reflecting the return of GM workers who were on strike in October. In November, employment in leisure and hospitality continued to trend up (+45,000). Employment in transportation and warehousing continued on an upward trend in November (+16,000). Within the industry, job gains occurred in warehousing and storage (+8,000) and in couriers and messengers (+5,000). Financial activities employment also continued to trend up in November (+13,000), with a gain of 7,000 in credit intermediation and related activities. Mining lost jobs in November (-7,000), largely in support activities for mining (-6,000). Mining employment is down by 19,000 since a recent peak in May. In November, employment in retail trade was about unchanged (+2,000). Within the industry, employment rose in general merchandise stores (+22,000) and in motor vehicle and parts dealers (+8,000), while clothing and clothing accessories stores lost jobs (-18,000). Employment in other major industries--including construction, wholesale trade, information, and government--showed little change over the month.And visually:
Or, as BofA shows it, here is the jobs heatmap:
... and here is a summary of average earnings:
Yet for all the attention that manufacturing jobs are getting this month, expect this series to return to its boring monotone of hugging the flat line, if modestly declining. The one series that does matter? Education and Health, because as America gets older and more frail, the one job that will be most in need is for more people to take care of the country's wealthy baby boomers. Sure enough, if one excludes this category, US jobs have been declining in the past year as the following ECRI chart shows.
Finally, lets not forget the "food services and drinking places" jobs: the relentless dynamo driving the US jobs market. Since February 2010, there have been just 5 months in 117 in which the number of waiters and bartenders in the US has posted a monthly decline, and November was no different.
UMich Consumer Confidence Surges In Early December Read
Having extended its bounce in November, UMich confidence survey was expected to rise modestly more in preliminary December data, but instead it soared (printing 99.2 vs 96.8 prior and well above the 97.0 expectation).
The components both rose for the 4th month in a row...
Current economic conditions index rose to 115.2 vs. 111.6 last month.
Expectations index rose to 88.9 vs. 87.3 last month.
Source: Bloomberg
Nearly all of the early December gain was among upper income households, who also reported near record gains in household wealth, largely due to increased stock prices and mainly benefitting retirement accounts.
Buying conditions soared across all aspects with Vehicles surging the most (durables rose to their highest level since last December)...
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, the data indicate the strong impact of partisanship on economic expectations, which has widened in the past few months.
Source: Bloomberg
Moreover, the gap has grown considerably in the past decade. The average gap between Democrats and Republicans was 18.7 points in the Obama administration and 41.6 points since Trump took office, with the more favorable views held by the President’s party. Importantly, the views of Independents closely track the overall Sentiment Index since Trump took office, with a mean of 96.6 versus 97.0 for all consumers.
The Sentiment Index has averaged 97.0 in the past three years, the highest sustained level since the all-time record in the Clinton administration.
Tyler Durden Fri, 12/06/2019 - 10:07 Tags Politics4 Dead After Two Robbers Hijack UPS Van, Ending In Epic Gun Battle On Florida Highway
Four people have been confirmed dead after a UPS truck was hijacked by two suspects following a robbery attempt of a jewelry store on South Florida's Miracle Mile Thursday, reported CBS Miami.
The suspects led police on a two-county rush-hour chase through Miami and ended in a hail of gunfire on Miramar Parkway and Flamingo Road in Miramar.
The incident began around 4 pm Thursday in Miami-Dade County, where two people attempted to rob a jewelry store on the Miracle Mile.
The suspects exchanged gunfire with the owner of the jewelry store, reported Coral Gables Police Chief Ed Hudak Jr.
The suspects then hijacked a UPS truck, abducting its driver, Hudak said.
Hudak said the chase went on for about 20 minutes during rush hour in Miami.
Chopper 4 captured the video of the chase. There was even video that went viral on social media showing at least 20 officers, some with assault rifles, engaging in an epic gun battle with suspects on Miramar Parkway and Flamingo Road.
"The armed suspects engaged law enforcement, opened fire, exchanged fire between law enforcement and the suspects," said George Piro, Special Agent in Charge of the Miami Field Office. "Unfortunately, the suspects are now deceased, but also two additional innocent civilians deceased."
Piro said the dead include both suspects, the UPS driver, and an innocent bystander killed in the car.
UPS said it was "deeply saddened to learn a UPS service provider was a victim of this senseless act of violence."
#BREAKING Carjacked #UPS truck chase connected to #CoralGables armed robbery ends in shootout with police in #Miramar at busy Flamingo Road intersection ... there are injuries @Telemundo51 pic.twitter.com/vNGRtMiWR5
— JRodriguez (@JRodzMIA) December 5, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js#BREAKING: Police chase ends with shots fired on Miramar Parkway just west of Flamingo. pic.twitter.com/Af4bmssRZ9
— WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) December 5, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsCrazy and tragic Shootout w/ robbery suspect in Miramar, Florida Armed robbers hijacked UPS truck after robbery in Coral Gables, leading police cars on a chase up Interstate 75 that ended w/ 4 people killed: 2 robbers, a UPS driver who was taken hostage & a bystander. #LivePD pic.twitter.com/IvPngwe6dO
— Dr. Carlos - Forensic Psychology Professor (@insidethebadge) December 6, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Tyler Durden Fri, 12/06/2019 - 10:02 Tags Law Crime
