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Overstated Job Growth, Understated Inflation

They Dow is down ~250, Nasdaq down almost ~100 as I type this.

As the excuses and mea culpas roll out over the next few weeks, pay close attention to the following nonsense:

Its not our fault; We relied on BLS for NFP data, and its apparent now it was wrong. The CPI data out of the government was also incorrect, that was where we were led astray.

What bullshit.

We have been pounding the table -- here, in print, and on the tube -- for several years. There is no excuse for ignoring the obviously flawed data series. You had to be living in a different world of to buy into that.

There was an alternative universe where the Job growth was robust , inflation benign, the Housing bust  irrelevant, and the credit contagion contained. This universe was populated with pollyannas, perma-bulls, overtly political economists, and Wall Street cheerleaders. 

In this alt. universe, Retail is fine, the economic boom was caused by the 2003 tax cuts (not Fed cuts), and the core rate of inflation was all that mattered.

This was Goldilock's house -- only today, she got her foreclosure notice . . .

Friday, January 04, 2008 | 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (79) | TrackBack (0)
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Comments

"This universe was populated with pollyannas, perma-bulls, overtly political economists, and Wall Street cheerleaders."

They all bow to their leader...Larry Kudlow.

My prediction the other day that this will be the worst year in S&P history (-43% in 1931) is off to a good start. QID up 12% YTD. Understatment of the year by Dylan Ratigan..."sub-prime may be starting to affect tech stocks"...starting? QQQQ way underperformed every index today. Many top QQQQ stocks have short ratios of about 1/2!!!! Short of a lifetime.

Posted by: Steve Barry | Jan 4, 2008 4:12:34 PM