<sigh>:
U.S. job growth increased at a steady clip in October and the unemployment rate fell to a fresh six-year low, underscoring the economy's resilience in the face of slowing global demand.
Despite the strengthening labor market, wage growth remained tepid, suggesting little need for the Federal Reserve to hurry to start lifting interest rates.
Employers added 214,000 new jobs to their payrolls last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. The unemployment rate fell to 5.8% from 5.9%, even as more people entered the labor force — a further sign of strength.
"The report confirms that the U.S. remains the bright spot in....
Sorry, Thomson/Reuters, I zoned out there for a minute. Would you like some fries with that?
Either that, or 94.2% of the American people are "working" for the federal government, and the rest of us have officially ceased to exist. Yay?
Meanwhile, in something more closely approximating economic reality....:
While some analysts have expressed enthusiasm over the economy's [purported] 3.5% annualized growth in the third quarter, things aren't as good as they look, says New York Post columnist John Crudele.
"Our nation’s economic statistics are nipped and tucked, massaged, managed, fabricated and dolled up," he writes. "In short, our statistics are wrong, and Main Street folks know it."
Crudele doesn't quibble with the fact that the economy is growing moderately. "That’s pretty much certain, but it’s not growing as fast as the government would have you believe."
Hey, I did say "more closely approximating economic reality"; I didn't say Mr. Crudele was actually in it.
If you want the full frontal money shot, take it away John Morgan:
Unbelievably, just when America thought the housing market had healed at last, another mortgage crisis — Subprime Meltdown Part II — could be brewing.
It's entirely believable, actually.
This one is being wrought by the Obama administration, which has coordinated a bevy of regulatory agencies to once again loosen standards so the dream of home ownership can be realized by people unable to pay, according to an editorial in Investor's Business Daily.
But that dream could turn into a nightmare for the economy.
"Last month, while all eyes were on the election, Obama regulators quietly pulled off a hat trick on the easy-credit front," the newspaper reported.
"First, six regulatory agencies led by the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officially watered down standards for home loans packaged and sold to investors and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as securities. Mortgages with no down payment, weak credit and high debt-to-income ratios will face no legal liability."
As a result, mortgage-backed securities with subprime standards will no longer be called subprime. Instead, they will be designated as government-approved qualified residential mortgages.
Investor's Business Daily reported that SEC commissioners who objected to the relaxed lending rules got a lecture from President Obama at the White House. "Plus, radical communizers bombarded the agencies with more than 10,000 form letters complaining that stricter mortgage requirements would deny low-income minorities access to credit."
At the same time, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt began finalizing a new regulation to place "affordable housing quotas" on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to the newspaper.
"According to the proposed rule, Watt will force Fannie and Freddie to devote more of their mortgage portfolios to 'very low-income' borrowers in high-minority census tracts," the editorial stated.
In addition, Watt noted that the agencies will resume their risky, precrisis practice of buying mortgages with as little as 3 percent down and "less-than-perfect credit."
"So, in the name of diversity, the administration is ordering Fannie and Freddie to accept higher shares of substandard mortgages from un-creditworthy applicants. So here we go again, mortgage crisis deja vu — financial reform be damned," concluded Investor's Business Daily.
This Democrat Financial Logic Bomb II is not the result, as the Wall Street Journal argues, of "worries in Washington that the housing recovery could falter," because there is no "housing recovery". It is, however, the result of Obama Regime plans to trigger the bookend "exploitable crisis" by which The One can entrench himself as president-for-life or lock in Senator Elizabeth Warren as his designated successor and sweep out the newly regained GOP congressional majorities in 2016, all in one fell, panicky swoop. Assuming, of course, that amnesty decrees, ebola epidemics, rampaging jihadists, nationwide race riots, and/or the Sino-Russian Axis don't beat another, final, total economic collapse to the punch.
Would you like to supersize that?
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