What's Happening?
James Padinha
05/05/00 - 03:03 PM EDT
Mars Needs Guitars!
MELBOURNE, Fla. -- Is
this not one of those sneaky little pleasures? Like nabbin' the end piece of the meatloaf.
While tucking into this report, a few pointers to consider:
(a) Nonfarm employment grew 2.2% last year. It is growing at a 2.3% year-on-year rate now. Service-sector employment grew 2.9% last year. It is growing at a 2.7% rate now.
(b) The unemployment rate averaged 4.3% last year. It sits at 3.9% now. The pool of available workers averaged 10.4 million last year. It sits at 9.9 million now.
(c) Average hourly earnings rose 3.6% last year. They're rising at a 4.2% year-on-year rate now.
(d) The index of aggregate hours rose 2.0% last year -- a year, mind you, during which GDP rose 4.2% (and recall that we can think of output increases as the sum of the increases in hours worked and productivity). It grew 3.3% during the first quarter; it's on track to grow 3.9% during the second.
Rerun and Dee and You and Me
There will be no meaningful economic slowdown in the absence of a meaningful consumption slowdown; there will be no meaningful consumption slowdown in the absence of a meaningful employment slowdown.
What's happening?
Not that (see (a) above).
Central bankers want (as dastardly as it sounds) the unemployment rate to quit falling. And they want the job pool to quit shrinking ('cause they're afraid of what it will do to wages and then prices).
What's happening?
Not that (see (b)).
Central bankers want (as dastardly as it sounds) wage growth to quit accelerating.
What's happening?
Not that (see (c)).
Central bankers want to see the pace of economic growth cool.
What's happening?
Not that (see (d)).
Now.
Why are central bankers not like you and me?
'Cause they can keep doing what it is they do until they get what they want.
And so they will.
Hey HEY hey!!
Side Dish
Best What's Happening character? Dee. Rog. Rerun. Shirley. Dwayne.
