Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Job Openings: Construction + Manufacturing + Retail Trade


Click to enlarge.

It is election night and I am still permabearish.

See Also:
Trend Line Disclaimer

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart

5 comments:

Stagflationary Mark said...

The long-term trend is down.

The path in red doesn't look any better than the path in blue did.

Who Struck John said...

Hey, at least the path in red hasn't failed like the blue path did ... yet ...

Stagflationary Mark said...

Who Struck John,

Yeah, that's something I guess.

Here's some more good news. There's nothing forcing it to fail to the downside when it fails. Right?

An endless wave of hurricanes could hit our coasts. That could boost construction jobs. Meanwhile, a volcano could erupt and hot molten manufacturing jobs could ooze from the earth's core. And lastly, our malls could overflow with Chinese tourists intending to buy a piece of American history before it's too late. This could easily boost retail trade employment!

I just need to assign a few probabilities to the best case scenario and call it good, lol. Sigh.

Gallows humor.

mab said...

The path in red doesn't look any better than the path in blue did.

There may be a silver lining though - if we fall, it will be from a lower height!

Speaking of hurricanes, Northern NJ was/is a mess. Gasoline, power, etc. are still in short supply. For a while even food was in short supply. On numerous occasions I overheard people talking about the movie "Mad Max".

People love to complain about the Gov't and the utility companies, but it's an enormous undertaking just getting the area back to some semblance of normal.

Hey, it's 2012!

Stagflationary Mark said...

mab,

There may be a silver lining though - if we fall, it will be from a lower height!

Yes! And If the stock market crashes and burns yet again, then it may rise from the ashes yet again, lol. Sigh.

Gallows humor.

In all seriousness, I think Sandy trumps our Mount St. Helens. I was 15 years old when that mountain blew its top. I was 300 miles away. It was pitch black in the middle of the day as the ash began to fall. We got about an inch. It was very much like powdered concrete and just about as hard to get rid of. Our school closed early that year. It's gymnasium was filled with stranded motorists.

I did much of the work to clear our driveway. I remember filling that first wheelbarrow. I could not lift its handles. I seriously underestimated how much the ash weighed.