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March back into the black: 196,000 jobs added, unemployment steady at 3.8%

So much for the winter doldrums. After an unexpected pothole in job creation in February, the US economy rebounded in March to add 196,000 jobs. Unemployment remained steady, although that came in part from a slight drop in the labor force. The news was especially good in the health-care industry:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 196,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in health care and in professional and technical services.  …

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 196,000 in March, with notable gains in health care and in professional and technical services. Employment growth averaged 180,000 per month in the first quarter of 2019, compared with 223,000 per month in 2018. (See table B-1.)

Health care added 49,000 jobs in March and 398,000 over the past 12 months. Over the month, employment increased in ambulatory health care services (+27,000), hospitals (+14,000), and nursing and residential care facilities (+9,000). Employment in professional and technical services grew by 34,000 in March and 311,000 over the past 12 months. In March, computer systems design and related services added 12,000 jobs. Employment continued to trend up in architectural and engineering services (+6,000) and in management and technical consulting services (+6,000).

Wage growth continued at a modest pace, ticking up four dollars a week, and the average workweek expanded a little as well. For that matter, the revisions to previous months were all modestly positive, adding in 14,000 more jobs than previously reported in the last two months combined.

Although the actual figures in the Household survey for the labor force dropped a bit, that measure is notoriously volatile anyway. The labor force participation ratio remained steady at 63.0%, on the high side of a narrow spectrum over the past six years, and the employer-participation ratio remained even steadier at 60.6%. That measure hasn’t deviated more than a tenth of a point in the last six months.

Altogether, it’s a good but not spectacular report. The three-month rolling average now stands at 180,000, which exceeds the maintenance level needed for population growth but doesn’t indicate a rapid expansion. To some extent, we may not have the labor capacity any longer to feed a rapid expansion, with the growth over the last two years eating into the overhang from the Great Recession. The uptick in wages and hours also reflects that status as labor gets tight and employers have to offer more hours and better compensation to compete for it.

CNBC’s Jeff Cox also calls it a rebound, although he notes that wage growth slowed up a little:

Job creation posted a solid rebound in March, with nonfarm payrolls expanding by 196,000 and the unemployment rate holding steady at 3.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

That was better than the 175,000 Dow Jones estimate and comes after a dismal February that had economists wondering whether the decade-old economic expansion was nearing an end. The unemployment rate met expectations.

Wage gains fell off the recent strong pace, increasing just 0.14% for the month and 3.2% year over year, below expectations of the 3.4% pace from last month. The average work week increased by 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours. …

Broadly speaking, the report is likely to restore some confidence in a labor market that had looked shaky and an economy whose prospects were equally uncertain.

Reuters also notes that wage growth slowed in March, but Lucia Mutikani writes that the overall report should rebut fears that the economy might be heading into recession:

U.S. employment growth accelerated from a 17-month low in March as milder weather boosted activity in sectors like construction, which could further allay fears of a sharp slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter. …

The economy has shifted into lower gear as stimulus from the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion tax cut package as well as increased government spending fades. A trade war between Washington and Beijing, and slowing global growth have also taken a toll on the economy, which in July will celebrate 10 years of expansion, the longest on record.

The employment report added to fairly upbeat construction spending and factory data that led Wall Street banks to boost their growth estimates for the first quarter.

If Donald Trump can cut a deal with China, there may still be some untapped potential for bigger growth and with it more wage competition. That will likely not get settled in April, though, so perhaps we should expect this modest level of growth to be the best-case scenario for a while.

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Final frontier for campus thought police: Alumni reunions

The takeover of elite higher education institutions is nearly complete, with the vast diversity bureaucracies able to intimidate students and faculty into compliance with speech codes, and undergo thought reform, so that they never, for example, unthinkingly use the personal pronouns “she” and “her” just because a person obviously has two X-chromosomes.  But academia is known as an “ivory tower” because it is a separate universe from the society and economy that supports it. Only by monopolizing speech control on campus can the unwilling minds being force-indoctrinated into speech and thought entirely new in the history of civilization.

But there is danger for the progressive panjandrums ruling campus speech and thought:  what about alumni – especially alumni whose campus experience pre-dates the takeover of academia by the thought controllers? They have the potential to break the monopoly and introduce dangerous ideas. So, they must be controlled when they return to campus for reunions.

The result is something like this memorandum distributed by Cornell University to alumni telling them to follow their speech code when visiting (hat tip: Robert Shibley, Instapundit):

Aside from being patronizingly insulting, there is one major problem with this. The entire reason that campuses hold reunions of elderly alumni is to shill for donations, especially in the wills of the soon-to-expire former students. Telling them that they are ignorant, crude, thoughtless barbarians is not a good approach to wheedling a mention in the last will and testament of an alumnus.

This is not a purely academic concern (pardon me the pun) for me. Next month I am attending my 50th reunion at Kenyon College, which, alas, has fallen to the forces of political correctness just like every other elite (the ones US News and World Report defines as “highly selective” – which is what makes it worthwhile for parents to bribe their children’s way in) college and university. If they try anything this stupid, they will hear from me and probably from my classmate Richard Baehr, co-founder of American Thinker, as well as, I suspect, a number of other alumni in our class with whom I have remained in touch these many decades.  (In fact, they will hear from me anyway, but using other ammunition).

I intend to write about my experiences and my assessment of the changes in campus life over five decades, so you probably will see some commentary.  

The takeover of elite higher education institutions is nearly complete, with the vast diversity bureaucracies able to intimidate students and faculty into compliance with speech codes, and undergo thought reform, so that they never, for example, unthinkingly use the personal pronouns “she” and “her” just because a person obviously has two X-chromosomes.  But academia is known as an “ivory tower” because it is a separate universe from the society and economy that supports it. Only by monopolizing speech control on campus can the unwilling minds being force-indoctrinated into speech and thought entirely new in the history of civilization.

But there is danger for the progressive panjandrums ruling campus speech and thought:  what about alumni – especially alumni whose campus experience pre-dates the takeover of academia by the thought controllers? They have the potential to break the monopoly and introduce dangerous ideas. So, they must be controlled when they return to campus for reunions.

The result is something like this memorandum distributed by Cornell University to alumni telling them to follow their speech code when visiting (hat tip: Robert Shibley, Instapundit):

Aside from being patronizingly insulting, there is one major problem with this. The entire reason that campuses hold reunions of elderly alumni is to shill for donations, especially in the wills of the soon-to-expire former students. Telling them that they are ignorant, crude, thoughtless barbarians is not a good approach to wheedling a mention in the last will and testament of an alumnus.

This is not a purely academic concern (pardon me the pun) for me. Next month I am attending my 50th reunion at Kenyon College, which, alas, has fallen to the forces of political correctness just like every other elite (the ones US News and World Report defines as “highly selective” – which is what makes it worthwhile for parents to bribe their children’s way in) college and university. If they try anything this stupid, they will hear from me and probably from my classmate Richard Baehr, co-founder of American Thinker, as well as, I suspect, a number of other alumni in our class with whom I have remained in touch these many decades.  (In fact, they will hear from me anyway, but using other ammunition).

I intend to write about my experiences and my assessment of the changes in campus life over five decades, so you probably will see some commentary.  

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Why All the Blame for Venezuela’s Woes Falls on Chavez and Maduro

After my recent Spanish-language column at Univision.com looked at the economic collapse in Venezuela, I heard from proponents of socialism who tried to blame the disaster not on the socialist policies of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, but on American economic sanctions.

The past week saw even more terrible news from Venezuela, with a week-long power outage and images of people in a once-wealthy country now reduced to getting drinking water from tainted rivers.

It’s essential that we draw the right lessons—so that no one else makes the mistake of going down this same road.

The track record shows that long after Hugo Chavez was elected—and long after he imposed destructive policies that put Venezuela on the road to economic ruin—Venezuela continued to benefit from strong economic ties with the U.S.

The Maduro regime and its supporters abroad like to blame sanctions, but according to the Congressional Research Service, the first U.S, economic sanctions on the Caracas government did not begin until 2008, and even those were limited to only a few individuals and institutions. More serious U.S. sanctions came years later.

The numbers show that Americans and American companies continued boosting the Venezuelan economy with trade and investment well into the reign of Chavez.

American investment in Venezuela—investment that supported job creation—actually grew in the years after 2000—reaching $13.5 billion in 2008.

After a brief two-year dip, it began climbing again and exceeded $13 billion in 2013. So, American investors were committing resources to Venezuela in ways that helped increase economic opportunity.I

It’s a similar story with imports and exports. In the year 2000, total annual trade between the United States and Venezuela was under $24 billion. By 2008, two-way trade had climbed to nearly $64 billion—with more than $50 billion going from the United States to Venezuela in just one year to pay for imports from that country.

By 2012, trade between the two countries had slowed somewhat, but even then it totaled nearly $60 billion—still a large increase during the Chavez years.

We know that Chavez made major destabilizing changes in Venezuela long before. Chavez was first elected in Venezuela in 1998, vowing to fight corruption and make sure that national wealth was shared more broadly and fairly.

In 2001, he pushed through a land confiscation and redistribution scheme tthat failed, leading to reduced food production and increased need for imports.

The land “reform,” combined with the currency controls imposed in 2003, badly hurt Venezuela’s agricultural sector. Those failures weren’t the result of any outside interference; they were homegrown.

Chavez imposed numerous other changes as well, many intended to shut down criticism and concentrate power in his hands and those of his cronies. In 2002, he purged PDVSA, the national oil company, of dissidents and critics of his socialist policies and leadership, then continued purges the next year.

Not surprisingly, oil output in Venezuela began a multiyear decline during and after these purges.

In 2003, Chavez began imposing price controls. In 2005 came the breakup of large estates and regulations to punish critics in the media. In 2006, the outright nationalization of private companies began. That same year saw a military deal with Russia.

Yet through all of this, American investment in Venezuela continued and grew, and trade between the two nations actually expanded. American sanctions didn’t contribute to the growing economic problems during this era, because there were none.

In 2009, the government imposed production quotas for staples, leading to shortages. In 2010, Chavez devalued the currency, the bolivar, to try to boost oil revenues. Moves like that may produce short-term results, but they destabilize the economy and frighten investors, hurting growth in the longer term.

In 2012 came more price controls, and then Chavez’s victory in a fourth consecutive presidential election—but only after he pushed through the abolition of term limits, grabbing more power for himself.

And while Chavez and his successor, Maduro, imposed new and damaging policies on Venezuela’s economy, they enriched themselves at the expense of their people.

Chavez’s net worth was estimated to be more than $1 billion when he died in 2013, and his family had partnered with criminals to skim $100 billion from the national economy.

Nowadays, Chavez’s family members and those of Maduro flaunt wealth estimated to be in the billions, wealth that’s been sucked out of the Venezuelan economy over the years.

Chavez’s former bodyguard-turned-treasurer has admitted to receiving more than $1 billion in bribes. These private fortunes are the corrupt legacy of populists who promised to spread the nation’s wealth more widely.

When you look at Venezuela over the past 20 years, you see the result of leaders who were sure that they knew better how to manage an economy than millions of consumers and producers. These government experts tried to dictate prices and currency values, as well as what is produced and by whom.

They thought they could manage an incredibly complex economy, down to the last detail. They failed—as all government management is prone to when it becomes more complex.

And what is worse, when the failures became clear, Chavez and Maduro didn’t change course—nor did they learn a lesson. Instead, at every step, they doubled down. The result was a complete collapse of the economy and the nation in a disaster that is impoverishing millions.

We should all be able to see this collapse for what it is—and commit to not repeat these terrible mistakes.

A version of this column originally appeared in Spanish at Univision.com.

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WOW! This Will Blow You Away! Donald Trump 2020 Trailer — There’s Only ONE Choice (VIDEO)

This Donald Trump 2020 Trailer posted on Friday will blow you away.

The choice is clear.
Four more years of the greatest economic comeback in history — or open borders and Venezuela economic policies.

Via Jack Posobiec and Wojciech Pawelczyk.

And then there are the Democrat-Socialists who want to destroy the economy, open the borders, and jail political opponents.

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Buried lede: So now we have caravans loading up with migrants from Sri Lanka, Congo, Haiti…?

In its story about thousands of caravan migrants encountering a slow-walk for ”humanitarian” visas of passage to the U.S. from Mexican officials, Reuters let out a doozy of a detail way down in its story about the matter:

At the border town of Tapachula, near the southern tip of Mexico bordering Guatemala, another group included people from Sri Lanka, Congo and Haiti, a federal official said. Some migrants said Mexican officials had slowed down the process of awarding the visas or denied them outright without providing any explanation.

A small group lashed out at border officials in Tapachula on Tuesday over the delays, throwing rocks and breaking windows of a local migration institute building.

Lovely bunch, aren’t they, with their demands for instant customer service from Mexican officials.

They’ve obviously got a lot of money for plane flights to places like Mexico along with cartel smuggler fees, and therefore are accustomed to such service. In fact, they are convinced they are entitled to it, same as they get at the Hertz counter. When they don’t, the resort to road rage-style brick-throwing.

What it suggests is that the caravans have gone global. They’ve been marketed in the press and by its NGO allies and by the Catholic Church as a Central America thing, but they’re now attracting far more than Central Americans now. The world was watching closely as President Trump dealt with the border debacle with the arrival of the first Central American caravan late last year – and they could see that leftist judges and congresspeople defeating him every time, unable to keep the illegal migrants out. And with Europe cracking down on the big migrant waves and sending the boats back to Libya and elsewhere, the migrants with money have decided they’ll come here through Mexico, too. They’ve concluded it’s a can’t-lose proposition.

They represent a far bigger migrant market – and cartel profit center than just the entire Central American bloc. So, instead of 1.5 million migrants from Central America expected to arrive here this year – the number can swell enormously higher. These global migrants can see the loopholes that enabled people such as ungrateful Honduran “Lady Frijoles,” recently charged with assault with a deadly weapon in Dallas, to come here scot-free. Asylum claims give any asker at least three free years of working in the U.S. as they await a judge’s decision about their claims, meaning, being sent back still yields three free years of working in America, and with instant customer service from U.S. officials, all at zero cost.

Compare and contrast to what U.S. legal immigration takes – 10 years of waiting in line for service, thousands of dollars of costs, lots of lost paperwork from U.S. officials, and no free time working in America as they await claims.

What’s a migrant going to do? Europe’s pulling up the drawbridge. America is letting everyone in for free. If leftist judges and U.S. congressional leftists thought that freebie for Cental Americans was going to stay with Central American migrants alone, they had another thing coming. Plane flights are cheap and frequent now.

Build an open border - and they will come.

 

Image credit: Ggia, via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 4.0

In its story about thousands of caravan migrants encountering a slow-walk for ”humanitarian” visas of passage to the U.S. from Mexican officials, Reuters let out a doozy of a detail way down in its story about the matter:

At the border town of Tapachula, near the southern tip of Mexico bordering Guatemala, another group included people from Sri Lanka, Congo and Haiti, a federal official said. Some migrants said Mexican officials had slowed down the process of awarding the visas or denied them outright without providing any explanation.

A small group lashed out at border officials in Tapachula on Tuesday over the delays, throwing rocks and breaking windows of a local migration institute building.

Lovely bunch, aren’t they, with their demands for instant customer service from Mexican officials.

They’ve obviously got a lot of money for plane flights to places like Mexico along with cartel smuggler fees, and therefore are accustomed to such service. In fact, they are convinced they are entitled to it, same as they get at the Hertz counter. When they don’t, the resort to road rage-style brick-throwing.

What it suggests is that the caravans have gone global. They’ve been marketed in the press and by its NGO allies and by the Catholic Church as a Central America thing, but they’re now attracting far more than Central Americans now. The world was watching closely as President Trump dealt with the border debacle with the arrival of the first Central American caravan late last year – and they could see that leftist judges and congresspeople defeating him every time, unable to keep the illegal migrants out. And with Europe cracking down on the big migrant waves and sending the boats back to Libya and elsewhere, the migrants with money have decided they’ll come here through Mexico, too. They’ve concluded it’s a can’t-lose proposition.

They represent a far bigger migrant market – and cartel profit center than just the entire Central American bloc. So, instead of 1.5 million migrants from Central America expected to arrive here this year – the number can swell enormously higher. These global migrants can see the loopholes that enabled people such as ungrateful Honduran “Lady Frijoles,” recently charged with assault with a deadly weapon in Dallas, to come here scot-free. Asylum claims give any asker at least three free years of working in the U.S. as they await a judge’s decision about their claims, meaning, being sent back still yields three free years of working in America, and with instant customer service from U.S. officials, all at zero cost.

Compare and contrast to what U.S. legal immigration takes – 10 years of waiting in line for service, thousands of dollars of costs, lots of lost paperwork from U.S. officials, and no free time working in America as they await claims.

What’s a migrant going to do? Europe’s pulling up the drawbridge. America is letting everyone in for free. If leftist judges and U.S. congressional leftists thought that freebie for Cental Americans was going to stay with Central American migrants alone, they had another thing coming. Plane flights are cheap and frequent now.

Build an open border - and they will come.

 

Image credit: Ggia, via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 4.0

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Trump’s media critics pressure foundation to scrap Secretary Pompeo’s award

What can be made of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation’s last minute decision to rescind its historic Freedom Award from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo? Pompeo was chosen in recognition of his and President Trump’s success in getting hostages released. It is an impressive record for just a bit more than 2 years that totals 20 people, 17 of whom are American. Journalist James Foley, to refresh your memory, was beheaded at the hands of ISIS in 2014.

The foundation made an announcement that at its dinner Tuesday night at the National Press Club Pompeo would receive the 2019 Foley American Hostage Freedom Award. And, just like that, Pompeo’s award was rescinded and he was also disinvited to even attend the event. The award was given to former Obama administration diplomat Brett McGurk who helped with the release of Americans from Iran, including Jason Rezaian, a journalist who received the foundation’s journalism award. McGurk resigned in a snit with much publicity from his holdover position with the Trump administration in December 2018 because of Trump’s decision to pull troops from Syria.

The award was to recognize Pompeo and the administration’s focus on freeing Americans held prisoners around the world, a campaign that has topped the president’s foreign policy agenda and inspired the appointment of a “special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.”

The group even posted its decision online in its invitation for supporters to pay up to $50,000 a table to attend the awards banquet.

But soon after it was announced, the foundation withdrew it. What’s more, they also disinvited Pompeo from the event due to protests from angered media members who threatened to disrupt the event.

Instead, the foundation gave Pompeo’s award to Brett McGurk, the Obama-era diplomat who helped win the release of Americans from Iran, including journalist Jason Rezaian. Rezaian received the group’s journalism award.

So, what on earth happened here? This is a kind of completely avoidable mess that Secretary Pompeo does not deserve. The story goes that some of Pompeo’s (and by extension, Trump’s) betters in the press were not pleased with the selection of Pompeo and began to threaten to boycott the event, so desperate are they to deny any kind of acknowledgment of success to the Trump administration. The keynote speaker, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour also voiced her concern. According to reports, CNN is quite cowardly sending all inquiries into the matter back to the Foley Foundation. Unreal.

The foundation pinned a tweet – a tweet that stays at the top of their Twitter feed – just a few hours ago as I write this Thursday night that is a statement on why they did the last-minute change. The reason given is that the Trump administration didn’t push hard enough for accountability in the death of Washington Post journalist/foreign influence agent Jamal Khashoggi. I guess they have had backlash from the public after this hideous story began to be reported.

Secretary Pompeo wrote a gracious letter to Mrs. Foley, mother of James and founder after this travesty. She personally told Pompeo when he was chosen for the honor. After telling her what an inspiration James was Pompeo got to the point. The ugliness of Trump Derangement Syndrome has infiltrated absolutely everything, even the rescue of American hostages overseas.

“How sad is it that base politics and hatred have been allowed to creep into even this sphere of our national activity? The safe recovery of Americans held hostage overseas should be beyond politics and must enjoy the support of all Americans. I regret that pressure of such a cynical and abominable nature was brought to bear on you and John,” he added in a reference also to James Foley’s father.

Before the award dinner, Pompeo hosted a reception for families of Americans held captive overseas. He assured them of his commitment to bring them home.

It’s a slap in the face to the memory of James Foley if you ask me. His bravery and death are honored by a foundation set up by his mother and father. Now, because it’s the era of Trump, mob rule by the American media is now allowed to make decisions on the distribution of awards. How sick is that?

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‘Meet the Press Daily’ Host: Asylum Seekers Are ‘Flooding the System’ on the Border

MSNBC host Chuck Todd said asylum seekers from Central and South America are "flooding the system in ways they’ve never flooded it before" on the United States’ southern border with Mexico.

Todd’s comment came during a panel discussion on MSNBC’s Meet the Press about Republican and Democratic responses to increased numbers of immigrants seeking refuge in the United States.

"What I don’t get here, is the president could be putting Democrats in a bit of a box," Todd said to former Rep. Donna Edwards (D., Md.) . "This is a problem. This is a crisis that we’re in the midst of because of, ‘where do we put the asylum seekers?’ This is a moment where government needs to function, and instead he’s trying to make it less functional."

"The president has also created the crisis," Edwards replied. "For Democrats right now, the most important thing to them is, ‘Is the president going to follow mandates of the Congress?’"

Edwards then laid out the Democratic position, which does not included money for a border wall: "For Democrats, we’re going to exercise our authority."

"But he didn’t completely create the crisis,"said New York Times Washington correspondent Charlie Savage. "We are totally deluged. There’s no place to hold the sheer numbers."

"When you’re not reviewing asylum seekers according to the law, then it does create a problem," Edwards said.

"But they are flooding the system in ways they never did before," Todd said, in agreement with Savage.

Todd concluded the conversation by criticizing President Donald Trump for publicizing the crisis at the border.

"We know he thinks the crisis, the perception of a crisis helps him politically," Todd said. "He doesn’t think it hurts him."

"Sure, and I only think Democrats denying that there is one is dangerous," said Republican adviser Michael Steele.

Trump threatened to close the border earlier this week, but backed off after increased law enforcement response to the refugees seeking aid.

"Sure, it will have a negative effect on the economy," Trump told reporters earlier in the week. "It’s a very big trading partner. But to me, trading is very important, the borders are very important, but security is what is most important. I mean we have to have security."

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