@theMarket: Jobless Number Spoils the Party

Up until Friday's disappointing unemployment numbers, the stock market appeared ready to regain the year's high all in one week. However, the ugly news that the nation hired a meager 18,000 of our unemployed dashed investor's hopes that the economy might be gaining strength in the second half.

Equities plummeted across the board, as did commodities, while Treasury bonds and gold provided safe havens for worried investors. The Republicans were quick to call a news conference highlighting the Obama administration's failure to create jobs while providing platitudes on how to get America back to work. Unfortunately, neither party has come up with anything close to effective in combating unemployment here at home.

Unfortunately, much of what ails our country's work force has little to do with the here and now. For years, unskilled jobs in environmentally unfriendly industrial and manufacturing industries have been exported overseas. At the same time the construction sector, which had absorbed so much of the unskilled labor pool, is in the doldrums.

Both the government and private sectors have exhorted America's future workers to stay in school, go to college or technical school and obtain skills that would be salable in the new service/technical economy of the country. Instead, the dropout rate has increased while our educational system has continued to decline. Older workers, for the most part, have also refused to either go back to school or acquire new skills.

Now, before we get all jumpy about one month's unemployment numbers remember that the standard deviation (the accuracy) of any one job number is plus/minus 100,000 jobs. That’s right, this week’s number may be off by as much as 86,000 and we won’t know the true figure for months!

But the string of disappointing employment numbers recently has quite a bit to do with layoffs in the public sector. Recall that there was a big spike in the unemployment rate a few months back when U.S. census workers were terminated. Now we are experiencing a new wave of municipal layoffs. Federal aid to states has declined drastically. At the same time, almost every state finds itself in debt with the need to balance their budgets. So unemployment is being fueled by layoffs among state workers with the biggest hit in the health and education areas.

What concerns me most about that is the demand by the Republicans (Tea Party) to cut spending drastically right now. Has anyone given thought to how that is going to impact unemployment and growth in the next six months? For some reason I can't fathom, the GOP believes as long as taxes remain the same everything will be fine. That math doesn't add up.

What I hope comes out of Sunday's negotiations between the leaders of the two parties is a plan to cut the deficit over the long term while continuing to stimulate the economy in the short term. You might argue that I can't have both. But what if we all agreed to cuts in entitlements such as Medicare/Medicaid and higher taxes but wait a year or two, say 2013, before putting that plan into action? At the same time, continue tax breaks this year for both corporations and individuals.

That would give the economy the breathing room to gather strength while giving all of us a heads-up on what's coming around the corner. A deal like that would give the markets confidence that Washington is doing something about the deficit while removing another stress factor (the debt ceiling) from the markets. As for the markets, I remain bullish. After a 6 percent move up in one week, a 1 or 2 percent decline would be a normal reaction.

Bill Schmick is an independent investor with Berkshire Money Management. (See "About" for more information.) None of the information presented in any of these articles is intended to be and should not be construed as an endorsement of BMM or a solicitation to become a client of BMM. The reader should not assume that any strategies, or specific investments discussed are employed, bought, sold or held by BMM. Direct your inquiries to Bill at (toll free) or e-mail him at wschmick@fairpoint.net . Visit www.afewdollarsmore.com for more of Bill's insights.