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A Critical Weekend

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Monday is Labor Day.  This is a critical day for labor in America because its success is about to define our economic future, at least for the next few months.  By the time you read this, you may know how many jobs were officially created in August.  If it was 220k or more a September increase in the Fed Funds rate is likely.  If it was under 180k there probably will not be a rate increase.

The ADP Employment Report, which is less prone to noise in the first place, came in with a middling 190k gain in jobs.

What’s great about this is that Labor’s success in the last month could kill the stock market, pitting labor directly against investment.  There’s nothing productive about that arrangement, but it highlights how strange the world has been.  This oddly critical holiday is a good time to recap some of the topics that Barataria has gone over the last few months.

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Drama Over Yet?

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The stock market has rallied for two days, with the S&P500 back at 1987 from its low of 1869. It’s still down 6.8% from its peak of 2130, set in May, (and nearly matched just a month ago) and down 3.5% for the year. It’s almost like the crash never happened, right?

Well, no. But there is a lot of good news for the underlying economy, some of which came in this week. The really good news is still out into next year, which is essentially forever to this market. We have to get over an interest rate hike, which will definitely come this year no matter what you read elsewhere, and a lot of jitters.

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About That Rate Increase …

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The stock market ended down for a sixth day in a row, with the S&P500 at 1869. It’s right at the low from last October of 1862, meaning that we either find support here or look out below. To date, it’s off 12.2% from its 2130 peak.

The bloodletting has one thought on everyone’s mind, at least the one thing other than “When does it stop?” The question of the day is “Does this kill the Fed’s desire to raise interest rates?”

The market was betting against a rise before, and it’s more convinced than ever that a rise in the Fed Funds Rate is not coming. But there should be a rise for one very strange reason – it may actually lower interest rates and stimulate the economy. Seriously. We’re still in Bizarro Economic territory and this could be the moment we finally get out of it.

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Stock Panic?

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“This is no time to panic. There’ll be plenty of time to panic later.”
– Author unknown (but I was sure it was Groucho Marx)

The stock market took a beating today, with the S&P 500 off 2.1%. This came for a lot of reasons but mostly because of a global selloff sparked largely by the ongoing meltdown in China. The question on everyone’s mind has to be, “How bad will it get?”

The short answer is that it can only get worse from here for a lot of reasons. Very few of them matter in the long haul, but who actually believes that the stock market is paying attention to anything beyond next quarter?

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Post-Capitalist, Pre-(Something?)

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Are you ready for a Post Capitalist world? Paul Mason, an economist and columnist for the Guardian, has outlined what that might mean in his book Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future. The premise of this provocative subject is simply that information technology has a tendency to commoditize everything in our lives and ultimately push the value to zero, rendering concepts of money and markets as we understand them today utterly useless.

No one actually lives in a post-anything world, so the question becomes less about capitalism and more about what might come afterward. Financial writers, far from dismissal of the potential downfall of their trade, are actually quite excited by the concept of a new world where the old rules do not apply. The traditional left, steeped in a quasi-Marxist dialectic, are far more unsure.

That’s what makes this concept exciting.

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