Trash Talking

In a recent post I made fun of some guy in the Senate whose objection to Janet Yellen being Fed Chairperson is that she believes monetary policy is effective. Since winning this years Nobel Prize in Economics for the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), Eugene Fama said of Quantitative Easing (QE): "They're basically neutral events. I don't think they do very much."

In response, another economist called him a "dumbass".

October Jobs Report

The October Jobs Report came out today, so the BLS is back on its normal schedule. Finally a goodish number: 204,000 jobs were added. Though the Household Survey used to generate the unemployment rate (7.3%), showed people leaving the labor force and high job losses. But the shutdown has massively complicated any useful interpretation for the discrepancy. But the Establishment Survey (which the net change is measured from) is more reliable.

I'd like to say I have no idea why the graphs I upload have started to have the shoddy looking solid white coloration where the net gain line crosses the y-axis mark. I've done nothing different than before, thanks google. 

The previous two months were better than originally reported as well, with August job growth of 238,000. So the picture of the labor market is a little better than it was last report.