I’m sure the vaccine mandates had nothing to do with this:
No, omicron is not what’s “slamming” the jobs market. The only people who are behaving differently because of omicron were the people who have been living in fear for the past 2 years. People who haven’t cared about Covid this whole time didn’t change their behavior because of omicron.
The economy is slowing because of both vaccine mandates (causing mass firings and quits) and, more importantly, the fact that the debt-fueled economic sugar high of the past year and a half is finally coming to an end.
The Federal Government has racked up over $6 trillion worth of debt since Covid began, and the Federal Reserve has printed over $4.7 trillion out of thin air. All we really got out of it was a stock bubble.
But now the fiscal stimulus has run out, and the money printing is stopping next month.
On top of that, the Fed is going to start hiking interest rates, putting an end to the free money era once again and making existing debt more costly to pay off.
The Atlanta Fed’s GDP Now forecast for the first quarter of 2022 is just 0.1%, meaning they’re expecting the data to show the economy only grew by 0.1% this current quarter. That number could obviously fall into negative territory over the next two months, which would put us on the verge of recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP. (It could also admittedly rise, of course).
Official inflation rates are 7% right now, which makes businesses more likely to lay employees off as labor costs rise. Real inflation rates are likely far higher than 7%.
Eurozone inflation (usually lower than in America) came in above expectations this morning at 5.1%, which increases the odds the European Central Bank will hike rates tomorrow when it meets.
PayPal reported terrible earnings last night and today the market responded by chopping 25% off of the company’s market cap. PayPal stock now trades at about the level it did in February 2020, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. The stock went up 260% from the March 20, 2020 bottom to July 2021. Since July, it is now down 58%. PayPal also noted in its quarterly report that spending by lower-income users is declining as inflation wrecks their disposable income.
This is not just the “omicron variant.” There’s more factors in play here.
How fucking stupid do they think we are? They really think they can brush off this terrible jobs report by simply saying, “omicron.” What an unbelievable disconnect from reality.
If the terrible jobs report was merely a product of the “omicron variant,” then why were the consensus estimates for the jobs number wrong by over 500k jobs? Why was the “expert consensus” that the economy would gain 200k jobs, when in reality it lost 300k jobs?
Were these “experts” not aware of omicron before today? Is this the first they’ve ever heard of the omicron variant?
No, of course not. They knew about omicron before the jobs report, and still projected 200k job gains. Now that the jobs report came in at -300k jobs, they’re shrugging, and dismissing it all with “omicron.”
The reality is that the economy is slowing down as all the debt-fueled stimulus and money printing tapers off. At the same time, inflation is roaring and the Fed is forced to hike interest rates despite the slowing economy. We are about to enter stagflation, a period characterized by high rates of inflation and stagnant economic growth. It is literally the worst possible situation you could envision for an economy.