New Jobs Report, A Look Inside GLD's Vault, Libyan Rebels Rounding Up Civilians, And Ron Paul's Reddit

New jobs report today as many commentators belly ache at the loss of job growth.  Like most jobs reports, the debate between coming recession/deflation and inflation/boom continues.  Here is Mish on the overview:

• US Payrolls +0


• US Unemployment Rate Flat at 9.1%


• Participation Rate +.1 to 64.0%


• Actual number of Employed (by Household Survey) rose by 331,000


• Unemployment rose by 36,000


• Those not in the labor force dropped by 165,000


• Civilian population rose by 200,000, Labor Force rose by 366,000


• Average Weekly Workweek Fell .1 hours to 34.2 hours


• Average Private Hourly Earnings Fell 3 Cents


• Government employment decreased by 17,000 - Not Enough

For a change, the labor force actually rose today. This is a welcome sign. However, were it not for people dropping out of the labor force for the past two years, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.

Mish is already making the call that we are back in recession.  I say we never left the first one, but by official statistics he could be right.  Robert Wenzel is contending that the major source of jobs loss is in state and local governments, which is true, while private sector growth has been growing:

Across the board, employment either climbed fractionally or stayed the same, while the trend of a decline in government employees, not a bad thing for the economy.

Government employment continued to trend down over the month (-17,000).
Despite the return of about 22,000 workers from a partial government shutdown in Minnesota, employment in state government changed little in August (+5,000).Employment in local government continued to decline. Since employment peaked in September 2008, local government has lost 550,000 jobs.

Bottom line, the increases in unemployment are coming from state and local governments. This is the tail end part of the employment picture, where declining tax revenues from earlier in the year continue to force layoffs by state and local governments.

Despite all the talk you will hear about a double dip recession etc., the unemployment picture (a lagging indicator) in the private sector is stabilized. Of alarm, is the continuing climb of jobs in the mining sector, a certain sign of anticipated higher prices from entrepreneurs in that sector.

And here is handy chart from the Cleveland Fed on the jobs picture:

If you would like to see a more detailed analysis of the job growth picture nationwide, see this interactive chart:

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So as the debate continues between recession/fake recovery, one thing has proven true with the eclectic economic realities of our time: the price of the barbarous relic known as gold continues to rise.

A few days ago, one of the storage facilities linked to the physical gold trading stock known as the Spider Gold Trust- GLD opened its vault in London to Bob Pisani of CNBC.  Very interesting, check it out:

Just a few days ago, many on the left were cheering on the Libyan's rebels supposed victory over the Gadaffi regime.  The celebration looked to be premature since Gadaffi has pledged to keep fighting, but this should really give the Obama administration some casue for worry, via Yahoo!:

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Rebel forces and armed civilians are rounding up thousands of black Libyans and migrants from sub-Sahara Africa, accusing them of fighting for ousted strongman Moammar Gadhafi and holding them in makeshift jails across the capital.

Virtually all of the detainees say they are innocent migrant workers, and in most cases there is no evidence that they are lying. But that is not stopping the rebels from placing the men in facilities like the Gate of the Sea sports club, where about 200 detainees — all black — clustered on a soccer field this week, bunching against a high wall to avoid the scorching sun.

Hmmmm, looks like all the of those who criticized the Libyan intervention precisely because we didn't have a lot of intelligence or knowledge about the rebels weren't so crazy after all!  And of course the number one critic happens to be the smartest and most well read candidate running for president:

Yes! This is exactly the kind of advertisement the Paul campaign should engage in!  The emotional loss of a family member to war speaks heavily to the kind of message Paul needs to get across. The thirst for war in the American people is drying up very quickly and Paul needs to take advantage.

Reddit has a hilarious page dedicated to Paul today with some absolutely gut-busting quotes.  Here are some samples:

"Actually, Ron Paul killed me." - Osama Bin Laden

"I plan on voting for Ron Paul" - God

"Ayn Rand, yeah I fucked her" - Ron Paul

"Ron Paul is not that great" - Hitler

"Our ancestors didn't battle dinosaurs just so we could elect a communist" ~ Ron Paul

"Ron Fucking Paul" -Jesus Christ

I will end with some more Friday night humor, check out the yield on a one year Greece bond:

Maybe this cartoon is a bit more straightforward humor wise: