OK, we have to begin with the data roll today. Because there is a ton of it. And being a workaholic, I always feel like I need to tell you something factual and/or useful before launching into one-liners. Which I call “Stand Up News.”
Work with me here: Starting with part two of the Employment Trifecta. This morning it’s the Challenger Job Cut numbers.
August Job Cuts Up 58% compared to July’s 33,429 cuts. It is down 38% from the 85,979 layoff plans announced in the same month last year, and marks the lowest August total since 2022.
Tomorrow the Federal numbers – the last job nag of the week – shows up. I’m already dreaming about “horizontal engineering.”
Reverie ruined, on to the second data point is the UI Filings
Press release handouts next (as picture) International Trade seems to matter:
Along with Employment and Costs:
And the (quickly going out of style) “Productivity” numbers.
Hold up there, because we’re on short – final into Labor Day. Once upon a time (in the paleo era of economics) “productivity” was THE holy grail. In today’s work, how many tokens and how many machine cycles (or parts can be squeezed from an injection part mold) seems to be the real/actual. The rest of jawboning and convincing the sheep they can “eat paper” and Secret Numbers.
Speaking of which BTC was rolling $77,600 ish at click-time.
Bacon, eggs, and flash-fried Yukon Golds are calling, so time to flip the switch.
News Compressor: ON
No flooding to speak of (*but no glaciers either, come to think of it). The remnant of topically depressing Edouard sat over East Texas where we’re still drier than an alkie three days off the sauce. The tropical cyclone trash lingers. So does drought:
The other “wet spot”? Nepal is the MSM disaster fetish of the week. People are dead and no amount of coverage will change that. (We’d mention decorum but they have to sell ads…)
The U.S.–Iran shooting cycle remains the dominant geopolitical risk, but oil is backing off its latest spike rather than confirming an immediate runaway escalation. Iran says Tuesday night’s U.S. strikes killed eight people and wounded 108, while Washington says it hit air-defense, radar, maritime, mine-laying and communications targets; casualty claims from both sides remain partly contested. Brent eased; some markets are trying for a PLDR (Pre-Labor Day Rally).
U.S.-friendly Pacific leaders are trying to turn concern over China’s July ballistic-missile test into a collective regional position. Blah-blah-blah. Taiwan and chips, oil and exports – that’s the real Pacific pitch deck. Oh, and look here: Taiwan’s cabinet proposed another $4.6 billion in defense spending, including anti-ballistic missiles, coastal drones and unmanned attack boats. Hardening rapidly. Tough love?
Related: China announced a five-year plan to support small and midsize firms with employment, technology and venture-capital measures. Ure is dense so I need to ask: “Is that code for taking Taiwan?”
Another global central-bank signal just turned hawkish. Bank of Canada held at 2.25%. Early US Hike odds are down to 62.4% this morning.
Inside Pages
Middle East markets warming led by Dubai, as strong UAE and Saudi growth data temporarily outweighed conflict anxiety.
Japanese investors sold foreign bonds for a second straight week as domestic inflation and higher Japanese yields made overseas debt less attractive. Capital flows turning inward. Nikkei 64,214 overnight but the real hit was the previous session.
Germany’s IfW and Ifo institutes both raised 2026 growth forecasts as fiscal spending and improving industrial activity offset some of the energy shock. Improving. Euro-zone business growth held steady in August, although services momentum softened. Watch the EU economy: Russia war could be a stimulus and gov-powers package.
India has stalled a proposed Alipay+ connection into its instant-payments network over national-security and data concerns. Digital decoupling widening.
India’s banking system is sitting on a record liquidity surplus after a huge inflow of dollar deposits, giving the RBI more currency-defense firepower but also creating a sterilization problem.
New York City imposed a one-year moratorium on most public elementary and middle school students using AI tools. Apparently, like AI, humans need training, you think?
OpenAI told lawmakers it is developing automated shutdown capabilities for AI tools that display dangerous behavior.
Meanwhile, we’re “way’mo interested” in Tesla preparing an Austin event around its purpose-built Cybercab robotaxi platform.
Lost in Space Dept: NOAA currently shows an R1 minor radio blackout, while its CCOR-1 white-light coronagraph imagery is degraded even though running-difference imagery remains usable. Minor space-weather impact, instrumentation partly impaired.
96 Hour News Outlook
Weekend at WW III? Hormuz-shipping or sanctions development occurs before the conflict settles into a durable lull.
Perspective:
China now has a small industry of “tech pilgrimage” tours in which foreign executives and investors pay thousands of dollars to tour robotics, AI and EV factories to see the country’s scale-up machine firsthand. Go ahead, say it: “We could have been a contender…”
But no, the free lunch got us again.
Passings:
Gloria Steinem, legendary feminist and activist, dead at 92. Led women’s rights — but that meant more labor. Did that drive down quality of life and unit labor pay? We could have a long discussion about whether “putting on the yoke” was a good deal, or not. Which tees up…
Around the Ranch: Labor Delusions
All you need to know about labor, to borrow from Mark Twain’s research, is to know it’s really just “anything you don’t really want to do.“
If I sometimes give you the idea that I have “worked” for a living, that’s an error on my part. I’ve dedicated my whole life to angling new ways to get paid while having fun.
Here’s today’s news flash: As I have matured (kicking and screaming) it has been revealed to me that too much of a good thing is bad.
- Sex (consenting adults) is fun/enjoyable. But monetized it turns into sexual addiction and human trafficking.
- Then there’s Ure’s Commercial Fishing Paradox. Something like 76 percent of the country enjoys going fishing. But monetized far enough, it turns into dangerous Bering Sea fishing and crabbing.
- Even a nice holiday bike ride sounds good on paper, but again – if monetized by pulling a rickshaw in Asia somewhere, the “fun limit fails.”
So that’s the mental focus this weekend: How come more isn’t always better?
I’ll be the guy tripping over it in the shop this weekend. Too many tools and not enough bench space. Turns out that “fun” has practical limits and I think there’s a key to unlocking The Simulation in there somewhere.
Labor Day Lie?
It’s not that Labor Day is a lie, specifically. More like a typical American Half-Truth. One category America still dominates.
To prove it, besides being “Labor Day” Monday is also known for being:
- National Beer Lover’s Day
- National Salami Day (Our usual warnings about how too much beer may impact your salami’s performance apply.)
- National Acorn Squash Day (No listing for B-corn Day.)
- National Grateful Patient Day (Well, which are you?)
- National Feel the Love Day (To whom?)
- National Neither Snow Nor Rain Day (postal workers)
- Grandma Moses Day
- Mouthguard Day (first Monday in September – watch your mouth?)
- International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies (UN, Biden, anti-BBQ types)
- World Duchenne Awareness Day. If you skipped pre-med, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a rare, inherited muscle-wasting disease.
- Still’s Disease Awareness Day
- 907 Day (Alaska area-code day) Which is big of them.
- And best of all, Monday Texas Energy Savings Day.
Our plans include chilling and (out of respect for decorum) I won’t joke about beer or my salami.
Which is just bologna, anyway. Because we missed observing it on October 24th.
Banks, post offices, federal offices, and stock markets (and us) are closed.
I’m reminded of a cartoon this cub reporter noticed, pinned to the corkboard in a county worker’s cubicle somewhere in the Seattle-King County Courthouse in the mid-seventies. “The harder I work, the behinder I get.” Now, fifty-odd years on, the National Debt disaster is proving it true.
The yoke’s on us.
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