AUTHOR: TOWNE SCHERER.COM 04/17/2015: Towne Scherer Private Wealth Management BLOG:The current 5.6% unemployment rate touted by The White House is a big lie, according to an article by Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO at Gallup, the prestigious American research company, famous for its public opinion polls. Clifton states that “as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed,” pointing out that people who have given up looking for work over the past four weeks are not counted as unemployed. Clifton also questioned the quality of jobs, explaining that “if (a person) performs a minimum of one hour of work in a week and (is) paid at least $20 – maybe someone pays (a person) to mow their lawn—(they’re) not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Forbes, reporting on Clifton’s article, presented a chart titled, Unemployment Data Adjusted For Decline In Civilian Labor Force Participation Rates, showing the Unemployment Rate In Reality at a dismal 15.8%. Talk about apples and oranges numbers. On the political front, Marco Rubio announced his run for the presidency, adding to the growing Republican list of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and the lone Democratic runner of Hillary Clinton. In Terrorist News, which, unfortunately, we can give a title to, the Associated Press reported that a bomb placed in a garbage bin targeting the Moroccan Embassy in the capital of Libya, Tripoli, resulted in no casualties. The Islamic State group said in a statement on its Twitter account that “soldiers of the caliphate” targeted the building but gave no reason for the attack. And people worry about the future of social media! RiverFront Investment Group suggested in their recent report that “the U.S. economy spent the first quarter adjusting to two longer term economic headwinds -- lower oil prices and a stronger dollar.” Although, they added that job gains were disappointing, they believe that the weak nonfarm payroll data (may) keep the Fed on hold for a longer period of time…which the stock market has liked the last couple of years. Nevertheless, we get a ton of economic news this week with Retail Sales, Industrial Production, Housing Starts, Jobless Claims and the Consumer Price Index all piling on top of each other. On a positive note, Forbes reported that Bill Gates edged out Carlos Slim as the richest man in the world with a net worth of $79.2 billion. See…for some it’s getting better out there.
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