Why The Bull Market May Be A Jedi Mind Trick

Is the economy really “booming” like the Trump Administration would have you believe?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that over 300,000 jobs were created in February, making it the best single-month total since July 2016. And unless you’ve been exploring the Arctic Circle or were kicked off Twitter for expressing politically incorrect views, you know that’s just the latest “great” news about the booming economy, bull market in stocks, and, best of all, the significant new job creation since Donald Trump became president.

Certainly, there is no denying that the stock market has continued to rise, with the S&P 500 up over 27 percent since 11/7/2016, as of this writing. But as for the overall economy and, specifically, job creation, even the Trump-hating liberal media seems to have fallen for an economic Jedi mind trick. Regardless of single-month spikes like the one that occurred last month, it only takes one click of the mouse to see that job creation continued to fall in 2017, as it had the previous two years. Looking at yearly totals over the past ten years, job creation looks a lot more like a protracted version of the last business cycle leading up to the 2008 crash.

Year

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Total*

2008

8

-81

-55

-229

-184

-154

-213

-277

-443

-475

-759

-707

-3569

2009

-787

-704

-802

-704

-354

-469

-342

-196

-229

-209

12

-277

-5061

2010

18

-73

193

221

522

-140

-78

-16

-63

267

129

73

1053

2011

44

182

254

323

81

234

72

112

233

209

145

201

2090

2012

348

233

264

72

117

68

156

173

194

153

130

243

2151

2013

207

265

156

179

240

158

111

260

201

210

221

93

2301

2014

174

182

261

311

252

306

196

226

284

255

307

251

3005

2015

211

267

78

282

326

191

256

164

88

351

264

234

2712

2016

103

257

235

174

34

285

325

175

264

140

172

180

2344

2017

259

200

73

175

155

239

190

221

14

271

216

175

2188

2018

239

313

                       

*Total column added to BLS data