News Story of the Day: the Labor Department announced on Friday that the United States unemployment rate fell to a nine-year low to 4.6 percent as the economy added 178,000 jobs. It did provide a mixed bag, though, considering that labor participation dipped for the second consecutive month.
According to the report, the labor force participation rate – the percentage of working-age people in the labor force – tumbled from 62.8 percent in October to 62.7 percent in November. This is the lowest level since 1978. Many are attributing this to more Baby Boomers retiring and a larger number of unemployed workers giving up looking for a job and dropping out of the labor market.
Meanwhile, the underemployment rate, which is those who are working part-time but want to work full-time, lowered 0.2 percent to 9.3 percent.
Chart of the Day: gold has not been faring well since November 8, when Donald Trump was victorious on Election Day. All of the main mining stocks have slumped since the real estate billionaire mogul was elected United States president. This chart from Mining.com highlights it perfectly:
Illustration of the Day: French socialist President Francois Hollande announced on Thursday that he would not be seeking re-election. Considering that he is one of the most unpopular European leaders today, it makes sense that he made this decision. He knew he would be trounced. The question is now: who is going to pay for his extravagant hair cuts? Anyway, with this, the French people would like to say:
Quote of the Day: in his remarkable book entitled “Meltdown,” libertarian author Tom Woods discusses Ludwig von Mises’s analogy between a brick layer and the Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates. Here is an excerpt from “Meltdown”:
“Mises draws an analogy between an economy under the influence of artificially low interest rates and a home builder who falsely believes he has more resources – more bricks, say – than he really does. He will build a house whose size and proportions are different from the ones he would have chosen if he had known his true supply of bricks. He will not be able to complete this larger house with the number bricks he has. The sooner he discovers his true brick supply the better, for then he can adjust his production plans before too much of the finished house is produced and too many of his labor and material resources are squandered. If he finds out only toward the very final stages of the project, he will have to destroy almost the entire house, and both he and society at large will be so much the poorer for his malinvestment of all those resources.”
Video of the Day: it is always a great time when the smug folks in the mainstream media make fools of themselves. The latest incidents consist of television anchors failing to pronounce incoming Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s name. In case you don’t know how to say it, it is: mah-new-chin. Here is the compilation of the incorrect anchors having a difficult time saying his name:
so here are a bunch of news anchors who don’t know how to pronounce Steven Mnuchin’s name pic.twitter.com/ATmsTASUaz
— Matt Negrin (@MattNegrin) November 30, 2016
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