US unemployment, which remains unchanged at 8.3 percent, is being touted as "sturdy" by the mainstream media. Yet more than half of those jobs are deemed "low paying work" by analysts, and more than half of professional services jobs added are "temporary." Analyst david Ader of CRT quoted by ZeroHedge notes that about 160 thousand of those private sector jobs are low paying work. And per the BLS, of the 82,000 professional and business services jobs added, more than half 45,000 were temporary. Is this so-called recovery built on McDonald's big mac's and piecemeal work? Maybe, but there is at least one industry in america that is raking in the dough: Guns. Gun-maker Smith and Wesson's stock was up 23 percent this morning near three-year highs. This is after the gun maker reportedly hiked its full-yaer sales forecast on a higher order backlog, strong demand for guns and rifles.
Are temporary workers preparing of the worst: the zombie apocalypse?
Meahwhile, the US deficit is expected to have hit a "record" all--time high in February. That's a record high as in all--time, in the history of the US. Does that phase you? What kind of a recovery runs record fiscal deficits? We'll take a break from the eurozone crisis and talk about the US with our first guest, Karl Denninger of Market Ticker. But not a break entirely. After all, the fictional Greek bailout continues, and with it the latest wranglings on the PSI (private sector involvement). Greece gets more than 85 percent of private sector bondholders go along voluntarily with the deal, and will use CAC's (collective action clauses) in order to push that number up to 95 percent for the recalcitrants. And what about the ECB and the european taxpayer. What do they lose? Well, we know that the european central bank's balance sheet has positively exploded in recent months due to LTRO 1 and 2. Take this expansion on top of all the money printing that has gone on since the onset of the 2008 financial crisis, and you are looking at the most bloated balance sheet in the world as a percentage of GDP. The ECB's balance sheet equals one-third of eurozone GDP, a bigger share than the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, which makes up 19% of US GDP and the Bank of England's, which makes up 21% of UK GDP. It's even bigger than the Bank of Japan's (BOJ)! We will speak with best selling author of "Tragedy of the Euro," Philipp Bagus, who thinks that what europe suffers from is a tragedy of the commons, and that this is what is contributing to the bloating of the ECB's balance sheet, as eurocrats refuse to recognize losses and liquidate malinvestment.
And finally, Lauren gives us a reality check on MF Global and the absurd and outrageous payment of bonuses to its executives despite the fact that it has gone bankrupt. This reminds us of Joe Cassano getting paid 1 million dollars a month on retainer from AIG after the firm went bankrupt and his division, which was chiefly responsible for writing all that fake insurance (CDS contracts on subprime debt) that blew up the mother company, made 450 million in bonuses. How on earth can these bankers continue to make millions and billions of dollars at the expense of the rest of us? Are we suckers?