I think that of all the Holidays we celebrate throughout the year, Labor Day is the least understood. For instance, on the 4th of July we celebrate Independence Day. Everyone sort of knows the story. Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Memorial Day we acknowledge the fine servicemen and women who died defending our Nation. Most seem to know of all this.
But when it comes to Labor Day, I find an awful lot of folks, don’t quite know what it is they’re celebrating. So let’s take just a few minutes to remember what this is all about.
I think that of all the Holidays we celebrate throughout the year, Labor Day is the least understood. For instance, on the 4th of July we celebrate Independence Day. Everyone sort of knows the story. Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Memorial Day we acknowledge the fine servicemen and women who died defending our Nation. Most seem to know of all this.
But when it comes to Labor Day, I find an awful lot of folks, don’t quite know what it is they’re celebrating. So let’s take just a few minutes to remember what this is all about.
After the Civil war, industry really exploded across the US. In fact the shift was truly beginning, taking us from an agriculture based nation, to an industrial based economy. Along with that change, came jobs. But we didn’t have much in the way of rules. It was common for a worker in the late 1800’s to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week.
It was also common to employ children as young as 5 to do menial labor. Many of these kids worked in what today you’d call sweat shops, churning out product for the owners. Well, there were times when overburdened employees tried to better their situations, they’d organize together and try and begin unions, only to have the company employing them, literally hire hitmen to keep them in line.
One of the more famous “clashes” was the Haymarket riot in late 1880’s. The Haymarket Riot (also known as the “Haymarket Incident” and “Haymarket Affair”) occurred on May 4, 1886, when a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, eight radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. The Haymarket Riot was viewed as a setback for the organized labor movement in America, which was fighting for rights like the eight-hour workday. At the same time, many in the labor movement viewed the convicted men as martyrs.
But Haymarket wasn’t exclusive by any means. Protests were breaking out all over the states as workers continued to fight for more fair pay, and better conditions. Many of the Europeans from Hungary, Ireland, Poland, etc, were really being abused with horrid conditions, and worker safety was NOT high on the list of employers.
On May 11, 1894, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of union representatives. Then on June 26, the American Railroad Union, led by Eugene V. Debs, called for a boycott of all Pullman railway cars, crippling railroad traffic nationwide. To break the Pullman strike, the federal government dispatched troops to Chicago, unleashing a wave of riots that resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen workers.
That’s the history of labor in this country and over the years, a “holiday” for the American worker was declared. Congress passed an act making Labor Day a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories. On June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed it into law.
So today, for everyone that gets a 40 hour week, days off, overtime over 40 hours, health benefits, safety clothing and much more, you can thank the millions that came before you, clamoring for such luxuries. This holiday is for those who fought for a better work environment and many gave up their lives doing it.
Okay, so Friday was jobs day. The “Non farm” payroll report. All the highly paid Wall Street analysts from prestigious banking institutions said that we’d get somewhere north of 745K jobs. I even saw some estimates for 1 million.
I’m not a highly paid Wall Street shill, just a guy who tries to make sense of things and help people. My guess was that the report was going to be horrid. Well, we can say it like this, little guy – 1, Wall Street – 0.
We only got 235K jobs. Now that on the surface would be bad enough. I mean they missed the estimates by half a MILLION jobs. That’s quite a miss. But what makes it worse is that 142,000 of those jobs, came via the Labor department’s “Birth/death” model. Phantom jobs. Jobs that they “think must exist” but they have no proof of. No tax receipts, nothing.
In a nutshell, the Birth/death model basically says that if X amount of hundred (thousands) of people lose their jobs, “X” amount of them will go out and open businesses and hire folks. So, let me ask you, do you think that during this Delta covid madness, a bunch of laid off folks went out, opened brand new business and then hired a hundred and forty two thousand people?? Me neither.
But they always include these phantom jobs in the reports and then once a year they have to make this huge revision to the numbers and take them all away. It’s a shell game.
In the “old” days, the market would have taken a massive hit on such a lousy jobs number and estimate miss. But those were the days before the Fed decided to print up trillions upon trillions of dollars, and hand it out to Wall Street investment houses like Blackrock, which eventually ends up in stocks.
Jay Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve has stated that in his opinion the employment situation is much more important than what he says is “transient” inflation. So this jobs number was a “get out of jail” card for him. Everyone was expecting him to announce they were going to taper their economic policy next month. Now he can hold up this number and say that tapering isn’t warranted, because the employment situation is still too dire.
And so it goes. The grandest game of all. The Feds print up trillions upon trillions of dollars, and then use it to literally buy up things via their investment bank networks. And buy they are, from houses, to stocks, to artworks to farms, to you name it. They’re buying it all folks and no… they’re not going to stop.
Oh just one more note>> Everyone remembers Octobers because they are the month associated with big market crashes of the past. But historically speaking, it is September that is the worst performing month of the year. So, if the idea of a small correction was on their minds, the next several weeks would be the opportune time to have it. Just sayin…