- Jobs market still in convalescent stage. Big drop in unemployment rate, but don’t assume it’s finished rising, David Leonhardt writes at NYT’s Economix blog. ” For it to fall over an extended period, job growth needs to keep up with population growth, which translates to something like 150,000 new jobs a month,” he notes. “The job market is still a long ways from being so healthy.”
- Labor Dept. says January’s 20,000 job losses amount to a job market that’s “essentially unchanged,” a term that irks James Picerno at The Capital Spectator. “It appears to trivialize what is clearly the deepest and longest-running dent in the labor market since the Great Depression,” he says.
- Who’s actually stalling financial reform? Chris Dodd blames Wall Street lobbyists, but that stance irritates former labor secretary Robert Reich. “Call me old fashioned, but I thought Congress was in charge of passing legislation, not Wall Street,” he notes.
- TechCrunch reports Facebook’s completely rewriting its messaging software as it prepares to launch full-featured webmail product — one already being over-enthusiastically dubbed a “Gmail killer.” Henry Blodget says the plan is “brilliant.”
- Some US stock indexes coming close to crossing 10% correction thresholds.
- Drama at Overstock (OSTK) continues. In SEC filing, OSTK says it’s restating 2008 and 2009 results, with $1.7M of income in fiscal 2009 shifting back to previous year because of accounting errors.
- Lag in job numbers behind GDP growth is no worse than in previous recoveries, Harvard economist Jeff Frankel says.
- Jeff Miller discusses benchmark revisions in today’s jobs report. “The jobs picture continues to improve, but there is a long road ahead,” he says. “The evidence is that the engine of job creation was broken during the credit crunch. As yet, there is no evidence of a change.”
- “In this environment, I don’t see how the Fed is interested in substantially tightening policy – but I can see how some policymakers could perceive that their hand was forced if they see a string of upside surprises in growth indicators,” Tim Duy says.
- The time it takes to win it all: The players, coaches, marketing teams and scouts of the Saints and the Colts have worked a total of one million hours this year to get to this moment. WSJ looks at what goes into an NFL season.
