Labor

With Brazil stuck in what may be its worst depression on record, it will surprise nobody that the homicide rate in Rio de Janeiro climbed by 20% in 2016 from the previous year, as violence soared in the Brazilian metropolis amid rising unemployment and sharp cuts in public security budgets. Worse even than Chicago, state security statistics released on Wednesday and cited by Reuters showed that 5,033 people were murdered in Rio during the year, up from 4,200 in 2015.

Just as the hard indicators in the US economy were starting to roll over, with whisper expectations that the Fed's 3 projected rate hikes in 2017 would gradually be reduced to 2 (in line with market expectations) moments ago ADP reported a blistering 246K jobs were added in January, far above the 168K expected and certainly well above the Fed's "guidance" of what would be normal monthly job growth in the 80-120K area.

Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Fund manager John Hussman is always good for dramatic charts. Here’s a recent one:

This ratio is even scarier than it looks, says Hussman:

Seemingly following the proposals of Bill Clinton (and Ron Paul), The Washington Post reports that a leaked document shows the Trump administration is planning to crackdown on current, and would-be, immigrants who are likely to require public assistance.

After Bill Clinton received a standing ovation for suggesting crackdown on immigrant welfare...

"We are a nation of immigrants.. but we are a nation of laws"

 

Despite the surge in 'soft' survey data since Trump's election, it appears Chicago just signaled the inflection point. MNI's Chicago Business Barometer was revsied lower in December and then crashed lower in January to 50.3. 

The print was below the lowest analyst estimate and 6 standard deviations below the consensus...

New orders, employment, inventories, and order backlogs all fell.

The last time it was lower than this was Feb 2016 (amid the market's fears of a looming recession).