Labor

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

It's Easter time again, which means it's time to talk about chocolate. Simaran Sethi at the Los Angeles Times this week highlights the plight of cacao farmers:

What wasn’t factored into the celebration [over falling chocolate prices] is the deep suffering of the subsistence farmers who grow cacao, the seeds of a pod-shaped fruit that, once harvested, become the cocoa traded on the commodities market and destined for the chocolate eggs and bunnies that fill most Easter baskets.

On his first full working day in the White House, President Trump issued an executive order implementing a hiring freeze until such time that his Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, a position now filled by Mick Mulvaney, could recommend a “long-term plan” to reduce the federal workforce.  While the initial EO allowed 90 days for such a plan to be crafted and presented, like many of Trump's other policy initiatives, that deadline proved overly aggressive and has been pushed back to the end of June, with final plans due in September...the swamp apparently doesn't drain a

Back in late March, equity markets sold off on the first signs that Republicans were not going to be able to repeal and replace Obamacare as they had promised.  Alas, the pessimism didn't last long as the BTFD crowd was able to quickly convince everyone that the failure of Obamacare was actually good for markets as it would allow the Trump administration to focus it's efforts on tax cuts instead...and, as usual, equities soared.

While too backward looking to be actionable (reflecting the labor situation with a 2 month delay) especially in a time when everyone is focused on the future - or lack thereof - of Trump's fiscal policies today's JOLTs report failed to capture the sharp slowdown in the March jobs report, instead corroborating the last of the "good" payroll prints, that of February.

So what did "Janet Yellen's favorite labor market indicator" show? 

The California Policy Center (CPC) has just updated it's annual study on pension contributions required from local California municipalities and, to our complete 'shock', the conclusions are brutal for Cali taxpayers.  Among other things, the study found that California taxpayers will be forced to double their contributions to CalPERS over just the next 5 years alone from $5.3 billion in 2017/2018 tax year to $9.8 billion in 2022/2023.