I’ve been holding a constructive view on the economy and markets for a number of reasons. The economy isn’t as soft as it has been presented and market valuations are extremely low for a non-recessionary environment (if that is indeed the environment we are in). Today’s Employment Report was downright ugly. Being constructive, I could search for some of the glimmers within the guts of the report such as the household survey’s 331k new jobs or that the employment-population ratio ticked up slightly. This is a stretch though, and the report was clearly a disappointment because in normal cycles of economic recovery we “re-create” jobs which are lost during recessions. I believe the primary reasons the job market has been in a funk, where it is stable, but not...



