Why The Jobs Report Is Not Nearly As Strong As You Are Being Told - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

Why The Jobs Report Is Not Nearly As Strong As You Are Being Told Posted: 07 Aug 2016  Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG Happy days are here again? On Friday, the mainstream media was buzzing with the news that the U.S. economy had added 255,000 jobs during the month of July. But as you will see below, the U.S. economy did not add 255,000 jobs during the month of July. In fact, without an extremely generous “seasonal adjustment”, the number of jobs added during the month of July would not have even kept up with population growth. But the pretend number sounds so much better than the real number, and so the pretend number is what is being promoted for public consumption. Why doesn’t the government ever just tell us the plain facts? Unfortunately, we live at a time when “spin” is everything, and just about everyone in the mainstream media seemed quite pleased with the “good jobs report” on Friday. However, as Zero Hedge has pointed out, the truth is that the “unadjusted” numbers tell a very different story… As Mitsubishi UFJ strategist John Herrmann wrote in a note shortly after the report, the “jobs headline overstates” strength of payrolls. He adds that the unadjusted data show a “middling report” that’s “nowhere as strong as the headline” and adds that private payrolls unadjusted +85k in July vs seasonally adjusted +217k. In Herrmann’s view, the government applied a “very benign seasonal adjustment factor upon private payrolls to transform a soft private payroll gain into a strong gain.” He did not provide a reason why the government would do that. Every month, the U.S. economy must create at least 150,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth. According to the unadjusted numbers, we did not hit that threshold, and so the employment situation in this country actually got worse last month. In America today, there are 7.8 million Americans that are considered to be officially unemployed, and another 94.3 million working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force”. When you add those two numbers together, you get a grand total of 102 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now. Rather than focusing on the headline “unemployment” figure, we get a much fairer look at the employment crisis in the United States when we examine the employment-population ratio. The following chart comes directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and it shows that the percentage of Americans that are employed has never even come close to getting back to where it was just prior to the last recession… Over the past couple of years we have seen a slight bump in this number, and that is good, but normally after a recession ends the employment-population ratio goes back to at least as high as it was before.  Unfortunately, this has not happened after the last two recessions.  The following comes from Wolf Richter… The ratio always drops during recessions, but before 2001, it always climbed to higher highs during the recoveries. The 2001 recession and subsequent recovery changed this. For the first time, the ratio never fully recovered, never got even close to fully recovering. That was a new phenomenon: employment growth could no longer keep up with population growth. When the Great Recession hit, the ratio plunged from its lower starting point at the fastest pace on record (going back to 1948). The Fed’s efforts were all focused exclusively on bailing out bondholders, re-inflating the stock market, re-inflating the housing market, and generally creating what had become the official Fed policy at the time, the Wealth Effect (here’s Bernanke himself explaining it). This has re-inflated asset prices – many of them way beyond their prior bubble peaks. But the Fed’s astounding focus on capital accelerated the already changing dynamics of the economy, at the expense of labor. Even the Wall Street Journal admits that we are in the weakest “economic recovery” since 1949, and now there are lots of signs that we have entered a brand new economic downturn.  Here are just a few examples from Chad Shoop… Ford, GM and Chrysler — three of the U.S.’ largest auto companies — reported sales for July that missed estimates: down 3%, 1.9% and up 0.3%, respectively. Delta Airlines, one of the largest airlines in the world, said revenue fell 7% in July as part of its monthly performance update. Macy’s, the biggest department store company, reported a decline in sales for July, leading to more aggressive markdowns and an industry-wide sell-off. And lots of ominous signs continue to pop up on Wall Street as well.  For one thing, the Libor rate has surged to the highest level since the last financial crisis.  If you are not familiar with Libor, here is a pretty good explanation of it from Business Insider… The Libor, or London Interbank Offered Rate, measures the interest rate at which banks lend to each other at different durations, and its sharp jump was a harbinger of the financial crisis. And according to that same article, the Libor rate is now the highest that we have seen since early 2009… In the past month, the Libor rate has spiked to rates not seen since the first quarter of 2009, the heart of the banking meltdown. Not to mention, the spread between the Libor and the Overnight Index Swap rate, which tracks the lending rate from the Federal Reserve, has widened, another potentially worrying sign. But of course I have been quoting facts and figures like this for months, and yet U.S. financial markets continue to hold it together. There are literally dozens of parallels between the global financial crisis of 2008 and what is happening in 2016, but Wall Street continues to defy the laws of economics. Of course it won’t last forever, but it certainly has been a sight to behold. And I am certainly not alone in my analysis.  As I noted the other day, DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach is entirely convinced that stocks “should be down massively”… “The artist Christopher Wool has a word painting, ‘Sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids.’ That’s exactly how I feel – sell everything. Nothing here looks good,” Gundlach said in a telephone interview. “The stock markets should be down massively but investors seem to have been hypnotized that nothing can go wrong.” For the moment, investors continue to pay extremely irrational prices for stocks, and the mainstream media is just giddy about the state of the economy. So let us enjoy this very strange period of stability for however much longer it lasts, but let us also protect ourselves from the horrible crash that will inevitably follow.

Israel, Archeology and Post-Modern Gobbledygook - Tsvi Sadan ISRAEL TODAY

Israel, Archeology and Post-Modern Gobbledygook

Monday, August 08, 2016 |  Tsvi Sadan  ISRAEL TODAY

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Archeology

Archeology and Palestine is a mismatch simply because there are no archeological Palestinian sites. At best archeology can inform us about Muslim life and culture since the 7th century AD. This is of little use to archeologists who are willing to compromise their discipline in the name of political agenda. 

If one would ask about Zionists harnessing archeology for their political ends, they have done that, but they at least didn't have to fabricate Jewish archeology.Archibald Sayce didn't fabricate the Siloam Inscriptionand Yigael Yadin didn't forge the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

Further still, no Jewish archeologist was ever involved in institutionalized destruction of Muslim artifacts and systematic elimination of evidences of Muslim presence in the Land of Israel.

Palestinian archeologists and their sympathetic comrades are doing whatever they can to subvert archeology in such a way as to erase any Jewish link to "the Land of Palestine." Jordanian official Raef Yusuf Najm is representative of this official Palestinian policy, claiming that "throughout history, Muslims and Christians have lived in Al Quds (Jerusalem) as one Palestinian people. Their coexistence was marred only by the Crusade invasions, then the Zionist and colonialist Israeli invasion which is trying to judaize the land and the people through all forms of crime and tyranny."

This effort to erase Jewish archeology as a way of weakening Israel is supported by the New Israel Fund (NIF), a subversive organization whose real aim is to turn Israel into a democratic, rather than a Jewish-democratic state. 

In one of its latest Facebook posts, NIF proudly announced its support of Emek Shaveh, an organization of Israeli archeologists that has teamed up with their Palestinian counterparts. So unaware of their betrayal of their academic discipline, Emek Shaveh proclaims on its website that the group is made up of "archaeologists and community activists focusing on the role of archaeology in Israeli society and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

One of archeology's roles is to dispel the notion that it can support the Jewish claim to the land. The founder of Emek Shaveh, archeologist Gideon Sulimani, exited NIF when he said that "a nation or religion should not use archeological artifacts as a proof of land ownership." This, however, is a strange accusation considering that Jews have prayed to return to Jerusalem long before the idea of archeology was ever conceived. At worst, Israeli archeologists were trying too hard to produce scientific evidences for the traditional Jewish claim of Israel being the land of their fathers.

Emek Shaveh has radically departed from "Zionist archeology." If fact, this organ is not interested in proving anything, least of all proving Jewish presence in this land.

Truth is not what they are after. These "scientists" are in the business of peace, and for the sake of that goal truth can be manipulated, denied and locked in post-modern gobbledygook. 

A masterpiece of truth-evasion is found in their brochure entitled "Frequent Questions about Jerusalem's Old City." Consider this sentence alone: "Archaeology can support different historical scenarios, but it neither conclusively proves nor absolutely disproves them." In other words, if one so wishes, archeology can support the Palestinian narrative. All that needs to be done is to say that David is not conclusively Jewish. Likewise, since no blood stains or pieces of priestly garments can be found on the Temple Mount, evidences of ancient Jewish religious warship there can't be regarded as conclusive. 

Though seeking peace is admirable, one has to wonder how such damaging dishonesty can advance it.

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Are 'Gentile Believers' Still Gentiles? Monday, August 08, 2016 | Brian Hennessy ISRAEL TODAY

Are 'Gentile Believers' Still Gentiles?

Monday, August 08, 2016 |  Brian Hennessy  ISRAEL TODAY

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Christians

It was Yeshua’s greatest desire that all his followers, from both Jews and Gentiles, become one people. His impassioned plea to the Father before going to the cross was “that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know You sent me, and loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:23).

Well, it’s no surprise that the world still remains unconvinced of his Messiahship.  How could it be otherwise when his followers have separated into over 40,000 denominations and other unaffiliated groups.

 But even before our divisions metastasized there existed an issue of unity between the Jewish and non-Jewish followers of Yeshua.  It began on the day the Lord told Peter to witness to the family of Cornelius. Before then the Jewish nation was under the impression this salvation belonged exclusively to them. Now, suddenly, it was being offered to others.  Worse, these “others” were the former bane of their existence – the Gentiles. The very ones they’d been shunning for the past 1400 years, according to Moses' instructions.

But hadn’t Yeshua prepared his Jewish followers for this when he was with them in the flesh? Hadn’t he told them, “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice, and they will become one flock with one shepherd” (John 10:16)? Nevertheless, it was still a tough pill for Jewish Israel to swallow. And it was made harder, because along with this influx of unsavory outsiders, Israel was being asked to transition from their God-given covenant of Law to a new covenant of grace.  

The transition was so formidable, that to make it happen, God had to raise up a uniquely qualified man –Saul (later Paul) of Tarsus. To this former Pharisee was given the anointing to bring us all together under “the law of liberty” (James 1:25).  And even though the Roman Empire cut short his work, along with Jewish life in Jerusalem, God made sure Paul’s teachings were preserved as Scripture in the New Testament.  

Now for 2000 years, unity of Jewish and “Gentile” believers in Messiah has not been an issue. Mainly because after the first century there were almost no Jewish believers! And the non-Jewish believers had taken on another identity, calling themselves “Christians.” But after the physical rebirth of Israel, many Jews began experiencing a spiritual rebirth. And all of sudden the term “Gentile believer” was back. Along with the issue of us all becoming one again.

As I see it, the term “Gentile believer” is inherently discriminatory and creates an unhealthy division in the body of Messiah. If one is a “Gentile” it implies you are an unbeliever, outside the camp of God’s people. Although the word translated as “Gentile” just means “nations” in both the Hebrew (goyim) and Greek(ethnos), it carries centuries of baggage. Over half its usages in the Old Testament are negative. And so is a quarter of its usage in the New Testament, where it is occasionally translated as “heathen” or “pagan.”  It may not equate non-Jewish believers with being “uncircumcised Philistines,” but it doesn’t define them as “Snow White,” either.

But weren’t we all made “white as snow” in Yeshua? Weren’t we all circumcised with the circumcision made without hands?  Why then should we who are not Jewish be saddled with terminology that immediately creates a division in the body of Messiah? From God’s perspective we are no longer goyim. We are no longer Gentiles. We have come out of the nations and are now included with God’s people. We have been counted as part of the nation of Israel, co-inheritors with all Jewish believers in the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. “For if you belong to Messiah, you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29). 

Paul had explained, just prior to that verse, that now “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, neither male nor female; for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua” (Gal.3:28). Did he mean Jews are no longer Jews, Greeks no longer Greeks, females no longer females? Of course not! Until the Lord returns and we are transfigured into our new bodies we remain who we are in this world. But_ in Messiah_, all racial, national, economic, gender – and other fleshly differences – disappear. In him we become one people!

It was Peter, the first Jew to witness to non-Jews, who later said to the entire body of Messiah, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” ( 1 Pet. 2:9). He had taken the very words Moses had spoken to all Israel and applied them to the New Covenant ecclesia _without distinction. _He was not saying the “church”had replaced the physical descendants of Abraham as God’s people, but that all who are in Messiah, both Jew and non-Jew, are the chosen remnant of Israel.

As God is restoring the nation to the land today, I believe it’s also time to strive for greater unity among Jewish and non-Jewish followers of Yeshua. So that, as he prayed to the Father, “the world may know You sent me.” 

A good place to begin is by retiring the unbiblical term “Gentile believer” once and for all.

Brian Hennessy is author of Valley of the Steeples

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Obama Slammed by Israel for Defending Iran Deal - Israel Today

Obama Slammed by Israel for Defending Iran Deal

Sunday, August 07, 2016 |  Israel Today Staff

US President Barack Obama on Friday was once again insisting that his Iran nuclear deal is succeeding, and even claimed that Israel had acknowledged as much.

Israel’s Defense Ministry was quick to call out Obama’s false assertion, and to suggest the American was a fool if he still believed Iran to be a genuine partner.

“The Israeli defense establishment believes that agreements have value only if they are based on an existing reality, and that they have no value if the facts on the ground are completely the opposite of [the concepts] on which an agreement is based on,” read the Israeli Defense Ministry statement.

The Israelis went on to liken Obama’s Iran deal to the utterly nonsensical Munich agreement that failed to prevent World War II and permitted the Nazis to launch their initial assaults unimpeded.

“The Munich agreement did not prevent the Second World War and the Holocaust, precisely because their basic assumption, that Nazi Germany could be a partner to any kind of agreement, was wrong, and because the leaders of the world at that time ignored the explicit statements by Hitler and the rest of the leaders of Nazi Germany.”

The Defense Ministry noted that Iran’s leaders continue to threaten Israel and other nations in the region, and Tehran continues to be the world’s leading state sponsor of Islamic terror, as reported by the US State Department.

As such, Obama’s coddling of the ayatollahs is doing more harm than good, just as the kid-glove handling of Hitler ultimately led to the destruction of a continent and the deaths of millions.

The response caused some panic for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was not made aware of the Defense Ministry statement before it was published.

According to government officials, Netanyahu quickly phoned US Ambassador Dan Shapiro to downplay the harsh rhetoric, and to reassert that despite disagreement over the Iran deal, Israel still sees America as its greatest ally.

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Watching Turkey (Day 3) - Joel Richardson on the Jim Bakker Show

Watch here: Watching Turkey (Day 3) - Joel Richardson on the Jim Bakker Show

Jim & Lori Bakker

Pastor Jim and Lori Bakker discuss the upcoming election and the growing threat of ISIS, with special guest, Joel Richardson.

Quotes

While there is always the temptation to read one’s enemies into Scripture, instead we should simply take the Bible for what it says. – Joel Richardson

The Saudis have engaged in the single largest propaganda or evangelistic campaign in the history of mankind. – Joel Richardson

Everybody tries to preach a gospel that you can change things, you can change some things, but you can’t change the Bible. You can’t change the last days. – Jim BAkker

Scripture

Isaiah 27:1 NKJV In that day the Lord with His severe sword, great and strong, Will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan that twisted serpent; And He will slay the reptile that is in the sea.

James 4:10 KJV Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Revelation 13:3 NIV One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.

I Timothy 6:10 KJV For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Matthew 10:28 KJV And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Romans 1:28 KJV And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

Accurately Discerning Your Season Shifts - SARA HAGERTY CHARISMA MAGAZINE

The mystery of God requires us to hang in the balance, at times, if we're going to not only acknowledge it but receive it as beauty. (Adam Porter)

Accurately Discerning Your Season Shifts

 8/4/2016 SARA HAGERTY  CHARISMA MAGAZINE

The SpiritLed Woman podcast is empowering women weekly to follow their purpose in Christ and boldly walk in faith. Listen at charismapodcastnetwork.com.

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For years, our lives have been rhythmic.

We pick up speed late summer and sprint through the fall until Thanksgiving. We slow our pace in December and gradually trot toward a long rest from Jan. 1 until just around the end of March. Life gets full again in the spring, we play hard in the summer, our pulse already racing before we hit the fall sprint.

Repeat.

I know my seasons.

At least I thought I did.

I birth books and babies in the fall. (And even the children I didn't birth myself have birthdays in the fall.)

Then the embers in our fireplace never fully die in the winter. "Start the teapot again, please, Mommy" is just as frequent as "Babe, would you light another fire?" I read novels in the winter and we piece together puzzles. The flurry of activity quiets but the walls field the noise of seven lives, slowing to a halt and reacquainting themselves with the stillness of winter on the other side of our steamed windows.

Last year was the same as this year was the same as the year before that.

So when April hit, of course I knew my season. Right? Soccer and weeding out winter clothes and wintered flower beds and finishing writing my book. I planned to finally put into place some ideas I'd had for this blog and my writing and a project about which I've been dreaming for a year—all the things I'd been scratching into my moleskine when life was quiet.

And then there was that surprise Tuesday morning.

I don't consider myself "old," and yet when a slip on the sidewalk during a morning run landed me in a cast with a broken ankle, I wonder if I'm 8 again or pushing 80.  "Nope, we don't see many people in here your age, ma'am" said the 20-year-old-looking intern at the orthopedist's office. That one time I wasn't so thankful to be called ma'am.

In one day, my spring plans changed.

Though small in scale, this near-two-month stint off my ankle has been revelatory. As I grow in God, there is a subtle part of me that does not expect to have surprises. And I get used to relating to God without surprises so that when they come I might spend a good bit of the energy I need to move forward instead mining back through my calendar saying, "This wasn't the plan" on repeat, as if to convince myself (or God) that we're stuck.

After the wrestle—you know, that part of me that made a mental list of all the things I couldn't do without walking or driving and threw a little fit on my insides—I started to realize that somewhere pretty deep in there I wanted to be a little girl again, sequestered to her room for rest time, even though my body's inertia told me I could play all day without interruptions.

I wanted to be led by a strong Daddy. I wanted to "get" to be weak, and follow.

The mystery of God requires us to hang in the balance, at times, if we're going to not only acknowledge it but receive it as beauty. And sometimes I talk myself out of mystery, less because I've gotten a new handle on a side of God from His Word and more because I don't like the vulnerability of being led like that little girl.

In April I got told, "This isn't the season you thought it was going to be."

And I type through tears because I have felt profoundly loved by God in it all.

God made me a little girl again and told me that I needed rest time and, yes, even after pouring hours of prayer into the plan I thought we'd made together for this spring.

{If you will, an aside: This post isn't about whether this whole ankle debacle was initiated by Satan or God or just my uncoordinated flesh. There are some things that, once they happen and you ask for Him to bring miraculous healing—because, yes, I believe He does—and the healing doesn't yet come, that require you to say, "Well, God, what do You have for me here," if you're going to grow in the midst of it.}

I didn't know how badly I needed to be grossly unproductive and see—from that very place—the glint in God's eye that spoke to me more than words and said, "Just abide, here, in Me."

Friends, it's sweet to be my age and get sequestered. Grounded, if you will.

I'll end with this note, to the creative types out there—or, rather, the efficient producers. Or maybe all of us: We're in a unique time in history when creating in a closet or producing something or experiencing the beauty of God, alone and in private, feels antiquated. Why write in my journal when I can tell the world my latest insight into God? Why just live the private moment of God-kissed beauty that's happened in my family room when I can invite thousands of others to see it? Why create—if it's not for another person? Why live if it's not be productive unto someone else's benefit?

I say this as a writer, finishing my next book for which I can't wait to have people pour over the pages. I love to work for the benefit of others.

But this unique time in history, when we weigh and measure our lives against dozens (if not hundreds) of people that we "see" harvesting in a day, has allured us into ignoring the importance of individual seasons—particularly the ones when the ground needs to rest before we sow or harvest.

We've been allured into renouncing the leadership of God, who ordains for each one of us (and at separate times) a winter, a spring, a summer and a fall and each for its own purpose.

Could it be that you're sowing during a time when the ground needs to rest or clamoring to harvest what you haven't yet painstakingly sown? Or what if you're resting and it's harvest time?

We often live, pushing to harvest something during the wrong season that could be easily retrieved in the right one or expecting one kind of harvest when God has been sowing another seed or trying to sow into hard ground when, if we waited just a bit longer, it would take half the time and effort, all because the soil was tilled.

Sometimes all it takes is the question and the set-aside time to hear the answer: What season do you have me in, God? And how to I partner and align with You, where You have me?

Slide outside, go for a walk and start asking Him. I say start, because He's not a Pez machine. Let this be the beginning of a lifetime of having this dialogue with God.

It all is really this simple: He's a very good leader.

Yes, even for those of us pushing 40 who think we've figured out a few things about life. 

On that note, I'm leaning in to the season He has so obviously and surprisingly given me. I'm letting "the land rest" a bit on the blog. I'm going to live more than I write this summer (at least outside my private journal) and soak in what He has for me during this sequestered season of deep rest. Thus, this blog will breathe a bit until August. We'll still be posting our daily adorations and some other short ruminations over here throughout the summer. Come August, when I'm back to writing again, I'll send a notevia my newsletter along with some fun new news on my next book through Zondervan.

For Your Continued Pursuit (don't take my word for it, look it up): Genesis 8:22 | Matthew 9:37-38 | Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 | Proverbs 16:9 | Daniel 2:21 | John 15:9-17 | Leviticus 25:1-7 | Exodus 23:10-12 | Hebrews 12:3-12

Sara is a wife to Nate and a mother of five whose arms stretched wide across the expanse between the United States and Africa. After almost a decade of Christian life she was introduced to pain and perplexity and, ultimately, intimacy with Jesus. God met her and moved her when life stopped working for her. And out of the overflow of this perplexity, came her writing, both on her blog and in her book, Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet, released October 2014 via Zondervan. Connect with Sara on Instagram.