I am all ears for some cackling "ROI" (return on investment) argle-bargle explaining our first item of the day.

The Fed is getting ready to meet, and they've got their accounting pencils - and erasers - ready to go. To help them make a decision on the state of the economy, the tools they use, such as the Bureau of Labor and Statistics job figures, are getting a burnishing - a freshening up, if you will. Something known as a "revision." 

It's got some of the folks I follow waxing nostalgic and thinking fondly back to Biden election years of yore...

A lot of people forget the Philly Fed did a benchmark revision the end of 2022, erasing 1.1 million new jobs from the books..
We're about to see something similar tomorrow.
It should be a much bigger deal than it is.. https://t.co/Ev15tVijMF

— Frog Capital (@FrogNews) August 20, 2024

The BLS has been revising every job gain announcement down a few months after they've made it for the past few years. No one really pays attention to the months past because all the focus is on the jobs hit-or-miss figures for the current month. The fact that the big met or beat expectations of the two or three months previously - which may well have been crowed over as a sign #Bidenomics was da bomb - was quietly dropped to a miss slides by without comment. Perhaps to be revised downward yet again in a subsequent month. 

It looks like this:

No worries. No one notices...okay. Well, some people do, but no one who matters.

Until the problem becomes somewhat acute because the revisions are so dang large that an accounting black hole opens up. At that point, the government has to fess up -  "mistakes were made." Which is what appears to be going to happen today.

Someone's abacus was missing a bead or two...or a million. 

The job market "could be in far worse shape" than the administration "would admit"?

After haranguing the crap out of everyday Americans like the arrogant overseers they are, you mean #Bidenomics might be all smoke and mirrors?

No way.

Even Biden apologists like Bloomberg are gulping, working those descriptors as hard as they can to soften the edges and assert that perhaps job creation was "likely FAR LESS ROBUST."

KAMALANOMICS: "Fed Confronts Up to a Million US Jobs Vanishing in Revision"

"US job growth in the year through March was likely far less robust than initially estimated..." https://t.co/uP0HnCvslK

— Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) August 20, 2024

Do tell...now that you have to.

US job growth in the year through March was likely far less robust than initially estimated, which risks fueling concerns that the Federal Reserve is falling further behind the curve to lower interest rates.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. economists expect the government’s preliminary benchmark revisions on Wednesday to show payrolls growth in the year through March was at least 600,000 weaker than currently estimated — about 50,000 a month.

While JPMorgan Chase & Co. forecasters see a decline of about 360,000, Goldman Sachs indicates it could be as large as a million.

There are a number of caveats in the preliminary figure, but a downward revision to employment of more than 501,000 would be the largest in 15 years and suggest the labor market has been cooling for longer — and perhaps more so — than originally thought. The final numbers are due early next year.

What a lucky thing Kamala's still at her big party, and the geriatric cadaver took off for a billionaire's house for vacation.

And voilà! The number came in this morning much later than the scheduled 10 am release and...FUGLY.

-818,000

This is the biggest negative revision to payrolls since the global financial crisis.

Crucially, it took place in an election year and was meant to pad the numbers, making the economy appear much stronger than it was https://t.co/WtjpNSaytR pic.twitter.com/EIHW5Ynjev

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 21, 2024

WE DID IT, JOE

Someone might have been asked an awkward question or two. But a friendly press will make sure this is all forgotten by the time they get on the road again Friday after her coronation. Then, she can go back to playing duck and cackle for the remainder of the campaign.

This isn't the only significant economic curveball the Biden-HARRIS team needs to answer to, although it is the only one directly of their making. Two other potentially calamitous labor actions are in the pipeline, one possibly on tap for this week, that would have big impacts on our shaky, #Bidenomics weakened ground.

Workers for both of the Canadian railways - the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Kansas City - have voted to go on strike simultaneously.

BREAKING: U.S. railroad operator Union Pacific has warned that a potential rail strike in Canada will have "devastating consequences" on the North American economy. pic.twitter.com/ocND4rfomo

— The General (@GeneralMCNews) August 20, 2024

And both railroads are talking about locking out their workers and shutting down operations across the country as early as tomorrow if they cannot come to an agreement.

Besides demands similar to those that precipitated our own barely averted strikes in 2022, railroad unions are said to be asking for a raise in the neighborhood of 32%. Trudeau has been reluctant to intervene directly because his government is loathe to antagonize their labor supporters - it's about all he has left. But the railroads are critical to Canadian economy, and play a more significant role than one might think in our own.

...Government officials are playing a more active role in trying to resolve the dispute, with the labor minister meeting with the parties at the CN negotiations in Montreal on Tuesday and with CPKC contract negotiators on Wednesday in Calgary. But so far, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been reluctant to force the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference union to accept a deal. Many business groups have urged the government to intervene and force arbitration.

Both railroads are offering raises to what are already well-paying jobs that they say are consistent with other recent deals in the industry. The negotiations are primarily hung up on issues related to the way rail workers are scheduled and concerns about rules designed to prevent fatigue. At CN, there are some additional concerns about provisions that would help the railroad temporarily relocate workers when it is short in other regions.

Contingency plans are already being put in place by shipping companies, etc., should the rail workers walk off.

Prospects for Canada’s first simultaneous, nationwide railroad strike by the country’s two major freight railroads grew more likely over the weekend causing the shipping liners, freight forwarders, and shippers all to scramble ahead of the action. The mandated cooling-off period is set to expire this week, with the Teamsters issuing strike notices and Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City each issuing a notice of a lockout for nearly a total of 10,000 union employees as of early Thursday morning.

...With the prospects of a lockout/strike looking Maersk began telling customers that it would stop accepting books for some cargo. Freight forwarded C.H. Robinson also reports that it has begun diverting shipments. The company told Reuters that 80 percent of its customers have switched bookings to export through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach while others are moving shipments to Seattle and Tacoma. Robinson told Reuters it expects to move cargo by truck across the border to the U.S.

...A strike is also expected to spill over to impact U.S. seaports as carriers and shippers divert cargo. The Canadian railroads are saying they plan to maintain their U.S. operations The railroads serve many major U.S. hubs and ports such as New Orleans.

At the moment, should a strike ensue, there is supposed to be enough oil pipeline capacity to make up for whatever rail transport would be lost and not impact deliveries to the US—yet another example where Keystone could have been important for our energy security. 

WE DID IT, JOE

Now, about that shifting cargo and deliveries to US ports option...well. I'd heard about the rail strike, but Brother Bingley, who deals with these things daily, pointed out another wrinkle yesterday I was unaware of. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico port longshoremen have a contract that expires on 30 September. Contract talks have been dead in the water since June 10th. 

Nobody has given an inch so far, and the unions have filed their strike notice.

Union negotiations covering longshore workers on the East and Gulf Coasts have been stalled since June 10, bringing the union closer to a potential strike at the September 30 contract expiration.

Leaders of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) have called a September 4-5 delegates meeting to discuss demands and strike strategy. Last week the union sent the employer association, known as USMX, a strike notice that federal law requires sixty days before a strike.

The contract between the ILA and the USMX is one of the largest expiring this year, and a strike would have massive economic impact — billions of dollars per day.

Negotiations broke down in June over union allegations that the port of Mobile, Alabama, as well as other unnamed ports, had automated some processing of trucks entering and leaving the docks — work traditionally done by ILA members.

Union leadership and the USMX have not held public negotiations since.

Bingley says, "A lot of cargo is already backing up." That's because larger importers who have the inventory and overhead flexibility to get products in early did so in anticipation of a strike.

A potential strike at U.S. seaports on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico could back up cargo there for weeks or even months, shipping experts said on Wednesday.

Retailers like Walmart (WMT.N), opens new tab and other importers have been rushing goods in ahead of the Sept. 30 expiration of the union contract covering some 45,000 dockworkers at three dozen seaports from Texas to Maine.

Their goal? To land cargo in the U.S. before Oct. 1, when the International Longshoremen's Association representing those workers has vowed to strike if a new contract is not in place.

Analysts at Sea-Intelligence, a Copenhagen-based shipping advisory firm, estimated that it could take anywhere from four to six days to clear the backlog from a one-day strike.

"This means that a (one)-week strike in the beginning of October would not be cleared until mid-November," Sea-Intelligence CEO Alan Murphy said in a statement.

A two-week strike could mean that ports would not return to normal operations until 2025, Murphy said.

This is peachy.

Now, toss in additional rerouted Canadian cargo to try to avoid the northern railroad snafu.

There's also, as Axios notes in their CKA* fashion, one of the most, if not the most important aspects of the port labor dispute:

Of all the laborers critical to the smooth flow of goods around the planet, unionized dockworkers find themselves among those with the most power and best pay.

Why it matters: Port workers along the East and Gulf coast are threatening to strike in October — alarmingly close to Election Day.

ALARMINGLY CLOSE TO ELECTION DAY

You know what matters most, and it's not a potential body blow to the economy. 

The piece is full of "no worries, though" and "longshoremen are very well paid," which is odd for a liberal rag, but no matter. You know Axios won't be asking the Biden administration, God forbid quizzing Mayor Pete, what they're doing about it or how necessary preparations are causing disruptions/burdensome additional costs to businesses already under duress in the Biden-HARRIS economy.

Nah. 

The main Axios thrust is, "Why did they have to do this now?"

Poor media.

It's a cruel, unruly world out there, even when remarkably well off.

Maybe if they tried to get some real answers once in a while, they wouldn't be so bummed out.

For context when we had consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, Biden Admin literally changed the definition of a recession because job growth was so great. Now it turns out that isn’t true. For almost two years this is the sole metric that they used to defend the Admin and…

— Christian Hannesson (@channesson32) August 21, 2024

Or be so dizzy from the constant spin.

*Cover Kamala's Asterisk