Paul Craig Roberts tells us how to interpret the BLS job statistics.

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VDARE.COM - http://www.vdare.com/roberts/080107_jobs.htm
January 07, 2008

No Jobs for the New Economy or the Old

By Paul Craig Roberts

December did not bring Americans any jobs. To the contrary, the private sector lost 13,000 jobs from the previous month.

If December is a harbinger of the New Year, it is going to be a bad one. The past year, hailed by Republican propagandists and "free trade" economists as proof of globalism’s benefit to Americans, was dismal. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ nonfarm payroll data, the US "super economy" created a miserable 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs during 2007. [BLS Job Numbers, January 4, 2008]

This is not enough to keep up with population growth—even at the rate discouraged Americans, unable to find jobs, are dropping out of the work force—thus the rise in the unemployment rate to 5%. (read more)

Iowa and New Hampshire voters are unrelated, it seems.  Obama and Huckabee won Iowa. 

Clinton and McCain won New Hampshire.  Both have been the leaders of their candidate packs, then left for dead, then came back.  McCain was the predicted victor in New Hampshire, but the pollsters uniformly screwed up in showing Obama way ahead.  Turnout set a record, as it did in Iowa.

Here are the results:

On trade, this is where I think they stand.  I may insult you or your candidate, but I can only rely on their words or their record. 

McCain is the clearest of the victors - wacko free trader.

I’m a free trader. Since Phil Graham left, there’s no greater free trader in the Senate than I am.  I’m very concerned about protectionism.

Clinton is unclear.  She voted against CAFTA and claims to oppose the Panama, South Korea and Panama trade agreements.  Clinton supports a pause on trade agreements, presumably to re-evaluate.  But she supported the Peru FTA and surrounds herself with Robert Rubin Democrat advisors.  Her husband pushed through NAFTA over a decade ago, but I discount spousal initiative from over a decade ago... standing alone.

Obama is unclear.  He voted against CAFTA but supported the Peru FTA.  I don't know his public position on the other pending trade agreements.  He sticks with the "labor and environmental" talking points about NAFTA. Too simplistic.  His chief economic advisor Austan Goolsbee, does not necessarily buy the fact that trade deficits are bad.  However, a former Reagan administration trade person told me he expects fair traders to marginalize Goolsbee down the road.  We'll see.

Huckabee is unclear.  He has never voted for or against any trade-related law or agreement.  He has proclaimed, on his campaign website, "I believe in free trade, but it has to be fair trade."  I don't know what that means.  His "fair tax" is a good starting point to address the VAT tariff problem.

The Robert Rubin Democrats and Corporate Republicans want us to believe they do a good job with trade and the economy.  New Hampshire folks aren't buying it.  

CNN's early exit polls: Top issues

New Hampshire Democratic primary voters:

1. The economy
2. The war in Iraq
3. Health care

New Hampshire Republican primary voters:

1. The economy
2. The war in Iraq
3. Terrorism
4. Illegal immigration

Source: CNN Exit Poll preliminary results

This Heritage Foundation piece debunks the World Trade Organization's recent findings that China's economy is much smaller than we thought.  China has actually passed the U.S. as the world's leading manufacturing economy.

Now that China's manufacturing sector has nosed past the United States, America's political leaders must begin to contemplate what China's economy will look like in another five years. It will likely be half-again bigger than America's industrial sector, giving China the capacity to assemble the building blocks of a military superpower.

To repeat, China is now bigger than the U.S. in manufacturing.  Right now.  Our biggest geopolitical rival - not our enemy, but our rival. 

China had the tools to unilaterally increase its trade surplus and create rocketing economic growth - and they used them.

The U.S. has the tools to neutralize the unfairness from currency manipulation, VAT tariffs, foreign subsidies, etc. - and we do not use them.  Someone might call us "protectionist" for neutralizing the protectionists.