August 4, 2025 • 10 mins
America's Money Answers Man joined the program to analyze the latest jobs numbers and more.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
America's money answers Van Jordan Goodman checks in now, and
we start with the jobs numbers that were released on Friday,
and they weren't that good, Jordan. Of course, they revised
their previous number again, which they often seemed to do.
They revised it way down. So I guess what gives here?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Much much weaker than expected. Yes, so a number of
jobs created during July was seventy three thousand. Walford had
been looking for about one hundred thousand, so left there.
The unemployment rate ticked up from four point one to
four point two. But as you said, the two previous
months were revised down extremely sharply. Let's see, we had
(00:43):
June down from one hundred and forty seven thousand to
fourteen thousand, a drop of one hundred and thirty three thousand,
and May dropping from one hundred and forty four thousand
to nineteen thousand, a drop of one hundred and twenty
five thousand. So those two months combined two hundred and
fifty eight thousand jobs disappeared as the biggest downward division.
(01:04):
I think I've ever seen so clear weakness across the
board on that front. Annual wage growth up three point
nine percent about where it's been. So let me just
go through the different sectors at times to what happened here.
So overall private sector jobs up eighty three thousand, construction
down four, manufacturing down thirteen, wholesale down eight, retail trade
(01:31):
was up sixteen. That's so bad there, Transportation up four,
financial activities up fifteen, professional business services down fourteen. Now
the saving grace has been private education up seventy nine thousand,
healthcare up seventy three thousand, Leisure and hospitality was up
five thousand. Not that long ago there was up like
(01:53):
forty to fifty sixty thousand, now just five thousand. Federal
government employees lost twelve thousand, so just across the board,
really quite a weak number.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
With all due respect to these numbers, if they were
off by magnitudes of magnitude the last two months, which
numbers are right and why are they wrong so bigue.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
They get revisions, They go back to the employers. The
numbers have done through the fifteenth of the previous months,
so here we are in August and would have been
done through July fifteenth. Employers then revise, you know what
they say for the previous months, or they didn't get
all the data in, and now they get all the
data in. But these are the biggest revisions I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, I mean off by a factor of one hundred thousand,
whether it was to the good or to the bad.
To me, is a little bit damaging to your credibility.
But nonetheless, the stock market, of course didn't like the numbers.
And you mentioned the unemployment rate only ticked up one
tenth of a percent, So does that mean the job
participation rate is also down? Because if we lost two
(03:00):
hundred and fifty thousand jobs, we should have seen the
rate increase more than one point, shouldn't we.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
The labor participation rate was at sixty two point two.
It had been high. It had been up to about
sixty two point seven something like that. So yeah, some
people are dropping out of the workforce, which you're right.
If they were in the work looking in the job,
the unemployment rate would be worse. But a lot of
people are kind of discouraged for giving up right now.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And of course we're hitting the so called cliff with
the logistics, if you will, are demographics. As you've talked about,
older workers are now aging out of the workforce, and
they are not as many young workers looking to replace them,
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That's right. And on top of that, you got the
immigration situation where either people are being deported or they're
afraid to go to work because they're worried about getting
picked up by ice. So there's a tremendous shortage of
labor in agriculture, in hotels, in meatpacking plants, and construction,
all the areas where immigrants have been working. They're too
(04:05):
afraid to go to work right now. So it's strangely
a shortage of labor in certain areas and too much
labor in other areas.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Jordan Gudman is with us. You can reach him via
email Jordan at Moneyanswers dot com. Earlier last week, Jordan,
we get a strong GDP number, a plus three percent,
and of course, if you could maintain three percent growth,
that would be really a huge number in this era
of really stagnant growth for most of the last twenty
five years.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Right, three percent would be great, but it was caused
by various factors. Imports are considered a negative to growth,
so imports plunged by thirty percent in the second quarter,
and that's what made GDP go up in the first quarter,
imports surge and that's what made GDP go down. So
(04:56):
the reason imports surged and then plunged is everybody's trying
get ahead of the tariffs, and so that's why they
bought everything they couldn't site in the first quarter and
then stopped buying in the second quarter. So now here
we are in August, and the tariffs that President Trump
promised have in fact gone into effect on many many
countries kind of standard as fifteen percent, but a lot
(05:18):
of countries much higher than that. Are the countries that
did not get hit by tariff. For those that came
up with deals before the deadline, meaning Japan, Vietnam, European Union, Indonesia, Philippines,
so they kind of avoided getting it. They still got
hit with about fifteen percent tariffs, but the other country
(05:39):
has got much more than that. The big three that
remained are Mexico, China, and Canada. Now President Trump gave
Mexico another ninety days to get it back together. They're
slowing things up with China, but those are three of
our biggest trading partners that we still don't have deals
with yet.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Jordan, the EU deal. I've seen some people kind of
pooh poot that it wasn't that big a win for
Trump or a capitulation by the Europeans. I've seen some
European media call it an absolute cave to President Trump.
What is your evaluation of the EU trade deal, the
pluses and minuses, and was there a real winner here?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I think the US was a winner for that one.
The tariff went up to fifteen percent. It had been
like two percent, so we're going to get more revenue
from them, means that European goods are going to cost
more here. The Europeans agreed to invest one hundreds of
billions of dollars in the US production of various types,
(06:40):
and they opened their markets to US goods which had
been kind of closed in the past. So I can
see why the Europeans, particularly the French, were complaining about it.
But I think it was a win for President Trump.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Jordan Goodman is with us as we talk about the economy.
Of course, the interest rates remained where they were as predicted,
but some dissension in the ranks among the so called
Fed governors. That think there's eight or ten of those,
Jordan and two of them dissented, right.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, there are twelve said governments, and two of them dissented,
which is the first time that's happened since nineteen ninety three.
Those two governors said that they think registrates should fall.
There's been a lot of pressure on FED Chairman Powell
to lower rates from Trump, but he hasn't done it yet.
This is the fifth straight meeting where they've kept rates unchanged.
(07:32):
They're seeing these tariffs coming and now they're in fact
coming into a fet so all these products were around
the world are going to be fifteen or many cases
much higher Brazil fifty percent, and they're thinking that that's
going to cause inflation as these tasks work their way
through the economy. That's why they're keeping rates where they are.
But we had that extremely weak unemployment report and that
(07:55):
may put more pressure on the side to cut rates.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, I would also predict that Trump's going to change
tack a little bit on these tariffs as we get
some weaker numbers. If nothing else, he is pragmatic and
he's all about the optics and the results. So a
lot to do with all of that here over the
next few weeks or months. Meanwhile, Jordan, we had a
big railroad merger union Pacific Norfolk Southern. I guess we
(08:22):
all know trains run and everything, but we see it
as sort of an ancient industry and maybe not that profitable.
Is that what drove this merger and necessity here?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Well, Union Pontific's going to be buying Norfolk seven for
eighty five billion dollars, okay, to create the first kind
of transcontinental railroad. Right now, they go so far they
have to exchange cars like in Kansas City or someplace.
Now you'll be able to have a freight of going
directly across the entire country without having to be changed.
(08:54):
It will be more efficient. There's a tremendous amount of
consolidation go to as a CFX and Union Pacific are
going to have most of the market here. But with
this administration, I think they're going to approve something like this.
The previous administration probably would have considered it monopolistic, but
I think it's going to go through. It's certainly good
(09:15):
for Norfolk Southern shareholders, and it's going to be a
colossus in the rail industry.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, I thought they did all the car exchanges right
here in Lima by Cable Road by as many times
as I sit there with the train, but I guess
it's actually in Kansas City. A final topic, Jordan stocks.
We talked about the dump it took because of the
jobs report, but overall tech stocks right now are still
on the upswing, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, they came out with their profits last week. All
of them came in very very strong. Google, Meta, Microsoft,
even Apple came in down and expected because people were
buying iPhones in advance of the tariffs, So those were
all very very strong. The one week sister is Tesla.
People are avoid test of sale companies, and their sales
(10:03):
were down like sixteen percent, so their profits were very weak.
But the tech companies continue to forge ahead and continue
to invest hundreds of billions in artificial intelligence, which will
hopefully pay off for them. Right now, they're in the
spending mode.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
That's Jordan Goodman, America's Money answers Man. As always, Jordan,
we thank you for taking time, all right, thank it
out
America's money answers Van Jordan Goodman checks in now, and
we start with the jobs numbers that were released on Friday,
and they weren't that good, Jordan. Of course, they revised
their previous number again, which they often seemed to do.
They revised it way down. So I guess what gives here?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Much much weaker than expected. Yes, so a number of
jobs created during July was seventy three thousand. Walford had
been looking for about one hundred thousand, so left there.
The unemployment rate ticked up from four point one to
four point two. But as you said, the two previous
months were revised down extremely sharply. Let's see, we had
(00:43):
June down from one hundred and forty seven thousand to
fourteen thousand, a drop of one hundred and thirty three thousand,
and May dropping from one hundred and forty four thousand
to nineteen thousand, a drop of one hundred and twenty
five thousand. So those two months combined two hundred and
fifty eight thousand jobs disappeared as the biggest downward division.
(01:04):
I think I've ever seen so clear weakness across the
board on that front. Annual wage growth up three point
nine percent about where it's been. So let me just
go through the different sectors at times to what happened here.
So overall private sector jobs up eighty three thousand, construction
down four, manufacturing down thirteen, wholesale down eight, retail trade
(01:31):
was up sixteen. That's so bad there, Transportation up four,
financial activities up fifteen, professional business services down fourteen. Now
the saving grace has been private education up seventy nine thousand,
healthcare up seventy three thousand, Leisure and hospitality was up
five thousand. Not that long ago there was up like
(01:53):
forty to fifty sixty thousand, now just five thousand. Federal
government employees lost twelve thousand, so just across the board,
really quite a weak number.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
With all due respect to these numbers, if they were
off by magnitudes of magnitude the last two months, which
numbers are right and why are they wrong so bigue.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
They get revisions, They go back to the employers. The
numbers have done through the fifteenth of the previous months,
so here we are in August and would have been
done through July fifteenth. Employers then revise, you know what
they say for the previous months, or they didn't get
all the data in, and now they get all the
data in. But these are the biggest revisions I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, I mean off by a factor of one hundred thousand,
whether it was to the good or to the bad.
To me, is a little bit damaging to your credibility.
But nonetheless, the stock market, of course didn't like the numbers.
And you mentioned the unemployment rate only ticked up one
tenth of a percent, So does that mean the job
participation rate is also down? Because if we lost two
(03:00):
hundred and fifty thousand jobs, we should have seen the
rate increase more than one point, shouldn't we.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
The labor participation rate was at sixty two point two.
It had been high. It had been up to about
sixty two point seven something like that. So yeah, some
people are dropping out of the workforce, which you're right.
If they were in the work looking in the job,
the unemployment rate would be worse. But a lot of
people are kind of discouraged for giving up right now.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And of course we're hitting the so called cliff with
the logistics, if you will, are demographics. As you've talked about,
older workers are now aging out of the workforce, and
they are not as many young workers looking to replace them,
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That's right. And on top of that, you got the
immigration situation where either people are being deported or they're
afraid to go to work because they're worried about getting
picked up by ice. So there's a tremendous shortage of
labor in agriculture, in hotels, in meatpacking plants, and construction,
all the areas where immigrants have been working. They're too
(04:05):
afraid to go to work right now. So it's strangely
a shortage of labor in certain areas and too much
labor in other areas.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Jordan Gudman is with us. You can reach him via
email Jordan at Moneyanswers dot com. Earlier last week, Jordan,
we get a strong GDP number, a plus three percent,
and of course, if you could maintain three percent growth,
that would be really a huge number in this era
of really stagnant growth for most of the last twenty
five years.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Right, three percent would be great, but it was caused
by various factors. Imports are considered a negative to growth,
so imports plunged by thirty percent in the second quarter,
and that's what made GDP go up in the first quarter,
imports surge and that's what made GDP go down. So
(04:56):
the reason imports surged and then plunged is everybody's trying
get ahead of the tariffs, and so that's why they
bought everything they couldn't site in the first quarter and
then stopped buying in the second quarter. So now here
we are in August, and the tariffs that President Trump
promised have in fact gone into effect on many many
countries kind of standard as fifteen percent, but a lot
(05:18):
of countries much higher than that. Are the countries that
did not get hit by tariff. For those that came
up with deals before the deadline, meaning Japan, Vietnam, European Union, Indonesia, Philippines,
so they kind of avoided getting it. They still got
hit with about fifteen percent tariffs, but the other country
(05:39):
has got much more than that. The big three that
remained are Mexico, China, and Canada. Now President Trump gave
Mexico another ninety days to get it back together. They're
slowing things up with China, but those are three of
our biggest trading partners that we still don't have deals
with yet.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Jordan, the EU deal. I've seen some people kind of
pooh poot that it wasn't that big a win for
Trump or a capitulation by the Europeans. I've seen some
European media call it an absolute cave to President Trump.
What is your evaluation of the EU trade deal, the
pluses and minuses, and was there a real winner here?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I think the US was a winner for that one.
The tariff went up to fifteen percent. It had been
like two percent, so we're going to get more revenue
from them, means that European goods are going to cost
more here. The Europeans agreed to invest one hundreds of
billions of dollars in the US production of various types,
(06:40):
and they opened their markets to US goods which had
been kind of closed in the past. So I can
see why the Europeans, particularly the French, were complaining about it.
But I think it was a win for President Trump.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Jordan Goodman is with us as we talk about the economy.
Of course, the interest rates remained where they were as predicted,
but some dissension in the ranks among the so called
Fed governors. That think there's eight or ten of those,
Jordan and two of them dissented, right.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, there are twelve said governments, and two of them dissented,
which is the first time that's happened since nineteen ninety three.
Those two governors said that they think registrates should fall.
There's been a lot of pressure on FED Chairman Powell
to lower rates from Trump, but he hasn't done it yet.
This is the fifth straight meeting where they've kept rates unchanged.
(07:32):
They're seeing these tariffs coming and now they're in fact
coming into a fet so all these products were around
the world are going to be fifteen or many cases
much higher Brazil fifty percent, and they're thinking that that's
going to cause inflation as these tasks work their way
through the economy. That's why they're keeping rates where they are.
But we had that extremely weak unemployment report and that
(07:55):
may put more pressure on the side to cut rates.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, I would also predict that Trump's going to change
tack a little bit on these tariffs as we get
some weaker numbers. If nothing else, he is pragmatic and
he's all about the optics and the results. So a
lot to do with all of that here over the
next few weeks or months. Meanwhile, Jordan, we had a
big railroad merger union Pacific Norfolk Southern. I guess we
(08:22):
all know trains run and everything, but we see it
as sort of an ancient industry and maybe not that profitable.
Is that what drove this merger and necessity here?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Well, Union Pontific's going to be buying Norfolk seven for
eighty five billion dollars, okay, to create the first kind
of transcontinental railroad. Right now, they go so far they
have to exchange cars like in Kansas City or someplace.
Now you'll be able to have a freight of going
directly across the entire country without having to be changed.
(08:54):
It will be more efficient. There's a tremendous amount of
consolidation go to as a CFX and Union Pacific are
going to have most of the market here. But with
this administration, I think they're going to approve something like this.
The previous administration probably would have considered it monopolistic, but
I think it's going to go through. It's certainly good
(09:15):
for Norfolk Southern shareholders, and it's going to be a
colossus in the rail industry.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, I thought they did all the car exchanges right
here in Lima by Cable Road by as many times
as I sit there with the train, but I guess
it's actually in Kansas City. A final topic, Jordan stocks.
We talked about the dump it took because of the
jobs report, but overall tech stocks right now are still
on the upswing, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, they came out with their profits last week. All
of them came in very very strong. Google, Meta, Microsoft,
even Apple came in down and expected because people were
buying iPhones in advance of the tariffs, So those were
all very very strong. The one week sister is Tesla.
People are avoid test of sale companies, and their sales
(10:03):
were down like sixteen percent, so their profits were very weak.
But the tech companies continue to forge ahead and continue
to invest hundreds of billions in artificial intelligence, which will
hopefully pay off for them. Right now, they're in the
spending mode.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
That's Jordan Goodman, America's Money answers Man. As always, Jordan,
we thank you for taking time, all right, thank it
out
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