At The Close, 5/1/17:
Dow: 21,144.18, +135.53 (0.65%)
NASDAQ: 6,246.83, +48.31 (0.78%)
S&P 500: 2,430.06, +18.26 (0.76%)
NYSE Composite: 11,699.79, +101.76 (0.88%)
Updating, at approximately 9:00 am ET:
May Non-farm Payroll data disappointed, coming in well below expectations of 185,000 net new jobs, at 138,000.
April was revised lower, to 174,000. The May figure is the second-lowest since November 2016, and is the sixth month of the last eight that job creation was less than 200,000, dating back to October, 2016.
Is this showing the real nature of the US economy? That job creation is still stagnant or slowing, with the economy remaining in favor of large corporations with significant barriers to entry by smaller firms.
This is the turret of the US economy. The myriad of regulations and laws, engineered and gamed by lobbyists for major firms, favor big business at the detriment to small business and entrepreneurism. The rules, regulations, licenses, and filing requirements for business favors larger firms because they - due to their vast monetary advantages - can pay the onerous fees, lawyers, accountants and compliance costs without much of a dent to their bottom line.
Smaller firms lack the financial resources to deal with the myriad of federal, state and local laws, finding themselves at such a disadvantage that many people considering starting up their own business, do not, once they research the complications of tax laws and other regulations. Thus, the number of self-employed people in the USA is lower today than it was in 1990.
That figure is depressing because there are 72 million more Americans now than there were in 1990. Worse yet, according to Michael Snyder's Economic Collapse blog:
...the percentage of “new entrepreneurs and business owners” declined by a staggering 53 percent between 1977 and 2010.
So, while Wall Street funds the well-heeled huge corporations, Main Street and small town America is still stuck in the depression that began in 2007 (some say 2000) and has not ended, despite the "recovery" meme from the past eight years.
If working for some gigantic global corporation at slave wages and having 40% of your paycheck stolen from you in the form of taxes and contributions is any American's idea of freedom, growth, or prosperity, one wonders what a recession or depression really looks like.
Americans could have and should have destroyed the corporate-government partnership back in the sixties, but, after the youth revolution was crushed by the military-industrial complex, the Baby Boomer generation blindly went along their merry way, co-opted into the system. Now they are all retiring, wondering if the $500,000 or $1 million they've squirreled away over the years will last them the rest of their lives.
Meanwhile, the country they were born into and suckled upon no longer resembles the one of their youth. They will leave to future generations a small shadow of a once-great nation, Donald Trump or no Donald Trump. Sadly, to this point, the evidence points to the president favoring big business over small. Perhaps that is just perception, or maybe it's too soon to judge him on the small business front, because, after all, he was - long ago - a small business - and has dealt with many small business owners in the past.
There may yet be hope for small business in America, but the rules favoring big business are choking it down.
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