Gekko

THE day after the unexpectedly high payroll-jobs number for May came out, the New York Times ran a story about its reporter’s morning with Fed governor Larry Lindsey. The reporter seemed astonished that Lindsey, upon seeing The Number on his screen, did not fall down sobbing and begging for mercy from the gods of the market, throwing a vote for a rate increase onto the altar in his office. After all, Everyone Knows that if jobs grow, the Fed funds rate must be raised at the July or August meeting, lest Life As We Know It come to an end.

Instead, Lindsey just commented that The Number was “not shocking,” and went on to make economic small talk. The bond market, of course, had a fit of the vapors. Bond investors, or those still left alive, were getting out of Saigon.

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THE day after the unexpectedly high payroll-jobs number for May came out, the New York Times ran a story about its reporter’s morning with Fed governor Larry Lindsey. The reporter seemed astonished that Lindsey, upon seeing The Number on his screen, did not fall down sobbing and begging for mercy from the gods of the market, throwing a vote for a rate increase onto the altar in his office. After all, Everyone Knows that if jobs grow, the Fed funds rate must be raised at the July or August meeting, lest Life As We Know It come to an end.

Instead, Lindsey just commented that The Number was “not shocking,” and went on to make economic small talk. The bond market, of course, had a fit of the vapors. Bond investors, or those still left alive, were getting out of Saigon.