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Ripple Effect

The Labor Market Turns Sour

Loading ...Addison Wiggin

July 2, 2025 • 1 minute, 50 second read


Jobs ReportLabor Marketsurprises

The Labor Market Turns Sour

This morning’s ADP numbers weren’t didn’t just miss expectations for a gain of 98,000 jobs – it was the first negative read since March 2023:

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ADP’s labor data trend shows a slowdown

Several factors are likely at play here. Rising uncertainty over Trump’s tariff and trade policies – even though he’s largely walked those back.

A bigger factor? The rise of AI.

Many big tech companies have been making layoffs this year, citing increased productivity as a reason. For instance, Microsoft just announced another 9,000 in layoffs.

Of course, when an individual company announces layoffs, it’s usually bullish for shares. That company is doing the same – or more – with a smaller headcount. That’s lower costs and higher productivity.

But in a world where every company can lay off a sizable percentage of their staff, we have more unemployed consumers, who tend to cut back on spending.

We haven’t yet seen the full paradox of AI productivity play out – but the trend is there – and growing.

~ Addison

Why Are 21 Billionaires Moving Their Money ASAP?

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Under the surface of the U.S. financial system…

One of the biggest stock market events in 25 years is rapidly unfolding…

The economist who predicted the 2008 Financial Crisis says it will be: “The Biggest Crash of Our Lifetime.”

Starting August 27th — your favorite tech stocks like Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and hundreds more could come crashing down…

Cutting the entire tech market by HALF – virtually overnight.

This is why the world’s financial elite are panic-selling stocks at the fastest rate in a decade.

To help you prepare…

Our guest expert is giving you his #1 stock to profit – 100% FREE.

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P.S.: Tomorrow, at 11 a.m. on Grey Swan Live!, Andrew and I will take stock of the first half of the year. We’ll do a comprehensive review of the model portfolio and review the prominent trends that have impacted stock prices and the economy during the dizzying first months of the second Trump administration. Stay tuned… it promises to be a doozy. Paid readers will definitely want to attend.

As always, your reader feedback is welcome: feedback@greyswanfraternity.com (We read all emails. Thanks in advance for your contribution.)


“Free Money” – And Other New Age Delusions

July 30, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

The Bureau of Labor Statistics changed the way it calculated productivity. It began to look at what it called a “hedonic” price index that took into account not just the price of computer equipment, but its computational power.

On the surface, this makes some sense. If a dollar buys twice as much computational power one year as the next, it is as if the price of computing power had fallen in half. The third quarter of 1995 was the first time this change took effect. It miraculously transformed $2.4 billion in computer spending into $14 billion of output, instantly boosting GDP by 20%, lowering inflation, and increasing productivity (output per hour).

The number for the fourth quarter, to repeat, was spectacular. Incredible. It was revised later to an even more incredible 6.9%. The only trouble was that it was not real.

It was, like the New Era that supposedly made it possible, a fraud. More computational power is not the same as economic growth. And being able to turn out more computational power for each hour of labor input is not the same as an increase in labor productivity.

“Free Money” – And Other New Age Delusions
Lies, Damn Lies, and Government Statistics

July 30, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

CPI, which drives inflation, is usually based on the costs of about 90,000 goods across the economy. But with one-third of the data now based on an estimate — or worse, a guesstimate — it makes CPI data suspect.

This makes other measures, like PPI, suspect, making it impossible for the Fed to accurately determine inflation or its trend.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Government Statistics
A Tsunami Warning

July 30, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Margin debt just hit a record $1.01 trillion, jumping $87 billion in June alone—the largest monthly increase in history. That surpasses the peaks seen before both the dotcom bust and the 2008 crisis. Relative to M2 money supply, it’s the highest since 2018. Risk appetite is off the charts.

Meanwhile, in the real economy: housing defaults just hit their highest level since 2011, and credit card defaults at small lenders are at record levels.

These pressures explain Trump’s desperate push for rate cuts… but if Powell resists, the fallout could be swift and severe.

A Tsunami Warning
The Crack-Up Boom – Part II

July 29, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

Never in the history of man had any people been able to get rich by spending money  .  .  .  nor had investment markets ever made the average buy-and-hold investor rich  .  .  .  nor had paper money, unbacked by gold, ever retained its value for very long.

In the late 1990s, however, all these things seemed not only possible, but inevitable. Everything seemed to be going in Americans’ favor. Then, suddenly, at the beginning of this new century, everything seemed to be going against them.

How could US consumer capitalism, which had been phenomenally successful for so long, fail them now? It can’t, they will say to themselves. Why should they have to accept a decline in their standards of living, when everybody knew that they were getting richer and richer? It cannot be.

Besides, said Americans to themselves in early 2003, if there were problems, they must be the fault of others: terrorists, greedy CEOs, or policy errors at the Fed.

The Crack-Up Boom – Part II