Just In Time For Christmas!

Yep, just in time for Christmas Tulsa, Oklahoma finally begins to get some positive job market news!  Really, it is only one piece, but it is a solid one.  Local manufacturing firm McElroy Manufacturing, Inc.  has run an advertisement today offering a $2,100.00 sign-on bonus for a wide variety of positions related to their operations.

 Why do I view this as a positive indicator?  Such sign-on bonus were almost routine back in the "good ol'e days", your remember 2004 through early 2007 don't you?  Those heady days when everyone seemed to think 2.7% unemployment was here to stay, and the economy could do nothing but grow-yes, the good old days.  This is the first time since then I have seen such a substantial bonus offered for such a diversity of "hard jobs". 

 "Hard jobs" are those that require and produce real physical inputs, and physical outcomes.  That is as opposed to those that only have a paper impact, such as banking, securities, and other financial sector jobs.  (I should note that this is the very sector where I began my working career many years ago.)

Congratulations to the good folks at McElroy, we are pulling for you!

The McElroy positions are based upon real demand for real products, not some speculator's, hedge fund, or fund manager's guess of the market's next move.  Not only will the products produced be real, but also they will have real lasting impact on the economy, as they are durable goods-the kind employers purchase with capital expenditures.

 I am sorry, but I have little faith in any sector of the economy where sales, revenues and profits are based upon the simple exchange of paper, or now computer bits and bytes.  Until someone converts that paper promise to pay, or those bits and bytes into a tangle firm asset they have no real value.  They are just potential value that "savvy businessmen" then try use to convince someone else to lend them more potential value in order to build the books. 

 Unfortunately, we all saw how high those wunderkind could build those books when their ivory towers came crashing down in late 2007 and early 2008.  Suddenly businesses and portfolios that had seemed golden, turned to lead, and sunk to the bottom of the pond.  We saw all the tradition "blue chip" securities lose significant value, some even filing for bankruptcy or closing their doors completely.   

However, the jobs McElroy and manufacturers like them will create.  They will also create orders for raw materials, intermediate components and assemblies, and goods and services.  Those also represent more tangible and real job growth for their vendors and suppliers and the communities where they exist. 

On a more cautionary note, I see that Bill Bartmann, of Commercial Financial Services (CFS) infamy, is at it once again.  In July this year, CFS II opened its doors in Tulsa.  An article in the Tulsa World Business section notes that new employees were reporting to work this week.  Just in time for Christmas-that’s a good thing.

I guess the recent rounds of bankruptcies, and subprime problems look like business opportunity to these bits and bytes boys and girls.  Never mind that the original CFS was the opening salvo in Oklahoma of the Great Recession we just now are trying to put behind us.

You have to admit, Bartmann has chutzpah.  CFS proved to be just as much a house of cards as the subprime lending, derivatives, and other financial tools that lead to the recent worldwide recession.  Nevertheless, here Bill is, going to try again. You can just bet his efforts will all be based upon the same types of derivative instruments that no one could understand and that took out folks like Lehman Brothers, almost crippled Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac, and so shook up the rest of us.   You do have to admit though; CFS II does have a fertile field of bankruptcies and defaults to mine. 

So, guess what?  CFS is back just in time for Christmas.  I guess I have to say that the news is still mixed-so stay tuned.