Best Business Commentary

Employment signs

With employment figures, “it’s the sign that matters,” says Caroline Baum in Bloomberg. “In reality, there isn’t a heck of a lot of difference statistically” between a monthly plus or minus of 50,000 jobs. But “we all catch our breaths” after even a small loss of 4,000 jobs, like in August. Employment numbers have a huge psychological impact on businesses and “working folks,” and they’re the “signature economic statistic for financial markets.” But while the markets are now sure of a Fed rate cut next week, it’s not clear that “a single economic report” really "changes anything—for the economy or for the Fed.”

China picks up the trash

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The Chinese junk arrow points both ways, says Daniel Gross in Slate. Yes, China sold us $288 billion worth of rubbish last year—laced pet food, lead-covered toys, plastic doodads—but “in an act of macroeconomic karma,” we sold China $6.7 billion in literal junk. Chinese factories buy 42 percent of our exported scrap metal and recovered paper products to make the goods they sell back to us. It’s a “virtuous circle,” good for the U.S. scrap business and “tree-huggers” alike. And it may not single-handedly save the planet, but our junk trade at least puts to good use “a commodity that America produces in abundance.”