Mike Madowitz

Paul Bremer ran Iraq for Bush. His emails show what really happened ‘I am now officially the government of Iraq,’ Bremer wrote to his wife in private messages from 2003 unearthed by The Sunday Times. In frank detail, they show the dangers of waging war without the rig...

Extrapolate what you will

Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ policy shields consumers from Iran-driven oil shocks, economist says | Fox News Video Unleash Prosperity co-founder Stephen Moore says record U.S. oil and gas production will help counter Middle East turmoil and prevent a spike in gas prices in the wake of recent Iran strikes.

Disheartening to see anyone taken seriously who says US (or California) oil production protects consumers from Iran war impact. Producers argue world market sets the price. Correct! Oil price reflects value, not proximity, as recent gasoline price jumps show.
www.foxnews.com/video/639043...

My recap of today's jobs report. Don't overreact to the February data...

Instead, you should worry about what spiking oil prices will do to future data.

Link: macromostly.substack.com/p/bls-jobs-r...

Measure zero human!

Kuwait Announces 'Precautionary' Oil Output Reduction Kuwait said Saturday it had started a precautionary and temporary reduction ⁠in its oil ⁠production and ‌refining due to the ongoing attacks by Iran against the country and threats to shipping in the ...

Still not going great

What were these ppl thinking when the shale industry was getting hammered last year?

Sat next to him on a red eye and he candy crushed on full brightness the whole flight.
Big retiree energy

I also think it’s a risky habit to hang big overarching labor market narratives on individual jobs reports, they aren’t load bearing

Yeah, construction is, as always, a weird one. Don’t color me shocked if a lot of household replies about working for pay or profit on last minute snow removal never gets reported as formal taxable employment 😉

I mean, markets are way down on these numbers because they are worse than we guessed based on other data, acting director is career and was acting under multiple admins.

Its still not there

Nope, baseline revision go the opposite of what admin has been pushing

I’m probably east coast biasing, but my intuition is ref week between storms wouldn’t show up here in hh survey, but slows onboarding reporting on the payrolls side (could even explain some divergence)

I guess best test point for this would be positive feb payroll revisions next month?

The best laid plans....

[Energy secretary]: plans? who said plans?

www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/his...

And even more now that we don’t depend on imports at all because tariffs have breathed new life into US mfg…

It was me!

Some times payroll data is bad. It was bad this month.

But the idea that an economy with 4.4% unemployment, 80.7% prime age employment, and 2.4% inflation is "destroyed" is very silly.

I have been so good about not using my 'that's one way to win TX senate' jokes!

Just that if you really believed the hype on jobs reversing you're not worried about an oil shock causing a recession, but same jobs market looks like you could knock it over with a feather after today + revisions

if it wasn't for the war, I'd say that very negative takes on the US labor market based on this report would be a big overreaction

(just like people overreacted with optimism last month)

I don't think the last few month, or the revisions, should radically change your view on a consistently weak labor market.

However, you could convince me that someone who asks if we should really start an oil shock war gets shot down a week ago and prevails today

The latest population control revisions indicate a -1.4mn revision to the US labor force with 1.4mn fewer employed

We're going through a historic negative labor supply shock with net migration falling from over 2mn per year to close to zero while ageing demographics are at play

threw me for a bit too--the California erasure continues

Elise has the bigger story here: these population control revisions are huge.
I expected big ones and I'm still getting my head around them

"Offices of physicians lost 37,000 jobs in February, primarily due to strike activity."
www.bls.gov/news.release...

Weather-Adjusted Employment Change - San Francisco Fed Updated 1/9/2026

My spiciest take at this point:

This job market is officially mid--not as fire as last month looked, not as bad as this month's topline looks

Gonna go back to hitting refresh for a bit

Not convinced this jobs report is as scary or as bad as initial reaction.

Household survey looks mostly fine
Little change in participation
Little change in EPOP
U-6 falls again

and again, really bad weather hitting payrolls

Pinning everything on weather rn

Shit, this sucks.

Weather is our best excuse today!

Watch for SF Fed weather adjusted data later in the day

Big Revisions Are a Reason to Question Jobs Numbers, Not Dismiss Them

More in my story today. Oh, and happy #jobsday!
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/b...

Brb, building destroyers