Hi. I’m Peter Navarro, and it’s Friday morning just a few hours after the latest jobs report came out and sent yet more ripples through both the stock and bond markets. I will parse those numbers for you in this podcast as well as assess that emerging crisis and contagion in the global banking system that has, in part, been catalyzed by a collapse of the stock price of Silicon Valley Bank. And please note, that if you would like a transcript of this podcast, as well as other premium analysis, please go to PeterNavarro.substack.com. 

Okay. Let’s start off this podcast with this riddle: How can you have a robust rise well above expectations of monthly new jobs AKA nonfarm payrolls and still see both a rise in the unemployment rate and a slowing of monthly wage growth? To any economist, this trifecta doesn’t make a lot of sense.  

You would think that if nonfarm payrolls are growing robustly – in fact, they have beaten expectations for the last 11 months, which is a record – that the unemployment rate would fall and wage growth would increase.  But that’s not what’s happening in the United States of America; and the reason is as simple as the answer to this riddle – illegal immigration.