On the August Jobs Report

The big headline miss of 44,000 payrolls was perfectly offset by upward revisions of 44,000 -- but the fact remains that the labor force added a mere 173,000 payrolls in August, making the month an average one at best. We don't believe the hoopla that the Fed's decision to "lift off" at the FOMC meeting less than two weeks away was ever contingent on this morning's numbers. Surely nothing in today's garden - variety jobs report is going to change any FOMC member's mind. With so much slack remaining in the lab or force and utterly no evidence of an inflation threat, we continue to think the FOMC will favor common sense and caution and forego "liftoff."