While everyone is focused on Iran…

92,000 jobs out in in uh in fe in February. Low fewer jobs in healthcare, fewer jobs for information services because of AI. The weather hurt things. Government employment down. If you add it all up, it doesn't look good for the Trump economy. >> Yeah, I couldn't agree with you. I think we have to address the fact that this is not a good report uh in its raw numbers, but we have to also talk about why this possibly has happened. This snapshot in time. It was mentioned the weather. We saw health care numbers go down. We saw a record strike in California, over 30,000 jobs uh lost there, but that has been resolved. So, we're hoping to see those numbers tick back up next month. >> We started off the year with January having the most layoffs that the US has seen in the first month of the year since the great financial crisis in 2009. We just got a new jobs report and the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 hit monthly lows on the news. We just heard of even more tech layoffs coming up with Oracle to lay off thousands of employees and the fintech company Block also recently announcing that they are laying off 40% of their workforce due to AI. My favorite piece of all of this is people pointing out that the labor secretary is blaming the weather for the poor labor market data. Trust me, it has nothing to do with AI. But the truth of the matter here is that believe it or not, these AI layoffs, as bad as they are, are not the real problem here. I'm going to break down why. So, let's talk about what's going on here. and what this means for you and your money. Every month, usually the first Friday of the month, we get the labor market report, the jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now, this time around, we learned that the unemployment rate just rose slightly to 4.4% from the 4.3% read that we got last month. We also learned that the US economy lost 92,000 jobs in the last month. And this was a pretty significant surprise to the downside as economists had expected a gain of around 50 to 60,000 jobs. Now, this isn't the end of the world here, but definitely pointing to the idea that the jobs numbers have been increasingly weaker over the past few years. But the other side of the jobs market data, which once again is not the full thing to be looking at here, is that we're also dealing with the fact that almost every single jobs report released is coming with revisions from the previous report. And this time we got some revisions. December 2025 was revised down by 65,000 jobs, which was originally reported as plus 48,000, but we actually lost 17,000. But we have to keep in mind that this all came after we had a total annual revision of last year's numbers that we got in January. And that was the biggest revision percentage-wise on record since 2009. So at this point, I think everybody's just done with the data. >> Madam Secretary, I want you to take a look at this article. It's from the New York Times, and it says, quote, "Big revisions are a reason to question jobs numbers, not dismiss them." And we did get revisions for December and January. 69,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported. So, can we rely on your numbers? >> Yeah, absolutely. I think the president, that's exactly what he was questioning earlier in the year when he took office. And he has now a new nominee. We don't like to see these revisions. We want to make sure that we have integrity through BLS. We have integrity in the numbers. >> And let's keep in mind that as we've gotten all of these revisions, none of them have been positive, right? They've only been negative revisions. So, the labor market is clearly weakening. That's one side of the story here, but that is not the real problem. The real problem is the thing that's kind of making headlines at the moment, and that's this war that's taking place in the Middle East. This is causing a massive jam in oil shipments, and prices are rising fast with crude oil in the United States already hitting up at $90. If that situation doesn't get under control and under control quickly, then there will be much bigger issues for the entire global economy. We're talking about 20% of the world's oil supply at a complete standstill in the straight of Hormuz. That's going to have a spillover effect fast. Higher oil around the world means higher prices for everything. Oil is a major input in all goods. You have to think about transportation, right? Anything that you actually need to have in your life has to be transported from one place to another and that requires oil. Trump has offered a sort of plan to use the US Development Finance Corporation to ensure shipments through the straight of Hormuz. We've talked about that here, but it turns out that the DFC actually doesn't necessarily have the money to ensure these shipments. So, I guess we'll see how that part plays out. Now, the real conundrum here is that the US Federal Reserve in the United States is in a bit of a pickle. The labor market is weakening and we now have a reason for inflation to tick higher. If the Fed tries to lower interest rates to address the weakening labor market, they might even further add to the inflation problem, and that could lead to even higher long-term yields. If the Fed doesn't lower interest rates, then the labor market in the US could get even worse. So things are getting serious here. But if we zoom out a little bit, the real concern here is that countries around the world are pretty much done with trying to rely on the US dollar as a reserve currency. Now, I'm not a financial adviser and none of this is financial advice and I highly recommend that you refrain from taking financial advice from a random guy walking around a park talking to a stick. We've been watching the US equities market move sideways before this whole war situation. And even after the war has come in, the markets haven't really reacted to that in a negative way. And to me, that kind of feels like some sort of a form of complacency. This tells me that there's much more of a potential for a surprise to the downside. Right? It seems that the information that's coming through is much more likely to surprise markets in a negative way than in a positive way. Not saying that that's what's probable or that's what's likely, but I think that's where the surprise would come into the markets. We saw gold and silver have a massive run over the past year and a half going into this environment here as well. And we also talked about last time how the rise in the price of oil has slowly started to creep up over the past couple of months. And that might have been pointing to the fact that all of this was about to take place. the chances of all of that just reversing and this being the end of the bull run for gold, silver and even in oil I think is questionable. No matter what happens here, the big thing that I think will come is that countries are done relying on US treasuries and the US dollar as a reserve asset. I I think what just happened here might have been the final straw and solidifies a good reason why countries should be moving toward alternative assets such as gold and even potentially digital assets of some sort uh that can provide a neutral place where there's no counterparty that any country has to rely on such as Bitcoin or anything else that might allow countries to have a neutral bridge asset. But I don't know, maybe I've completely lost the plot. What did I miss? What did I get wrong? Or how could I be looking at this differently? Let me know in the comments down below. If you haven't already, you got to subscribe to my live show that I do with Ben Levit. It's called Memes and Markets. We go live every Tuesday and Thursday at 12:00 p.m. Eastern, and we talk about topics like this and much more. I'm going live Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. Be sure to turn on your notification bell for this channel cuz I'm going to be live. And if it's Saturday, then check it out. It's probably in the pin comments. Join me. If you want access to exclusive videos and a private community where we are diving deeper into this information, feel free to join my channel memberships. The macro analyst tier members get exclusive videos. I'm Keith D here to talk everything money and markets. And if you got anything from this at all whatsoever, be sure to hit that like button and subscribe. And until next time, peace.

📹 Become a Channel Member (Exclusive Videos): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAFqzhDwJd12pBDgdk-2GqA/join 📖 Or Join My Patreon (Weekly Newsletter): https://www.patreon.com/c/theinneroperator/ 🎙️Subscribe to Memes and Markets: https://www.youtube.com/@MemesandMarketsPod For a 1:1 conversation, book your paid consultation here: https://calendly.com/keithsmithspeaks All Sponsorship & Business Enquiries: keithdenterprise@gmail.com The February jobs report shocked markets with 92,000 jobs lost and unemployment rising to 4.4%. But the real story may be deeper: constant downward revisions, rising layoffs, AI disruption, and a growing geopolitical risk in the Middle East pushing oil toward $90. In this video, we break down what the labor data really means, why the Fed is trapped, and the bigger macro risks for markets.