Lmo Mutton

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog, Maintaining the status quo of red tape, high taxes, high junk fees and indifference to small business realities guarantees decline and failure. It's well known that millions of the jobs counted in employment statistics are part-time or low-paying "gig economy" self-employment. Over 9 million self-employed workers make less than $10,000 per year, and 5.5 million earn less than $5,000 per year.

With rates left unchanged - deep in NIRP-land - amid an increasingly fragile banking system (see Italian bank stocks), we expect ECB chief Mario Draghi to reassure an anxious public how well QE is working (despite weak growth and tumbling PMIs), how great negative rates are for stimulating 'something' despite inflation's drift lower, and how his about-to-be-launched corporate bond buying bonanza will really solve the problems of the world (by enabling firms to lever up even more and buyback...

Printing a perfectly as-expected 173k rise in jobs for May, ADP Employment change offers hope for tomorrow's payrolls to give The Fed the go-ahead for a rate-hike. This is still the second lowest print since last September as manufacturing (and goods-producing) jobs fell once again.