A really shitty job report - happy holidays everyone... it's not very good when things are looking merrier during Halloween season than Christmastime

There's too much commentary for me to bother linking to. But as a place to start, the Economix blog post is always a good one.

This report will corroborate a lot of people's theories, prove none of them, lead to a lot of really dumb chatter about how it disproves everybody else's theory, and lead to even dumber chatter from those more interested in politics than economics.

This doesn't mean we can't reason and infer our way to a solution, of course - and you all know mine.

UPDATE: It's worth noting, though, that this information in combination with other information can be used to make inferences to arbitrate between theories. Are real wages falling slower than other prices? Then wage rigidities and sticky prices get a leg up in the arbitration process. Are output and prices weakening relative to expectations together? Then demand problems get a leg up in the arbitration process. Are interest rates low despite loose money? Then excess money demand gets a leg up in the arbitration process (btw - this point and the previous point are intimately intertwined). Everybody claims to expect higher unemployment - the question is - what stories add up when you add other information to the picture.