Jerome Powell finally said out loud what the revisions have been quietly showing for months. During his March 18 press conference, Powell said that “effectively there’s zero net job creation in the private sector” over roughly the past six months after adjusting for what Fed staff view as overstatement in the payroll data. He added that the economy appears to be in a “zero employment growth equilibrium,” which he tied to virtually nonexistent labor-force growth. Those comments came directly from the Fed chair, not from some critic on the sidelines, and they confirm the broader point I have made repeatedly that the headline payroll numbers are often political theater until the revisions arrive and reveal the truth.
This is precisely the problem with how governments sell economic data. The first number is always used for propaganda, while the revised number is where reality begins to emerge. The official February jobs report showed payrolls falling by 92,000, while December was revised down from a gain of 48,000 to a loss of 17,000 and January was trimmed to 126,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also said December and January combined were 69,000 lower than previously reported, and earlier benchmark revisions had already reduced 2025 payroll growth materially. Powell was not inventing a new concern. He was simply acknowledging that the labor market has been far weaker than the government wanted to admit.
If you step back from the monthly headlines, the underlying data has been deteriorating for some time. JOLTS showed January openings rising to 6.946 million, but hiring was still only 5.294 million and the hires rate held at 3.3%. Reuters noted that total hiring in 2025 fell by 1.5 million to 63.0 million. Weekly claims remain relatively low, which is why the unemployment rate has not exploded, but low layoffs do not mean strong growth. They simply mean companies are hesitant to fire aggressively while also refusing to hire.
ADP has been telling a similar story. Private employers added only 22,000 jobs in January and 63,000 in February, hardly the sort of numbers you would expect if the economy were booming. Even Powell admitted that a good part of the labor slowdown reflects weaker labor-force growth due to lower immigration and participation. In other words, the economy is stagnant.
I have written many times that governments always hide behind statistics until the cycle forces the truth into the open. This is why I have been skeptical of the jobs numbers for years, because they are heavily model-driven, politically celebrated on release day, and then quietly revised when nobody is looking. BLS even changed its CES birth-death methodology beginning with January 2026 to modify first preliminary estimates, which shows just how dependent these reports are on assumptions about business formation and death rather than hard counts in real time. Meanwhile, analysis based on QCEW tax records, which many regard as the gold standard because it is built from unemployment insurance filings, has suggested the BLS materially overstated job growth during 2025.
Powell still described the economy as “solid,” but he also conceded that job gains have remained low and that the labor force is no longer expanding in the way the country has historically relied upon. When the Fed chair is openly admitting there is effectively no private-sector job creation, that is not a minor footnote. That is the sort of statement that appears at the end of a trend, not the beginning.
The bigger problem is that this comes while inflation is still above target. Powell said headline PCE was about 2.8% and core PCE about 3.0%, while the Fed kept rates at 3.5% to 3.75% and projected unemployment at 4.4% by year end. That means the Fed is trapped. It cannot aggressively ease if inflation is still elevated, and it cannot pretend the labor market is healthy if job creation is flat to negative beneath the revisions. This is how central banks lose control, because they are always fighting the last problem while the next one is already in motion.
What Powell said matters because it strips away the fantasy that everything is fine so long as the unemployment rate has not surged. A labor market with little hiring, downward revisions, weak private payroll growth, and nonexistent labor-force expansion is not a healthy market. It is a market marking time. Governments always celebrate the first estimate and bury the revision because confidence management has become the real product they sell. Powell just admitted that the product is no longer matching reality.
California lawmakers are now advancing a measure that would allow race-based preferences in financial aid, which is remarkable when you consider that the state constitution has explicitly prohibited such practices since 1996. Proposition 209 banned the state from granting “preferential treatment” based on race in public education, employment, and contracting, yet once again, we see politicians attempting to work around that restriction rather than respect it.
The proposal is tied to broader reparations efforts and would reintroduce preferential treatment in education through financial aid rather than admissions alone. This follows the 2023 Supreme Court decision that race-based admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause, which was expected to settle the issue legally. Instead, we are seeing the continuation of the same objective under different labels.
This is exactly what I have said repeatedly about DEI. These policies were not abandoned but repackaged. Whether it is affirmative action, diversity initiatives, equity programs, or now financial aid adjustments, the objective remains the same.
Every time government interferes with how resources are distributed, it distorts outcomes. The Department of Justice has already indicated that race-based scholarships and similar programs may violate federal law. That highlights the growing conflict between state-level policy and federal enforcement. Trump was unable to simply dissolve DEI programs when there are far-left politicians ruling at the state level.
DEI has effectively become a mechanism for redistribution and race-based division. Opportunities are no longer granted based on merit. Redistribution merely reallocates existing opportunity within a system that is no longer expanding. Not only is it racist, but it is detrimental to the system at large.
California already attempted to repeal its ban on race-based preferences in 2020, and voters rejected that effort. That should have been a clear signal. Instead, policymakers are pursuing the same objective through alternative channels. When merit is replaced by political allocation, productivity declines and the system weakens over time.
COMMENT: Hello Martin
Here in the UK there is a fear campaign being waged about the rise in meningitis. Miraculously they have the vaccine ready to save us all!!
Do you believe this could be another C19?
REPLY: What is taking place in the UK right now with meningitis is being presented in the press with the same tone we saw during COVID, yet when you strip away the headlines and actually look at the data, the story becomes very different because this is not a national crisis but a localized outbreak being framed in a way that amplifies perception beyond statistical reality.
The outbreak has been centered in Kent and largely tied to a university and a nightclub event, with roughly 27 to 31 total cases and two deaths reported, and while officials have described the clustering as unusual, the broader context is that the UK typically records ongoing cases each year with England reporting roughly 378 cases in the 2024 to 2025 period, meaning this is a known bacterial disease rather than anything new or emerging.
What is actually happening is a localized outbreak of meningococcal disease, primarily the MenB strain, which has existed for decades and tends to spread in close-contact environments. It is not airborne in the way respiratory viruses are, but instead spreads through direct contact. Despite that, the response has begun to follow a familiar pattern where authorities contact tens of thousands of people, expand vaccination programs, and distribute thousands of antibiotic treatments. Universities move activities online and warnings are issued about travel potentially spreading the illness, all of which begins to mirror the behavioral response cycle seen during COVID even though the scale and transmission entirely different.
The comparison is not about the disease itself but about how the situation is being framed and managed, because during COVID, the key issue was not just the virus but the fear-mongering propaganda through constant headlines and policy escalation. Fear is a powerful tool.
When you look at the actual risk assessments, health authorities have stated that the overall risk remains low and that the disease is not easily transmissible. There is already an established vaccine that is effective against the strain involved, which further reinforces that this is a contained public health issue rather than a systemic threat. The media narrative focuses on the most alarming aspects, such as deaths, and uses language like “explosive” or “unprecedented,” which becomes misleading when removed from the statistical facts. Governments use public fear to seize more control, and the cycle repeats.
From the perspective of the Economic Confidence Model, this type of reaction aligns with periods where confidence is declining and governments expand their role in managing outcomes, since public health provides a mechanism through which intervention can be justified, particularly when uncertainty and fear are running high.
Even Gallup Poll has shown that only 38% of Americans were satisfied with the US position in global geopolitics and 61% dissatisfied with the United States’ position in the world BEFORE the military action in Iran. Tulsi Gabbard has refused to confirm any intelligence assassment that presented Iran as an immediate threat. President Trump has publicly and explicitly dismissed intelligence assessments made by his own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. He stated that her conclusions were wrong and even said he did not care what she had to say .
The most direct public contradiction occurred in June 2025 regarding Iran’s nuclear program. She said Iran “is not building a nuclear weapon” and has not restarted its weapons program. Trump seems to be listening to Netanyahu who has always insisted that Iran is on the verge of getting a nuclear bomb. Trump stated publicly “they were very close to having one.” Trump has even bluntly and explicitly rejected her assessment, stating, “I don’t care what she said.”
This clash highlights a fundamental tension in how the two assessments. Gabbard’s job is to present the findings of the U.S. Intelligence Community. In her March 2025 testimony, she relayed the official assessment that Iran’s leaders had not authorized a nuclear weapons program. President Trump, who has a long history of distrusting his own intelligence agencies, showed no hesitation in dismissing the official analysis when it conflicted with his own views. The real question is is this a personal conviction or is this Neocon and Netanyahu insistance?
The disagreement is particularly notable because Gabbard was selected by Trump specifically for her skepticism of the “deep state” and the intelligence establishment, which some analysts believed would make her a loyalist. However, their different views on U.S. intervention in the Middle East led to this public rift.
Vid
Since 2002, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly argued that Iran and others are seeking nuclear weapons and made it always sound as an immediate threat for at least 30 years. Recently, he has claimed invasion was justified even after the 2025 bombing and has used a “months” timeline for Iran’s nuclear program as a key justification for launching the current war, and this pattern of issuing such warnings dates back decades.
On March 2nd, 2026, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a series of interviews, primarily to Fox News, where he laid out his rationale for the military strikes against Iran that began on February 28. He stated that the attacks were a pre-emptive measure because Iran had begun constructing new, heavily fortified underground bunkers for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
His central warning was that these new facilities would become “immune within months,” making a future military strike impossible. “If no action was taken now, no action could be taken in the future,” Netanyahu said, framing the attack as a necessary action to close a closing window of opportunity.
This recent use of a ticking clock is NOT new. According to a historical analysis, Netanyahu has been sounding similar alarms for over 30 years.
Early in his political career back in 1992, Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament that “Iran is close to producing a nuclear weapon within three to five years.”
In a famous 2012 speech at the United Nations, Netanyahu held up a diagram of a bomb and drew a red line, warning that Iran was “a few months, possibly a few weeks” away from having enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon.
The 2026 military campaign is the culmination of this long-held position. After years of advocating for a strike, Netanyahu successfully enlisted the support of President Donald Trump to take action. His March 2 interviews explicitly linked the imminent threat of Iran’s “immune” facilities to the necessity of the war he and the U.S. were waging.
However, by late March 2026, Netanyahu’s tone had shifted significantly. After weeks of conflict, he held a press conference declaring victory, stating that “Iran today has no ability to enrich uranium, and no ability to produce ballistic missiles.” He hinted that the war could end “a lot faster than people think,” suggesting that the original justification for the invasion had been achieved.
In 2024, in his Knesset speech, Netanyahu said: “I’ve been warning about Iran for 30 years.” It was reported on March 3rd, during a visit to a site struck by an Iranian missile, Netanyahu stated: “We read in this week’s Torah portion, ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember—and we act.”
In 1 Samuel 15:2-3, God gives King Saul a specific, direct order to carry out this command. The prophet Samuel relays the message: “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. ‘”
I have said, I grew up in the Philadelphia area and I know that Netanyahu went to school in Philadelphia and hung out with Irving Kristol, the godfather of the whole Neocon movement. It was Irving’s son, Bill Kristol, who even spoke at one of our WEC events during the ’90s who wrote the book to justify the Iraq War. If I remember correctly, he said taking out Iraq was to secure the future of Israel.
Kristol co-authored the 2003 book The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyranny and America’s Mission with Lawrence F. Kaplan . In this and other writings, he argued for war based on these grounds:
Many have argued that the real, unstated motivation was to eliminate a strategic threat to Israel and reshape the Middle East to its advantage. They often point to his leadership in the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the group’s 1996 “Clean Break” memo, which advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on remaking the regional balance of power. Key figures involved in the PNAC included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and other prominent defense and foreign policy hawks who would later become central figures in the George W. Bush administration.
Netanyahu has argued this Clean Break memo by his rhetoric and actions. Kristol’s rebuttal and his allies have explicitly rejected this accusation, calling it a “canard.” They have stated that a stable, democratic Iraq was vital “first and foremost, to American interests” and that the idea they were driven by “dual loyalties” to Israel is false. I do not recall any disregard for Israel and I believe that was the main point.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly and repeatedly expressed support for a vision of a “Greater Israel.” While he has used the term “New Middle East” less frequently, the geopolitical outcome of his actions, particularly the war on Iran, aligns with that concept as a strategic reality shaped by Israel’s military dominance.
The “Greater Israel” Vision
This concept refers to an expansionist ideology that seeks Israeli control over territory beyond its current borders, often invoking biblical claims to the “Land of Israel.” Netanyahu has openly declared his commitment to this vision. In an August 2025 interview with Israel’s i24NEWS, Netanyahu was directly asked if he subscribes to the “Greater Israel” vision. He responded, “Absolutely… very much.” He described his connection to this vision as a “historic and spiritual mission,” and in a separate interview stated, “I am emotionally connected to the vision of Greater Israel.”
The “Greater Israel” concept, rooted in Revisionist Zionism, claims territory from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. This would encompass not only all of Israel and the Palestinian territories but also large parts of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. His constant attack on Iran has many questioning if this is another weapons of mass destruction lie used for the Iraq War where Americans are sent to die for the dreams of Neocons.
I believe that Trump has been sucked into this game that these Neocons have refused to relinguish and stupidly think that they can conquer the entire Middle East simply because the United States has the largest military force. I have spoken with people who try to help veterans, and they have always said that the vets from Vietnam are angry knowing that their country lied to them compared to the vets from World War II.
I have family members who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. I lost most of my high school friend to Vietnam. I believe these disgusting Neocons who are consumed with power and hatred used Netanyahu to manipulate Trump knowing what I know between the Philadelphia connections when I was just a kid. Benjamin Netanyahu lived in the Cheltenham, located in the suburbs of Philadelphia during two distinct periods. He lived in Cheltenham for elementary school while his father taught at a local college 1956–1958. He then attended Cheltenham High School from 1963 to 1967. Netanyahu was groomed as a Neocon and just because he sought a political career in Israel did not alter his Neocon upbringing.
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