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.