The Best of Kass

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Doug Kass of Seabreeze Partners is known for his accurate stock market calls and keen insights into the economy, which he shares with RealMoney Pro readers in his daily trading diary.

Among his posts this week, Kass explained why Friday's employment report wasn't so rosy and why investors' preoccupation with Apple is reaching mania levels.

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Temporary Blindness
Originally published on Friday, March 9 at 1:06 p.m. EST.

Many jobs that were added this month were low-quality and/or largely a function of lower-wage temporary workers.

Two things struck me in the jobs report when I parsed through the data.

1. The average workweek was unchanged.
2. More importantly, average hourly earnings rose by only 0.1% (month over month).

The second point seems to me to be a statement that those jobs that were added this month were low-quality and/or largely a function of lower-wage temporary workers.

Indeed, that is precisely the case.

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Of the 227,000 net jobs added in February:

20% of the monthly increase was temporary jobs, which rose by 45,000 (up from 32,000 in January).

18% was food service/bars, which added another 41,000 jobs.

Finally, education/health added 71,000, or another 31%, of February's total job gains (these are skilled workers but lower-paying).

So, temporary workers, waiters/waitresses/bartenders and teachers were responsible for almost 70% of the job growth last month.

Maybe I am negative data-mining (as I am net short!), but I simply don't see this sort of quality of job creation as a solid foundation for the domestic economy.

Position: None

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More Fast Times at 'Fast Money' High
Originally published on Thursday, March 8 at 11:44 a.m. EST.

I offered some observations on Apple and the broader market.