The CONVERSATION breaks down the most recent jobs numbers from the US Labor Department which showed employers added 263,000 jobs in November. That's close to the strong gains of the previous three months which averaged 282,000 jobs.  The jobless rate, meanwhile, stayed at 3.7 percent in November. DICK BOVE, chief financial strategist at ODEON CAPITAL GROUP, argues that the headline numbers do not tell the complete story. For example, the household employment numbers tabulated in one survey points to a decline in jobs. Overall, there are other negative indicators. MAT VAN ALSTYNE, Odeon co-founder and managing partner describes a massive divergence in the job numbers calculated by the household and the separate established surveys, a gap that has been described as recessionary. The CONVERSATION also examines the relationship between US business openings (births) and closings (deaths) for a fuller understanding.

In this topic-packed CONVERSATION, there's more on the trouble for bank stocks and the impact of rising interest rates; how the Fed has impaired the home mortgage market. China comes in for scrutiny as does the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk. In a spirited debate, BOVE says Twitter is rapidly becoming "a purveyor of lies, hate and filth." VAN ALSTYNE, an avid Twitter user, disagrees, says Twitter in the past month has improved significantly under MUSK.  JOHN AIDAN BYRNE says some form of careful content moderation may be desirable as is the campaign to preserve freedom of speech at the same time.

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