With jobs numbers, good news is bad news

Keep your fingers crossed that when March’s job growth is announced tomorrow morning, the numbers aren’t too strong.

I know what you’re thinking: Huh? Don’t we want strong growth?

Well, right now Wall Street doesn’t. And if you have money in the stock or bond market — like it or not — you and Wall Street are allies.

The Federal Reserve spoke the words earlier this week that the financial community didn’t want to hear — no new stimulus. It didn’t completely slam the door on the idea, but tinkering with the economy will be more difficult the closer we get to the presidential election.

Stock prices have fallen hard for two straight days on that news. Bonds have been declining even longer, with interest rates rising at a frightening pace.

Wall Street is expecting the Labor Department tomorrow to announce seasonally adjusted job growth of 200,000 for March, which would be down from 230,000 in February.

But remember what I’ve been telling you for years. Spring is the time of year when the Labor Department gets very optimistic with its estimates for jobs that might not actually exist.

So March’s job growth — as well as May’s and June’s — could look stronger than expected even if companies really aren’t expanding their payrolls.

If the numbers are too strong, that’ll cause additional inflation fears and more pressure on the markets. Along with the stock market, commodity prices have been rising on the efforts of the Fed to stimulate the economy by creating more money.

Tomorrow’s report will also be an interesting one because the stock market will be closed for Good Friday, and bonds will only trade for a couple of hours.

So everyone will be doing what I recently suggested: keeping an eye on the bond market for direction.

If bond prices continue to decline, which automatically sends borrowing costs higher, the Fed won’t ever be able to give Wall Street what it craves.

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Intermission:

There is going to be a short break from discussing economics, which will continue after this intermission. So you can either use this time to grab a smoke or read the next personal, micro-economic tale that my family and friends are insisting I tell you.

Here goes.

A few weeks ago I was stuck at a train station in New Jersey at night without a ride home or someone to pick me up. I live in a pretty rural part of the state (I’ll have to invite you over to the house some day) and my 2002 Camaro, now with 226,000 miles on the odometer, wasn’t back from the shop. (I’m shooting for 250,000 miles, but the car seems to have other ideas.)

Anyway, the cab ride from the station to my place would have been around $40. Look, I could afford the fare, but I really didn’t want to spend the money if there was a more — you know — creative alternative.

As it happens, there is a Chinese restaurant near the train station and — yes — it delivers.

So I went in and ordered $40 worth of takeout: shrimp with lobster sauce, orange beef, some soup and special fried rice, if I remember correctly.

I told the guy running the place that I wanted it delivered to my address but that there wasn’t anybody home who could accept the food because, as I explained then to him and now to you, I was stuck at the train station.

If he allowed me to ride to my house with my takeout order, then I’d be home and able to accept the food from the delivery person. He agreed.

A lovely delivery woman named Chung brought me and my bag of food to the house in her Honda SUV and that story is now (in)famous in my family. I tell it whenever I can — and people are starting to run away when I do. I ate Chinese food for the whole weekend. (I’ve had better.)

Now, you might think I was being cheap, but I consider it creative problem-solving.

But you shouldn’t try this in Manhattan. Remember, the delivery people here ride bikes, and you might not be very comfortable riding on the handlebars with a bag of chow mein between your knees.

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End of Intermission: Please return to your seats.

Back to economics.

The job-growth picture — and indeed all economic figures — are fuzzy right now because of the warm winter most of the country experienced. Even the Fed has complained that the numbers are difficult to interpret.

But here’s something important everyone needs to know about seasonal adjustments: They must come full circle.

So if the adjustments are now making the economy look better than it really is because of the warm winter, then at some point later this year the stats will make up for that misinterpretation.

And the numbers will then make the economy look worse than it really is.

A turn for the worse in the economic stats later in 2012 could affect the election.

johncrudele@nypost.com