Today’s jobs report was highly anticipated as a key benchmark before the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting later this month and expected to be a factor in the Fed’s decision of whether to cut the federal funds rate by 25 basis points or 50 basis points. As it happens, today’s report was, in a word, mixed.  Payrolls for August were up 142,000 jobs. This was below the average monthly gain of 202,000 over the prior 12 months. About 45 percent of the gains were in two sectors. First, construction at 34,000 jobs was above the 19,000 average of the past 12 months.   That is a bullish move in that sector considering housing starts were down 6.8 percent in July, with single family home starts at a 16 mo...