The "This" in the title refers to this morning's Drudge Headline reporting...
MISREPORTING...???
...that the January unemployment figures now in reflect a drop in the nation's unemployment rate from 10% to 9.7%.
So... turning to the actual reporting... allow me to ask the following question:
Does the following make ANY sense to ANYONE...???
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly in January to 9.7 percent from 10 percent while employers shed 20,000 jobs, the government said Friday.
The rate dropped because a survey of households found the number of employed Americans rose by 541,000, the Labor Department said. The job losses are calculated from a separate survey of employers.
The report also included an annual revision to the estimates of total payrolls, which showed there were 930,000 fewer jobs last March than previously estimated. The department also revised down its estimates for April through October of last year, adding another 433,000 job losses.
The November figure was revised higher, however, to show a gain of 64,000 jobs.
Huh...???I mean, seriously... HUH...???
Now no doubt I'll be addressing this in today's "newsbites," but com'on... though these "new stats" were officially released this morning, of course the government (meaning the Obama administration) knew what the numbers would be in advance.
Funny... for the last week (as I'm sure people paying have noticed) most media stories referring to the (then) projected figures to be released had the tag line "...unemployment is expected to rise to 10.1%."
Now you don't suppose it's possible that this was a deliberate manipulation (after all, reporters get their "tips" from the government folks they expect have the inside scoop) by the Obama administration - do you...???
(*SNORT*)
More on this topic later...
5 comments:
Continuing on the theme...
http://www.cnbc.com/id/35254420
EXCERPTING --
"...a sharp increase in the number of people giving up looking for work helped to depress the jobless rate..."
HUH...???
That's like saying the number of ill people in a hospital has declined DUE TO DEATHS!
(*HEADACHE*)
CONTINUING TO EXCERPT --
"The number of "discouraged job seekers" rose to 1.1 million in January from 734,000 a year ago."
YET... according to the AP story upon which this thread is based the...
"...the "underemployment" rate, which also includes discouraged workers, to 16.5 percent from 17.3 percent."
Again... HUH...?!?! A bit of a disconnect there, huh?
BILL
OK... how'bout this:
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201002050845dowjonesdjonline000354&title=data-snapus-jan-jobless-rate-falls-to-97-payrolls--20k
EXCERPTING --
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly declined in January, but the economy continued to shed jobs and revisions painted a bleaker picture for 2009, casting doubt over the labor market's strength.
* Yet we're being told that the unemployment rate has DECLINED from 10% to 9.7%...??? Does this compute for ANY OF YOU...???
CONTINUING TO EXCERPT --
"The unemployment rate, calculated using a household survey..."
Ya know... THAT'S the real fly in the ointment I'm guessing.
"...calculated using a household survey..."
So in other words... no hard numbers... no verifiable numbers... nothing linked to actual hard stats which one can verify via actual payroll info or even unemployment checks sent out...??
Yep. I believe we've found one of our "explanations" for the sudden and unexpected "decline" in the official unemployment number.
OK. Folks. ONE MORE TIME...
EXCERPTING --
"The Labor Department's annual benchmark revision to the survey that produces the monthly payroll report painted a bleaker 2009 picture. Last year, job losses were almost 600,000 more than previously reported, the revisions showed."
* So let me get this straight... the "real" unemployment numbers for last year DIDN'T INCLUDE ALMOST 600,000 PEOPLE WHO WERE... er... UNEMPLOYED...?!?!
Folks. You can't make this shit up.
Today's "drop in unemployment" figure stinks to high Heaven.
This comes not out of partisanism, but out of looking at the simple math.
BILL
Click upon (or cut and paste on your browser and enter) this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/insight/birth-death-model.html
It was published on Wednesday, 2/3, and here's the opening:
"When the government releases Friday's unemployment report, nearly a million jobs cold be erased. The change won't show up in the monthly report. Rather, the expected drop will show up in the government's revised job loses from April 2008 to March 2009..."
And here's the closing:
"That leaves economists and the rest of us to wonder what the error rate is from April 2009 onward - numbers that won't be revised till February 2011. What we do know is that the birth/death model has generated hundreds of thousands of jobs since April of last year - jobs which may get revised away in the final analysis."
Bottom line folks... even if we take the possibility of "politicization" off the table and lay it on the side so as to avoid all hints of "partisanship," we're talking flawed statistical models being used - flawed badly enough that I have no idea if the "downward" unemployment stat of 10% going to 9.7% has much relation to reality.
Again... as this points out and as I pointed out in my original thread post, the "happy" numbers seem to be based upon "surveys" and "modeling." The hard numbers seem to indicate that the unemployment picture is getting WORSE, not better.
BILL
I think you might really enjoy this movie, if you haven't seen it already, check it out.
Wow...! Thanks for the head's up, Rob! Yeah... definitely sounds like a movie I want to see!
BILL
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