WASHINGTON – New claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week as layoffs ease and hiring slowly recovers.

The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time claims for jobless benefits dropped by 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 442,000. That's below analysts' estimates of 450,000, अच्कोर्डिंग

" Isn't it neat how the mainstream media--the despicably AP, CNN, MSNBC, and every other "news" outlet using the despicable AP, often including Fox News--feels free to LIE. They feel free to lie because they are both stupid and do not expect to be called on the lies--except by me. For more than six years, I have exposed the lies of the despicable AP, as well as other mainstream media outlets, on a detailed basis you will not get anywhere else (as regularly). Nope. We are not talking matters of opinion here. The AP tells objective lies, and I have documented that over at least the last six years more fullly than any other person. In case you had not guessed, the qobe quoted paragraphs come from the despicable Associated Press, Notice that the first--lead--paragraph quoted above, from the AP story, contains nothing but lies. There is no truth in that first paragraph, and all of the FACTS are in the second--non-lead--paragraph. That shows you how far "journalism" has fallen, and why you should have nothing but CONTEMPT for the "journalists" of the AP, and almost all of the mainstream media. Let us get to the specifics. No, this is an analysis piece, and I felt no obligation to try to put the facts in the "lead" paragraph. The AP should have, but the AP is too busy lying to worry about "journalism". First, this was not, in fact, an "unexpected" number, despite the use of that word in the headline and the use of "more than expected" in the first paragraph. As the AP well knows, since it uses the word almost every week (since economists almost NEVER get the number right, often missing by 20,000 or ore), it is ridiculous to say that 442,000 was "unexpected", when the economist "estimate" was 450,000 (meaning economists were estimating a DROP in claims). For economists, coming this close is GOOD, and the actual number is not "unexpected" at all. And that is probably the least of the multiple lies in that short "lead" paragraph from the AP. Second, the jobless claims number--especially when the "improvement" is as small as 14,000, and then only getting back to the four week AVERAGE of 3 to 4 months ago--says NOTHING about hiring. The AP made that up. It is a total, inexcusable LIE. The jobless claims number does NOT indicate, in ANY way, that "hiring is slowly recovering". In fact, the only numbers available indicate that not only is it a lie to suggest that you can conclude that from this jobless claims number, but that the statement is simply a flat lie (from oteher data that DOES measure hiring). The best measure of NET hiring (the only kind that matters) is the JOBS LOST number. That number was EVEN in November, 85,000 (or so) in December, some 30,000 in January, and some 20,000 in February. In other words, the economy has LOST JOBS (NO "recovery" in hiring) since November. In fact, the economy has LOST JOBS in 25 out of the last 26 months--the only exception being that stand-off in No ember. Not only is hiring not "slowly recovering", but it is not recovering at all. It is not even improving in the past 4 months. Indeed, the unemployment rate has stayed essentially the same since last July-August (for the last EIGHT months). The jobless claims rate measures ONLY "layoffs", and it does that--with any significance--only over a longer period of time than one week. The AP well knows that, because it points it out when the numbers go UP in an individual week. Thus, it is another AP LIE that this week's jobless claims number shows an "ease" in layoffs. In isolation, the 14,000 drop is almost statistically insignificant. Note that these numbers are SEASONALLY ADJUSTED--one of the smaller lies in the first paragraph being that this is not even mentioned until the second paragraph. A 14,000 "seasonally adjusted" "drop" is not of much significance--other than indicating that we are not getting significantly WORSE. It is a number that shows NO IMPROVEMENT--especially when considered with the weekly jobless claims number over the past 4 months (that is, the weekly numbers over that 4 month period). Let us, therefore, go back over the numbers (which the lying AP never does, except when it is necessary for the agenda of the AP). For that matter, the despicable AP does not report the number his way ("shows hiring is slowly DETERIORATING") when the weekly number goes up. 14,000, 5,000, 6,000, and 29,000: those are the improving numbers for the past 4 weeks. Now, if you don't really understand the weekly volatility in the weekly number, you could take this to mean that the "recovery" is STALLING (going from 29,000 to a much lesser "improvement" in the next three weeks). But it is much worse than that. For the two weeks immediately before the four weekly "drops" I cite, the number of unemployment claims went UP 66,000 (33,000 and 22,00). In other words, the last four weeks have just brought us back to the same level we were at a month ago. And that big LOSS of jobs in those two weeks was blamed on the SNOW--which meant you would EXPECT the number to "normalize". Wait. It gets still WORSE (for the LIARS of the AP). The AVERAGE number of weekly jobless claims for DECEMBER was about 455,000. The AVERAGE for January was 466,000 or so. The AVERAGE for February was higher still (blamed on SNOW, remember). The present 4 week moving average is close to that same 455,000 average for December, and about the same as the lowest 4 week moving average (in the last year) was about the same 442,000 we got for this ONE SINGLE WEEK. The low fro a single week was LESS than 435,000. The lows--average and single week--were all FOUR MONTHS AGO. Conclusion: NO IMPROVEMENT over the past four months. The best that can be said is that we have stabilized, and are not getting worse. Indeed, as I have proved in previous articles, the unemployment situation pretty much stabilized by last August, before the Obama "stimulus" could have accomplished anything. The "stimulus" has accomplished NOTHING as far as NET employment is concerned. That is the "inside joke" in the headline. Yes, Obama cannot be blamed for the whole 442,000 layoffs last week. At the same time, he cannot be credited--as he and his supporters want desperately to do--with the GROSS jobs "created/saved" (lol) by the Federal Government. Just like there were people HIRED last week not "measured" (one way or the other) in the layoff number (seasonally adjusted and volatile week to week), the Obama ""stimulus" has COST jobs in many ways. Simply calculating the GROSS jobs "created" by any Federal program is irrelevant. It is only the NET jobs that count, and Obama has created essentially NONE (by the official numbers--showing NO net job creation and an unemployment rate that has been about the same for eight months). Q.E.D. The AP lies. Nor can it be mere stupidity, although AP "journalists" are stupid. The AP regularly cites the four week moving average as the more meaningful number, when the AP wants to do so. And the AP regularly cites factors which make one week jobless claims numbers pretty meaningless. It is only when the weekly number moves in the "right" direction, no matter how small a movement, that the AP writes a sentence like that "lead" paragraph above. Instead, when the number goes UP, the AP STILL talks about the "trend" of a "recovering" job market. If you get nothing else out of this article, you should realize that the AP LIES: that there is NO TREND of improving employment over at least the past 4 months (with no trend in unemployment for EIGHT months). NO IMPROVEMENT, and that includes this week. No, it is not getting worse, either, but that does not change the fact that the AP routinely lies.


P.S. 442,000 new unemployment claims--besides not representing an improvement--is NOT a "good" number--I hasten to mention lest you get lost in the underbrush of words above where I try to lay out the LIES of the despicable AP. Buried in an earlier AP story--months ago, when the weekly number of new unemployment claims seemed headed under 430,00000--was the information that the weekly jobless claims number needed to get to 425,000 (at least) before there could be ANY job "growth". In other words, 442,000 is a weekly number that--even in isolation--shows a WEAK job market that is likely still LOSING (net) jobs (although likely at the same "slow" rate as recent months).


P.S. 2: No, I do NOT forgive you for refusing to go through the torture of wading throgh the "underbrush of words" I refer to above--including enduring the typos and garbled sentences which sometimes result from my lack of good proofreading (only partially explained by the fact I can't see). If you don't pay attention, the despicable AP gets away with its "journalistic" CRIMES, because no one else is analyzing those crimes in the kind of detail I do. So there!!!!!!!