Yes,, the Labor Department reported the number of new unemployment claims today filed in the previous week. The number was again bad, although suspect because we have a state CLOSED (lol--Minnesota) and were leading up to a holiday weekend. Still, the number has remained remakably steady, at a BAD level of 420,000 or above, for week after week after week. The number still has not improved for eight months. In other words, the job market has not improved for eight months.
Thee headline--totally accurate, so long as we take Obama at his word that he should get credit and blame for jobs created/saved/LOST--is a SATIRE on Obama's "stimulus" "accounting" The Obama "economic team" came out with yet another analysis of the number of jobs "created" by the "stimulus" bill right before the July 4 weekend. The Obama "team" claimed that 2.4 million jobs were "created" by the "stimulus". Problem: That is an alleged count of GROSS JOBS (working out to $278,000 or so per GROSS JOB allegedly created). The whole purpose of my headline is to show how FEW gross jobs that is. Yes, my headline also refers to gorss jobs, when it is NET jobs that really matter. But that is exactly true for the "stimulus" "anlysis". In other words, every 8 weeks Obama/the economy is losing 3.4 million jobs--more than the entire number allegedly "created" by the Obama 'stimulus". We don't KNOW how many jobs the Obama "stimulus" COST the private sector, and the whole exercise of trying to "count" gross jobs "created" is absurd. That is what my headline shows. And the number of jobless claims, over time (one week often being skewed by temporary factgors) , does tell you something about the NET jobs being created. We simply can't have new unemployment claims consistently above 400,000 and have enough net job growth to reduce the unemployment rate. That is why the unemployment rate number, and number of jobs "created", for June--to be released tomorrow (Friday) CANNOT BE THAT GOOD. That is, it can't be that good without being in conflictd with these weekly unemployment claim numbers. These are all basically SUBJECTIVE numbers, rather than hard numbers, and therefore they all have to be looked at together. The numbers are "seasonally adjusted" using a fallible, human created formula, and the unemployment rate is based on a POLL (where Gallup has often come upo with a different number).
Here are the jobless claims numbers for the past four weeks (beginning with the most recently reported number reported today): 418,000 (to be REVISED next week), 432,000 (REVISED this week from 428,000, as this blog PREDICTED), 429,000 (not revised, for the first time in forever), abd 429m999 (REVISED from 414,000). You can see we are NOT making any progress here.
Now the despicable AP LIED AGAIN in its story on these numbers, BUT there are indications that this blog is more influential than you might think. Somebody appears to be listtening, even en though it does not stop the lies. You will note that the previous week's REPORTED number is REVISED the nextt week. That means--as I stated in the article last week, as you can see if you look at the blog archives--that the reported DROP in new unemployment claims last week, of 1,000, was actually an INCREASE of 3,000. Since the number is consistently revised upward 3,000 or 4,000, it is a consistent LIE to suggest that there is a real "drop" in claims when the number is within the expected revision. It is a LIE, as well, to compare apples and oranges: to compare the UNREVISED current week's number with the REVISED number fro the previous week. Thus, the AP LIED this week when it said new unemployment claims "fell" by 14,000 On a aplles to apples basis--comparing the unrevised number with the unrevised number first reported last week--the change was a fall of 10,000 (which the AP properly said was meaningless--as it really would have been even without the special factgors, in the sense that the number is STUCK at the same level, subject to normal fluctguations week-to-week).
Why do I say the AP may be finally listenting to me, although still getting it wrong? Well, the AP LIED by saying that the number was "lower than expected by economists". That is simply not ture. The article said that economists had "predicted", on average, a number of 420,000. If so, then the actual number was NOT "lower" than expected, if you take into account the expected REVISION next week (not even considering the holiday or closing of the state of Minnesota). It is an absurd LIE for the AP to suggest that the unrevised number reported was really "less" than the 420,000 predicted. After the revision next week, this week's nmber may be HIGHER than predicted. Nope. The only proper way to write that story is to say that the nuber, with its inherent margin for error, came in about as predicted. But the despicable AP tried to BOOTSTRAP its assertion that the number was better than economists expected? How? Remember that economists actually were using a REPORTED number of 428,000, which was revised to 432,000 this week (making economist MORE WRONG last week). Well, it is obvious, even without me telling you, that 418,000 is pretty close to 420,000, and that it is pretty much a lie to say that the number is better than expected. Howeve,r, you can say that economists were expecting a DROP of "only" 8,000, when the actual "drop" was 14,000. That sounds like a more impressive "better than expectged" number, except it ISN'T. It isn't, because this week's number is alos subject to revision nextg week. And economists are supposedly predicting the final numbe, and not the "drop". Still, my blog has explained this whole "problem" of economists (part of The Stupidest People on Earth) not seeming to realize, in their predictions, that the previous week's number is gong to be REVISED.
Whether the AP picked up on this issue of the weekly revision from this blog or not, look at what it means when the AP speficially references the revision lof last week's REPORTED number from 428,000 to 432,000. The AP is illustrating that it has KNOWLEDGE that the revisions each week matter. Yet, the despicable AP keeps reporting these numbers as if they are not subject to revision (and are usually revised upward by 3 or 4 thousand). The AP is admitting it is telling LIES. The AP is obvioiusly fully aware of the issue of the weekly revision, but reports as if it were not.
You can see how my Sodom and Gomorrah search for a competent, honest AP reporter is going. Such a person does not exist. I have told Him that, in report after report. And I have warned you out there how to avoid being turned ito pillars of salt. Yet, He does ot act. You can see why I am an agnostic. Something is wrong here. It is looking more and more like He is punishing ME, by making me coninue this futile search, rather than really interested in teh obvioius lack of competency and honesty within the AP.
P.S. No proofreading or spell checking (bad eyesight). Yes, ADP did suggest that privatge payrolls "grew" 157,000 in June. That number is a little suspicious, but it is not good enough to improve the employment situation anyway. But what is obvious is that the ADP number is IGNORED when it does not fit the mainstream media storyline. The media paid a lot of attention to it today becaue it did fit the storyline. However, what you need to realize is that ALL of these numbers only matter OVER TIME. This blog has stated--correctly--that Obama and the Democrats have made a real "recovery" impossible. One month may be better than another month, but this is all gong to be measured OVER TIME. Over time, Obama has FAILED so fart. The final test is NOT what happened in June. The final test is what happpens over MONTHS. Thus, don't take tomorrow's numbers too seriously--even if they support my thesis. Time may not heal all wounds, but it surely exposes where the economy really is. The Obama/Democrat flaw is that mere human beings can KNOW where the economy is, AND CONTROL IT. That is simply false. The longer it appears not to be false, the more trouble we are going to be in when the day of reckoning occurs.
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