The number of new unemployment claims (supposedly representing layoffs) was announced today, as usual on the Thrudsay of every week, ESTIMATING the number of claims filed in the previous week (seasonally "adjusted", and subject to REVISION the next week). The INITIAL number reported this Thursday was again BAD: 386,0000, UP from the initial 380,000 reported last week. Wait a second. It is even worse than that. The initial 380,000 reported last week was REVISED UP this week to 388,000. For once, MarketWatch did NOT perpetuate the LIE that this means that new unemplyment claims "dropped" 2,000 tis week. Obviusly, this week was BAD "news", and even at least SOME of the consistent liars in the media realized that this could not be 'spun" as "good" news. The MarketWatch headlines noted that this is now a FOUR MONTH HIGH , and "nearing" that mythically 'important" levelof 400,000.
Rick Santelli, on CNBC, and The Maverick Conservative, BOTH told llyou last week that the supposed 13,000 rise reported last week, from a number revsied UP 10,000 for the previus week, was a LIE, and that the real incrase was 23,0000 (on an apples-to-apples basis). Well, as usual, Santelli and I were right. The media was RONG. With the revision, it turns out that last week's intitially reported rise of 13,000 was actually a rise of 21,000. Santelli and I also told you that the constant revisions of this weekly number--almost always UPWARD--and the way the "seasonal adjustments" seem to be FAILING, indicate that all of these labor numbers are lOSING MEANING. The seasonal adjutments are being called into question, and what about these HUGE REVISIONS now becoming common> It used to be that there was a CONSISTENT "revision' upward of 3,000 or 4,000. In the last MONTH, we have had revisions upward of 16,000, 10,000 and 8,000. This was too mcuh, even for the mainstream media types of MarketWatch, who noted that this was the second week in a row of "unusuallly large" revisoins. Is the media finallly coming to realize that Rick Santelli and I have been RIGHT all along? Maybe, although they are not quite there yeat.
MarketWatch, for example, said that the recent "sharp" rise in new unemplyment claims raises "concerns" that the labor market is deterirating. The article notes that new unemplyment claims reached a recent LOW in mid-February, and have gotten much "worse" since. Waht MarketWatch FAILS to tell you, and what Rick Santelli and I have told yuy, is that this year's PATTEWRN is the SAME patter as last year, and really the year before. The labor numbers, and the general economic numbers, look 'good' in the winter, and then they turn BAD in the spring and summer. SOME of this could be "real", and related to things like gasoline prices. But is it not a rasonable conclusion that there is a NEW "seasonal pattern" that is DISTROTING the SEASONALLY ADJUSTED numbers (not just the weekly numbers, but the monthly numbers)? Tis has been compunded this year by UNUSUALLY GOOD WEATHER. Thus, is it not reasonable to conclude that the problem is not that the "labor market" is getting that much WORSE, but that the "labor market" was NEVER THAT GOOD IN THE FIRST PLACE?
We now have had NO IMPROVEMENT in new unemplyment claims in FOUR MONTHS. As this blog told you could well happen, IN ADVANCE, we appar to be REPEATING 2010 and 2011. We are still SLIGHTLY better n a year-over-year basis, but jobs data seems to indicate LITTLE IMPROVEMENT in the jobs picture in this countryover the past several lyears, and NONE this year. We reached 375,000 for this weekly number of new unemplyment claims in mid-February of last year. In mid-February of this year, we reached right aournd 350,000. That could be regarded as a SMALL i"improvement", except that much of an 'improvement" could be "explained" by the WEATHER. And we AGAIN seem to be deteriroating--just like last year and 2010--as we proceed into the spring and summer. This "deterioration" may not be "real". But that meanst htat we NEVER IMPROVED in the first place.
See last night's article on polls and President Obama. The main concern of the mainstream media is the re-elecitn of Presdient Obama. As this blog correcltyl told you last night, this NEW "seasonal pattern" does not bode well for Presdient Obama, although an "accurate" picture would not bod well either. IF the economy, and job market, APPER to deteriorate into and through the sumemr, is not Obama DOOMED? Probably. Can the media REVERSE their LIES of YEARS, and convince people this is all SEASONAL (even though that also means that the media "narrative" that Obama was SUCCEEDING on the economy has been FALSE)? God luck, media. I don't think you can do it. "What a tangeld web we weave, whn first we practive to deceive." wWith the media, of course, you can never be sure whehter they really are THAT STUPID, rather than just dishonest.
Hey,. Rick Santelli and The Maverick Conservative have tried to TELL them (and you). If no one has listened, or alt least the media have not liistened, that is not our fault.
P.S No proofreading or spell checkng (bad eyesight). By the way, does this mean that the stock market is going to go DOWN? Not necessarily. The economic fascists on Wall Street are relying upon Bailout Ben Bernanke to BAIL THEM OUT of any trouble, alng with Treasury Secretray "Tax Cheat" Geitner. This means that,for the stock market, BAD "news" can be GOOD "news", as Wall Street believes that "Bailout Ben" will bring the Federal REserve to the 'rescue", and at least BAIL OUT WALL STREET (as they ocon't care what happes to the rest of us). Thus, the stock market may take a DETERIORATION in the economy as simply a singal that 'Bailout Ben" is on his hore and preparing to lead the STIMUUS "calvary" to the rescue of Wall Street yeat again. The roblem for Obama on the stock market is that same SEASONAL PTTERN. Amost every year since 1994, with the notable exceptin of 2009, the stock market has suffered a MAJOR DOWNTURN in the late summer. If THT pattern recurs, and it is sort of "built in" to tothe computers of the computer gamers on Wall Street, then it wil contribute to the MODD that the country is gong int he wrong directin--just before we reach the end stages of the Novembe electino. Will even a stock market RECOVERY in September/October "reverse" this negative psychology in time to help Obvam, if the pattern recurs? I doubt it.
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