Let us dispose of last week's Orwellian Big Lie. The weekly report on new unemployment claims (filed last week) came ut this morning. It containted the usual REVISION of the number released last Thursday. Remember last Thursday's HEADLINE, quoted in this blog: "Jobless claims DROP (emphasis addded) 1,000, to 388,00". This blog told yo that headline was an outright, bald-faced LIE. And it was. As this blog told lyou it would be, that number was REVISED, n this week's report, from 388,000 to 392,000 (a yearly HIGH). That meant that, instead of DROPING 1,000 last week, jobless claims ROSE 3,000 last week (to the highest level in more than four months--baslically the highest level of the YEAR). This blog predicted that EXACTLY (this week's news last week), telling yu that the number would be REVISED UPWARD 3 or 4 thousand--again telling you almost exactly what was going to happen.
Okay. We have desiposed of LAST WEEKS LIES. Let us now go to THIS WEEK'S LIES. The headline LIE is that new unemployment claims dropped 27,,000 last week, to 365,000. If you read this blog, yu know that is a LIE. Remember, what you have reported today is an UNREVISED number, which the LYING media (including CNBC and the financial "press") is comparing with the REVISED number reported TODAY :(knowing that this week's initially reported number will almost surely be REVISED UPWARD next week, just like last week's initially reported number was revised upward by 4,000). The ONLY "comparison" which is not an OBVIOUS LIE is to compare last week's UNREVISED number with this week's UNREVISSED number. Las week's initially reported, unrevised number was 388,0000. That means that, on an apples-to-apples basis, the number dropped 23,000--not 27,000. Further, the REPORTED number this week (365,000) is almost surely a LIE, and should NOT be reported as an exact number. As stated, that number is ALMOST ALWAYS revised UPWARD the following week. The usual evision is 3,000 or 4,000 (hence my PREDICTION last week). Thus, and the media SHOULD report this (because the pattern is CONSISTENT), the actual REVISED number for this week is likely to be 368,000 or 369,000. However, that UPWARD revision has been as much as 16,000 in the past two months, and has been around 10,00 two other times. Thus, an upward revision of 3,000 or 4,000 is a LIKELY MINIMUM.
It gets worse. We need to assume that this week's number will be REVISED to at least 368,000. Look at this bog's weekly articles over the past months. Jobless claims have averaged about 390,000 for the past three weeks--which the DISHOENST, stupid peope of CNBC (more later) have pretty much dismissed as an aberration. But what about BEFORE THAT. This blog told you. For almost FOUR MONTHS (almost since the beginning of tis year), the RANGE of the weekly jobless claims number was basically 350,000 to 365,000. 368,000 is ABOVE the TOP of that range. The four-week AVERAGE remains right at its high for the year. That AVERAGE hardly moved this week--stayed essentailly the same. Even if you accept--falsely--the reported 365,000, that wouuld still be true, and it would be true that the number is at a FOUR-MONTH HIGH, if you disregard the 3 straight weeks around 390,000. This is NOT "good nwews". It is BAD NEWS, as I told you yesterday it HAD to be. If the AVERAGE of layoofs is at a YEARLY HIGH, how is that "good news"? If the previous 3 weeks had not even happened, the 368,000 (or even 3565,000) number for this week would show basically NO IOMPROVEMENT in the job market for basicallly this ENTIRE YEAR.
I saw the discussion on CNBC (some of the most DISHOENST, and STUPID, people who have ever lived--al of the people on CNBC except Rick Santelli) about this snumber. The EUPHORIA was ORGASMIC, as the LIES flowed. How do yo know they were lying? Thieir lips moved. Even CNBC, of course, DISHOENST as the peple are, could not 'spin" this week's jobless calims number as showing "sudden improvement"--on a dime--forom the previus 3 weeks at 390,000. Taht is impossible, and even these people--stupid as theyy are, with the AGENDA they have--cannnot (generally) bring thehemselves to be that obviusly stupid. Rather, tkhey used this week's number to SUPPORT their previous "interpretation' of the last 3 weeks of TERRIBLE numbers as being an "aberration", proably due to the seasonal glitiches that this blgo told you about BEFORECNBC started to use them to tell lyou that the numbers are not AS BAD as they appear to be. In other words, CNBC was suggesting that the numbers for the past 3 weeks have NOT BEEN REAL, and that this week's number shows that the "spike" in up in the pas three weeks was not due to a real deterioration in the labor market.
You can see the problems here, not being as STUPID and DISHONEST as the people of CNBC. First, why should the past THREE WEEKS be an "aberration", while this ONE WEEK is "real"? No reason, except CNBC WANSTS TO SPIN IT THAT WAY. Why could the 368,0000 (expected, revised number, remember) be due to a SEASONAL GLITCH, and the 390,000 STEADY number for the past three weeks represent REALITY? Is not this MORE LIKELY? And what about the four-week average? Forget it. These (CNBC people) bear the same relationship to honest, intelligent people as Mark Twain said "Coooper Indians" (James Fenimore Cooper's Iindian characters) bear to real Indians. They only discuss the four-week average if it supports their agenda. Then there is that nagging little difficulty: If the labor market has not really been DETERIORATNG the past 3 weeks as badly as teh numbers appeared to show, does that not mean that the previous numbers were not AS GOOD as they appeared to show? Of course it does. In fact, if you take into account the WEATHER, this eyar's numbers have not been substantially better than last year's numbers at the same time.
Am I done detailing theDISHONESTY and STUPIDITY of CNBC? Not on your life. Again, if lyu DISREGARD the past three weeks, rather than the present ONE WEEK (more likely to be a "glitch" than 3, even though this blgo has told ou long ago that there seems to be a "seansonal pattern" here ttathat is not adequately reflected int he "seasonal adjustments"), what are you left with? Youi are left with a BAD number, showing NO IMPROVEMENT basically this ENTIRE YEAR. The 368,000 only "looks god" because the past 3 weeks were SO BAD. Otherwise, standing on its own, it is a BAD number. The ONLY way in which it is a "good" number is that it is SOME indication that the labor market is not DETERIORATING significantly. However, as this blog has told you for WEEKS, and even MONTHS, that meerely means that the labor market had never ereally "improved" to the extent that CNBC has said it was improving. Nope. It does not matter how you slice it. The people of CNBC are STUPID LIEARS.
As this blog has told you, and the stupid liars of CNBC never quite telll you, ONE WEEK means NOTHING as far as this weekly jobless claims number is concerned. Is the "real" number closer to 390,000, or closer to 368,000? We will not really have a good idea until we have MORE WEEKS of data. Right now, the best indication we have is the four-week average, and that is VERY BAD. And even if the "real" number is around 370,000, instead of around 390,000, that still means NO IMPROVEMENT for this ENTIRE YEAR. Remember, again, that the 365,000 REPORTED for this week (likely to be revised to 368,000 or 369,0000) is near the HIGH of the RANGE that was in place before the apparent deterioration of the past 3 weeks.
As this blog told you yesterday, the BEST that could be said about ANY number reported today is that it could indicate that things are not "as bad as they COULD have been". The number reported today--365,000, and most likely to be revised to at least 368,000--is actually a BAD numbmber, showing NO IMPROVEMENT (as indicated byt he 4-week average remaining at a YERLY HIGH), not moving at all). But it COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. Sure, the number COULD hve gone back above 400,000, which would have required a lot more rationalization on the part of the dishoenst, stupid people of CNBC. In that sense, and ONLY in that sense, this week's reported number is "good news". Armageddon is not yet obviusly at hand. We are jut back to the situation we have been in the entire 'recovery": Things are not getting worse, but they are notgetting substantially better, either. The jury is still out on whether the seasonal pattern of the past two years will still be rEPEATED this year, where the economic "nubmbers" APPEAR to DETERIORATE into the summre, even as they were "encouraging" in the winter and spring. One week does NOT indicate that this seasonal pattern is not still operating this year.
Oh. And I really love (sarcasm) the way CNBC dismisssed the ADP emplyment numbers (see yesterday's article). The general agreement was that the ADP nummbers have often been 'wrong"..............................................sorry, on the floor again in that fetal positin, alughin g/crying. Who says that it is ADP that is wrong? Who says that the GOVERNEMTN numbers cannot be WRONG? In fact, the CLUELESS people of CNBC were sitting around saying that, in previous times, the ADP numbes have been "off" by as much as 150,000. Uh-huh. Well, sometimes the GOVERNMENT numbers have been "off" by something like that. Who says? The GOVERNMENT says. The governement numbers, to be released tomorrow, are later REVISED. That revison ha sometimes been SIGNIFICANT. This blog has shown ou that the government numbers are WRITTEN ON WATER. They are "seasonally adjusted", and the FORMULA (or baseline numbers for the formula) keeps getting CHANGED, as it was this January. Even the governemnt said that you could NOT even plausibly "compare" December's numbers with those of January (and succeeding months), becasue of the CHANGES in the numbers used to make the calculations. The ADP number showed the WORST "job growth" ni six months. The jobless claims are showing NO OIMPROVEMENT in layoffs for the ENTIRE YEAR. If the government numbers reported tomorrow show soemeting different, then it is the GOVERNMENT that is likely WRONG. Why should CNBC think otherwise? Well, we know why THEY wuld think otherwise. They are STUPID, DISHONEST people. But why should you and I trust government numbers that are being constantly MANIPULATED. Notice I am not even sayhing that the Obama Administratin (Obama and his political operatives) are necessarily, deliberately "cooking" the nummbers. That is not necessary. The "faceless bureaucrats", and "government economists", who "tweak" these numbers have shown NO ability to actually know what they are sdoing, and EVERY willingness to "cook" these numbers (whether deliberately, or just inability to "adjust" the numbers to accurately reflect reality).
No. The government numbers on joibs, to be repoprted tomorrow, simply cannot be that 'good". Otherwise, they will be SUSPECT. The GDP only rose 2.2% (first estimate) int he first quarter. The "jobless claims" are NOT IMPROVEING. The ADP numbers are consistent with that data. If the government numbres are inconsistent with all of this other data, then it is the GTOVERNEMTN numbers that have to be WRONG. That is the biggest medai LIE of all. These numbers are ALL SUBJECTIVE, and not "concrete" numbers which are merely a matter of counting. As with the media LIES in reporting POLLS, this reporting of ESTIMATES as "real" numbers is a blatant LIE. What else is new with our medi?
P.S No proofreading or spell checking (bad eyesight). As you shuld be able to tell from the article, my shifts back and forth frm the REPORTED jobless calims of 365,000 to the LIELY "revised" number of 368,000 (or more) is DELIBERATE, and not a tyupo. Obviusy, I may sometimes have a typo in a number, although I do my best to get the numbers right. But I can't proofread thgm. But my references to today's jobless claims number as really being 368,000 ("adjusting" for the CONSISTENT revision) is merely my attempt to accurately reflect reality, or likely reality, and not a typo. If, obviusly, any number is WAY OFF from the other numbrers cited in the blog, that actually will be a typo. These are actually the relevant numbers: 365,0000 reported today, which will most likely be REVISED to 368,000 or 369,000; 392,000, whihc is the REVISED number that should have been reported last week, and was so reported int his blog--revised UP from 388,000; the three weeks in a row, before this wekek, where jobless claims were right at 390,000; and the previious RANGE of the weekly jobless claims number of 350,000 to 365,000, that had previously been consistent for most of this eyar (until the recent SPIKE up to the 390,000 level). The other number that is important is the FOUR-WEEK AVERFAGE--reported byt he media generally only when it suits their purposes, which REMAINS right at a yearly high.
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