Unemployment Claims: Dishonest Media and Dishonest Labor Department

362,0000; 362,0000; 367,0000; 372,0000; 335,000?:  What is wrong with this sequence of numbers, in that order?  The numbers represent the nummber of new unemplyment claims the dishoenst Labor Dept. reported over the past 5 weeks.  I majored n physics at New Mexico State University, with a minor in mathematics.  But you don't have to have any "mathematical" background to see what is WRONG with this sries of numbers.  The 335,0000 reported last Thursday DOES NOT FIT. It is an IMPOSSIBLE number.  Or at least the SERIES of numbers is total FICTION.  You cannot seriusly take the 335,0000 at face value, but that did not stop our DISHOENST (some of the most dishonet people wo have ever lived) media from takng the number at face value, and procaliming the "lowest number in 5 years":  a LIE if you know AnYTINING about numbers.  Oh. That questin mark after the 335,0000.  Firt, the number is obvius FICTION.  Second, the number will be REVISED tomorrow.  Now the 372,0000 revised number reported last week (revision of the week before, as always is done) was a return to the CONSISTENT UPWARD REVISIN, after the previus week had seen the first DOWNWARD revison by the dishoenst Labor Dept. in FOREVER.  372,000 represented only a 1,0000 revisin, whcih is less than usual.  However, tkhese revisions can be LARGE, on occasion (being as much as 12,0000 in that string of 5 numbers set forth above


"OK, Skip, we accept that there is probably something wrong with that string of 5 numbers, and that the media should not accept them at face value.  But what is YOUR explanatin of the obvius impossibility of the numbers accurately representing the real number of new unemplyment claims eackh week."


Well, the number of claims supposedly "dropped" 37,0000, which at least matches the HGHEST "drop" in the weeky number in more than a YEAR.  dAnd what aboutttheother times there was supposedly such a large "drop"?  There was always an obvius GLITCH.  For example, one week the KLabor Dept. failed to report all of the claims from California.  Then there was that 35,0000 drop AFTER the 451,0000 SPIKE UPWARD caued by Sandy (FICTIN, in other words, caused by the temporary distortin of Sandy).  In other words, this kind of SUDDEN "dropo" has ALWAYS been FICTIN  I don't need to know the exact "explanatin" to KNOW that, and netiher would an HONEST media.  Our media is DISHOENST to their very core.  Just AVERAGE the last TWO weeks (before tomoor's new weekly number), and you get an average of more than 353,0000-BEFORE any "revision" announced tomorrow.  In February, we had several times where the 2 week average was 353,0000 or less, and a number of weeks whre teh 4-week average was LESS than tkhe 4-week average over the past 4 weeks. 


NOtice how DISHOENST our 'journalists" (yes, prectically ALL of them) realy are.  Look at my posted blog articles, and Twitter tweets, when our DISHBOENST "journalists" announced a new "4-year low" in new unemplyment claims about a month ago.  THTA was based on the FOUR-WEEK average, even though the individual week was NTO a "4-yar low".  What did I tel yu then?  I told you that our DISONEST "journalists" ONLY look at the 4-week averagve when it fits their AGENDA, and otherwise ignore it--as they did last Thursday.  No. I do NOT give you "journalists" out there a "pass'  You are BAD people.  You will ermember that those breathless stories about a "4-year low", using the 4-week average, turned out to be FALSE, because the last week in that string was REVISED upward that 12,0000, meaning that there was NO "4-year low", even using the 4-week average. There was also NO CORRECTIN/RETRACTTIN from our DISHOENST "journalists".


Now the obvius "explanatin" of why the Labor Dept./media ut out a FICTINAL number is that the "seasonal adjustment" was WRONG.  Notice that it is possible that the 372,0000 was TOO HIGH, perhaps because the Labor Dept got the seasonal pattern wrong, while the 335,000 was TOO LOW.  The individual weeky number, especially when it is obviously FICTIONAL, means NOTHING.  Yet, the medai story I saw went out of its way to state that there was no obvius glitch in the umbers.  YOU LIAR.  You don't think it is an obvius glitch when you have an UNEXMPLAINED, IMPSSIBLE "drop" of 37,0000 out of the blue. The LACK of an obvius problem proves that something was WRONG.  The "economy" and "job market" did NOT "suddently" "improve' like this.  Absurd.  yet, the media REPORTED IT THAT WAY.  YOU LIARS.  No.  YOu do NOT have to "reort" these numbers at face value, expecially using such absurdities as "5-year low".  These weekly numbers on new unemlyment claims, as this blog has told you for YEARS< only mean something OVER TIME. It is a LIE to "report" otherwise, as if the weely number is eXACT and CONCRETE.  It is a FALIBLE ESTIMATE., based on a SUBJECTGIVE "seasonal adjustment" (adjustment to the actual, "counting" number based on a SUBJECTIVE formula).


A glitch in the seaonsal adjustment is NOT the only possible explanatin for the FICTINAL 335,0000 reported last week.  Remember, again, the week that the Labor Dept. FAILED O INCLUDE all or part of claims filed in California. It is possible for the Labor Dept. to simply make an ERROR in its count. 


Then there is the fact lthat we are now in 2013.  "But, Skip, that can't poossibly mean anything.  What difference does it make that we are in a new year?"  Ah.  Do you not think the Labor Dept. CHANGES the "seasonal adjustment" formula, and even the way it calculates the reported number, on a periodic basis?  Sure it does. How else could you even TRY to keep up wiht CHANGES in seasonal pattterns?  DID thke Labor Dept. CHANGE its formual for the "seasonal adjustment' last week?  Id on't know, but it is certainly possible.  And the Labor Dept. HAD to "adjust" for the way New Year's Day fell this year. Was there something in the way the Labor Dept. did its adjustment for the first full week of January that created a glitch? Entirely poossible. 


IF the number to be reported tomorrow is still at the 335,0000 level, or below, thin I think that it is obvius that the Labor Dept. CHANGED SOMETHING from one year to the next.  I would expect the number to go substantially UP tomorrow, because the 335,0000 is usch an obvius GLITCH (fictin).  If that does not happen, then I think it is more than probable that the Labor Dept. has CREATED the sudden "drop" in the number by some change in the way it is doing its calculatin.  In other words, the "new normal" will become 335,00000, and we will likely see a repeat of the previus THREE years, when each year seemed to start off with  a "drop' in new unemplyment claims, only to have the situation apparently DETERIORATE as we head into spring and summer.  As this blog has shown, there was NO IMPROVEMENT in new unemplyment claims for ALL of 2-12/ 


What youy can absolutely count on is the media LYING about these numbers:  the Orwellian Big Lie being that the weekly number is some sort of definite, "counting" number that actually means something for any individual week  Now, again, IF the "4-week average" should happen to fit the media AGENDA, then the media may pay attentin . And IF the number should RISE by 37,0000, or some large number, yu will see the media "explain" it.  Probably the dishoenst Labor Dept. will give them a convenient explanatin that does NOT involve a deteroriatin in the labor market.  It will, of courfse, be correct that ONE WEEK will not mean a "deteroioratin" in the labor market, but that is the kind of thing NOT "reported" when the number is "good" (in any one week). 


I have already told you, given the consistent pattern over the past 3 years, that we w will probably not have a decent picture of how 2013 is realy gong on new unemplyment claims until APRIL.  It is only then when we will probably have enough data to show whether 2013 is REPEATNG the same pattern of 2010, 2011 and 2012. We will see.


P.S.  No proofreading or spell checkng (bad eyesight).  .