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U.S. unemployment falls to 7.5% in April [W: 348, 360]

And the ignorant public is buying it - with the help of the government fudging the CPI/GDP numbers to make things look better - hook, line and sinker.

The U.S. economy is not getting better...it is getting worse.

But John/Jane Q. Public (and Keynesian economists/bureaucrats like Paul Krugman/Ben Bernanke/Janet Yellen) are too ignorant on macroeconomics to see it.
Fudging the CPI, GDP, and Jobs figures? Who can you trust nowadays??

Based on what exactly?

That might be the most arrogant statement I've seen on these boards. No offense, but you've provided absolutely nothing in the way of insight that would suggest you could hold your own against any of the names mentioned.
 
Driving economies into a ditch, now that's
something your side knows all about. Every Republican President has had a recession in his 1st term since WWII. Why do you think that is?


Jeff Madrick: The Republican Presidential Recession Record

Huffington ??

Lol...wow, you don't even make a attempt any more.

But I'm sure your not blaming Bush for the Democrat mandated sub-prime bubble are you ?

Nah you wouldn't do that.
 
Fudging the CPI, GDP, and Jobs figures?

Who can you trust nowadays??

Based on what exactly?

That might be the most arrogant statement I've seen on these boards. No offense, but you've provided absolutely nothing in the way of insight that would suggest you could hold your own against any of the names mentioned.

Arrogance is after 4 and a half years of massive debt and printing claiming a .1 drop in unemployment numbers with 9.5 million jobs missing all together is something to celebrate.
 
Dow joins went over 15,000 today for the first time.
 
Arrogance is after 4 and a half years of massive debt and printing claiming a .1 drop in unemployment numbers with 9.5 million jobs missing all together is something to celebrate.
I'd ask for some supporting data for that 9.5 million job claim but I know better.
 
Fudging the CPI, GDP, and Jobs figures? Who can you trust nowadays??

Based on what exactly?

That might be the most arrogant statement I've seen on these boards. No offense, but you've provided absolutely nothing in the way of insight that would suggest you could hold your own against any of the names mentioned.

Based on staying informed.


The government has admitted that it has changed the 'seasonal adjustments'...but they refuse to say exactly how they have changed them.

And where were you - the government recently approved changing the CPI model to the C-CPI-U model...which they admit will make the CPI numbers lower then they are now. And they have changed the CPI models many times over the years. Especially since the mid-90's...al designed to lower the CPI numbers.

AND the GDP tabulation process was changed recently (to much media attention) - again, to make the numbers seem better (in this case higher - freely admitted by the government).

All of the above is common knowledge and none of it is denied by the government.
 
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Where exactly did I say the government 'fudged' the unemployment figures?

There.

Yes, the employment numbers (through changes to how the Seasonally adjusted numbers are computed), the CPI (Congress just voted to change it to the C-CPI-U model...which lowers the rate...again) and the GDP (which makes the number seem larger and thus makes the debt-to-GDP look smaller) are all being skewed by the government to make the numbers the public sees look better.
 
I'd ask for some supporting data for that 9.5 million job claim but I know better.

How about a question, the labor force was 154 million in December 2007 and it was 143 million when Bush took office or a growth of 11 million, since 2007 the labor force went from 154 million to 155 million or a gain of 1 million vs a gain of 11 million. Do you think that the labor force has kept up with population growth?
 
Why part time ? Trying to out run Obama-Care ?

Let me guess, the majoroty of your part time employees work under 30 hours each.

No, its the nature of the business. It has been a business of part-timers before you and I ever heard of Obama. If you must know, 25% of my staff are full-time.... last two weeks I got hit with a ton of overtime as I was short-staffed.
 
How about a question, the labor force was 154 million in December 2007 and it was 143 million when Bush took office or a growth of 11 million, since 2007 the labor force went from 154 million to 155 million or a gain of 1 million vs a gain of 11 million. Do you think that the labor force has kept up with population growth?
No, not at all. That doesn't quite validate Fenton's claim though.
 

Prior to 1992 the U-3 number included the under employed and discouraged workers. Clinton and the Congress under Democrat control changed the calculation and moved the under employed/discouraged workers to the U-6 category. The U-3 is the official number so you could say there is manipulation going on and the fact is there is encouragement to get people to drop out of the labor force to make the numbers look better.
 

Try reading comprehension.

I said the 'employment' numbers were skewed.

NOT the 'unemployment' numbers (as you said).

Big difference.

The government is not skewing how many people are unemployed (to my knowledge).

What they are skewing (imo) - though they will not tell us exactly how - is the way they calculate seasonally adjusted numbers for jobs created (among other things).

Though, I admit that I cannot be sure they are skewing them for the positive.

The huge jump in this months revisions for the previous months strongly suggests they did.


If you are going to put words in my mouth - next time, make sure I actually said them please.
 
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No, not at all. That doesn't quite validate Fenton's claim though.

Yes it does if you add the population growth into the labor force. Bush economic policies increased the labor force by 11 million in 8 years or over 1.3 million a year. That same number would be 7.8 million over the last 6 years so actually it would be very easy to come up with over 9 million jobs lost
 
Try reading comprehension.

I said the 'employment' numbers were skewed.

NOT the 'unemployment' numbers (as you said).

Big difference.

The government is not skewing how many people are unemployed.

What they are skewing - in my opinion, because they will not tell us exactly how - is the way they calculate seasonally adjusted numbers for jobs created (among other things).

Though, I admit that I cannot be sure they are skewing them for the positive.

The huge jump in this months revisions for the previous months strongly suggests they did.


If you are going to put words in my mouth - next time, make sure I actually said them please.
Well, it seems you're once again in sharp disagreement with DA60 from page 3:
It is not a lie.

But it IS a shell game, IMO.

To not include workers who have left the workforce (disgruntled workers) for NO other reason then they cannot find work BUT would still take a job immediately if they could find it, as officially having left the work force is a joke.

These people are clearly persons still looking for work and should thus still be considered unemployed.

The government (IMO) deliberately does this to make the U-3 number appear to be smaller then it otherwise would be.
 
Well, it seems you're once again in sharp disagreement with DA60 from page 3:

Oh yes... I forgot about that.

Seems I was right after all..and so were you about what I said (sort of)..my apologies.

Thanks for showing me how I was right...that the government DOES skew the unemployment numbers to make the U-3 look better then it is.


So, as I said earlier, the government IS skewing the unemployment numbers AND the GDP numbers AND the CPI numbers.

Thanks again.
 
Yes it does if you add the population growth into the labor force. Bush economic policies increased the labor force by 11 million in 8 years or over 1.3 million a year.

That same number would be 7.8 million over the last 6 years so actually it would be very easy to come up with over 9 million jobs lost
No, it plainly does not. We're also discussing raw positions added, not the cumulative labor force.

We're also discussing a four year time table here, which makes your claims, while incorrect even in your format, a country mile off target. lrn2math.
 
No, it plainly does not. We're also discussing raw positions added, not the cumulative labor force.

We're also discussing a four year time table here, which makes your claims, while incorrect even in your format, a country mile off target. lrn2math.

Ok, number of positions added? There were 146 million people working in December 2007 and there are 143 million working today. Is that an increase or decrease? Shouldn't there be more people working today than in 2007?
 
Ok, number of positions added? There were 146 million people working in December 2007 and there are 143 million working today. Is that an increase or decrease? Shouldn't there be more people working today than in 2007?
Four year time tables Rainman. Even when you use completely facetious and chronologically inaccurate figures that claim still downright stinks. Drop it and move along.
 
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Ok, number of positions added? There were 146 million people working in December 2007 and there are 143 million working today. Is that an increase or decrease? Shouldn't there be more people working today than in 2007?
It decreased 4 million before Bush left office.
 
Republicans will be terribly dismayed by this news.

why would they? isn't it about time we saw an improvement after watching the debt increase even more than it did under the last President?
 
Four year time tables Rainman. Even when you use completely facetious and chronologically inaccurate figures that claim still downright stinks. Drop it and move along.

Obama has added over 6 trillion to the debt to generate those numbers that we have today which are 3 million less than what we had when the recession began and you and others tout that as a success?
 
It decreased 4 million before Bush left office.

So spending over 3.7 trillion a year and adding 6 trillion to the debt didn't solve the problem? What did we get for our money other than debt service?
 
Prior to 1992 the U-3 number included the under employed and discouraged workers. Clinton and the Congress under Democrat control changed the calculation and moved the under employed/discouraged workers to the U-6 category. The U-3 is the official number so you could say there is manipulation going on and the fact is there is encouragement to get people to drop out of the labor force to make the numbers look better.
Complete bunk through and through. Even the dates are wrong, as Clinton took office in 1993. Discouraged and underemployed individuals were never included in the official unemployment figures (previously the U-5 rate). A summary of the actual changes that occurred: http://www.bls.gov/cps/revisions1994.pdf
 
Oh yes... I forgot about that.

Seems I was right after all..and so were you about what I said (sort of)..my apologies.

Thanks for showing me how I was right...that the government DOES skew the unemployment numbers to make the U-3 look better then it is.


So, as I said earlier, the government IS skewing the unemployment numbers AND the GDP numbers AND the CPI numbers.

Thanks again.

It's pretty pitiful that when any bad news is released it is Obama's fault and when the news is good it's a lie because the "numbers are skewed". Could you be just a little less obvious that you are hoping for failure? Does that make you proud?
 
It's pretty pitiful that when any bad news is released it is Obama's fault and when the news is good it's a lie because the "numbers are skewed". Could you be just a little less obvious that you are hoping for failure? Does that make you proud?

Wanting the government to produce accurate numbers and not continue to manipulate them is not 'hoping for failure'.

It's hoping for the truth.


And, as I have said many times - I am neither Dem or Rep.
 
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