Alack
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Economy | Employment Figures — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
It is bad enough that the employment situation has become sour. It is even worse that employment problems may help lend even more momentum to the god-awful stimulus package currently under consideration in the Senate. Nothing like bad news today to cause us to make decisions that will bring about bad news tomorrow.
The story does note that a 17,000 job loss in the context of an economy of over 130 million jobs is strikingly small and could just be a statistical hiccup. Let us hope so. But even if it is, enough people are panicking that there will be a short term stimulus package that does not solve--and perhaps makes worse--our longer term problems.
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Alack 10 Comments (0 topical, 10 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Seems to me that unemployment numbers would be a little lower in January because of all of the temporary jobs that are created just for the Christmas season. As you said, 17,000 out of 130 million is an insignificant percentage. I think that once again you have the liberals and the MSM talking down the economy in an election year so that democrats can use a supposed slow down to win votes in November.
and inaccurate government data can be. They revised the jobs number was down 17,000 in January. December's numbers, however were revised UP 64,000 jobs, from 18,000 to 82,000 jobs so that’s a 355% margin of error in government reporting of what is considered a VITAL economic statistic.
I’ll take those ADP reports anytime.
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
The January number is historically low because January is a month where the government magicians play footsie with the numbers to fix past inaccuracies. Doesn't that want to make you gag? I'm not sufficiently knowledgable about all the gyrations, but when you consider the consistent revisions to inaccuracies in government stats starting with employment and moving right along to GDP, CPI, etc. etc., it boggles the mind when intelligent people go right off the chart in reaction to any of it. I'm with you, ADP is based on factual data and should be relied on more heavily by the government.
How many of those jobs were held by illegal aliens? A factory here in Tennessee recently lost 800 of 2300 employees from an immigration raid. The crackdown on illegal immigration in several states could be contributing to that number.
Didn't McCain just hire a new open borders guy named Juan Hernandez who wants to stick-it to conservatives?
John McCain en tu cara!
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The real question is why are you banning Ron Paul and Mitt Romney supporters who refuse to back John McCain in a primary or general election?
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No one's getting paid you moron.
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The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Aren't the numbers in January typically low? I mean, don't January's numbers historically get revised higher. I think I saw the reasoning elsewhere (Mankiw maybe) that the prelim numbers are often a guess and that the government tends to guess low bal in January.
At least I seem to remember that being the case.
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