1
Obama has the wisdom of Solomon.

2 As Twain said: "lies, damned lies, and statistics". Take your pick...

3 Obama has the wisdom of Solomon.

Posted by: Leon Porter at October 07, 2010 12:12 PM (uFokq)

Maybe, but I don't have the patience of Job.

4 Actually, we were placing bets on how much ice cream you eat every month.

5
The GOP should run with it, anyway.

It's not not like 15-20% of people are unemployed.

6
Actually, we were placing bets on how much ice cream you eat every month.

I eat all of it. Duh.

7

"Actually, we were placing bets on how much ice cream you eat every month."

Wait until Polly Harrington hears about this!

8 10.1% unemployment - Change we can believe in

9 "Lot's"?

As in, belonging to the guy whose wife turned to salt?

10 The U-6, (discouraged workers) just throws the whole thing out the window

11 O/T Polling by Merriman River Group CT-1 Dem up by 7 Not a huge story, except Obama won this 2-1, the last race was a 16pt wipeout for the Dem, and its D+13 So CT-4, CT-5, and CT-2 are likely all tossups at best for the Dems right now. Oh this is getting fun. // back on topic, I don't think anyone is expecting less than 9.4% unemployment, and even that "big" of a drop isn't enough to give people the vapors over a recovery (or to save the Democrats)

12 Seasonal adjustment is another phrase for lie. The only thing that counts in 'how many people are unemployed, and that is well over 18%. Look around.

13 Geoff -- isn't "seasonal adjustment" something of a numerical crapshoot? Who decides how large the "adjustment factor" should be?

The numbers are pretty meaningless, anyway. I'd guess Gallup is extrapolating numbers, just as they do for polls.

Frankly, all this is interesting, but the only number that would have value is the actual number of jobless right now. No "estimated," "seasonally adjusted" or "politically corrected" numbers need apply.

Since I'm one of them, I would consider a jobless rate of .00001% too fuckin' high. I'm not thrilled to know that millions of others -- millions more than the fiddled numbers (no matter how or why "fiddled") indicate -- are sharing my pain.

14 We are a long way from fixing the mess we are in.
Prepare yourselves for the hard times ahead.
 

15

Rush railing on this very subject right now.

Unemployment, not ice cream...

16
Obama needs time to fix everything. Was Mt Rushmore built in a day?

17
"Lot's"?

Good point. Ima fix that.

18
If anyone 'fix' our gazillion-dollar economy, it's a community organizer  who never had a real job.

19 Of course there are more people employed in the summer than in the winter. The seasonal adjustment should be the same every year with maybe a few added per population increase.

20
Geoff -- isn't "seasonal adjustment" something of a numerical crapshoot?

Sure. But as long as it's uniformly applied, it's not too bad. I once did an analysis of seasonal adjustment factors to see how much they'd changed since the Bush days (I was suspecting the BLS of playing favorites), but I didn't find anything interesting.

But tomorrow I'll plot non-adjusted data for several years (below the fold). Then you can see the seasonal variation for yourself.

21

And in unrelated news, it was announced today that the Head Statistician for the Hadley Center has taken a new job, working on Labor statistics.

When asked for comment, the US Bereu of Labor Statistics spokesperson, Ms. Lotta Fibbs said, "Climategate? it was just a Right Wing hit job... his work on normalizing Data is well known in the statistician community".

22 As Twain said: "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

Take your pick...

I'll take sacred honor for $200, Alex.

23 Woot!

McReichpollster:
Kirk leads mob banker Guiannoaldngez by 4.

24 Now that I've gone over to Gallup's site and read the fine print, I have less confidence in their numbers than before.

A total of some 18,000 phone interviews with random people doesn't suggest anything more (to me) than a sense of how a fraction of hundreds of millions of workers are faring.

I know this is cool stuff for people who are gainfully employed to play with numbers (et tu, Geoff?) but, by the same token, among people I know the underemployed/unemployed rate is something like 50% (if I count people I'm hitting up for work). That's totally unscientific, but more relevant to me.

25 "Seasonal adjustments", using the birth/death adjustment and letting states self report their unemployment numbers or just "estimating" one when they're no data at all, has become pretty darn common in Obama's DC.

Use U6 and unadjusted raw data and roll your own.

26
I know this is cool stuff for people who are gainfully employed to play with numbers (et tu, Geoff?)

No, this is a hobby. I'm gainfully employed to do technical work in an entirely different field, though shifting careers to ice cream tasting has a large appeal.

27 Posted by: lowandslow at October 07, 2010 12:28 PM

WTF?????

That's our friggin' money the Mohammedan Mouthpiece is giving away to America-haters, looters and terrorists.

No, it's actually Chinese loans he's giving away, which we --and our great-grandchildren will be obligated to pay back.

I can't even begin to say how much I want that mudderfugger thrown out of office, along with every member of Congress who supports this ongoing atrocity.

28 Maybe, but I don't have the patience of Job.

Job was kind of a dick, if you think about it.

"Ohhh, I get 7 sons and 3 daughters to replace the ones I had, that died?"

Cool with me.

Whatevs...

As long as I'm righteous.

You and me are cool now, right?

29
One interesting thing about the Gallup numbers is that they show significant part-time to full-time conversions. The last few months of BLS data have shown the opposite. It'll be fun to compare Gallup's numbers with the BLS release tomorrow.

30 The problem with saying "Oh, look, the unemployment claims are down" is the fact that eventually you run out of people to lay off.

It's like looking at a bleeding-out trauma patient and saying "Oh, cool, the spurts of blood out of that artery are getting smaller, he's going to be OK."

31

Posted by: MrScribbler

Word.

(If I weren't so hungover, I'd display the proper amount of anger. I'll try again tomorrow).

I asked Santa one year if he could make the UN fall into the East River.

It never happened. I no longer believe. *sniffle*

32 Posted by: geoff at October 07, 2010 12:36 PM

For a "hobbyist," you're doing a damn good job. Even though I am not a believer in statistical shit involving anything less than complete numbers, I can see what you mean without taking off my shoes to make counting easier.

We'd probably argue about ice cream tasting, too. I'm a pretty basic guy, ice-cream-flavor-wise. Gimme some old-fashioned creamy vanilla (you know the kind: lots o' real sugar and them eeeeevil butterfats) with chocolate sauce on top, and I'm in hog heaven.

33

Geoff,

While the seasonally adjusted proviso is a good point, the most indicative statistical set of true unemployment would be one incorporating the broadest subset.  And that would factoring long-term discouraged workers.  The BLS stopped factoring longterm discouraged workers in 1994 (remember who was in office then) and has used a statistically flawed and manipulated model ever since, and this is the model we are currently having analysis paralysis over; its called the U-3 model.

Geoff, real unemployment WITH seasonal adjustment factoring in the broadest subset, inclusive of the longterm unemployed, is at a whopping 22 percent. 

Analyzing manipulated and statistically imprudent data proferred by the government, is a pursuit of perhaps nobel intention but is quixotic in nature and is always in season.

Folks, we remain in a depression with deflationary and inflationary forces working in tandem while the dollar becomes debased to avert a deflationary depression of epic scale. In it's place will be a delayed inflationary depression. 

  

34 Meh, we all know the real number has been hovering between 17 and 20% since the Democrat Depression really hit. Why are we arguing about the basically arbitrary "unemployment rate"?

In fact, the government could make unemployment disappear by just canceling unemployment "insurance".

35
I'm a pretty basic guy, ice-cream-flavor-wise.

At the 6/09 CT Moron Meetup, I hit up the two ice cream shops in Mystic to compare their vanillas. I wrote a review at The Snausages:

Showdown in Mystic:

On one side of the street: Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream, advertising “The Best Ice Cream in Mystic!”

On the other side of the street: the Mystic Ice Cream and Sweets Shop, claiming “The Freshest and Creamiest Ice Cream in Mystic!”

It fell to one man to find the truth.

Our intrepid correspondent first sampled the Mystic Drawbridge’s vanilla, using the standard sample size of “largest dish available.” He selected the Drawbridge because if their advertising was true, he might want seconds. They handed him the specimen, and he stared at it, aghast. This was a “Large?” Were they already preparing for Obamacare’s inevitable mandatory diet plans?

Saddened but never discouraged, he wolfed the pittance down in a few bites. Not bad – good texture, hearty flavor, not as crisp a vanilla finish as he liked.

Then he ventured to the other side of the street, ducking into the forbidding Sweets Shop. There he chafed as the amateurs in front of him dithered over their meaningless decisions. Finally he requested, and was granted, a large dish of their vanilla.

At last, a respectably large dish!! Not overwhelmingly large, mind you, but certainly in line with the standard fare offered in a tourist town. He made short work of the dish, but as he through the shrunken carcass into the trash, he espied DinTX trying to take surreptitious surveillance photos from across the street.

Bastard.

The verdict: almost tasteless, but certainly creamy, meaning that both vendors were telling the truth. But of course neither mentioned their fatal flaws.

36
Geoff, real unemployment WITH seasonal adjustment factoring in the broadest subset, inclusive of the longterm unemployed, is at a whopping 22 percent.

You are preaching to the choir. I was the first person I know of to point out that the unemployment rate was artificially low because people were falling completely out of the tracking system. So even the U-6 number was too low.

But, the Administration's predictions are all U-3 numbers, and U-3 remains the number with the most political impact. So I spend a lot of time on that.

37

But, the Administration's predictions are all U-3 numbers, and U-3 remains the number with the most political impact. So I spend a lot of time on that.

Posted by: geoff at October 07, 2010 12:51 PM (QrzlF)

<Jeff - got it - I be a gadfly sometimes- doing so allows me to use the word, 'quixotic.'

Keep up the good work dude.  

38 Posted by: geoff at October 07, 2010 12:48 PM

Dude, if you ever get out to the L.A. area, do yourself a favor and hunt down one of the few remaining Foster's Freeze stands.

Best inexpensive ice cream evah! Loads of nasty-nice shit in every bite!

39

oops.  meant to write Geoff in my last post.

apologies.

40

We don't have 2009 data from Gallup, but we do have it from BLS:

- August 2009: 9.7% seasonally adjusted, 9.6% unadjusted
- September 2009: 9.8% seasonally adjusted, 9.5% unadjusted

Of course, BLS and Gallup don't always agree.  Gallup ranged from a high of 10.9% unemployment (at the end of January) to a low of 8.9% (at the end of July), while BLS unadjusted rates only went from a high of 10.6% (in January) to a low of 9.3% (in May), with July at 9.7%.

41
Steveegg: That's interesting. But I'm just going to go ahead and wait for tomorrow's release. It's the only way to be sure.

42 Just a few thoughts:

1)  Whether the numbers are seasonally adjusted or not, or whether you have fallen off the back end of the U6 statistics or not; if you don't have a job, then in reality you are just struggling to exist and not spending. Agit-prop and Maskirova by a government bureaucracy do not immediately affect the reality of your life.

2)  Those who believe government statistics at all, but especially the unicorn-fart statistics issued by the Obama regime; deserve what they get.  It is a case of who you are going to believe? Obama or your lying eyes?

3)  I am not an employer.  I may be trying to start a small online, one person company soon; but I will be damned if I will put a bullseye on myself by actually hiring someone else.  I probably am not alone in that feeling.  Further, if I was an employer and trying to keep alive and not go Tango Uniform, I would be just trying to last until it became clear whether the regime could at least be deadlocked, and till I found out if the Republicans in the next Congress had a testosterone count higher than Perez Hilton.  Neither is a sure thing, and both won't be known until January. 

Therefore, since we are approaching that decision point, it would make sense that by right about now that most businesses were down to the absolute bare minimum core of staff that they have to have to survive.  If they lay off any more, they shrink below viability. If things get any worse after January, it will literally mean shutting down.  They cannot take any more taxes, mandates, or government attacks.  But for now, more layoffs mean bankruptcy, so the pace has slowed.

Finally, I don't think initial unemployment claims measure those entering the labor force.  There are a whole lot [over 50%??] of graduates of the last year who have not been able to find jobs.  But they cannot file for unemployment because they have never had a job.  So they don't get pulled into the statistical chain.

I admit that I took my macro and micro economics courses long ago, shortly after we chased the saber-toothed tigers out of Boulder County and established the University of Colorado with a professor sitting at one end of a log, and the student at the other.  But by the measurements we were taught then, what we are in is not a "recession" but has met the definition of a "Depression".  This ride is not only not over, but probably is going to get a lot nastier unless the people block the Democrats and the reach-across-the-aisle RINO's from repeating Roosevelt's mistakes that prolonged the First Great Depression.

Vote November 2 as if your, your children's, and your grandchildren's lives depended on it.  Because they do.

Subotai Bahadur

43 Geoff, have you forgotten that the next housing debacle is waiting in the wings?

Also, I think the market is pricing in "republicans/conservatives" being elected.

Have you been to Zero Hedge or any of the other financial sites lately.  "we are f***ked" is a common comment.

Oh and people are getting jobs but not at the salary they would have expected before this entire mess.  People are working for way way way less and some people aren't getting raises and commissions are being cut.  "after all, better to cut your commission and let you keep your job".

44

Wise choice, geoff.  I pointedly included the July 2010 BLS numbers to contrast to Gallup's.

Something tells me the seasoning will be enough to "drop" it from August's numbers, but that the unseasoned numbers will be higher than both August 2010 and September 2009.

45
I admit that I took my macro and micro economics courses long ago, shortly after we chased the saber-toothed tigers out of Boulder County and established the University of Colorado

Heh - I'm sitting about 12 miles from there.

46

The idea that the economy is improving is absolutely nuts.  What exactly is getting better? The Government doesn't count a whole host of folks who have simply dropped off the radar. They are unemployed but not counted anywhere. Green shoots...how fucking absurd. This is not a normal economy anymore...we have killed it with years of borrowing money to finance pleasure instead of growth. Welcome to hell.

From Gallups site...

Friday's Unemployment Rate Report Likely to Understate

The government's final unemployment report before the midterm elections is based on job market conditions around mid-September. Gallup's modeling of the unemployment rate is consistent with Tuesday's ADP report of a decline of 39,000 private-sector jobs, and indicates that the government's national unemployment rate in September will be in the 9.6% to 9.8% range. This is based on Gallup's mid-September measurements and the continuing decline Gallup is seeing in the U.S. workforce during 2010.

However, Gallup's monitoring of job market conditions suggests that there was a sharp increase in the unemployment rate during the last couple of weeks of September. It could be that the anticipated slowdown of the overall economy has potential employers even more cautious about hiring. Some of the increase could also be seasonal or temporary.

Further, Gallup's underemployment measure suggests that the percentage of workers employed part time but looking for full-time work is declining as the unemployment rate increases. To some degree, this may reflect a reduced company demand for new part-time employees. For example, employers may be converting some existing part-time workers to full time when they are needed as replacements, but may not in turn be hiring replacement part-time workers. Another explanation may relate to the shrinkage of the workforce, as some employees who have taken part-time work in hopes of getting full-time jobs get discouraged and drop out of the workforce completely -- going back to school to enhance their education, for example, instead of doing part-time work. It is even possible that some workers may find unemployment insurance a better alternative than part-time work with little prospect of going full time.

Regardless, the sharp increase in the unemployment rate during late September does not bode well for the economy during the fourth quarter, or for holiday sales. In this regard, it is essential that the Federal Reserve and other policymakers not be misled by Friday's jobs numbers. The jobs picture could be deteriorating more rapidly than the government's job release suggests.

47
Pierre: Whatever. I'm tired of repeating myself.

48

The REAL fucking number we should be focusing on is the total number of people sending in W2's and that number fell off a fucking cliff. So you have two choices, either a bunch of motherfuckers moved out of the country/died or are growing weed and selling it underground...OR they are fucking living with the parents/brother/sister/salvation fucking Army. Motherfucker seeing stupid shit like this on this site is depressing.

 

Look at Tax Reciepts.

49 Ok that was absolutely uncalled for and I am sincerly sorry for that...fucking looking for my meds now.

50

As someone who has been unemployed (and in training) for nearly two years there are two things you need to know that I don't see you talking about.

1) the vast majority of people who are on the unemployment roles have been there for almost two years. Their unemployment will run out starting about a month ago and accelerating through the next 4 to 6 months. That is going to mean a lot of folks who are just barely hanging on right now, are going to start dropping over the cliffs edge. A lot more homes being foreclosed, car loans defaulting, and property being sold on street corners or just dumped because you can't pack a 3 bedroom house into a 2 bedroom apartment.

2) Acceleration. In almost all events where you are dealing with finite numbers, there is an upper limit on acceleration. New unemployment claims is a measure of acceleration. I do not consider a smaller amount of acceleration to be a good sign. That is like a guy falling from a plane without a parachute saying that things are looking great because he has reached terminal velocity. Things aren't great until there is deceleration sufficient to avoid a collision with the vectors boundary. Deceleration in this scenario means a reduction in the number of real unemployed, an increase in the number of  employed, not just a lower count of unemployed because people are no longer eligible to claim unemployment.  --- and that ain't a happening yet ---

So you can jump off a 100 story building and laugh hysterically the last 20 floors, just to mess with peoples minds. But the ending is going to be the same unless something changes damn quick like prioritized hiring or mass exemptions from debt while unemployed or ??? And I just don't see that happening.

 

51

But, the Administration's predictions are all U-3 numbers, and U-3 remains the number with the most political impact. So I spend a lot of time on that.

But what has a bug up my ass is that all of us allow the government to play that fucking game. The blogsphere NOW has the power to show folks just how much bullshit those numbers out of their asses really are. Birth Death model how fucking hilarious is that....???

Every conservative site should be pointing out what John Williams pointed out a very long time ago.

Why let those cocksuckers off the hook. Lets drive this point up their asses and out the top of their fucking heads.

YOU LIE is what we should scream at them every time they try to claim bullshit (the government lies is what I mean, meds still kicking in)

Alternate Unemployment Charts

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor StatisticsÂ’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

52 The november unemployment report comes out on the 3rd.  I actually heard someone say that this is a shame as people could use this to think about their vote.  They went immediately to commercial, an unscheduled one i"m sure.

53 Rush is talking about the retail sales.  Some people say it's been great and others say it is terrible. Oddly enough, luxury goods are doing fine and this morning they were saying that the retailers expect a great Christmas.  Cause well you know, they had a great back to school season.

Target is giving a rebate and the GAP doesn't know what happened. 

54 Geoff,

Are you out of CU?  If so, did you encounter "Lord Zubrow" [Dr. Ruben Zubrow of the Econ Dept. We called him that because he was more than passing arrogant, but we accepted that because he was so f-ing brilliant.  He worked our asses off, but it was said (by the other profs too) that if you could get a C in his Macro and Micro courses, you could get an A in anyone else's]?

Subotai Bahadur

55
Are you out of CU?  If so, did you encounter "Lord Zubrow" [Dr. Ruben Zubrow of the Econ Dept.

No - I went to high school here and then went east for college.

56

The government bean counters just admitted that they cooked the unemployment books for last year! They underestimated the number of employed persons by nearly a million!!!eleventy!!!

It reminds me of an old quote from Evert Dirkson - "A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking real money."

A million jobs here and a million jobs there and pretty soon you're talking real unemployement.

57 link to the zero hedge article discussing this.

Heard the cooking the books thing on Rush.

made me think of this:  "Massive option selling has reduced the cost of risk by over 12% in in two days. At least a few customers "know the number" of the FED." Our question: when, if ever, will the market become a level playing field, where everyone acts on the same information? How long will such wholesale approved and encouraged insider trading be permitted for the select few? And, lastly, when will the world rid itself of the Fed once and for all?

58 Just ignore 'Geoff' the writer of this post. He's a democrat party stooge shilling the big democrat lie.