This is from today's Washington Post. (www.washingtonpost.com). Perhaps it can add to the conspiracy theory.
Extract ---
What's in a Verb? A Great Deal at BLS Staff Works in Secrecy Preparing Jobs Reports By David FinkelWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, April 2, 2004; Page A23
There is the matter of the man with the watch. The watch is set to Naval Observatory time, and by 8:29, the man will be watching it tick, tick, tick until he rises from his chair and shouts loud enough to be heard in every cubicle, "It is 8:30." And finally, there is the matter of the verb. By 8:30:01, the world will learn whether the winner of five days of intense discussions behind the locked doors of the U.S. Division of Labor Force Statistics is "declined," "rose," "edged," "nudged" or "remained the same." All of this becomes clear today because this is the first Friday of the month that follows the first Thursday of the month, which means the latest national employment figures are being released by the Labor Department. Precisely at 8:30 a.m., America will learn how many jobs and unemployed workers it had in March....[snip]
[On Thursday] Final revisions were made about whether to highlight mitigating factors such as strikes and oddball weather, Web site tables were prepared and a preview of the report was sent to Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, the only people outside a select few at the Bureau of Labor Statistics authorized to see the figures before their release. The CEA, in turn, prepared a summary that typically is given late Thursday to Bush, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.
As for today, the report itself becomes available at 8 a.m. to Greenspan, Snow, Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans and certain news reporters who are sequestered until 8:30 in a locked room monitored by Labor Department employees to make sure no advance word of the report leaks out.
End
Extract ---
What's in a Verb? A Great Deal at BLS Staff Works in Secrecy Preparing Jobs Reports By David FinkelWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, April 2, 2004; Page A23
There is the matter of the man with the watch. The watch is set to Naval Observatory time, and by 8:29, the man will be watching it tick, tick, tick until he rises from his chair and shouts loud enough to be heard in every cubicle, "It is 8:30." And finally, there is the matter of the verb. By 8:30:01, the world will learn whether the winner of five days of intense discussions behind the locked doors of the U.S. Division of Labor Force Statistics is "declined," "rose," "edged," "nudged" or "remained the same." All of this becomes clear today because this is the first Friday of the month that follows the first Thursday of the month, which means the latest national employment figures are being released by the Labor Department. Precisely at 8:30 a.m., America will learn how many jobs and unemployed workers it had in March....[snip]
[On Thursday] Final revisions were made about whether to highlight mitigating factors such as strikes and oddball weather, Web site tables were prepared and a preview of the report was sent to Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, the only people outside a select few at the Bureau of Labor Statistics authorized to see the figures before their release. The CEA, in turn, prepared a summary that typically is given late Thursday to Bush, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.
As for today, the report itself becomes available at 8 a.m. to Greenspan, Snow, Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans and certain news reporters who are sequestered until 8:30 in a locked room monitored by Labor Department employees to make sure no advance word of the report leaks out.
End
