.
January 4, 2008
SouthAmerica: Here is how the US Labor Department keeps unemployment rates low at around 5 percent using a flexible way of reporting. It is very easy â just create a new category for âdiscouraged workersâ and you dump any adjustments necessary to achieve the desired fictitious unemployment rate in that category.
Since George W. Bush became president almost 7 years ago â over 4 million people from age group 44 to 57 disappeared from the US work force (most of them with advanced degrees) â you can find them during the week playing with their laptops and cell phones, and looking busy at Starbucks, Borders, Barnes and Noble - all around the country. (This trend reflects a real waste of talent and practical experiences going on in the US today).
Another large group â in the millions â decided to call themselves consultants (because of various reasons including their age, pride, and so on). Others even though they still reasonable young (on their early 50âs) decided to qualify themselves as retired.
Another very large group of approximately 4 million mostly unemployed people are hiding on the disability figures of the US government. In the first 3 years of the Bush administration the number of people who started receiving disability benefits went through the roof. As an over-reaction to that figure explosion in the first 3 years of his administration in the last few years the Bush administration has been making almost impossible for people to qualify for disability even to the people who are really disabled.
The number of people in prison in the United States also continues to grow year after year and in the near future the United States will have over 2.3 million inmates in Federal, State, and local prisons.
Sorry, if I forgot to mention above some of the other creative ways to fudge the unemployment rate numbers.
The Bush administration probably has the least credibility of any US administration in modern times. Is it possible that the US Labor department started adding to its numbers the new jobs being created in Iraq? I know that Americans are investing a large amount of taxpayers money in Iraq. I would not be surprised if this administration is counting the new jobs created in Iraq as part of the US job creation.
They use all kinds of gimmicks to fudge all the data they provide to the public. For example, the unemployment rate kept going down as the government kept adding large amounts of people to the discouraged workers group of people. It is pathetic. The Bush administration adopted the Enron and WorldCom method of statistics and releasing figures and information to the public.
But if you make some rational adjustments to the unemployment rate as reported by the US Labor Department, you get a different picture. It is estimated that at least 3 million people are hiding in the disability figures. (People who had some form of disability for many years such as a pain in the back or some other form of disability, but these people were willing to keep working if they had a job.)
Lots of people run out of unemployment benefits and they couldn't find a job thatâs why they had an explosion in the number of people on disability in the first 3 years of the Bush administration until they closed that option.
Another 4 million are not counted because they left the labor force and are considered discouraged workers who abandoned their job searches. If we adjust the unemployment rate for these items, then the US unemployment rate jumps to over 12 percent.
The unemployment problem in the United States it does not account for over 6 million people who are underemployed or decided to further their education because they could not find a job, then if we made these adjustments a more realistic picture appears of the real unemployment rate in the United States, with the actual unemployment rate increasing to over 15 percent.
The US government fudges their statistics, and they make footnotes to let everybody know that the figures published are not worth much. But people still use the data anyway, as if the data had any value.
The US government has lost most of its credibility around the world since the Bush administration took office. It is not a secret that the current administration doesn't make much distinction from good information and garbage; if it is useful information to further their agenda they'll use it.
A few years ago I had to go to the US Labor Department website to find out who was the invisible Labor Secretary of the Bush administration. I was surprised to find out that the current Labor Secretary was a Chinese-woman called Elaine L. Chao. Now, I am beginning to understand what the Bush administration means when they say that they created 4 million jobs â they mean in China.
The Easy Fix
To improve the unemployment rate overnight, any government should adopt the same system of counting the unemployed as the system being used by the United States government today. It is a simple method of counting the unemployed, massaging the figures and using various modern techniques, such as: "Lying, Deception, and Misinformation."
*********
Jobless Rate Hits 5 Percent, 2-Year High
Friday January 4, 12:40 pm ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
The Associated Press
Jobless Rates Hits 5 Percent, a 2-Year High, Fanning Recession Fears
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hiring practically stalled in December, driving the nation's unemployment rate up to a two-year high of 5 percent and fanning fears of a recession.
Employers last month added the fewest new jobs to their payrolls in more than four years, according to the employment report released Friday by the Labor Department. The report showed that employment conditions are deteriorating, strained by a housing slump and credit crunch that are sapping economic strength.
"The economy is getting hit by some body blows. The big question is whether the economy can withstand it or will it take a fall," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.
The unemployment rate jumped from 4.7 percent in November to 5 percent in December, the highest since November 2005 after the Gulf Coast hurricanes dealt the country a mighty blow. Total payrolls -- both private employers and government -- grew by just 18,000 last month, the worst showing since August 2003, when the economy suffered job losses as it struggled to recover from the 2001 recession.
â¦The government added 31,000 jobs in December, while private employers actually cut payrolls by 13,000, underscoring the weaknessâ¦.
.
January 4, 2008
SouthAmerica: Here is how the US Labor Department keeps unemployment rates low at around 5 percent using a flexible way of reporting. It is very easy â just create a new category for âdiscouraged workersâ and you dump any adjustments necessary to achieve the desired fictitious unemployment rate in that category.
Since George W. Bush became president almost 7 years ago â over 4 million people from age group 44 to 57 disappeared from the US work force (most of them with advanced degrees) â you can find them during the week playing with their laptops and cell phones, and looking busy at Starbucks, Borders, Barnes and Noble - all around the country. (This trend reflects a real waste of talent and practical experiences going on in the US today).
Another large group â in the millions â decided to call themselves consultants (because of various reasons including their age, pride, and so on). Others even though they still reasonable young (on their early 50âs) decided to qualify themselves as retired.
Another very large group of approximately 4 million mostly unemployed people are hiding on the disability figures of the US government. In the first 3 years of the Bush administration the number of people who started receiving disability benefits went through the roof. As an over-reaction to that figure explosion in the first 3 years of his administration in the last few years the Bush administration has been making almost impossible for people to qualify for disability even to the people who are really disabled.
The number of people in prison in the United States also continues to grow year after year and in the near future the United States will have over 2.3 million inmates in Federal, State, and local prisons.
Sorry, if I forgot to mention above some of the other creative ways to fudge the unemployment rate numbers.
The Bush administration probably has the least credibility of any US administration in modern times. Is it possible that the US Labor department started adding to its numbers the new jobs being created in Iraq? I know that Americans are investing a large amount of taxpayers money in Iraq. I would not be surprised if this administration is counting the new jobs created in Iraq as part of the US job creation.
They use all kinds of gimmicks to fudge all the data they provide to the public. For example, the unemployment rate kept going down as the government kept adding large amounts of people to the discouraged workers group of people. It is pathetic. The Bush administration adopted the Enron and WorldCom method of statistics and releasing figures and information to the public.
But if you make some rational adjustments to the unemployment rate as reported by the US Labor Department, you get a different picture. It is estimated that at least 3 million people are hiding in the disability figures. (People who had some form of disability for many years such as a pain in the back or some other form of disability, but these people were willing to keep working if they had a job.)
Lots of people run out of unemployment benefits and they couldn't find a job thatâs why they had an explosion in the number of people on disability in the first 3 years of the Bush administration until they closed that option.
Another 4 million are not counted because they left the labor force and are considered discouraged workers who abandoned their job searches. If we adjust the unemployment rate for these items, then the US unemployment rate jumps to over 12 percent.
The unemployment problem in the United States it does not account for over 6 million people who are underemployed or decided to further their education because they could not find a job, then if we made these adjustments a more realistic picture appears of the real unemployment rate in the United States, with the actual unemployment rate increasing to over 15 percent.
The US government fudges their statistics, and they make footnotes to let everybody know that the figures published are not worth much. But people still use the data anyway, as if the data had any value.
The US government has lost most of its credibility around the world since the Bush administration took office. It is not a secret that the current administration doesn't make much distinction from good information and garbage; if it is useful information to further their agenda they'll use it.
A few years ago I had to go to the US Labor Department website to find out who was the invisible Labor Secretary of the Bush administration. I was surprised to find out that the current Labor Secretary was a Chinese-woman called Elaine L. Chao. Now, I am beginning to understand what the Bush administration means when they say that they created 4 million jobs â they mean in China.
The Easy Fix
To improve the unemployment rate overnight, any government should adopt the same system of counting the unemployed as the system being used by the United States government today. It is a simple method of counting the unemployed, massaging the figures and using various modern techniques, such as: "Lying, Deception, and Misinformation."
*********
Jobless Rate Hits 5 Percent, 2-Year High
Friday January 4, 12:40 pm ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
The Associated Press
Jobless Rates Hits 5 Percent, a 2-Year High, Fanning Recession Fears
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hiring practically stalled in December, driving the nation's unemployment rate up to a two-year high of 5 percent and fanning fears of a recession.
Employers last month added the fewest new jobs to their payrolls in more than four years, according to the employment report released Friday by the Labor Department. The report showed that employment conditions are deteriorating, strained by a housing slump and credit crunch that are sapping economic strength.
"The economy is getting hit by some body blows. The big question is whether the economy can withstand it or will it take a fall," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.
The unemployment rate jumped from 4.7 percent in November to 5 percent in December, the highest since November 2005 after the Gulf Coast hurricanes dealt the country a mighty blow. Total payrolls -- both private employers and government -- grew by just 18,000 last month, the worst showing since August 2003, when the economy suffered job losses as it struggled to recover from the 2001 recession.
â¦The government added 31,000 jobs in December, while private employers actually cut payrolls by 13,000, underscoring the weaknessâ¦.
.