BLS Employment Report for October 2009: Suspending Belief and Reality Again

by John Galt

November 7, 2009

1. BLS  Table A-12 Section U-6 “The Real” Unemployment Number

This month the number deteriorated to a level of 17.5% which since the proverbial beginning of the crisis in roughly February 2007 indicates that we have seen an over eight standard deviation from the unemployment/underemployment levels at that time. That is unprecedented and has not been seen since the Great Depression if my calculations are correct.

2. Birth Death Model Adjustments

Never discussed in polite circles nor the mainstream media, the computer continues to crank out numbers that requires any sane person to suspend belief and accept that the recovery is not a dwarf driving a Shriner’s car and sprinkling magic fairy dust to make the general population as stoned as an Occidental College freshman.

The 86,000 jobs created would be amusing except for the fact that the claims are so outrageous as assuming 14,000 jobs created in the Financial Services arena and 5,000 in Construction.

3. Speaking of Birth/Death Construction jobs:

Maybe they were all assigned to building a man-made lake to store all the bullcrap Washington D.C. is generating to prevent the fumes from creating a massive surge in Global Warming and temperature increases.

4. Birth/Death Comparison and the Headline Number Minus the Computer Fantasy

So if you minus the Birth/Death fantasy we lost 276,000 jobs on the headline number.  Good luck to all of you employees who had jobs created for you by the BLS computers.

5. The Revisions Continue but Does the Differential Really Matter?

No matter what one thinks of the quality of the BLS statistical models, you have to give them credit as a swing from revisions of -244,000 to positive 44,000 is impressive. If only we could balance our check books and file our taxes using their calculators…….

6. Maybe, just Maybe We can get a Job with the BLS

Because the key number to look at here is that the graph with revisions demonstrates that since December of 2007, we have not had any net job growth in this economy. It is not getting any better and in fact the reality is that the lack of credit access to small businesses will only amplify the problem and continue to aggravate an already tenuous employment situation into the next election.

Got Farmland?

Ya better or you may starve…..