Sick of the BLS propaganda? Then do the following calculation with us: using BLS data, the US civilian non-institutional population was 242,269 in January, an increase of 1.7 million month over month: apply the long-term average labor force participation rate of 65.8% to this number (because as chart 2 below shows, people are not retiring as the popular propaganda goes: in fact labor participation in those aged 55 and over has been soaring as more and more old people have to work overtime, forget retiring), and you get 159.4 million: that is what the real labor force should be. The BLS reported one? 154.4 million: a tiny 5 million difference. Then add these people who the BLS is purposefully ignoring yet who most certainly are in dire need of labor and/or a job to the 12.758 million reported unemployed by the BLS and you get 17.776 million in real unemployed workers. What does this mean? That using just the BLS denominator in calculating the unemployed rate of 154.4 million, the real unemployment rate actually rose in January to 11.5%. Compare that with the BLS reported decline from 8.5% to 8.3%. It also means that the spread between the reported and implied unemployment rate just soared to a fresh 30 year high of 3.2%. And that is how with a calculator and just one minute of math, one strips away countless hours of BLS propaganda.
Difference between Reported and Implied Unemployment Rate
And why the Labor Force Participation rate is not declining due to retirement.
#1
I really expected numbers game. Next week we will see adjustments. O is taking credit as expected. Being an election year everything is being done to protect this administration. This is good. The truth hurts. We need some propaganda so everyone doesn't jump ship. Should Republicans win suddenly the truth will get out. The sheep are being led. They believe everything they are told. Don't worry be happy(blame the evil 1% and capitalism). We have controls to correct all our economic troubles. No great depression. This is a modern world now. In two months time 2.5 million jobs(heard that on the radio today) are gone. Yes, older people are working but I'd bet its part time low wages.
#2
Take a look at Shadow Stats employment data - which includes long term discouraged workers (like the 3 yr unemployed semi-conductor engineer who's wife questioned Obama). Actual rate is more like 23%.
Posted by: Cincinnatus Chili ||
02/03/2012 16:44 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Of course there are also some of us Baby Boomers who had figured on being retired about now, but are hanging on to our jobs because a good job is the only asset of any real value anymore.
Attorney General Eric Holder vigorously denied a "cover-up" by the Justice Department over "Operation Fast and Furious," telling a House panel investigating the botched gun-running program that he has nothing to hide and suggesting the probe is a "political" effort to embarrass the administration. Not at all. The administration is so incompetent that they did this to themselves.
"There's no attempt at any kind of cover-up," Holder told lawmakers well into a hearing about whether he had been forthright in responding to requests of the House Oversight and Government Relations Committee led by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
"We're not going to be hiding behind any kind of privileges or anything," he said. Nope. Not at all. Isn't our strategy. We're just going to deny it and then walk away from responsibility. We're Democrats, after all.
The hearing came after Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, his Senate partner in the probe, asserted that top Justice officials are covering up events surrounding the flawed gun-smuggling probe. Flawed. I wouldn't have chosen that particular adjective. But do continue.
Issa made the accusation in a letter threatening to seek a contempt of Congress ruling against Holder for failing to turn over congressionally subpoenaed documents that were created after problems with Fast and Furious came to light. You mean the problem of agent Brian Terry getting killed?
Republicans also released a report in the hours ahead of the hearing claiming that Justice Department officials "had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged." Or is presently acknowledging, for that matter.
Asked whether his assistants, Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler or Assistant Attorney Lanny Breuer, head of the department's Criminal Division, ever authorized gunwalking or the tactics employed in Fast and Furious, Holder responded not to his knowledge. As a matter of fact, nobody knew anything. Folks pretty much do what they want around here. Nobody fears responsibility because it's a pretty open culture here at the DoJ.
"Not only did I not authorize those tactics, when I found out about them I told the field and everybody in the United States Department of Justice that those tactics had to stop. That they were not acceptable and that gunwalking was to stop. That was what my reaction [was] to my finding out about the use of that technique," he added. Technique.
He added that he doesn't think that the situation warranted the kind of response Republicans were giving after his department provided thousands of documents, and planned to deliver more. Really? So what would have to happen in order for the DoJ to merit this kind of attention? Maybe knock your mailbox off the post with a baseball bat?
Holder also rejected arguments that his handling of the case had lost him any support for the effort he was putting forth as attorney general. It didn't lose you any support. That all happened when it became obvious that you were OK with Black Panthers hanging around polling station threatening white voters with billy clubs.
"I don't think the American people have lost trust in me. ... This has become political, I get that," he said.
But Holder also said no one has been punished "yet" in the case, despite the fact that lost guns from the operation ended up at the crime scene where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010.
Terry's family has informed the U.S. government that it has six months to respond to its inquiry into Terry's death or face a $25 million lawsuit. $25 million is pocket change. $25 billion would get more attention.
In the botched operation, more than 1,400 weapons sold to low-level straw purchasers believed to be supplying Mexican drug gangs and other criminals were lost during tracking by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents. Another 700 firearms connected to suspects in the investigation have been recovered, some from crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S., including in Nogales, Ariz., where Terry was killed.
Holder said he didn't learn about Terry's murder until 24 hours after his death, and at the time did not hear that weapons tied to Fast and Furious were at the scene.
"I didn't know about Operation Fast and Furious until the beginning parts of 2011 after I received that letter from Senator Grassley, I guess at the end of January and then that was about Operation Gun Runner. I actually learned about the Fast and Furious operation in February of that year."
Holder told the committee, "Im not sure exactly how I found out about the term, 'Fast and Furious.'" He testified repeatedly that he never authorized the controversial tactics employed in the operation.
"There is no attempt at any kind of cover-up," Holder said. "We have shared huge amounts of information" and will continue to do so, he said. Let's see the other 93,000 documents.
But Holder said under questioning that he has not disciplined anyone for his role in the controversial operation.
"No I have not as yet -- as yet," Holder said when questioned by Issa on the matter. "There have been personnel changes made at ATF. We obviously have a new U.S. attorney in Arizona. We have made personnel switches at ATF. People have been moved out of positions." Still looking for a scapegoat who is near retirement, a plausible excuse for him to be able to hold onto his friends, and a way to launder the payoff, I guess.
Holder's statements on the Justice Department's role in the operation did not sit well with Republican lawmakers on the committee, who accused the attorney general of intentionally withholding key documents in the case.
"The conclusion that I come to is there are some things in there that's being hidden that you don't want us to see," said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. "We have every right under the Constitution to check on what you're doing... So for you to deny this committee anything like that is just dead wrong and I don't think you're going to find any way that you can do it."
Burton went on to say that 93,000 documents related to the operation are being withheld by the Justice Department even though they've been turned over internally to the department's inspector general, a political appointee, Burton said.
"And you're saying, well, the separation of powers prohibits you from (delivering them to Congress). That's baloney. That is just baloney," Burton said. What kind of answer is "Baloney"? A better answer: Can't we impeach you? It would seem that if Congress could impeach you, that we could force the DoJ to testify. Otherwise, what's the point of being able to impeach you?
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, also questioned Holder's having not discussed the case with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
"When people know that I'm going to be the subject of these kinds of hearings, you know six times and all that, nobody necessarily wants to get involved in these kinds of things or get dragged into it," Holder responded.
Issa told Holder the committee will do what is necessary to obtain the information, "If you do not find a legitimate basis to deny us the material we've asked for."
Holder said earlier during testimony that he would release additional materials "to the extent that I can."
In Holder's defense, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., claimed the committee has "not obtained one shred of evidence that would contradict your testimony."
"Not one witness, not one document, not one e-mail, and still some continue to suggest that you did personally authorize gunwalking and the tactics in Operation Fast and Furious." Is Holder not the captain of the ship? This operation is huge. Huge enough to sink him and everyone around him. If I were said captain, I'd want to know about it. Best case for Holder: He is a weak, ineffecive, clueless AG. Begone.
If you need confirmation that Republicans on the House Oversight committee got under Attorney General Eric Holder's skin today at the hearing on Fast and Furious, just look at this response he gave to Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, who grilled Holder about his own previous statements.
Specifically, note Holder's comment that "maybe this is the way you do things in Idaho, or wherever you're from."
Labrador, who is Puerto Rican, faced off in 2010 against a primary opponent who insisted in a debate that Puerto Rico is a foreign country.
#6
Importantly, Holder was born and raised in the Bronx, NY, and his father was from Barbados, but he was raised in Queens.
The vast majority of Puerto Rican immigrants lived in the Bronx, Brooklyn and East Harlem. So it is likely that Holder has known many Puerto Ricans, and also knows how to insult them.
Anyone want an example of how over regulation by the government alphabet agencies is killing business and initiative? Read this.
In recent court filings, the Food and Drug Administration has asserted that stem cells--you know, the ones our bodies produce naturally--are in fact drugs and subject to its regulatory oversight. So does that make me a controlled substance?
The bizarre controversy revolves around the FDA's attempt to regulate the Centeno-Schultz Clinic in Colorado that performs a nonsurgical stem-cell therapy called Regenexx-C. It is designed to treat moderate to severe joint, tendon, ligament, and bone pain using only adult stem cells. Doctors draw your blood, spin it through a centrifuge, extract the stem cells and re-inject them into your damaged joints. It uses no other drugs. No drugs means no FDA oversight and that does not sit well with the administration. Ok, I can understand some regulations to make sure some quack isn't doing this. So far so good... but wait!
The FDA has since argued that a) stem cells are drugs and b) they fall under FDA regulation because the clinic is engaging in interstate commerce. That's right, a process performed at the clinic using the patient's own bodily fluids constitutes interstate commerce because, according to the administration, out-of-state patients using Regenexx-C would "depress the market for out-of-state drugs that are approved by FDA." WHA?!?!?
Funny, that sounds less like the FDA protecting the health of the country's citizens and more like the FDA defending its enforcement turf. The two parties have been at odds for over four years now, so we may have a while until we know if every American has in fact become a regulatable good subject to government regulation. Depress the market for out-of-state drugs!?!? SERIOUSLY!?!? WTF?? IT IS MY OWN GODDAMN CELLS YOU ASSHOLES!!! The FDA has NO business picking drug winners and losers and NONE in interstate commerce!!
#15
Maybe Roseanne should wear a burqa. It couldn't hurt. Last time I saw her on TV she had a place on the Big Island of Hawaii, she was wearing a muumuu and shooting at feral pigs. It was not a pretty sight.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Sick of the BLS propaganda? Then do the following calculation with us: using BLS data, the US civilian non-institutional population was 242,269 in January, an increase of 1.7 million month over month: apply the long-term average labor force participation rate of 65.8% to this number (because as chart 2 below shows, people are not retiring as the popular propaganda goes: in fact labor participation in those aged 55 and over has been soaring as more and more old people have to work overtime, forget retiring), and you get 159.4 million: that is what the real labor force should be. The BLS reported one? 154.4 million: a tiny 5 million difference. Then add these people who the BLS is purposefully ignoring yet who most certainly are in dire need of labor and/or a job to the 12.758 million reported unemployed by the BLS and you get 17.776 million in real unemployed workers. What does this mean? That using just the BLS denominator in calculating the unemployed rate of 154.4 million, the real unemployment rate actually rose in January to 11.5%. Compare that with the BLS reported decline from 8.5% to 8.3%. It also means that the spread between the reported and implied unemployment rate just soared to a fresh 30 year high of 3.2%. And that is how with a calculator and just one minute of math, one strips away countless hours of BLS propaganda.
Attorney General Eric Holder vigorously denied a "cover-up" by the Justice Department over "Operation Fast and Furious," telling a House panel investigating the botched gun-running program that he has nothing to hide and suggesting the probe is a "political" effort to embarrass the administration.
