Saturday, April 07, 2012

Murder by Numbers

Figures lie and liars figure. Hard to deny it when we look at yesterday's job numbers.

By all estimates, the requirement to get back to statistical full employment of 5% unemployment rate is to generate at least 320,000 new jobs per month for five years. Every month for five years--no less.

Brookings Stats on Recovery Needs

We've been doing a bit less than 2/3 of that for the last four months and the Bamster has been crowing about his success. The Brookings numbers tell us that rate will take about 11 years to get us back where we need to be. Can you wait that long?

But this month the number came in at 122,000 new jobs. It is spring and this is when a lot of seasonal summer jobs come online usually. That apparently isn't happening.

Here is where the liars start figuring.

Despite that pathetic regression in job creation, the unemployment figure went down from 8.3 to 8.2%! Isn't that magical? How does that work?

A lot of people simply said, "Screw it! I quit."

America! What a country!

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