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Kicking the problems down the road does help temporarily.
Again, I've ALREADY explained that.
The difference is Gallup uses non-seasonally adjusted number. Though your graph looks flat, the fact is that's mainly because it's stretched out so long. If you look individual readings by moving across the chart (or simply downloading the data into excel) you'll see the number bounces around A LOT (2 point swings within a few weeks). In January of 2010 for example, the daily UE rate varied between 10.2% & 11.3%. In January of this year (2011) it varied between 9.4% & 9.9%.
The Gallup poll also looks at workers 16 & up as opposed to the 18 & up that the BLS looks at. In total the Gallup poll is not that different in regards to results than the BLS numbers are. The main difference is simply that the Gallup poll shows more volitility. The longer term trends are pretty much the same.
Ken
Last edited by LordBalfor; 04-02-2011 at 02:47 PM..
Either you lose 700 000 or you gain 200 000. It is not complicated.
Actually it is more complicated. It is easy to say you gained 200,000 jobs if you eliminate people from the workforce and you adjust down the bar you needed to reach for last year. Here is a example (not real numbers) if the employment numbers came in at 850,000 for March of 2010 and the 2011 number is 950,000, that is a gain of 100,000. What the BLS has been doing is lowering the prior bar, so as opposed to having to pass 850,000 to show a gain they lower it to 750,000 and then they can say 950k is a 200k gain.
Again, I've ALREADY explained that.
The difference is Gallup uses non-seasonally adjusted number. Though your graph looks flat, the fact is that's mainly because it's stretched out so long. If you look individual readings by moving across the chart (or simply downloading the data into excel) you'll see the number bounces around A LOT (2 point swings within a few weeks). In January of 2010 for example, the daily UE rate varied between 10.2% & 11.3%. In January of this year (2011) it varied between 9.4% & 9.9%.
The Gallup poll also looks at workers 16 & up as opposed to the 18 & up that the BLS looks at. In total the Gallup poll is not that different in regards to results than the BLS numbers are. The main difference is simply that the Gallup poll shows more volitility. The longer term trends are pretty much the same.
Ken
I understand the seasonal adjustment and birth/death models, that is how they can really make the numbers say whatever they want. BLS uses 16+ from what I can see.
Actually it is more complicated. It is easy to say you gained 200,000 jobs if you eliminate people from the workforce and you adjust down the bar you needed to reach for last year. Here is a example (not real numbers) if the employment numbers came in at 850,000 for March of 2010 and the 2011 number is 950,000, that is a gain of 100,000. What the BLS has been doing is lowering the prior bar, so as opposed to having to pass 850,000 to show a gain they lower it to 750,000 and then they can say 950k is a 200k gain.
They adjust the labor force size from time to time to reflect changes in the US labor force. Over time young folks age their way into the labor force on one end while on the other end older folks age their way out of the labor force. This has to be accounted for somehow and that's the way the BLS does it. With current demographics (ie the Babyboomers starting to retire) there are MORE people leaving the labor force than entering it - and over the next 10 years or so the pace of that will pick up as the HUGE demographic wave of the Babyboomers leave the workforce for retirement.
Nothing mysterious about it at all. You just have understand WHY it's being done and WHAT the changes represent.
Find me where Bush said it was his mission to put people in homes they couldnt afford.
I challenge you to find anything to prove this to be true. If you want to take his word for it, first you must be able to comprehend what he said.. Clearly you cant because he NEVER said he wanted people to buy homes they couldnt afford.
I challenge you to prove he said what you claim he said.. I posted videos here of Bushs proposed legislation to limit Fannie/Freddie loans, increase their liquidities, and they were stopped by Democrats.. Maybe you need to review them.. You and Lord can get together and get an education on who STOPPED reform because it wasnt Bush.. it was DEMOCRATS..
Quote:
Sugar-coated risk
Gary Schatsky, a financial planner in New York, says many of those people have been forced into the stock market, and they haven’t proven good stewards.
“Average Americans are not great investors, almost by definition, because they’re not sophisticated, they’re average,” he said. “When the market was decimated, a lot of people didn’t expect it, couldn’t account for it and are having difficulty recovering from it.”
Bush’s detractors say the president is taking the noble idea of an “ownership society” and using it to sugarcoat a scheme that would unwisely saddle ordinary Americans with even greater risks and costs for Social Security, health care, retirement benefits and other programs.
“Hokum, that’s a good word for it,” says former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich. “They have a knack for putting labels on their policies that stand for exactly the opposite of what the policies aim to achieve
President Bush always pushed for his "ownership society" and was willing to deregulate, or let his Administration turn a blind eye, to allow it to happen. Of course, Democrats are essentially equal in their blame for helping pave the road to disaster.
Quote:
He certainly presided over a widespread failure of regulation. On his watch, the US authorities did little to prevent the sale of millions of mortgages to people who could never afford them.
They failed to police the market in mortgage-backed securities which has now collapsed with such devastating consequences.
And credit default swaps, those multi-billion-dollar bets on other people going bust, went virtually unregulated.
In recent days, Congress has been holding hearings to determine how the regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) missed numerous warning signs - "Red Flags" - about Bernard Madoff, the man accused of running a gigantic Ponzi scheme which has defrauded investors of at least $50bn.
The image of Mr Bush as the arch deregulator and the Democrats as the champions of stricter rules for business does not quite tally with the evidence
Paul Kanjorski, the Democratic Representative who is chairing the hearings, argued that the SEC's failings were - in part - due to chronic understaffing, implying that the Bush Administration had starved the agency of the resources needed to do its job.
In the blame game for this financial crisis, George W Bush comes a close second to greedy and unscrupulous Wall Street bankers.
But there are serious flaws in this argument.
Deregulation started long before President Bush came to power, and it was enthusiastically pursued by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Here is just one example:
The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated the activities of commercial banks, which take deposits, from investment banks, which invest money. It was repealed in 1999.
That relaxation of the rules enabled commercial lenders, like Citigroup, to trade instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralised debt obligations. 'Far-reaching reform'
Many see the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act as a major, direct cause of the current financial crisis.
But it was signed by a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, and supported by many other Democratic politicians, among them the scourge of Bush deregulation Nancy Pelosi.
What is more, President Bush actually increased the burden of regulation on US companies, enacting in 2002 what he called "the most far-reaching reform of American business practices since the time of Franklin D Roosevelt", the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
A response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals, including the collapse of the energy group Enron, Sarbanes-Oxley significantly increased the reporting requirements and accountability of company boards and management.
As president, he bears the ultimate political responsibility and his party has paid the ultimate political price
So the image of Mr Bush as the arch deregulator and the Democratic Party as the champion of stricter rules for business does not quite tally with the evidence.
But Mr Bush is not entirely blameless.
Affordable home ownership, especially for African-American and Hispanic borrowers, who had traditionally found it difficult and expensive to get a mortgage, was a key policy goal of the Clinton administration and one enthusiastically carried forward by President Bush.
A laudable aim - but there is evidence that it led to severe political pressure on mortgage providers to lower their lending standards, spawning the now infamous "NINJA" loans for borrowers with "No Income, no Job or Assets."
The mortgage finance company Fannie Mae was also being urged to fulfil its mission of helping low income homeowners by buying up more and more risky loans.
This political pressure, as well as rock-bottom interest rates and unscrupulous lending practices, helped to inflate the sub-prime housing bubble.
President Bush must take his share of the blame.
There is no doubt that George W Bush is a natural supporter of deregulation and that his administration did nothing to stop all sorts of questionable financial activities in the private sector (even though it did not condone them).
I understand the seasonal adjustment and birth/death models, that is how they can really make the numbers say whatever they want. BLS uses 16+ from what I can see.
Seasonal adjustments are used to make the data more reliable, useful and relevent - same with the birth/death models. You are certainly free to claim they are being used to make the numbers say what they want, but you really have no proof that they ARE. The head of the BLS was appointed by BUSH (NOT Obama) and is not beholding to the current administration in any way. That's the way the BLS was DESIGNED to work.
I think the lesson learned here is that the road to hell is paved with both Democrats and Republicans.
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The image of Mr Bush as the arch deregulator and the Democrats as the champions of stricter rules for business does not quite tally with the evidence 
