| From time to time I have seen bickering over the accuracy of government data, but this one tops the list in recent memory. Fraud Street analysts rarely question the statistics from the government like the good lap-dogs that they are; however, independent traders and bloggers have serious doubts about Friday’s jobs data.
Earlier in the week I said “Another important con will be revealed Friday - and ignored, to be sure – when the BLS releases the tortured, yet government approved, employment figures. January is the month that the BLS fesses up to the prior year’s lies of its employment stats. The “birth/death” guesstimates get closer to reality by always and massively readjusting the prior year’s employment data lower. Over the last five years the “adjustment” has averaged -335k. (January 2011: -339k, January 2010: -427k, January2009: -356k, January 2008: -378k, January2007: -175k.)”
The BLS revision to 2011’s NFP data was in line with the 5-year trend: another hard-to-believe-worse-than-originally estimated correction. The non-seasonally adjusted “birth/death” adjustment was -367,000, which means the Bureau of Lies and Statistics once again admits to overestimating last year’s job gains by about 31,000 jobs per month. A good example of how the BLS does this can be seen in construction jobs alone, and then apply it to each category. In nearly every NFP release we read that construction jobs are “estimated” to have increased. For example, in Friday’s report construction jobs increased 21,000 after “increasing” (wink-wink) 31,000 the prior month. This will go on and on, despite housing and other construction sectors being in a bona-fide depression, until the end of the year. What happens then your wondering? Well, as the “revision” above shows, the Bureau of Lies & Statistics will back out all the lies when no one is looking.
Of course the president was quickly on television telling all who would listen that millions of jobs have been created (read: concocted) since such-and-such date. If true, shouldn’t tax receipts be climbing at Treasury? That seems to be at odds with the Treasury’s chart below.
One thing that the administration uses to “prove” that the jobs picture is getting better is by repeating that the unemployment rate fell again. What they never reveal, of course, is the fact that the labor pool continues to fall. That is to say: those looking for work continue to throw in the towel because there are few, if any, meaningful positions available.
The BLS admits that “those not in the labor force” rose an incredible 1.177 million in January alone, which is the largest single increase ever and the largest percentage increase in 30-years. In fact, those who are still counted by the Bureau of Lies & Statistics are at a new 30-year low of 63.7% of the potential labor force.
At this rate, if the BLS continues to stop counting the unemployed, the USSA will be back to a fictitious 4% “full employment” rate in no time…perhaps in time for the election.
But it gets even better, as explained by Charles Biderman of Trim Tabs, who said…
The biggest headline for all financial media today is that the US economy added a much more than expected 243,000 jobs in January and 446,000 jobs over the past two months. That is many more new jobs than our estimate of less than 50,000 for January and our estimate of 90,000 for December and January.
Our estimate of a slowly growing economy is based primarily upon (real time) daily income tax collections. (Editorial: Call me crazy but tracking REAL TIME daily tax collections sounds like a great way to track employment…in, umm, real time!) Either there is something massively changed in the income tax collection world, or there is something very suspicious about today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics hugely positive number. We continue to check and recheck our analysis of income tax collections. We are aware that another service believes that incomes are growing faster than we do. So far we have not found any errors or discrepancies in our work, but if we do, we will let you know.
The BLS each month reports two data series, but only one jobs number is reported by the media. Actual jobs outstanding, not seasonally adjusted, are down 2.9 million over the past two months. It is only after seasonal adjustments – made at the sole discretion of the Bureau of Labor Statistics economists that 2.9 million less jobs gets translated into 446,000 new seasonally adjusted jobs for January and December.
No one I know has any idea as to how the BLS does this seasonal adjustment. BLS historic data is changed almost every month until the income tax returns for each year are available three years in arrears. In other words, the BLS currently has accurate data for 2008 and before.
I keep repeating that the BLS refuses to use the data embedded in income tax collections to be able to report real time jobs and wages. Why does it refuse? Could the reason it refuses to use real time data on jobs and incomes be because perhaps this jobs number is politically motivated? (Editorial: This is true for Republican administrations too!) The entire world is looking at US job creation as a proxy on how well Obama is doing? Could the Obama administration be pressuring its economist employees to create the best possible new jobs number?
Obviously I am quite suspicious of the numbers that I see in today’s BLS press release. Remember most financial journalists and even stock market strategists do nothing more than rewrite government press releases. So do not expect very few others to question the good news.
For those of you who care, look at Table B-1, Total Nonfarm Employment in today’s BLS press release attached to this video on our blog site. Start with the non-seasonally adjusted table that shows that in November 2011, there were 133.172 million actual jobs. Actual jobs dropped by 220,000 jobs in December and actual jobs dropped an additional 2.7 million in January. Only as a result of unknown seasonal adjustments, could the BLS report 243,000 new hires in January.
Yes, the labor market contracts during the winter and expands in the spring and summer. Could this number be manipulated? Of course it could. Is it? I don’t know. Am I the only suspicious soul out here? Hope not. Certainly feels lonely right now.
No Charles, you are certainly not the only suspicious soul out there; however, you will find none in the lame-stream media suspicious.
Trade well and follow the trend, not the so-called “experts.”
Behold the age of infinite moral hazard! On April 2nd, 2009 CONgress forced FASB to suspend rule 157 in favor of deceitful accounting for the TBTF banksters.
larrylevin@tradingadvantage.com
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Keep a civil tongue.