09 November 2010 By Paul Craig Roberts If we cannot trust what the
government tells us about weapons of mass destruction,
terrorist events, and the reasons for its wars and
bailouts, can we trust the government's statement last
Friday that the US economy gained 151,000 payroll jobs
during October? Apparently not. After examining the
government's report, statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com)
reported that the jobs were "phantom jobs" created by
"concurrent seasonal factor adjustments." In other
words, the 151,000 jobs cannot be found in the
unadjusted underlying data. The jobs were the product
of seasonal adjustments concocted by the BLS. As usual, the financial press did
no investigation and simply reported the number handed
to the media by the government. The relevant information, the
information that you need to know, is that the level
of payroll employment today is below the level of 10
years ago. A smaller number of Americans are employed
right now than were employed a decade ago. Think about what that means. We
have had a decade of work force growth from youngsters
reaching working age and from immigration, legal and
illegal, but there are fewer jobs available to
accommodate a decade of work force entrants than
before the decade began. During two years from December 2007
- December 2009, the US economy lost 8,363,000 jobs,
according to the payroll jobs data. As of October
2010, payroll jobs purportedly have increased by
874,000, an insufficient amount to keep up with labor
force growth. However, John Williams reports that
874,000 is an overestimate of jobs as a result of the
faulty "birth-death model," which overestimates new
business start-ups during recessions and
underestimates business failures. Williams says that
the next benchmark revision due out next February will
show a reduction in current employment by almost
600,000 jobs. This assumes, of course, that the BLS
does not gimmick the benchmark revision. If Williams
is correct, it is more evidence that the hyped
recovery is non-existent. Discounting the war production
shutdown at the end of World War II, which was not a
recession in the usual sense, Williams reports that
"the current annual decline [in employment] remains
the worst since the Great Depression, and should
deepen further." In short, there is no employment
data, and none in the works, unless gimmicked, that
supports the recovery myth. The US rate of
unemployment, if measured according to the methodology
used in 1980, is 22.5%. Even the government's broader
measure of unemployment stands at 17%. The 9.6%
reported rate is a concocted measure that does not
include discouraged workers who have been unable to
find a job after 6 months and workers who who want
full time jobs but can only find part-time work. Another fact that is seldom, if
ever, reported, is that the payroll jobs data reports
the number of jobs, not the number of people with
jobs. Some people hold two jobs; thus, the payroll
report does not give the number of employed people.
The BLS household survey measures
the number of people with jobs. The same October that
reported 151,000 new payroll jobs reported, according
to the household survey, a loss of 330,000 jobs. The American working class has been
destroyed. The American middle class is in its final
stages of destruction. Soon the bottom rungs of the
rich themselves will be destroyed. The entire way through this process
the government will lie and the media will lie. The United States of America has
become the country of the Big Lie. Those who
facilitate government and corporate lies are well
rewarded, but anyone who tells any truth or expresses
an impermissible opinion is excoriated and driven
away. But we "have freedom and
democracy." We are the virtuous, indispensable nation,
the salt of the earth, the light unto the world. Comments 💬 التعليقات |