U/E Rate Makeover Can’t Hide America’s Beans and Rice Economy
America’s denial of economic reality continued this week with the posting of job growth numbers that are inflated due to the removal of over 4 million out of work Americans in the baseline figures of “worker participation rates.” Please see John Ransom’s article here for some harsh truths as to just how the unemployment numbers are being manipulated today. The lower worker participation numbers that are being used to falsely lower the unemployment rate is akin to people being spoon-fed a load of beans and rice, while being told it is a 4-course steak and lobster dinner. Just close your eyes to the truth, shovel the beans in, and pretend it is a 16 oz. Porterhouse steak. Judging by the number of fluffy media reports falsely suggesting that the 2010 American summer of recovery [myth] has now evolved into the 1980’s-style economic boom 6.0 of 2012 just in time for Barack Obama’s reelection, America is apparently quite content with the beans and rice economy of the past three years.
Setting up the false economic numbers during the 2011 holiday season.
Several media outlets were headlining the grand holiday sales as being a true sign of America’s recovering economy back in Dec. of 2011. Bloomberg declared: Retail Sales Climb 4.5% in it’s headline on Dec 31st. The S.F. Business Times said , “Overall, December same store sales at 24 retailers were up 3.6 percent, according to Kantar Retail. That’s up from the 3.1 percent sales gain in November 2011, and on top of a 3.2 percent same store sales gain in December 2010. (Results do not include Wal-Mart, which no longer reports monthly sales.)” Many media outlets were content with comparing the 2011 sales totals with the totals of 2010, which were some of the lowest on record, as in the above misleading statement that 2011 sales numbers were “up 3.2% over the 2010 numbers.” Dishing people out an extra helping of beans to go with their rice does not, in fact make it a steak dinner. While the message of an economic boom during the 2011 holiday season was promoted heavily in the media all holiday season long, the truth came home to roost in the following facts:
Sears/Kmart to Close 120 Stores as holiday sales plummeted during the 2011 holiday season.
Best Buy Holiday Sales Slump, 2012 Outlook Reaffirmed where we see the following fact:
The Richfield, Minnesota-based retailer, which is also known as the ‘big blue box’ because of the prominent design on Best Buy stores, reported revenues of $8.4 billion for the month of December, flat with last year.Total comparable store sales declined of 1.2 percent..
All during the months of Nov. and Dec. of 2011 we saw fluffed up projections about how great the holiday retail season would be, only to be served up a heaping helping of reality as we see the truth come out in the final sales numbers. Would you like some ketchup to go with that plate of beans?
Today’s misleading headline of the week comes from yahoo.com/AP: Unemployment rate falls to 8.5 pct., hiring surges
Nation added 200,000 jobs in December, ending the year with a surge of hiring; rate at 8.5 pct.
America is being served up that same dressed up beans and rice dinner posing as a steak and lobster economy with the current unemployment numbers, as we see that back in March of 2010 in a CNBC article, Jobless Rate Actually Stands at 11.5% which exposed the current method of operation being used by the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) to deflate actual unemployment numbers.
Finally, from the Ransom article linked above, we see the ultimate fallacy of the recently released BLS unemployment numbers:
Just using the average participation rate of 65.8 percent since 1980 supplied by Zero Hedge, there are 4.4 million workers missing from the work force. Zero Hedge predicts that if the BLS keeps dropping the workforce number at the current rate, unemployment will hit zero just prior to the general election no matter how many jobs Obama “saves”.
It won’t surprise anyone that as of December, the real implied unemployment rate was 11.4% – basically where it has been ever since 2009 – and at 2.9% delta to reported, represents the widest divergence to reported data since the early 1980s.And because we know this will be the next question, extending this lunacy, America will officially have no unemployed, when the Labor Force Participation rate hits 58.5%, which should be just before the presidential election.
“Waiter? Can we please get some steak sauce to go with this “Obama special” beans and rice dinner?”
Note: Please see Warren Beatty’s excellent article on true U/E numbers.