New Obama slogan

[Bubba]

And More:

Fewer than half of Democrats think the government should be able to force individuals to buy insurance — the core element of ObamaCare — according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll. Only a little more than a third say the Supreme Court should "uphold the entire law."

The fact that they're willing to trash-talk Obama's single biggest legislative achievement suggests they're worried about something more than how the Supreme Court will rule.

This fear is even more evident when you look at the growing opposition among Democrats to Obama's position on the Keystone XL pipeline.

Obama may have thought he'd cleverly handled the issue by putting it off until next year, and that no one would think to defy his veto threats.

But when Republicans called his bluff with a bill to force a start on construction, 69 Democrats rushed to join them, giving the House bill a veto-proof majority. The Senate bill is just a vote or two away from overcoming a Democratic filibuster.

The importance of this fight is huge. If Democrats defy him, it will severely undermine Obama's claim that he's pursuing an all-of-the-above energy strategy.

Obama came to the White House claiming that he alone was qualified to unite the country behind common objectives. The fact that he's losing support from his own party on two of the most important issues of the day is significant.

It's pretty clear to me that both Obama and Romney will not have any significant issues getting the votes from their respective bases, though I suspect a great many conservative Republicans will vote against Obama rather than for Romney (just like many on the other side voted against Bush, not for Kerry). This election will be decided by true independents and their vote will hinge primarily on the economy, not an artificial deadline for some pipeline. Romney's hopes of surpassing his father's accomplishments lie in a stagnant or downward economy and even then it is not at all certain that independent voters will tolerate Romney's regular flip-flopping and marketeer tendency to say whatever he believes the audience at hand wishes to hear.

So ABO in a landslide then?

and I like the joke about plan B(S ) unemployment low hahahahahahhaha das funny only the dumbest of the dumb will buy that line. The rest of us see the BLS ( BS) silent revisions after the printed headline.

Stop with the nonsense about the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly estimates followed by monthly revisions is the standard and has been since as far back as I can remember. This isn't anything new. It isn't anything conspiratorial. It is the way statistical analysis based on incomplete information is done. If they did it any other way, and they've been using the same methods with minor methodological tweaks for years, you'd wait months to get information that we now get, with reasonable accuracy but subject to adjustment, now.

[madhatter]

And More:

Fewer than half of Democrats think the government should be able to force individuals to buy insurance — the core element of ObamaCare — according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll. Only a little more than a third say the Supreme Court should "uphold the entire law."

The fact that they're willing to trash-talk Obama's single biggest legislative achievement suggests they're worried about something more than how the Supreme Court will rule.

This fear is even more evident when you look at the growing opposition among Democrats to Obama's position on the Keystone XL pipeline.

Obama may have thought he'd cleverly handled the issue by putting it off until next year, and that no one would think to defy his veto threats.

But when Republicans called his bluff with a bill to force a start on construction, 69 Democrats rushed to join them, giving the House bill a veto-proof majority. The Senate bill is just a vote or two away from overcoming a Democratic filibuster.

The importance of this fight is huge. If Democrats defy him, it will severely undermine Obama's claim that he's pursuing an all-of-the-above energy strategy.

Obama came to the White House claiming that he alone was qualified to unite the country behind common objectives. The fact that he's losing support from his own party on two of the most important issues of the day is significant.

It's pretty clear to me that both Obama and Romney will not have any significant issues getting the votes from their respective bases, though I suspect a great many conservative Republicans will vote against Obama rather than for Romney (just like many on the other side voted against Bush, not for Kerry). This election will be decided by true independents and their vote will hinge primarily on the economy, not an artificial deadline for some pipeline. Romney's hopes of surpassing his father's accomplishments lie in a stagnant or downward economy and even then it is not at all certain that independent voters will tolerate Romney's regular flip-flopping and marketeer tendency to say whatever he believes the audience at hand wishes to hear.

So ABO in a landslide then?

and I like the joke about plan B(S ) unemployment low hahahahahahhaha das funny only the dumbest of the dumb will buy that line. The rest of us see the BLS ( BS) silent revisions after the printed headline.

Stop with the nonsense about the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly estimates followed by monthly revisions is the standard and has been since as far back as I can remember. This isn't anything new. It isn't anything conspiratorial. It is the way statistical analysis based on incomplete information is done. If they did it any other way, and they've been using the same methods with minor methodological tweaks for years, you'd wait months to get information that we now get, with reasonable accuracy but subject to adjustment, now.

that doesn't change the fact that the media prints "numbers improve over last week" yeah, last week's UN-revised number. Headlines show week to week improvement despite revisions to the contrary.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/times-thr ... ction-year

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/statis ... ess-claims

call it what you want. I call BS. and I'm sure many w/o a job feels the same.

[shortski]

Stop with the nonsense about the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly estimates followed by monthly revisions is the standard and has been since as far back as I can remember. This isn't anything new. It isn't anything conspiratorial. It is the way statistical analysis based on incomplete information is done. If they did it any other way, and they've been using the same methods with minor methodological tweaks for years, you'd wait months to get information that we now get, with reasonable accuracy but subject to adjustment, now.

Yup, Labor stats say unemployment is at 8.2%

The number of unemployed persons (12.7 million) and the unemployment rate
(8.2 percent) were both little changed in March.

But doesn't count the people who still don't have a job (unemployed) not counted because the true rate would be almost 12%:

Consider for a moment what’s called the participation rate. This is simply a measure of the percentage of working-age Americans — who aren’t in jail or the military — “participating” in the work force; either people with a job or people looking for a job. It’s been falling since January 2007, when it stood at 66.4%. It slid to 65.5% in July 2009, as the recession was officially ending, and currently sits near a 30-year low at 63.8%.

If you applied the July 2009 number to today’s pool of potential workers, unemployment would be somewhere north of 10%. If you applied the 2007 number, unemployment would be 11.8%.

Sort of like the inflation rate:

Saying The Fed’s inflation rates are spot on and should be a true measure of how we are doing economically is a grossly inaccurate statement, and line of thought.

The current real inflation is closer to 10%, including food and energy, which Chairman Bernake and The Fed cannot include in their current inflation calculations.

Caveat: The BLS calculation includes food & energy, but they do not set interest rates, and are typically overlooked. Based on the inflation calculated by the BLS – food and energy have added 5.4% alone to the true inflation rate. Add this to the last reported inflation rate by the fed: 3.77% + 5.4% = 9.17% as of August.

All smoke and mirrors, they're all crooks. Our current Senate and Congress need a collective enema and need to be flushed out. As long as people keep re-electing the same people who got us in this mess things will not change. It's not just the President, the power to tax and spend don't reside with that office. To solve the problem you first need to identify the cause, because if you don't, even if you score a direct hit, the underlying cause of the problem still exists and you have accomplished nothing.

[Coydog]

These silly rants about BLS number conspiracies are exactly that - silly. Besides, does it really matter what the hell the numbers are or even mean? Voters will ultimately decide the state of the national economy based on their own personal economy no matter how the right or left spin the numbers.

[madhatter]

These silly rants about BLS number conspiracies are exactly that - silly. Besides, does it really matter what the hell the numbers are or even mean? Voters will ultimately decide the state of the national economy based on their own personal economy no matter how the right or left spin the numbers.

um yeah that's the point. the BS numbers don;t put food on the table.

[Bubba]

Stop with the nonsense about the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly estimates followed by monthly revisions is the standard and has been since as far back as I can remember. This isn't anything new. It isn't anything conspiratorial. It is the way statistical analysis based on incomplete information is done. If they did it any other way, and they've been using the same methods with minor methodological tweaks for years, you'd wait months to get information that we now get, with reasonable accuracy but subject to adjustment, now.

Yup, Labor stats say unemployment is at 8.2%

The number of unemployed persons (12.7 million) and the unemployment rate
(8.2 percent) were both little changed in March.

But doesn't count the people who still don't have a job (unemployed) not counted because the true rate would be almost 12%:

Consider for a moment what’s called the participation rate. This is simply a measure of the percentage of working-age Americans — who aren’t in jail or the military — “participating” in the work force; either people with a job or people looking for a job. It’s been falling since January 2007, when it stood at 66.4%. It slid to 65.5% in July 2009, as the recession was officially ending, and currently sits near a 30-year low at 63.8%.

If you applied the July 2009 number to today’s pool of potential workers, unemployment would be somewhere north of 10%. If you applied the 2007 number, unemployment would be 11.8%.

Sort of like the inflation rate:

Saying The Fed’s inflation rates are spot on and should be a true measure of how we are doing economically is a grossly inaccurate statement, and line of thought.

The current real inflation is closer to 10%, including food and energy, which Chairman Bernake and The Fed cannot include in their current inflation calculations.

Caveat: The BLS calculation includes food & energy, but they do not set interest rates, and are typically overlooked. Based on the inflation calculated by the BLS – food and energy have added 5.4% alone to the true inflation rate. Add this to the last reported inflation rate by the fed: 3.77% + 5.4% = 9.17% as of August.

All smoke and mirrors, they're all crooks. Our current Senate and Congress need a collective enema and need to be flushed out. As long as people keep re-electing the same people who got us in this mess things will not change. It's not just the President, the power to tax and spend don't reside with that office. To solve the problem you first need to identify the cause, because if you don't, even if you score a direct hit, the underlying cause of the problem still exists and you have accomplished nothing.

Jeez...they publish both official unemployment and an estimate of the rate that includes those no longer looking for work and, by the way, that's well over 12%.

They also publish the inflation rate as well as the rate excluding the two most volatile components, food and energy. The rate excluding food and energy is used for cost of living adjustments to Social Security as well as a host of other uses. With food and energy going down as well as up on a regular basis, the rate excluding those two components makes the most sense. Furthermore, the inflation rate is overstated for another reason - the tendency for people to substitute one item for another as prices rise, i.e. when beef goes up, many people switch to pork or chicken. The inflation rate doesn't reflect this behavioral response. And, finally, the inflation rate doesn't reflect that on many items we get more for our money today. For example, I can pay the same as I paid 10 years for a computer yet the capability of those items cannot even be compared. Today's computers do far more for the same money.

Criticize what you like, but at least get your facts straight.

[Bubba]

These silly rants about BLS number conspiracies are exactly that - silly. Besides, does it really matter what the hell the numbers are or even mean? Voters will ultimately decide the state of the national economy based on their own personal economy no matter how the right or left spin the numbers.

um yeah that's the point. the BS numbers don;t put food on the table.

Well, if they're meaningless, why did you bring them up?

[madhatter]

These silly rants about BLS number conspiracies are exactly that - silly. Besides, does it really matter what the hell the numbers are or even mean? Voters will ultimately decide the state of the national economy based on their own personal economy no matter how the right or left spin the numbers.

um yeah that's the point. the BS numbers don;t put food on the table.

Well, if they're meaningless, why did you bring them up?

coydog said they are "meaningless" I brought them up. Who are you responding to? or are you once again confused? alzheimers? or do you just continually attribute whatever you want to me just so you can post a "gotcha"? lets recap coydog said the economy will be the deciding factor, I said the real economy not he imaginary BLS statistics that trumpet improvement in the headlines and ignore the revised reality that there was none( improvement) CD then said who cares what the numbers were and that "personal" economy would be the deciding factor for the individual. i agreed.

[Coydog]

I did not mean to imply the numbers are entirely meaningless - in fact I agree with Bubba that the numbers are measured in a consistent manner and provide useful economic information to the public. But crying about how they get spun in an election year is meaningless since voters will determine for themselves how the economy is doing irrespective of any national economic data and inevitable spin.

[madhatter]

I did not mean to imply the numbers are entirely meaningless - in fact I agree with Bubba that the numbers are measured in a consistent manner and provide useful economic information to the public. But crying about how they get spun in an election year is meaningless since voters will determine for themselves how the economy is doing irrespective of any national economic data and inevitable spin.

so measured in a consistent manner but reporting includes "inevitable spin" ok got it. now we are on the same page which concurs with what I originally said. The headline is in disagreement with the revised number but MSM rarely mentions the revisions that contradict the headline.

Thus I am saying that despite the inevitable spin that occurs making the economy ( the number 1 issue in the upcoming election) look better than it actually is, but as you pointed out voters will be deciding based on their own personal economy not spin, and thus I say one and done.

[Bubba]

These silly rants about BLS number conspiracies are exactly that - silly. Besides, does it really matter what the hell the numbers are or even mean? Voters will ultimately decide the state of the national economy based on their own personal economy no matter how the right or left spin the numbers.

um yeah that's the point. the BS numbers don;t put food on the table.

Well, if they're meaningless, why did you bring them up?

coydog said they are "meaningless" I brought them up. Who are you responding to? or are you once again confused? alzheimers? or do you just continually attribute whatever you want to me just so you can post a "gotcha"? lets recap coydog said the economy will be the deciding factor, I said the real economy not he imaginary BLS statistics that trumpet improvement in the headlines and ignore the revised reality that there was none( improvement) CD then said who cares what the numbers were and that "personal" economy would be the deciding factor for the individual. i agreed.

What? You didn't bring up the "bull$hit BLS statistics that are "revised" silently every week"? (See post 7 on page 1 of this thread). That's the first mention of BLS statistics in this thread and you brought them up in a rather critical vein.

And, when you later wrote "um yeah that's the point. the BS numbers don;t put food on the table" I interpreted that to mean you thought the number are meaningless.

[madhatter]

These silly rants about BLS number conspiracies are exactly that - silly. Besides, does it really matter what the hell the numbers are or even mean? Voters will ultimately decide the state of the national economy based on their own personal economy no matter how the right or left spin the numbers.

um yeah that's the point. the BS numbers don;t put food on the table.

Well, if they're meaningless, why did you bring them up?

coydog said they are "meaningless" I brought them up. Who are you responding to? or are you once again confused? alzheimers? or do you just continually attribute whatever you want to me just so you can post a "gotcha"? lets recap coydog said the economy will be the deciding factor, I said the real economy not he imaginary BLS statistics that trumpet improvement in the headlines and ignore the revised reality that there was none( improvement) CD then said who cares what the numbers were and that "personal" economy would be the deciding factor for the individual. i agreed.

What? You didn't bring up the "bull$hit BLS statistics that are "revised" silently every week"? (See post 7 on page 1 of this thread). That's the first mention of BLS statistics in this thread and you brought them up in a rather critical vein.

And, when you later wrote "um yeah that's the point. the BS numbers don;t put food on the table" I interpreted that to mean you thought the number are meaningless.

[Bubba]

So please tell us what we should infer (other than BLS number, because they're BS, are meaningless) from combination of the two statements "bull$hit BLS statistics that are "revised" silently every week" and "um yeah that's the point. the BS numbers don;t put food on the table". Explain please.

[madhatter]

So please tell us what we should infer (other than BLS number, because they're BS, are meaningless) from combination of the two statements "bull$hit BLS statistics that are "revised" silently every week" and "um yeah that's the point. the BS numbers don;t put food on the table". Explain please.

give up already jeez

the media prints "numbers improve over last week" yeah, last week's UN-revised number. Headlines show week to week improvement despite revisions to the contrary.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/statis ... ess-claims


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/times-thr ... ction-year

What? You didn't bring up the "bull$hit BLS statistics that are "revised" silently every week"? (See post 7 on page 1 of this thread). That's the first mention of BLS statistics in this thread and you brought them up in a rather critical vein.

pretty sure I quite clearly brought them up and certainly never said I didn't and in fact also stated that I brought them up. Again that you read something else is more a matter of comprehension. this is like the what third? fourth? time at least, that you have employed this same tactic. Give it up. I stand by my comments and/or openly revise or retract if necessary.

summary: BLS numbers may be valid in the context in which they are created. However the manner in which they are reported in the media makes them a poor indicator of reality. A reality the media is attempting to contrive in an effort to bolster the clown. Who will people believe the media or their own lying ( empty, on the ground) wallets?

[Bubba]

summary: BLS numbers may be valid in the context in which they are created. However the manner in which they are reported in the media makes them a poor indicator of reality. A reality the media is attempting to contrive in an effort to bolster the clown. Who will people believe the media or their own lying ( empty, on the ground) wallets?

Thank you. That, at least, is a reasonably cogent comment. The rest? Not so much. Maybe you should just say what you mean and forget the blather.

I happen to agree to an extent here. Except for media outlets focused on business, i.e. CNBC, Bloomberg, the WSJ, you generally get the headline number but not the prior month/week adjustments unless (and this is generalizing) the adjustments are significant. I've seen Brian Williams on NBC refer to adjustments on any number of occasions, in general when they're building a larger story about the current economy. For those stories they often bring in someone from CNBC to give more detailed explanations. I don't often watch CBS nightly news and never watch ABC so I don't know what they do.

As for the numbers themselves, they are reasonably accurate in the context in which they're offered, and there are a lot more numbers available for those who want them. It's just that the nightly news people and the non-business related media in general have neither the time nor the inclination to explain economics. I suspect that's because most news people have little understanding of the dismal science to begin with.