In an interview with WSJ, he told them about the tweet, “I wasn’t kidding.”
Welch also tweeted on the day before BLS released the number:
Tomorrow employment numbers for Sept. with all the assumptions Labor Dept. can make..wonder about participation assumption??...at 7.9 it would be Chicago and labor Sec in action.The unemployment number actually came in even lower at 7.8%.
Look for the surprise revision or bad number labor participation figure coming out before the end of December. As long as the figures balance at the end of the quarter, "no real harm is done".
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The inconsistencies between the payrolls report which shows the estimated jobs created and the household survey which is used to calculate the unemployment rate are huge. On this alone, Welch is well justified to be suspicious.
ReplyDeleteThe payrolls report shows only 114,000 jobs being created--a rate that barely keeps up with population growth in the economy, and which is seemingly consistent with the slow 1-2% GDP growth we have been experiencing recently. Yet, the household survey shows a huge total employment gain of +873,000 and the number of unemployed falling 456,000 in Sept. The +873,000 gain in total employment apparently is the largest in the history of the survey, and it clearly points to an economy on on fire (perhaps at +5% GDP), not growing in the range of 1-2%.
The sharp unemployment rate drop is also was contrary to the consensus estimate of private economists which called for the rate to actually rise +.1% and lower than any reported estimate of private economists. Welch also has said in interviews on this that his personal research on company hiring shows no real change from the sluggish 2nd quarter.
Of course the government and the MSM are trying their best to nix this talk. Claiming it is "impossible" to play with the data and the wonderful civil servants of the BLS would never, ever do such a thing, but, as mentioned here and elsewhere on the Internet, you merely have to play with the assumptions impacting the collection or analysis of data to skew it, and how much transparency do we really have about how the BLS operates? Really, the idea is we should just them. I would also point out you just do a quick Internet search on the BLS and manipulation of economic data and you will find tons of stuff. For instance, only a few months ago there was a lot suspicions the BLS was deliberately under reporting initial unemployment claims because for at least 56 of 57 weeks the number was revised upward a week later. The odds of this happening in one direction only for more than a year are astronomically low.
Speaking of statistics, the safest bet is that the government is lying. That horse always finishes in the money.
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