Comments on: Metric Shopping

By: Hugh

Hugh — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 16:35:10 +0000

Except every single search result on the Googles had that 3 million number, or very close to it. Not just WSJ.

Then no one has gone back and revisited the data because the most jobs Bush ever created was 5.6 million and most of those were lost in his last year so his net job creation is 1.95 million. I pointed you to the source and you can do the math for yourself.

By: libbyliberal

libbyliberal — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 06:14:41 +0000

Eli, once again applying logic to the Republican orientation?

Thank you. :)

By: Eli

Eli — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:31:18 +0000

Although, I’m also wondering, maybe their numbers weren’t so much cooked as incomplete. The WSJ piece was from January, so the full picture wasn’t yet known.

By: Eli

Eli — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:22:39 +0000

And as I said, it’s not like net job growth of 3 million makes Bush look *good*.

By: Eli

Eli — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:19:09 +0000

Except every single search result on the Googles had that 3 million number, or very close to it. Not just WSJ.

By: Hugh

Hugh — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:12:02 +0000

Well this was my point. The unemployment number U-3 has a very limited meaning. eCahn’s use of the U-6 together with it is much more informative. There were historic reasons why Total non-farm came to have the exclusions it has. There is about 25% of the adult population, i.e. the potential workforce which as I said are not quantified in the employment picture. They are doing something and that something can be described as work but it gets tricky how to incorporate them into a truly total picture of what the county’s adult population is doing so for these reasons they are left out.

Any of the numbers that you find in any of the articles that you use, those numbers come from this table or its subcomponents. That table is the standard and the base of all the discussions. If the WSJ is using some other metric, I can guarantee that it is less legitimate and that the WSJ should have identified it. My own take was that they made up the numbers because they simply are different from any accepted source I know of.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:09:00 +0000

julia 2 flights up

By: Eli

Eli — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:04:50 +0000

I’m not trying to say it’s one or the other. I agree that it’s both. If you go from being an engineer or machinist to being a burger flipper, that’s a huge net loss even if employment/unemployment numbers consider it a wash.

By: Blub

Blub — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:02:04 +0000

I agree with you on frustrated jobs seekers.. but I’m also saying that the real problem for the last with eight yrs goes a lot deeper and gets a lot worse than that – not only has the economy not been producing enough jobs for the moment but the jobs it has been producing don’t build toward anythng in terms of lasting prosperity/foundations for future growth, AND, with the rate of job creation lagging demographic momentum, we’re compounding that same problem potentially for future workers, once they age-into the workforce: we’re creating something of an early 19th century type surplus population. Hello Uncle Dick Ebenezer!

By: Eli

Eli — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:01:21 +0000

Those still sound like paying jobs to me. At least legitimate enough that I don’t feel comfortable dismissing them to score extra points. Dubya’s job creation is dismal enough even without lopping off an extra million, and still way below the 14.4 million needed to keep pace with the population.

It’d be like the opposite of gilding the lily. Puking on the turd, maybe.