This is getting ridiculous.
Our insanely overbought market now runs on a bogus, unsustainable jobs number that left out the millions that gave up looking for work. It also leaves out the thousands of college students that can’t even find a job after graduation. Interestingly, it’s been brought to my attention that many college graduates are now living off food stamps.
That’s not a recovery. President Obama can tell us we’re in a full-blown recovery all he wants to in an election year. But the cold hard truth is — as our own Fed has told us — there is no recovery.
Our debt is at record, unsustainable highs. And the average American does not see this “recovery” the Administration thinks it sees.
I’m not the only one that sees this.
I just read that, “If size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office — 65.7 percent then vs. 63.7 percent today – the U-3 unemployment rate would be 11.0 percent. Most of the shift of the past year is due not to the improvement in the labor market, but the continued drop in participation in the labor force. Then there’s the broader, U-6 measure of unemployment which includes the discouraged plus part-timers who wish they had full time work. That unemployment rate is still a sky-high 15.1 percent.”
And according to Zero Hedge:
“We have examined the nuance of the euphoric jobs data this morning from every angle and by now there should be plenty of ‘information’ for investors to make their own minds up on its credibility.
However, the avuncular CEO of TrimTabs, who despite channeling Lewis Black lately, likely knows this data a little better than the average Jim on the street having collected tax witholdings data for the past 14 years, is modestly apoplectic at the adjustments.
In one of his more colorful episodes, and rightfully so, Charles Biderman notes that “Either there is something massively changed in the income tax collection world, or there is something very, very suspicious about today’s BLS hugely positive number,” adding, “Actual jobs, not seasonally adjusted, are down 2.9 million over the past two months. It is only after seasonal adjustments – made at the sole discretion of the Bureau of Labor Statistics economists – that 2.9 million fewer jobs gets translated into 446,000 new seasonally adjusted jobs.”
A 3.3 million “adjustment” solely at the discretion of the BLS? And this from the agency that just admitted it was underestimating the so very critical labor participation rate over the past year? Finally, Biderman wonders whether the BLS is being pressured during an election year to paint an overly optimistic picture by President Obama’s administration in light of these ‘real unadjusted job change’ facts. Frankly, in light of recent discoveries about the other “impartial” organization, the CBO, we don’t think there is any need to wonder at all.”
We’ve been lied to… again. And “we, the foolish people” keep eating it up.
