When the employment report is issued each month, most people and, certainly the media, are only interested in two numbers: (1) the number of jobs created or lost in that month and (2) the resulting unemployment rate. But, those two numbers are a result of some pretty heavy-handed massaging in what the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls "seasonal adjustments". Seasonal adjustments have always come under fire, especially lately, from a lot of well-respected economists, because the "adjustments" seem to be very large and, thus, questionably accurate.
Take, for example, the latest jobs report. The headline says that 113,000 jobs were created with a resulting drop in the unemployment rate from 6.7% to 6.6%. Now, to any logical observer, this makes perfect sense in that a falling unemployment rate must mean that some number of jobs had to have been created to lower the rate. But, if you dig deeper into the January jobs report, you would see a completely different picture when it comes to the unadjusted numbers.
According to the raw data in Table A-2, whites, which make up 79% of the workforce, saw their unemployment rate go up in January by 9%; from 5.7% to 6.2%. Yet, after seasonal adjustment, whites remained the same at 5.7% as in December. The raw data also said that blacks also saw their rate go up by 9%; from 11.6% to 12.6%. After adjustment, their final number was 12.1%. While there is no adjustment data available for Asians, their unemployment rate went up 17% from 4.1% to 4.8%. All three groups added together represent 96% of the workforce and all saw substantial losses in employment. Yet, the final employment number says jobs were created and the unemployment rate fell.
Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn't include an absolutely horrendous fact that our President wouldn't want you to know when he's out there touting the lowest unemployment rate during his presidency. That fact is that teen unemployment among blacks now sits at 39% (raw) or 38% after adjustment. In the city of Chicago, the President's hometown, black male teens are at a unbelievable 92% unemployment rate. Maybe that's why gang membership has risen 40% since Obama became President.
References:
Has The Fed Been Fooled By Phony Jobs Numbers?: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-24/has-the-fed-been-fooled-by-phony-jobs-numbers-.html
Table A: January Employment Situation Report: Seasonally Adjusted Results: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm
Table A-2: January Employment Situation Report: Raw And Seasonally Adjusted Numbers by Race, Age, and Sex: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm
New Urban League study finds 92 percent of African American male teens are unemployed: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/24486694/new-study-finds-92-percent-of-african-american-male-teens-are-unemployed
FBI: Gang Membership Up 40% Since 2009: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/07/confirmed-gang-membership-up-40-under-obama-violent-attacks-on-whites-up-18/
Showing posts with label distortions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label distortions. Show all posts
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Many Distortions of Truth by Barack Obama
If you listen to Barack Obama, he claims that he only wants to talk about the issues and he is not able to because of all the personal attacks from John McCain. His latest TV ad calls McCain out for this and more or less calls him a liar.
Well, I think Mr. Obama should do some self analysis. He has been distorting McCain's positions and words since he clinched the nomination. It started with the constant hammering that John McCain would stay in Iraq for 100 years. That was a distortion because the context that John McCain made that statement was based on the fact that we would remain in Iraq (after hostilities) in much the same way that we have remained in Japan and Germany since World War II. Maybe, 100 years.
Obama's campaign slogan has been that John McCain is four more years of George Bush. This is an outright distortion. McCain has clearly been at odds with Bush on many "major" issues. He was against the tax cuts by Bush on the basis there were no corresponding spending cuts. He was against Bush and Rumsfeld on the war in Iraq because he always believed that it was being waged with too few U.S. troops. He was pushing the surge when Bush and many Republicans were against it. He sided with Ted Kennedy and against the Republicans and Bush on a defeated immigration bill. When Obama says that McCain has voted with Bush and the Republicans 95 percent of the time, he, like almost all Senators, had done the same. Democrats and Republicans, John McCain and Barrack Obama have consistently voted in agreement on the day-to-day resolutions that constantly pass through the Senate. Those resolutions do things like honor people or declare days honoring the World Series Champs or vote on making some month like May or June the national whatever month. That's what voting with Bush and the Republicans for 95% of the time actually means.
Obama has attacked McCain on his age. He has stretched a gaffe that McCain said, and immediately corrected, into a distortion that McCain doesn't know who we are fighting in Iraq because he doesn't know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. He has distorted McCain's not knowing how many homes he owns and for that reason says McCain is out of touch with average Americans. The reality is that John McCain actually doesn't own any homes. The homes he lives in are owned by his wife, various legal trusts, and by the corporate interests of his wife. It wasn't a simple answer for McCain to handle in a phone interview with a reporter.
Obama has distorted John McCain's exaggerated comment, and acknowledged by him to to be so, about a person being rich if they make $5 million a year. McCain made that comment to make a point; but, in typical Obama gotcha tactics, Barrack has painted that literary style of making a point into a fact. Most recently in another TV ad, Obama has claimed that McCain doesn't use a computer or send emails as if those were prerequisites for someone to be the President of the United States. The fact is that McCain doesn't use a computer or send emails because he is physically unable to do so; due to the beatings he sustained as POW. I think that someone who was a trained fighter pilot, flying in combat at close to twice the speed of sound, could handle a laptop computer. But, that's the Obama distortion machine!
On Obama's own policies and records, he is guilty of his own distortions. He claims that he will give 95 percent of Americans a tax cut. That would be fine if 95 percent of Americans paid taxes. Unfortunately, 40 percent of Americans aren't even eligible for taxes. He claims that people making less that $250,000 won't see a tax increase. That's wrong because he will uncap the current ceiling of $102,000 for FICA taxes so persons making between $102,000 and $250,000 will see a tax increase. Many seniors in this country rely heavily on interest, dividend, and capital gains to sustain them through their retirement years. He will raise the tax rates on all three of these sources of income and that will increase the tax rate for any senior who make less $250,000; probably any senior who is making more than social security pay as income.
Is McCain guilty of stretching the truth? Yes, he is. But, Obama would have you believe that McCain is the only one involved with this type of old-style politics. That, too, is another Obama distortion.
Well, I think Mr. Obama should do some self analysis. He has been distorting McCain's positions and words since he clinched the nomination. It started with the constant hammering that John McCain would stay in Iraq for 100 years. That was a distortion because the context that John McCain made that statement was based on the fact that we would remain in Iraq (after hostilities) in much the same way that we have remained in Japan and Germany since World War II. Maybe, 100 years.
Obama's campaign slogan has been that John McCain is four more years of George Bush. This is an outright distortion. McCain has clearly been at odds with Bush on many "major" issues. He was against the tax cuts by Bush on the basis there were no corresponding spending cuts. He was against Bush and Rumsfeld on the war in Iraq because he always believed that it was being waged with too few U.S. troops. He was pushing the surge when Bush and many Republicans were against it. He sided with Ted Kennedy and against the Republicans and Bush on a defeated immigration bill. When Obama says that McCain has voted with Bush and the Republicans 95 percent of the time, he, like almost all Senators, had done the same. Democrats and Republicans, John McCain and Barrack Obama have consistently voted in agreement on the day-to-day resolutions that constantly pass through the Senate. Those resolutions do things like honor people or declare days honoring the World Series Champs or vote on making some month like May or June the national whatever month. That's what voting with Bush and the Republicans for 95% of the time actually means.
Obama has attacked McCain on his age. He has stretched a gaffe that McCain said, and immediately corrected, into a distortion that McCain doesn't know who we are fighting in Iraq because he doesn't know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. He has distorted McCain's not knowing how many homes he owns and for that reason says McCain is out of touch with average Americans. The reality is that John McCain actually doesn't own any homes. The homes he lives in are owned by his wife, various legal trusts, and by the corporate interests of his wife. It wasn't a simple answer for McCain to handle in a phone interview with a reporter.
Obama has distorted John McCain's exaggerated comment, and acknowledged by him to to be so, about a person being rich if they make $5 million a year. McCain made that comment to make a point; but, in typical Obama gotcha tactics, Barrack has painted that literary style of making a point into a fact. Most recently in another TV ad, Obama has claimed that McCain doesn't use a computer or send emails as if those were prerequisites for someone to be the President of the United States. The fact is that McCain doesn't use a computer or send emails because he is physically unable to do so; due to the beatings he sustained as POW. I think that someone who was a trained fighter pilot, flying in combat at close to twice the speed of sound, could handle a laptop computer. But, that's the Obama distortion machine!
On Obama's own policies and records, he is guilty of his own distortions. He claims that he will give 95 percent of Americans a tax cut. That would be fine if 95 percent of Americans paid taxes. Unfortunately, 40 percent of Americans aren't even eligible for taxes. He claims that people making less that $250,000 won't see a tax increase. That's wrong because he will uncap the current ceiling of $102,000 for FICA taxes so persons making between $102,000 and $250,000 will see a tax increase. Many seniors in this country rely heavily on interest, dividend, and capital gains to sustain them through their retirement years. He will raise the tax rates on all three of these sources of income and that will increase the tax rate for any senior who make less $250,000; probably any senior who is making more than social security pay as income.
Is McCain guilty of stretching the truth? Yes, he is. But, Obama would have you believe that McCain is the only one involved with this type of old-style politics. That, too, is another Obama distortion.
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