Has Bush lied about the economic and job numbers also?

[kentuck]

Or has he simply been creative in how he presents the numbers to the American people? After all, his Administration did refuse to extend unemployment benefits just before Christmas. This was a great present for many people. And, no doubt, this did cause the unemployment rate to go down somewhat, but no one knows how much. But the bottom line is that the numbers have been distorted to look beter than they actually are in reality.

As for economic numbers in general, with record growth rates in some quarters, etc., one cannot help but be suspicious of those numbers also. A lot of tax-cut wealth has probably found its way into the stock market but the stock market should not necessarily be used to define the economy in general. Productivity is up, they tell us. Again, if a person works more hours in a week, so that their company does not have to hire new employees, then productivity would indeed go up. Is this how the new economy is working? No new jobs but record growth and productivity? There's always a lot of green eye shade when the Bush crowd gets out their pencils...

[Atman]

1. Where have you been?

Unemployment rate is based upon 66% of workforce. The rest have lost benefits, and are no longer considered Unemployed. Yes, Bush has doctored the numbers, well beyond the normal fudging.

[kentuck]

3. I know very well...

I am one of those unemployed. I was simply trying to get you to validate it for others that might not be aware.. :)

[cmayer]

2. I heard a report about the Producer Price Index.

Apparently, it hasn't been released for the past two months because they were "revising the formula" and they haven't been able to get it to run on 1970's computers.

Evidence indicates that producer prices have skyrocketed in the past few months--but we don't know for sure. It will be interesting to see if they make a comparison between the new and the old formula. It might be like the way they stopped producing ten year budget estimates and switched to five year estimates because the ten year estimates were unbelievably horrendous.

A tentative note of correction: I don't think that people are dropped from being counted as unemployed because their benefits expire, but because they stop "looking for work." I'm not sure how they calculate that though.

[papau]

4. "New" PPI is now due in June - but only through Dec 03.

not that we are hiding anything.

:-)

[civil_liberties_dem]

9. Very interesting.

In the last 3 months I have started to read about how the US government accounts inflation, economic growth, productivity, and unemployment.

Its not using simple common sense formulas to say the least. And the rules themselves are changing.

For example Reagan changed the way that unemployment was counted. Low and behold the unemployment rate went down! What a great leader!

The government has been systematecaly underestimating the rate of inflation for 30 years now. They say our dollar is worth maybe one half as much as in 1970. But evidence from the stores shelves shows its worth more like 1/20th. Back in the 1970's young people used to be able to afford homes. Now they can't, hence why gen-x is living with their parents in many cases.

Or just getting by renting tiny plain apartments. Don't get me wrong on this example of playing with the books I don't believe the democrats are innocent, however I would say the major cooking of the books has come under republican presidents.

Largely I believe the problem though is that the government has taken a 'life of its own'. Its in the interest for the government to give wrong information when times are not doing well, if they told the real truth they could be looking at certain change of government and direction which very well could cost them their job. And I don't mean that people would call for less government, merely they would demand efficient government or for the money to be spent in other areas.

The numbers now after 30 years of manipulation are getting quite funny though. Did you know we are over 100 times wealthier per person then egyptians? I have many friends who have been to egypt and traveled the country by bus. Not tour bus either, these are arab friends who are from the arabian peninsula.

They have pictures and stories about egypt. It has modern roads, nightclubs, movie theaters. In fact the average entrance fee for night clubs is way above the average in north america. Young men without educations work and provide for their growing family. The wife often stays at home. A home they put a down payment on in their early 20's.

Families in Egypt are averaging 6 children. Few in north america could afford 6 children even if they wanted that many. Yet we are 100 times richer then them you know. Our government tells us so. They wouldn't lie! Governments never lie!

This fall many of the worlds richest currency traders say they are going to attack the US dollar. There is a growing feeling in the currency world that the US dollar is very overvalued. I believe it is as much as 10 times overvalued right now. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Many economists were blinded by the lies coming out of nations like indonesia or thailand. However there were a few including these same currency traders like george soros, that said wait a minute these numbers aren't adding up. Some of these valuations are based on wildly optimistic future expectations.

So they attacked them on a large scale and the nations were forced to back up their numbers or face an exodus of investment. They couldn't back them up because of course they were pure lies, so the currency collapsed.

[BabsSong]

5. I noticed that it seems to be a regular happening

that new job numbers are thrown out there to much fanfare and then quietly revised downward weeks later (how many Americans are paying attention to those details?). I also keep looking around and seeing all these quarter profit statements at a time when nobody's buying because they fear unemployment and wonder if at some magic time we are going to have a repeat of several years ago where it's basically just so much useless paper. Are we going to have one mother, major revision of those stats after Nov. '04???

[Bandit]

6. That is a very good question and needs to be asked by a prominent

pundit or candidate. If Bush* will lie about anything he will lie about everything. He has No Credibility

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Both, Kentuck

The "record" quarter in 3Q03 was based upon a grossly inaccurate estimate of the trade imbalance. Remember that GDP is equated as C + GS + TP - NI. They estimated Net Imports as one number, and since the data wasn't complete, they went with the estimate. When it turned out that Net Imports was almost 4 times higher than the prediction indicated, the growth number fell to about 70% of what was reported. Of course, that ended up on Page 14, not on the front page in 144 point font.

Secondly, they are conveniently ignoring the fact that sustainability of economic health is as, or more, important than any snapshot data. Hence the oxymoron "jobless recovery". In actual fact, there can be no true recovery with a reduction in jobs and, therefore, a reduction in middle class discretionary income.

It's a combination of lies and misstatement borne of ignorance and focus on simpleminded, two dimensional macroeconomic hypotheticals. Sometimes they know they're fudging the data. Other times they just don't understand well enough themselves to tell the facts to the people.
The Professor

[zbdent]

8. Do you really think the Office of Strategic Information was ever

closed down?

Bush just moved the target of the deceptions from America's "enemies" to Republicans' "enemies" - AKA THE PEOPLE.