Bureau of Labor Statistics Compromised

Scuttlebutt
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The BLS came out with a report showing job creation has dwindled since May.

The head of the BLS had served under the previous two administrations. No complaints.

But when the jobs numbers make the present administration look bad, what does the president do? He fires the head of the BLS.

Mind you, when BLS statistics made him look good he yelled in all caps GREATEST EVER! But when they make him look bad he shoots the messenger.

Who thinks the BLS will furnish accurate data to the nation now? Not likely, if the head of the BLS knows they will be fired anytime they displease the president.

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We all (except for the MAGA Trump loving retards) know where this kind of “leadership” ends, don’t we. Remember the Third Reich? Make sure to vote in the midterms, flush the toilet.

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The brave, durable United States government employees survived the recent leftist DEI thought police bunch, the BML hoopla & “wear this mask, take these injections or you’ll never worked again” crises without becoming the Democrat Fourth Reich. They’ll survive narcissistic Trump too.

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It’ll take a lot more than voting in the midterms to flush this toilet as it was half full when he came into office. He fired all the Inspector Generals who monitor fraud, he decided it is legal for individuals and corporations to bribe foreign officials. Abolished the consumer protection agency, gutted the EPA, cut spending on basic science research while China forges ahead . Destroying health research is also a goal underway. He is removing union representation of mariners working on ships under federal contract as well as that of other federal workers. Meanwhile he has his personal cyber coin and other scams ongoing. The US has been an oligarchy for some time where the wealthy control the elections which is even easier in the age of the internet and corporate media. You end up with jackals elected by jackasses. But now we quickly moving to an autocratic oligarchy led by a guy with increasing health and dementia issues. This should be entertaining but the US’s 100 years of dominance is largely over; the decline has been going on for a long time but has now accelrated and it is all self inflicted.

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Maybe being wrong by 129,000 jobs the previous month had something to do with it??

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Maybe look at how often over the last 20 years or so they have had to make revisions because the data from various agencies and businesses comes in late. There was NOTHING unusual about making this correction, professional statisticians do this all the time as the data becomes available. In the case of the BLS Initial monthly employment estimates are often based on incomplete data, as not all businesses respond in time for the initial release. The BLS revises these preliminary estimates twice in the two months following the initial release as more complete information arrives.

Might also note that the current head of the OMB disbanded the group tasked with improving the reporting.

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This is SOP. And when it works in the president’s favors he goes ALL CAPS and trumpets he’s god on earth. But when it works against him he fires the head of the department.

No president has done this before, because it works against the national interests. Both parties grumble when the statistics make them look bad, but they’ve never fired the messenger because that would work against national interests.Businesses rely on the statistics to make sense of the world.

Now the financial interests of only one guy matters.

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It’s not his financial interests as his grifts are in good shape, it his fragile ego.

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Firing the statistician won’t change the job numbers.

Firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner won’t improve the U.S. economy.

Here’s a life hack for readers who are trying to lose weight and are discouraged by the numbers on the scale: Take a hammer to the thing. If that seems too destructive, donate it to the Salvation Army and, if you must keep a scale in the house, buy a new model that tops out at 150 pounds.

The secret behind this hack is psychology. It’s hard to eat less than your body wants, which is why people who try to lose weight often fail and feel miserable. But if no working scale is available, you can’t fail: Eat as much as you like; the numbers will never climb.

Sound crazy? It is. But the president has just used a version of this trick to deal with a sagging American jobs market

Source: https://wapo.st/45mXACn (gift article. No paywall)

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If we didn’t have a cowardly and corrupt congress we would only have to survive the predatory felon long enough to impeach and imprison him.

Flush the DC toilet, the handle is on the voting machine.

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Following up on Offshore44’s observation: In August of 2024, the employment figures were reduced 814,000 for the 12 months prior to March 2024 - representing a 30% reduction. Since May’s jobs were revised from 144k down to 19K-a difference of 125k, or 86% and June’s jobs were reduced from 147k down to 14k; a difference of 133k or 90%. Combined, the downward estimation is 258,000.

So if someone is off by 86% and 90%, isn’t this an indication the sampling metrics are wrong? Indeed, in August of 2024, CNBC wrote: “economists at Goldman Sachs said that they think the BLS may have overstated the revisions by as much as half a million. The firm said undocumented immigrants who now are not in the unemployment system but were listed initially as employed amounted for some of the discrepancy, along with a general tendency for the initial revision to be overstated.”

If I had someone working for me, and they were off [wrong] 90% of the time more than once, I’d let them go too. Sometimes, ya have to hold folks accountable.

And yeah, the problem is with the BLS system. Revise it!!

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If the jobs report was better than the previous one, using the exact same methodology , the president’s supporters would be yelling, ‘Look how great the jobs report is!’, with lots of capitals and exclamation marks. We wouldn’t be having this conversation. We wouldn’t have all these weekend-statisticians who suddenly became experts because someone screamed at them from a TV screen. It’s only when the news is bad for Cheeto Jesus that the messenger has to be shot.

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Go back years and look at the massive revisions. They are being held accountable.

A 3% GDP increase with 75,000 jobs doesn’t add up. The numbers are wrong.

One or the other. Markets, companies, employers and the FED rely on them. They have to be correct without massive revisions.

Every book keeper, CPA and accountant would be fired if they did that.

For the people with TDs, this has gotten worse in recent years. Go get your participation award.

I have been watching job reports and revisions my whole life. There is something way off with the massive revisions. Wether under Biden or Trump. It is about time to hold people accountable for bad performance.

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Flush the Democrats and you will have less turds in the toilet.

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Where’s the evidence of bad performance? Show me the report that the methodology is off, or more to the point, can be improved with less capital outlay.

where is the report?

I’ll say it again: If the jobs report had said a million jobs had been created you wouldn’t say boo about it. In fact you’d say anyone who said the jobs hadn’t showed a million new jobs has TDS.

it’s only when it’s bad for His Immenseness that there are suddenly 50 million experts in labor statistics demanding that the thing they never cared about before, and will never take the time to understand , must be wrong because a person they never heard of dared to tell the truth to a person who claims to have never been wrong about anything, ever.

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Oh, and since people are quoting CNBC, here’s something from their website back in June. Including a prediction. So, the drop in jobs numbers was predicted months ago. It was expected. Except maybe by a guy who went bankrupt a few times…

“There seems little doubt now that hiring slowed considerably in May as companies and consumers braced for higher tariffs and elevated economic uncertainty. The main question is by how much…”

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The BLS was doing major revisions under the last administration as well. Do a little research and educate yourself.

Yes people watch economic numbers and jobs reports for investments.

Goverment’s, the Federal Reserve, companies and individuals use them. They need to be accurate.

Just because you don’t you probably don’t understand the conversation.

CNBC and the market analyst admitted everything they said was wrong the other day with 3% GDP and low inflation.

If the jobs report was correct Powel would have reduced interest rates.

Seamaster’s analysis of BLM failures is correct.

The simple fact is the numbers have been way off on jobs reports for sometime.

3% GDP, low inflation and 75,000 jobs doesn’t add up historically anymore than high inflation, low GDP and high employment numbers did.

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You mean all the inspector generals that monitor fraud while reporting there is 25% fraud. Now that’s funny!

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Every year my staff prepares a book of statistics for the company. About a 100 pages. Some things are company specific, like number of voyages, hours worked, man/days of operation, fuel burned, number of injuries, etc.

A lot is government statistics, such as unemployment rate (national and local), CPI (national and western states), etc. I need the data because I set the annual budgets for our Fleet. In order to predict what the budget will be for the following year I need accurate data from the present year.

Example: We have 30 years of data comparing our turnover rate and the National unemployment rate as provided by BLS. There is a relationship between the two, and we use the data to predict what staffing will be like. I can correlate all this with number of employment applications received, which we also track: a good cross check of the unemployment numbers.

We compare the average company wage of our ABs to the average household income in the Western states, from Census data. The ratio between the two strongly determines what competitive AB pay will be in the U.S. so we watch it with interest, and we understand how the data is collected.

There was some hot discussion in 2022 about the rate of inflation, and whether the CPI is to be trusted. Well, I didn’t need to guess, because my staff gives me an annual report on the changes of our expenditures in food, deck supplies, engine room supplies, air fares, etc., much of it rendered in a man/day basis. As I said I need that data because I set the budgets for all of these things and wages each year, and I need accurate data.

Guess what. The CPI is quite accurate. But then the CPI is not inflation. Two different things.

Most of the data I get is from the BLS, and unlike most people I have an active interest in its accuracy. And unlike most people I have the ability to independently verify some of the data.

Unlike most people too I hire people and then run annual reports on the numbers. And even with only this company there is nothing simple about it. You could look at just one mariner and make a convincing case that he stopped working here in 2024 or 2025. The determination takes thought to work out, and the discipline to report bad news as well as good.

Is the dock worker who transferred to the fleet for two voyages then went back to dock work to be counted as a mariner or not at all? Now multiply all that ambiguity by a workforce of 165 million people and tell me the methodology is simple.

So what part of the conversation am I not understanding? I’ll tell you which one: the one on cable news shows, because I never listen to those conversations. Cable news is meth for outrage junkies.

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More times than I can remember I got new marine superintendents, managers, heads of maintenance etc. & they wanted either daily, weekly or monthly reports of what the engine room team had accomplished. At first, before good internet, it would just be an email. Then later they wanted photos, then before-&-after photos & lengthy time consuming daily or weekly or monthly reports at go along with the photos. When I worked for oil companies it was worse because their safety departments would want SWA/Safety Observation cards too. It was a bunch a bullsheet. But really, they signed the paychecks & my family needed to eat, so be it. For a bunch of money, show me a hoop & I’ll jump through it.

When I read the outrage from some government employees when they were asked by DOGE to send simple emails with 5 tasks they accomplished each week I thought those snowflakes desperately needed to stay working for the Federal Government because they couldn’t cut it in the private sector or for a publicly traded company where goals & profits had to be reported on each quarter. The Federal Government work force swelled during & after the Great Recession for very good reasons. With help wanted signs all over the place & the private sector begging for employees, it only makes sense to me to streamline government jobs to the benefit of citizens, employers & tax payers. All that being said, some people absolutely love high taxes, bureaucracy & government inefficiency so it’s no wonder we’d have a lot of pushback.

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