What do Jack Welch, Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santelli, and the US labor department all have in common? They’ve all known for months that the unemployment rate would be just under 8% the month before the election…
Good magic tricks are both unpredictable and subtle. The 7.8% number put out by the US Labor department for September was neither. Every major economist at every bank and independent group measured the unemployment rate to be between 8.1% and 8.2% for the month of September. Most economists predicted the employment gains correctly at around 120,000 for the month. The “establishment” employment numbers confirmed their prediction at 114,00. Since that number doesn’t keep up with the monthly population growth contribution to employment of 150,000, economists predicted that the unemployment rate would edge up from about 8.1% to approximately 8.2%…
But wait! What is this behind your ear Uncle Sam? Oh, look at them apples – over 800,000 new jobs magically appeared in the “household” indicator! No one saw that one coming (except for every conservative “conspiracy theorist” for the past six months)!
If Obama’s little magic trick doesn’t make you feel like a embarrassed parent quietly texting your spouse that you will NEVER HIRE BOZO THE EX-CON CLOWN MAGICIAN AGAIN for your child’s birthday party, then you are obviously the child. The mastoid process behind your ear is also a winning penny slot machine. Congratulations.
The unemployment rate is slightly higher than it was when G Dubya Bush left office in Jan 2009: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/feb/wk2/art02.htm
Big whoop.
You realize that those numbers come from the BLS…. so you’re pitting your unsubstantiated conspiracy-mongering alongside a claim that an entire gov’t bureau was complicit in cooking the books. If the numbers were so easy to fake, why didn’t they do so months ago, and have the election in the bag?
The fact that a few people make a not-unreasonable prediction that comes true, does not mean that the reasoning behind their prediction (corruption) had anything to do with the actual cause of the predicted event occurring (natural causes).
If you want to go down that rabbit hole, how about considering that Limbaugh and his buddies were worried that this scenario was likely to come about…. by “predicting” it they set themselves up to then later be able to claim it was all a rigged conspiracy! genius!
Pitting MY claim? Did you read the post or just blurt out the liberal talking points? I am pitting the “household” number (that can be manipulated by changing the diction of the questions you ask: Did you find a JOB? vs Did you find work?, for instance) against their very own “establishment” survey. I am pitting their claim against the predictions of every major economist and every major bank whose paychecks depend on getting it right every month. I am pitting it against the U6 number that is much more difficult to fudge and didn’t budge. I am pitting it against the extreme improbability that a freak number happens to defy every single economic indicator available today at exactly the moment Obama needs it. I am pitting it against the fact that 800k months ONLY happen in an economy that is cranking at 5% growth or more, which is only about 500% higher than what we have right now… If this happened under a Bush presidency, the highly convenient timing of something that no one in the world predicted except for conspiracy theorists would be the only headline between now and the election.