The unemployment rate has fallen a full percentage point over the last 4 mo

[gwb72tii]

well i knew rwh would be crowing about the just released GDP number, which at first glance appears to be good
ah, but the devil is in the details, right?
It seems the number is not all that good. fully 1.44% is inventory build and government expenditures, while personal consumption (70% of the economy) continues to get weaker.
in fact, real personal consumption is close to an all time low going back to 1950!
also, before you get too caught up in rwh's next chart, notice what's happening today in the market to retail stocks like Kohl's, Nordstroms etc. Not a pretty picture
Sorry to puncture your baloon.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/11-2/Q3%20GDP%

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/11-2/Personal%20Consumption%20LT.gif

[rwh11385]

well i knew rwh would be crowing about the just released GDP number, which at first glance appears to be good
ah, but the devil is in the details, right?
It seems the number is not all that good. fully 1.44% is inventory build and government expenditures, while personal consumption (70% of the economy) continues to get weaker.
in fact, real personal consumption is close to an all time low going back to 1950!
also, before you get too caught up in rwh's next chart, notice what's happening today in the market to retail stocks like Kohl's, Nordstroms etc. Not a pretty picture
Sorry to puncture your baloon.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/11-2/Q3%20GDP%

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...ption%20LT.gif

As expected. And again with ZeroHedge...

Oh no economy is failing because Kohl's crappy retail is suffering like Sears, JCP, Best Buy, Circuit Shitty, etc.? Cry a river for Borders too while you are at it.

HAHAHAHA. Did you even read the title of the misleading chart that "Tyler" posted? You claim that personal consumption is lowest since 1950s but fail (because you can't read or accepted it immediately through confirmation bias) to see that it is 5 year average. The chart tells you very little about right now but instead continues to drop because the average is removing the spend on credit heavy period right before the housing bubble popped. Way to show you are a gullible idiot who cannot see when he is being mislead by a sketchy source just because you like the opinion.

[tjts1]

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/11-2/Q3%20GDP%

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...ption%20LT.gif

Do you honestly get your news from ZERO HEDGE? Do you have any idea who writes that shit? WOW



Also dead link.

[gwb72tii]

yes, gosh, its a 5 year average and it tells a story, no? that US consumers are unable, or unwilling, to drive the US economy any longer

and the dissection of the GDP number is wrong? how? its a pretty standard data base, no?

[rwh11385]

yes, gosh, its a 5 year average and it tells a story, no? that US consumers are unable, or unwilling, to drive the US economy any longer

and the dissection of the GDP number is wrong? how? its a pretty standard data base, no?

No, not about current personal consumption - unless you swim in bullshit all day and trying to mislead ignorant people with no critical thinking ability. It tells a story that there was a massive pit during the recession, but little about the current situation. And that pre-recession PCE was higher than current, which isn't very telling either. (The 5 year average will slide until the starting point enters the recession, which will cause it to increase after while lower recession data is replaced with current data) He used 5 year average because it would fool people like you.

Not even an idiot would claim that current personal consumption is the close to an all-time low since the 1950s if they saw this:

Because it's in line with several points in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Only by averaging in 5 years and the recession could he make it tell a story that gullible people who read his bullshit would accept and repeat.

Your conclusion about what consumers are unable or unwilling to do NOW based on a 5-year average, that is largely influenced by the recession and not current conditions, underlines how incapable you are of using good reasoning and very poor understanding of the subject at hand. No wonder you are so easily corrupted by the misleading of "Tyler".

[gwb72tii]

a 5 year average is used specifically to smooth for recessions/expansions (talk about misleading). it's not meant to show today as you seem to be aware of, it shows long term trends, and it paints a pretty nasty picture.

and the dissection of the Q3 GDP shows consumers are not spending much.

man, talk about the black science

[rwh11385]

a 5 year average is used specifically to smooth for recessions/expansions (talk about misleading). it's not meant to show today as you seem to be aware of, it shows long term trends, and it paints a pretty nasty picture.

and the dissection of the Q3 GDP shows consumers are not spending much.

man, talk about the black science

It paints a pretty nasty picture of the pretty nasty recession, not Q3 2012.

[rwh11385]

I'm going to predict that gwb predicted that I would have updated this thread due to the fact that there was a new jobs report released today. And then he will focus on one negative metric while ignoring the vast majority and claiming anything that people see as positive is meaningless because most statistics may be revised.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 146,000 in November, and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.7 percent

Beat expectations since many were worried about Sandy's effects as well as from the fiscal cliff. As the ISM report for manufacturing showed, employment has declined in that sector but the overall economy like the service ISM report has continued to grow. And the trend for unemployment metrics has continued.





The economy continues, irregardless of no jobs bill that Obama wanted to stimulate. Maybe people will realize that laissez-faire and not expecting politics to efficiently direct the economy is the way to go. However, there is a risk obviously from Congress being unable to accomplish their jobs and provide a stable environment for business if they don't get the fiscal cliff resolved. However, that issue is a function of government's weaknesses and their failures to work together, not the economy's fault.

Hopefully we can see Congress resolve the uncertainty and thereafter get out of the economy's way instead of trying to control it.

In other news, household net worth continues to improve:

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/12/feds-q3-flow-of-funds-household.html

Household net worth was at $64.8 trillion in Q3 2012 (up $13.6 trillion from the trough, but still down $2.5 trillion from the peak).

In Q3 2012, household percent equity (of household real estate) was at 44.8% - up from Q2, and the highest since Q1 2008. This was because of both an increase in house prices in Q3 (the Fed uses CoreLogic) and a reduction in mortgage debt.

[mrsleeve]

I do like how those that are out of work thanks the the storm on the east coast were NOT counted nor included in this mornings "official" tally of those that are unemployed. (heard this on news in passing this am. I may have miss heard it) Its only a small and minor number, but every little bit helps when cooking the books to make things appear to be better off than they are on paper

Sandy's effect on the figures was much smaller many analysts had predicted. The government noted that as long as employees worked at least one day during a pay period _ two weeks for most people _ its survey would have counted them as employed.

http://www.newser.com/article/da30vg7g0/us-economy-adds-146k-jobs-jobless-rate-falls-to-4-year-low-of-77-percent-sandy-minor-factor.html

yeah no book cooking "creative accounting ticks" there

If we did our taxes like the feds count the unemployed we would all be in jail


Of course hiring goes up in Nov, all the stores hiring extra staff for the holidays

from the BLS them selves and their press release the largest jump of all sectors

Retail trade employment rose by 53,000 in November and has increased by 140,000 over the
past 3 months. Over the month, job gains occurred in clothing and clothing accessory stores
(+33,000), in general merchandise stores (+10,000), and in electronics and appliance stores
(+9,000). Employment in miscellaneous store retailers decreased by 13,000.

Some more nice little tid bits from the BLS report today

The civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.2 percentage point to 63.6 percent
in November, offsetting an increase of the same amount in October. Total employment was
about unchanged in November, following a combined increase of 1.3 million over the prior
2 months. The employment-population ratio, at 58.7 percent, changed little
in November. (See table A-1.)

And yet our official U/E rate went DOWN again thats a bit of a head scratcher

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as
involuntary part-time workers), at 8.2 million in November, was little changed over the
month. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or
because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.)

In November, 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, essentially
unchanged from a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals
were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job
sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not
searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 979,000 discouraged workers in November, little
changed from a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers
are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for
them. The remaining 1.5 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in November
had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school
attendance or family responsibilities. (See table A-16.)

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

So let me get this straight, make sure I am reading this correctly here guys. If you only have part time work but want full time work your not counted, Ok I can understand that one. But if you are NOT WORKING, and have been wanting too or been looking for work fairly recently, your not really unemployed................... and all these rates have remained unchanged for 12 months and our U/E rate still drops by .2% Ummm OK. something smells fishy to me.

Oh wait its Books being pan seared with a nice Butter and Caper sauce who knew they would smell just like 3 day old trout that been sitting in the sun for 4 hours................. . ( If you would like my grandmothers trout and Browned butter and Caper sauce PM me or just goggle it there is one almost identical to it on the interwebz)


yeah yeah I know we have all been though this, but really no one thinks it odd....



to basically summarize today's report, temp seasonal shitty part time retail jobs are over a 1/3 of our added jobs for November (I predict they will be even more for December too) Our long term out of work has not changed, workforce participation has not changed, and if you work 2 days a month you are considered gainfully employed by our govt. YIPPEE............. HIP HIP HURRAY............HIP HIP HURRAY The jobs numbers are getting so much better, but then those of us that live in the real world already know all this

[tjts1]

I do like how those that are out of work thanks the the storm on the east coast were NOT counted nor included in this mornings "official" tally of those that are unemployed. Its only a small and minor number, but every little bit helps when cooking the books to make things appear to be better off than they are on paper

LOL you're such awful liar.

Sandy knocked retail sales and industrial output in October and led to a big spike in claims for jobless benefits, one of the reasons economists expected job growth to slow.

A Labor Department survey of households found 369,000 workers were unable to make it to work in the aftermath of the storm and a further 1.1 million ended up working only part time. However, the department still considered them employed.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/07/usa-economy-idUSL1E8N732K20121207

Now why would you count these people as unemployed? Did they get fired? Did their jobs disappear permanently? Are they looking for new jobs as we speak? WTF are you talking about?

[mrsleeve]

Please read my edit ( It was in passing that I saw that report)

They were talking about those that are still out of work because of lack of power and damage to the business. Why would we not count those people that are not working 6 weeks latter?????


OH yeah because they may have worked 3 days in the last 6 weeks (1 day per bi weekly pay period) that means they are employed right


And it also seems that we had 1/2 a million people "drop out" of the work force so we can continue with the Book broil

[Thizzelle]

Yay

[rwh11385]

I do like how those that are out of work thanks the the storm on the east coast were NOT counted nor included in this mornings "official" tally of those that are unemployed. (heard this on news in passing this am. I may have miss heard it) Its only a small and minor number, but every little bit helps when cooking the books to make things appear to be better off than they are on paper

http://www.newser.com/article/da30vg7g0/us-economy-adds-146k-jobs-jobless-rate-falls-to-4-year-low-of-77-percent-sandy-minor-factor.html

yeah no book cooking "creative accounting ticks" there

If we did our taxes like the feds count the unemployed we would all be in jail


Of course hiring goes up in Nov, all the stores hiring extra staff for the holidays

from the BLS them selves and their press release the largest jump of all sectors



Some more nice little tid bits from the BLS report today



And yet our official U/E rate went DOWN again thats a bit of a head scratcher



http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

So let me get this straight, make sure I am reading this correctly here guys. If you only have part time work but want full time work your not counted, Ok I can understand that one. But if you are NOT WORKING, and have been wanting too or been looking for work fairly recently, your not really unemployed................... and all these rates have remained unchanged for 12 months and our U/E rate still drops by .2% Ummm OK. something smells fishy to me.

Oh wait its Books being pan seared with a nice Butter and Caper sauce who knew they would smell just like 3 day old trout that been sitting in the sun for 4 hours................. . ( If you would like my grandmothers trout and Browned butter and Caper sauce PM me or just goggle it there is one almost identical to it on the interwebz)


yeah yeah I know we have all been though this, but really no one thinks it odd....



to basically summarize today's report, temp seasonal shitty part time retail jobs are over a 1/3 of our added jobs for November (I predict they will be even more for December too) Our long term out of work has not changed, workforce participation has not changed, and if you work 2 days a month you are considered gainfully employed by our govt. YIPPEE............. HIP HIP HURRAY............HIP HIP HURRAY The jobs numbers are getting so much better, but then those of us that live in the real world already know all this

Dude criticizing what you don't understand because you have never cared to read up on something does not make the books cooked. Arguing based on ignorance and claiming your assumption as fact.

People who want full time work but can only find part time are not ignored, they are included in a different metric. And it's well understood that people get seasonal jobs in retail - that's why it's seasonally adjusted. As many times as this is talked about it never clicks for you and just repeat the same argument based on confusions and lack of educating yourself on the subject you are making claims about.

Not understanding something based on a complete lack of trying to learn about it does not make something fishy.

[mrsleeve]

Ummm

I know things are based on different metrics. My point still remains, that rather than report the REAL U/E numbers (the U6 iirc) we cook the books as much as possible to show the desired results. Umm how is that honest and transparent on the part of the feds.

Like I said I should start doing my taxes like the BLS and Feds figure U/E stats. How long do you think I will get away with that ???

Confused why the unemployment rate dropped? The same, favorite BLS adjustment - a drop in the labor force participation rate which declined by 0.2% to 63.6% once again, as the number of people out of the labor increased by over 540K to 88,883,000.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-07/146000-jobs-added-november-beat-expectation-85000-unemployment-rate-lower-77

[rwh11385]

Ummm

I know things are based on different metrics. My point still remains, that rather than report the REAL U/E numbers (the U6 iirc) we cook the books as much as possible to show the desired results. Umm how is that honest and transparent on the part of the feds.

Like I said I should start doing my taxes like the BLS and Feds figure U/E stats.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-1...-rate-lower-77

Um, how exactly is it dishonest to report multiple metrics and have people decide to make one popular? Educated people notice multiple metrics an measures and take them into account. Do some sheep get the wool pulled over their eyes by not understading basic definitions or methods? Maybe. But that's not the fault of the BLS.

Participation rate went back to where it was two months ago. ZeroHedge's crazy trying to blame all of the rate change on that is a bit simplistic and biased.

You can start doing your taxes as ignorantly as you comment about stats but the IRS will expect you to read the guidelines and will hold you accountable to that, whereas few make sure you understand basic definitions of the BLS report before making claims and accusations.