December 2006 US employment data: An information of mass deception, hiding a strong decrease of US employment


Decoded news / January 8, 2006 -
"When the wise man points to the moon, the fool sees the finger" (Lao Tse)



December 2006 US employment data: An information of mass deception, hiding a strong decrease of US employment
Major financial medias and operators have made their headlines last Friday with the "unexpected strong US non farm employment data for December 2006" (+167,000). Based upon this 'factual data', the same players immediately swept the markets with the key 'conclusion' they have been desperately clinging to for months now: the US economy is indeed showing resilience and the 'soft landing scenario' is definitely taking place. Fair enough? Or is it another example of Lao Tse's proverb?
For the research team of LEAP/E2020, it definitely is another of Lao Tse's situation. And therefore we will try to clearly identify what is the moon and what is the finger in that situation.

Let's have a look at the reliability of the data provided by the US Department of Labor by carefully analysing the 'Reliability of the estimates' chapter of the 'Employment Situation Technical Note'.
There one may learn that because the confidence interval for the monthly change in total employment from the household survey is on the order of plus or minus 430,000, it means that there is a 90% chance that December 2006 figures range from - 263000 to + 597,000. And the technical note explains that "These figures do not mean that the sample results are off by these magnitudes, but rather that there is about a 90-percent chance that the "true" over-the-month change lies within this interval. Since this range includes values of less than zero, we could not say with confidence that employment had, in fact, increased."
For the LEAP/E2020 research team, such a limit regarding the reliability of the concerned statistics discredit them into nothing more than mere contextual information (if not pure fantasy).

As Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer, correctly stresses it in his article on January 5th, "The fourth quarter gain was below the third quarter and 2006 saw 143,000 fewer jobs added to payrolls than in 2005, or almost a month's worth of hiring. And that's a comparison to a year in which hurricanes Katrina and Rita took a bite out of jobs".

While John Williams from the Shadow Government Statistics underlines that "Highly unusual reporting and revision patterns for the jobs data were seen again, for December. Employment conditions are close to showing a recession, but each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps filling in prior periods with levels of upside revisions that are unprecedented outside of the annual benchmark revisions. The revisions are unusual enough for the BLS to have published a statement last month proclaiming that the changes were not unprecedented. Something very strange is going on in the reporting".

More about the real evolution of US economy in GEAB N°11 to be released on January 15th (on subscription...

Lundi 8 Janvier 2007

GEAB N°61 - Contents

- Published on January 16, 2012 -

Global systemic crisis - 2012: The year of the world’s great geopolitical swing
This GEAB issue makes it six years that the LEAP/ E2020 team have shared their anticipations with their subscribers and readers of their public briefing on the development of the global systemic crisis each month. And, for the first time, in the January issue which presents a summary of our anticipations for the year to come, our team anticipates a year which will not result solely in a worsening of the world crisis but which will also be characterized by the emergence of the first constructive elements of the “world after the crisis”… (page 2)
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USA 2012: on the way towards the tragedy of QE3
Today, US financial policy is confronted by the sovereign debt crisis of which it will be the ultimate victim in 2012. As LEAP/E2020 anticipated, the 2011 European debt detonator has truly ignited the 2012 American sovereign debt bomb, even if the media coverage desperately tries to make us believe the opposite. The massive sale of US Treasury Bills by the planet’s major central banks in the second half-year 2011 perfectly illustrates this situation incidentally… (page 7)
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ANTICIPATIONS 2012 - ‘20-UP AND 15-DOWN’, THIRTY FIVE KEY TRENDS FOR 2012
Up or Down? The United States' political paralysis; The City and Wall Street ; The rise in interest rates; The forfeiting of value to Wall Street and the City; The value of Chinese reserves; The Pound Sterling (and Gilts); Euroland as new European sovereign; The USA-China “little cold war”; Italy; The importance of the US Dollar in world trade transactions; Rating agencies; The “great European public borrowing” (GEPB); MerkHollMont; Ron Paul; The number, size and influence of Western banks; The continuation of gold’s return in the international monetary system; Recessflation; Sarkozy, Cameron, Netanyahu and Medvedev; The BRICS maturing as a pro-active world player; Turkey’s exit from the Western camp; The Tobin Eurotax; Secular and pro-Western forces in the Muslim world; Growth; The usefulness of the G20; Lawsuits against those managing banks and hedge funds; The splitting of the world monetary system into three zones: Dollar, Euro, Yuan; The widespread downgrade of Western public debt; Peoples' anger; The Euro crisis; The EU as the principal incarnation of Europe; QE3 as the ultimate weapon for saving the US economy; The US’ capacity for military intervention; The West as a community of relevance and values; Scottish independence; Le détroit d'Ormuz et un nouveau contexte de crise au Moyen-Orient ; L'indépendance de l'Ecosse; The Straits of Hormuz and a new context of the Middle East crisis (page 19) (page 19)
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The GlobalEurometre - Results & Analyses
We are seeing a strengthening in the majority considering that common European solutions to the crisis are more effective than national ones (80% in January versus 77% in December)… (page 33)
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