Employment Surveys Diverge
Guest post by Stefan Karlsson, economist of the Austrian School.
Some people think that employment statistics reflect direct government knowledge of all labor related transactions, and of the absence of labor related transactions, in a similar way that the government directly know how much revenue and expenditure it has had. But at least not yet, “Big Brother” isn’t that big.
So, employment statistics is instead based on surveys (polls). In the case of employment statistics this means in most countries surveys based on household respondents.
Unlike in most other countries, the United States government tries to compile two different employment surveys. One is based on the standard international method of household surveys, and the other is based on a survey of employers (the payroll survey).
Usually the message from the household survey is pretty much the same, though the exact details almost always differ somewhat. The latest employment report however had two different messages. The household survey indicated a very weak economy, as despite massive Census-related hirings, total employment actually fell.
By contrast, the payroll survey had a bullish undertone. While private (non-Census) payrolls increased only marginally, total payrolls increased significantly and both the average work week and average hourly earnings increased, suggesting a relatively solid recovery.
Since the survey results differ, and since there is only one reality, it follows that at least (maybe both) one of them is wrong. I don’t know which one of them is more accurate, but based on other reports it seems likely that the truth lies somewhere in between, which would imply a continuing U.S. recovery, but only at a moderate pace.
Read more of Stefan’s excellent economic analysis at his blog or view some rather prescient articles he wroter for Mises.org.
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Banks’ home takeovers surge 81 percent from same period in 2009
Nearly 11,000 Floridians lost their homes to bank takeover in May, a whopping 81 percent increase over the same month last year and an indication that loan modification programs are failing, some economists say.
http://tinyurl.com/287lvwv
Friday, June 11, 2010
Goldman: Give the Money Back
The Young Turks protest Goldman Sachs taking 13 billion dollars in unnecessary bailout funds and ask Geithner at the Federal Reserve to get it back.
http://tinyurl.com/2d4zgxf
Goldman Sachs’ Ethics Reflect Its Ethos
Joan Lappin, 06.14.10, 07:50 PM EDT
Goldman culture rewards hard-nosed aggressiveness and doesn’t put the
client’s interests before those of the firm.
When you talk about intelligence, smart people are usually a cut
above others because their memories are superb. They might not have a
photographic memory of every detail on a page, but rapid recall is
surely a sign of intelligence as our society defines it. Henry Paulson
Jr. (no relation to John Paulson) is both former Goldman CEO and
George W. Bush’s last Treasury Secretary. In that latter role he was
also the inventor of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Henry
Paulson is proud of his exceptional memory. In the first page of the
author’s note of his recently published book, On The Brink, Paulson
cites that he has been “blessed with a good memory so I have almost
never needed to take notes. I don’t use e-mail. I rarely take papers
to meetings. I frustrated my Treasury staff by seldom using briefing
memos.”
Since Goldman prides itself so in hiring the best and the
brightest, wasn’t it a shocker that to a man, they all had such very
bad memories when testifying before the U. S. Senate that they just
couldn’t recall almost anything? Somehow that doesn’t seem to fit the
Goldman culture.
http://tinyurl.com/26ujmlx
MAKE THIS STORY GO VIRAL — You Thought California State Pensions Were Out Of Control? Wait Until You See This List From Illinois »
http://tinyurl.com/258gxz3
Manhattan’s Welfare Kings: How Billionaires Turned Farms Into Personal Tax Havens and Petty Cash Machines, Allowing Them to Give Less, While Taking More
Wall Street bankers and retired hedge fund billionaires have been talking about fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction, preparing the masses for austerity measures and cuts in social services—which we are told are regrettable, of course, but necessary nonetheless. Well, here is the perfect welfare program for the bailout queens to show off their fiscally conservative chops: Let’s see them cut federal farm subsidies, which funnel billions of dollars to the richest Americans, including notables like Ted Turner, David Letterman, Scottie Pippen, Paris Hilton’s grandpa, Charles Schwab, Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and just about every single one of Sam Walton’s degenerate heirs.
Most people know next to nothing about this $20 billion-a-year welfare for the rich program, probably because the billionaires want it that way. Why get the masses worked up? Best to let them think the $200 billion they spent from 1995 through 2006 went to friendly farmers with cute farmhouses, rather than to Chevron or Kenneth Lay. Better to let urban entrepreneurs call themselves backyard farmers and toil away for the locavore movement, than to realize that their rich neighbors are reaping actual “farm” subsidies.
Now, farm subsidies weren’t always this criminal and, until fairly recently, had been doing what New Deal programs were designed to do: help the little guy. But the freemarket “reforms” of the Reagan-Clinton Era warped the welfare, redirecting farm subsidies from the have-nots to the have-mores, bankrupting all but the biggest farmers and depositing farm subsides into the bank accounts of the rich.
There’s no need to go to Iowa to see this welfare-for-the-rich in action. You can see it on the Upper East Side, where billionaire elites collect huge welfare checks from the government just for being rich, while a few blocks away, in one of the poorest, most ghettoized districts in the United States, the city’s black population is being purged from food stamp rolls for smoking some dope. Because, as Mayor Rudy Giuliani once wisely said, “As soon as they stop being dependent on the government, they’re moving in a much healthier direction.”
http://tinyurl.com/2eaem2k
Thursday, June 17, 2010
New York State Public Worker Pensions Revealed on New Website; Topping
the List is a Teacher at $261K Annually
http://tinyurl.com/26hfqb7
Friday, June 18, 2010
New York Pension Story Gaining Attention in Mainstream Press
Wherever you fall on this debate, any system that pays out MORE in pension than a person ever earned in a working year is beyond belief. But when you can game the system by adding a ton of overtime in your last year – it’s all just ‘dealing with the cards we were dealt’. ;)
(on a side note I did not realize pensions were FREE of state and local taxes – maybe it’s only a New York thing, I do not know)
http://tinyurl.com/39ue95e