Charles Biderman with questions a critical thinker might ask. Don’t expect anyone from the corporate MSM to question anything from the Government drones at the BLS. How can employment be growing strongly if payroll withholding taxes are declining? Pretty simple question.
and from details from his blog (for the press corps to perhaps dig a little deeper):
Obviously I am quite suspicious of the numbers that I see in today’s BLS press release. Remember most financial journalists and even stock market strategists do nothing more than rewrite government press releases. So do not expect very few others to question the good news.
For those of you who care, look at Table B-1, Total Nonfarm Employment in today’s BLS press release. Start with the non seasonally adjusted table that shows that in November 2011, there were 133.172 million actual jobs. Actual jobs dropped by 220,000 jobs in December and actual jobs dropped an additional 2.7 million in January. Only as a result of unknown seasonal adjustments, could the BLS report 243,000 new hires in January.
Yes, the labor market contracts during the winter and expands in the spring and summer. Could this number be manipulated? Of course it could. Is it? I don’t know. Am I the only suspicious soul out here? Hope not. Certainly feels lonely right now.
Finally, and this is a repeat of what we said prior using SIFMA data (so originating at the US banksthemsleves), for the US unemployment to be declining, Federal tax withholdings have to be rising: there is no way around it! Instead, as the chart below shows, trailing quarterly collections have just turned negative.
AWD says:
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3rd February 2012 at 4:19 pm
AWD says:
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3rd February 2012 at 4:20 pm
KaD says:
1.2 million people fell out of the labor force in just one month:http://www.zerohedge.com/news/record-12-million-people-fall-out-labor-force-one-month-labor-force-participation-rate-tumbles-
A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month!
This is the largest absolute jump in ‘Persons Not In Labor Force’ on record…and biggest percentage jump in 30 years.
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3rd February 2012 at 4:40 pm
platoplubius says:
“How can employment be growing strongly if payroll withholding taxes are declining?”
One possible way might be individuals who decide to change their deductions on their W-2′s in order to receive more monthly net income and cross the “tax bridge” during tax season…..I can see that working for those individuals who do not pay taxes during tax return season, rather receive tax refunds already….$100 a month could mean all the difference for survival for some of us who don’t even make $20,000 a year. This might explain the question above.
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3rd February 2012 at 4:43 pm
AWD says:
here’s where they went:
Possible places the 1.2 million people that left the labor force this month went:
1. FEMA camps by Halliburton, test subjects.
2. A giant spaceship headed to Mars as an Ark.
3. To provide human shield at our southern border.
4. Given as gift to Canada for shale sands.
5. Sold to China for continued organ harvesting.
6. Sent to live in abandoned housing in Florida.
7. Evaporated, dissolved, non-existed into nothingness.
8. Given back to God.
9. Snuck across into Mexico where they still have jobs.
10. Buried under the end-zone of Giants stadium.
11. Took the love boat to the land of the lost.
12. Decided to enjoy life by living in a tent and eating insects.
13. Died from spontaneous combustion.
14. Did they ever really exist in the first place?
15. Mutated back into primates.
16. Became test subjects for the new ED/Depression/get high drug “Funzo”
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3rd February 2012 at 4:52 pm
Administrator says:
plato
The average American drone is too stupid to do that. They think the tax refund is found money.
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3rd February 2012 at 5:01 pm
Colma Rising says:
Admin:
You got that right…. but I must say, before, in saner times, when you could pull a steady and whopping 3%, not letting the Treasury hold your phat stacks was kinda smart.
Nowadays it’s smart… and provides a spring-tme monetary stimulous, as always.
Trust me… folks spend more after tax time. It might be the only mode of savings the avg joe participates in currently….
God help us.
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3rd February 2012 at 5:09 pm
Colma Rising says:
Plato: Wait til’ yur bennies are taxed. 20,000 bucks my ass. You make at least 40K if you have a dependant or two….
Pension, health, dental, vision, life insurance…. make that 45k.
I miss llpoh.
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3rd February 2012 at 5:12 pm
Clownbucks says:
AWD, I’m impressed. One of mine is going back to his job in the same company he was shit-canned from for half of what he was making in the same damn position! Another is now taking numbers at a tax prep company, seasonal, of course, and hell, it just makes a mockery of his engineering degrees.
So, yes, they are now “employed.”
What next? They move to Bangalore and answer phones? China and shovel the factory floors of Foxconn? Follow the presidential candidates and the other flop, Obama and clean up the manure coming from both parties?
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3rd February 2012 at 5:17 pm
Colma Rising says:
Clown:
Welcome your acquaintances to the club.
Had a buddy… managed a call center, got sent to asia to train his replacements. Got offered a 50% cut to stay there and manage the escalations… he said no.
Two years later, he joined the forces for the signing bonus to pay some debt.
Year later, in the sand box dead.
Only got a quarter of the bonus. Wifey is still in debt now…
Shit, man, that was 2004…
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3rd February 2012 at 5:27 pm
Administrator says:
Colma
I have 12 exemptions on my W-4. The Federal Government ain’t getting anything in advance from me.
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3rd February 2012 at 8:09 pm
Hope@Zerokelvin says:
#1: US labor force participation is at 1979 levels.
#2: Tax revenues do not correlate with these numbers.
So.
Does anybody with 2 brain cells to knock together give these Bureau of Liars and Scumbags, aka BLS, numbers ANY credit what-so-fucking-ever?
Our fed.gov is so fucking incompetent that they can’t even continue the LIES convincingly?????
Jesus my beads. If our fed.gov can’t even LIE with a nanoparticle of veracity, we are truly DOOMED.
(hat tip to Colma)
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3rd February 2012 at 10:16 pm
Anonymous says:
Possible places the 1.2 million people that left the labor force this month went:
1. FEMA camps by Halliburton, test subjects. -AWD
It aint so bad, they let me post here, under duress, natch. I cannot figger why but oh well.
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3rd February 2012 at 10:38 pm
Hope@Zerokelvin says:
@Anon.
Aaaaahhhh.
I salute you as someone who recognizes the true Evil of the progressive agenda.
That agenda is: If the People don”t fit the “narrative”, then you have to get rid of the People!!!! Yeah!! That’s the ticket!!
How fucking convenient.
Just like the in the former USSR, when they got rid of – erased from history – whatever – somewhere betwen 1.2 and 12 MILLION human beings, or so, Ukaranians that died in their State sponsored “Holodomor”. Look it up. I am not being a total Doomer here.
Which was completely IGNORED by our intellectual “elites”. OOh. And our fed.gov. I wonder fucking WHY????? Where they taking fucking NOTES?????
But hey!! How Evil can it be if the death of 12 million people be IF it is for the “greater good”????
But hey!!! This is America!!! It couldn’t POSSIBLY happen here? Right????
There are, possibly, some Native Americans that might, possibly, disagree with you,…..
And so the Noose tightens……..
Are you ready???
TTFN!!
(only some one that still believe in The Zen of Pooh understand this…)
I ask again, if only for the sake of the thing…
Are you ready????
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3rd February 2012 at 11:05 pm
bigargon says:
The sad part is MSM has swallowed this turd sandwich without a second thought on it’s bad taste.
here is a an example:
http://news.yahoo.com/jobless-rate-3-low-payrolls-surge-001358306.html
no attempt to even examine the numbers.
of course when the bottom falls out again it will “totally unexpected”.
I guess i am extra sensitive on this issue because my wife just got “let go” form her job yesterday.
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3rd February 2012 at 6:20 am