birth death adjustment – The Burning Platform

NO ONE GETS OUT OF HERE ALIVE

“The seasons of time offer no guarantees. For modern societies, no less than for all forms of life, transformative change is discontinuous. For what seems an eternity, history goes nowhere – and then it suddenly flings us forward across some vast chaos that defies any mortal effort to plan our way there. The Fourth Turning will try our souls – and the saecular rhythm tells us that much will depend on how we face up to that trial. The saeculum does not reveal whether the story will have a happy ending, but it does tell us how and when our choices will make a difference.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

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As we wander through the fog of history in the making, unsure who is lying and who is telling the truth, seemingly blind to what comes next, I look to previous Fourth Turnings for a map of what might materialize during the 2^nd half of this current Fourth Turning. After a tumultuous, harrowing inception to this Crisis in 2008/2009, we have been told all is well and are in the midst of an eleven-year economic expansion, with the stock market hitting all-time highs.

History seemed to stop and we’ve been treading water for over a decade. Outwardly, the establishment has convinced the masses, through propaganda and money printing, the world has returned to normal and the future is bright. I haven’t bought into this provable falsehood. Looking back to the Great Depression, we can get some perspective on our current position historically.

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MORE BLS BULLSHIT

Here we go again. The MSM is screaming about the FANTASTIC job growth in June. They fail to mention the May numbers were reduced to 11,000 jobs. It’s likely the Verizon strike has screwed up their little seasonally adjusted data models they use to fake the monthly numbers.

How come the MSM isn’t reporting the Household Survey numbers? It seems they are in major disagreement with the Establishment Survey. The fake unemployment rate actually jumped from 4.7% to 4.9%. Let’s look at some facts from the Household Survey that are getting buried by the feckless mainstream media:

Only 67,000 more Americans were employed versus May. Slightly less than the 287,000 being reported by the MSM.
The number of unemployed SOARED by 347,000, as people previously classified as not in the labor force suddenly decided to join the labor force. I wonder why? I wonder when the other 94.5 million people not in the labor force will decide to join the labor force?
Our booming economy has created a grand total of 23,000 new jobs since January. WINNING!!!
There are currently 223,000 less people employed than there were in March. That’s certainly an inconvenient factoid.
The employment to population ratio has fallen for four straight months and at 59.6% is near three decade lows.
In the first six months of 2016, the good old birth death excel spreadsheet adjustment has added 509,000 phantom jobs from all the companies opening for business. There are more companies closing than opening, so this number is completely false and is likely NEGATIVE 500k or more.
If 287,000 jobs were added, indicating strong demand, why did wages rise a pitiful 0.1% and the workweek hours remained flat? Because the 287,000 is a made up lie by the BLS. Wages have risen by 2.6% in the last year, below the true rate of inflation. Shit jobs pay shit wages.

There is exactly four months left until the presidential election. Expect more “positive” economic reports as the establishment will lie, cheat, and fake the data to get Crooked Hillary elected. Anyone with two functioning brain cells can see with their own eyes we are in the midst of an ongoing recession. But there are tens of millions of zombies who are distracted by their iGadgets, twitter, instagram, facebook, and the various adventures of Hollywood stars and professional athletes to notice what the ruling class is doing.

So it goes.

FUNNIEST BLS REPORT EVER

Only a captured government drone could put out a report showing only 38,000 new jobs created, with the working age population rising by 205,000, and have the balls to report the unemployment rate plunged from 5.0% to 4.7%, the lowest since August 2007. If you ever needed proof these worthless bureaucrats are nothing more than propaganda peddlers for the establishment, this report is it. The two previous months were revised significantly downward in the fine print of the press release.

It is absolutely mind boggling that these government pond scum hacks can get away with reporting that 484,000 people who WERE unemployed last month are no longer unemployed this month. Life is so fucking good in this country, they all just decided to kick back and leave the labor force. Maybe they all won the Powerball lottery. How many people do you know who can afford to just leave the workforce and live off their vast savings?

In addition, 180,000 more Americans left the workforce, bringing the total to a record 94.7 million Americans not in the labor force. The corporate MSM will roll out the usual “experts” to blather about the retirement of Baby Boomers as the false narrative to deflect blame from Obama and his minions. The absolute absurdity of the data heaped upon the ignorant masses is clearly evident in the data over the last three months. Here is government idiocracy at its finest:

Number of working age Americans added since March – 406,000

Number of employed Americans since March – NEGATIVE 290,000

Number of Americans who have supposedly voluntarily left the workforce – 1,226,000

Unemployment rate – FELL from 5.0% to 4.7%

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CUTTING THROUGH BLS BULLSHIT

The BLS just reported their monthly seasonally adjusted, birth death adjusted, bullshit guess of employment, designed to keep the sheeple in the dark. Amazingly, it wasn’t too bad or too good. The MSM says it was just right. The ongoing mantra is the job market has been strong and growing for years. Meanwhile, consumers don’t have money to spend. Maybe it’s the 2.3% annual wage increases when their living expenses go up by 5% or more.

Here are a few data points you won’t see on CNBC:

The establishment survey says 215,000 jobs were added in March. The good old birth death adjustment threw 65,000 new phantom jobs into that calculation for all the new small businesses opening up. Anyone with half a brain knows there have been more small businesses closing than opening for the last 4 years. The plus 65,000 is more likely minus 65,000. That would change the headline. Wouldn’t it?
The household survey shows 246,000 more people employed. What you won’t hear on CNBC is that it also shows 151,000 more people unemployed. It seems 206,000 people who were supposedly not in the labor force in February are suddenly back in. I thought the MSM said it was Boomers retiring creating the surge in people not in the labor force. I guess that was another false storyline.
Now for the good stuff. Table A-9 reveals the true health of this booming employment market. Of the 246,000 newly employed Americans, very few of the jobs were good paying secure positions, with benefits.
The number of self-employed people jumped by 194,000. So, selling shit on Ebay and Amway sales are propelling the job surge. Sounds promising.
The number of multiple job holders surged by 127,000 in March. So, Americans need to work two $7.50 an hour Obama jobs to make ends meet. This is truly a sign of a booming jobs market.
The number of employed men between the ages of 35 and 54 (prime earning years for men) dropped by 76,000 in March. It is lower than it was in January. When there are less bread winners working, the jobs recovery mantra is a fraud.
In a sure sign of a strong growing productive economy, 29,000 more manufacturing jobs disappeared for good. I’m sure China and Vietnam appreciate the new manufacturing jobs sent their way.

At least the 26,000 newly unemployed, formerly well paid Americans, were able to get a waiter job at TGI Fridays, as the number of waiters and bartenders jumped by another 25,000. Our transition from a savings based producing society into a debt based consumption society is nearly complete. Thank you Obama.

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LIES, DAMN LIES, & BLS STATISTICS

“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” ― Benjamin Disraeli

It’s my favorite day of the month. The Bureau of Lies & Scams issues their double seasonally adjusted, massaged to provide a happy ending, birth death adjusted unemployment propaganda, designed to keep the masses in the dark about their own dire financial circumstances. Even though the equally manipulated GDP is at 1% or below, retail sales are plunging, corporate profits plummeted by 15% in the 4th quarter and Challenger & Grey corporate layoff announcements were up 42% in January versus last year, our fraudulent friends at the BLS announced glorious employment figures this morning.

The Establishment data that gets all the headlines blared that 242,000 net new jobs were created in February. Of course, 129,000 fake birth/death jobs were factored into that number. Anyone with a functioning brain (excludes Wall Street economists, CNBC shills, and any government apparatchik) knows that more businesses have been closing than opening for the last four years as Obamacare and government solutions destroy the economy. Rather than adding 129,000 jobs, small businesses likely subtracted 50,000 jobs in February. That would put the true number at about 60,000.

In a shocking coincidence, Trim Tabs, a privately run independent company that monitors actual real time payroll withholding tax info issued a report two days ago which said the number of new jobs created in February was between 55,000 and 85,000, based on actual withholding tax data. If you are employed, payroll taxes are automatically extracted. This data cannot be manipulated by the government propagandists. It reveals the truth. No seasonal adjustments, tweaks or phantom jobs added. It’s pure tax data.

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Another Phony Payroll Jobs Number

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced yesterday that the US economy created 271,000 jobs in October, a number substantially in excess of the expected 175,000 to 190,000 jobs. The unexpected job gain has dropped the unemployment rate to 5 percent. These two numbers will be the focus of the financial media presstitutes.

What is wrong with these numbers? Just about everything. First of all, 145,000 of the jobs, or 54%, are jobs arbitrarily added to the number by the birth-death model. The birth-death model provides an estimate of the net amount of unreported jobs lost to business closings and the unreported jobs created by new business openings. The model is based on a normally functioning economy unlike the one of the past seven years and thus overestimates the number of jobs from new business and underestimates the losses from closures. If we eliminate the birth-death model’s contribution, new jobs were 126,000.

Next, consider who got the 271,000 reported jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, all of the new jobs plus some—378,000—went to those 55 years of age and older. However, males in the prime working age, 25 to 54 years of age, lost 119,000 jobs. What seems to have happened is that full time jobs were replaced with part time jobs for retirees. Multiple job holders increased by 109,000 in October, an indication that people who lost full time jobs had to take two or more part time jobs in order to make ends meet.

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THE WORSE THINGS GET FOR YOU, THE BETTER THEY GET FOR WALL STREET

On October 2 the BLS reported absolutely atrocious employment data, with virtually no job growth other than the phantom jobs added by the fantastically wrong Birth/Death adjustment for all those new businesses springing up around the country. The MSM couldn’t even spin it in a positive manner, as the previous two months of lies were adjusted significantly downward. What a shocker. At the beginning of that day the Dow stood at 16,250 and had been in a downward trend for a couple months as the global economy has been clearly weakening. The immediate rational reaction to the horrible news was a 250 point plunge down to the 16,000 level. But by the end of the day the market had finished up over 200 points, as this terrible news was immediately interpreted as good news for the market, because the Federal Reserve will never ever increase interest rates again.

Over the next three weeks, the economic data has continued to deteriorate, corporate earnings have been crashing, and both Europe and China are experiencing continuing and deepening economic declines. The big swinging dicks on Wall Street have programmed their HFT computers to buy, buy, buy. The worse the data, the bigger the gains. The market has soared by 1,600 points since the low on October 2. A 10% surge based upon lousy economic info, as the economy is either in recession or headed into recession, is irrational, ridiculous, and warped, just like our financial system. This is what happens when crony capitalism takes root like a foul weed and is bankrolled by a central bank that cares only for Wall Street, while throwing Main Street under the bus.

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How $1.3 Trillion In Student Debt Broke The “Birth/Death Adjustment” Model

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/15/2015 14:53 -0400

One of the main reasons why the BLS has been massively overestimating job creation ever since great financial crisis, is due to the well-known birth-death adjustment, aka the CES Net Birth/Death Model, which quantitatively is shown on the chart below, has resulted in the “addition” of some 5.3 million jobs, that don’t actually exist, but are merely modeled by the BLS which continues to assume the same new business creation/destruction dynamics that existed before the crisis.

The is a big problem with this core assumption, which has follow through effects not only for domestic fiscal policy, but also monetary policy (and explains why despite a 5.1% unemployment, there is zero wage growth, thus keeping the Fed pushing the ZIRP accelerator pedal years later), for the simple reason that as of this moment it is dead wrong.

Here is what Gallup CEO, Jim Clifton, wrote several months ago looking at the trends in new business creation and destruction in the US.

We are behind in starting new firms per capita, and this is our single most serious economic problem. Yet it seems like a secret. You never see it mentioned in the media, nor hear from a politician that, for the first time in 35 years, American business deaths now outnumber business births.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the total number of new business startups and business closures per year — the birth and death rates of American companies — have crossed for the first time since the measurement began. I am referring to employer businesses, those with one or more employees, the real engines of economic growth. Four hundred thousand new businesses are being born annually nationwide, while 470,000 per year are dying.

Continue reading “How $1.3 Trillion In Student Debt Broke The “Birth/Death Adjustment” Model”

ANOTHER HYSTERICALLY FALSE BLS UNEMPLOYMENT REPORT

It’s that time of the month again, where the Bureau of Lies and Scams issues their latest manipulated, massaged, and falsified unemployment data to the willfully ignorant masses. The MSM will unquestioningly regurgitate the lies with breathless enthusiasm. The Wall Street hucksters will interpret any data as positive for the stock market.

The two headlines flashing across TV screens and websites are diametrically opposed, but none of the talking heads will reveal they can’t both be true. Here are the two headlines from Marketwatch:

U.S. economy adds 173,000 jobs in August

Unemployment rate falls to 5.1%

It is too bad that most Americans are so preoccupied with the latest App on their iGadget, frantically finalizing their fantasy football roster, or so dumbed down by our so called public education system, they have absolutely no clue that it is mathematically impossible for the REAL unemployment rate to fall when only 173,000 jobs are added. The only way this can happen is if the BLS blatantly lies and tells you that hundreds of thousands of working age Americans again decided their lives were so fulfilled and finances so solid, that they don’t want to work anymore. As we all know, this is complete and utter bullshit.

U.S. politicians and government apparatchiks are following the advice of Jean-Claude Juncker:

“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”

Let’s dig into the BLS reported bullshit and extract some facts which will obliterate the government reported lies:

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ANOTHER BLS BULLSHIT REPORT – 101k MORE PEOPLE EMPLOYED – 144k LEAVE WORKFORCE

Here we go again. The BLS reports manipulated unemployment figures designed to mislead the ignorant masses about how shitty their lives are. The MSM dutifully reports the lies without digging into the numbers, as their job is to peddle the propaganda and keep the financial ponzi scheme going.

You know the economy sucks. You know the real unemployment rate is at least 15%. You know your real wages haven’t gone up since 2000. You know 90% of the Obama jobs being “created” are shit service jobs paying shit wages. You know bullshit when you see it.

The fact that Trump is so far ahead in the polls is because people in this country know they are getting fucked over, lied to, and screwed by the bankers, corporations and captured politicians.

Here are some of my observations about the BLS data you will not hear on CNBC and Bloomberg, nor read on Marketwatch or the WSJ:

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EVEN THE BLS HAS RUN OUT OF BULLSHIT – RECESSION CONFIRMED

It sure is lucky those Ivy League educated economists at those Wall Street criminal banks are paid millions per year. How else could we get such accurate forecasts about job growth in the U.S. These mental midgets predicted 245,000 new Obama jobs (bartenders, waitresses, house cleaners, clerks, fry cooks) in March. Even the BLS has run out of bullshit and lies. Those dramatic job increases in January and February were cut by 69,000 jobs. That is a 13% error. If I make a 13% error doing my job, I’d be fired. The BLS government drones have the power to move markets with their bullshit reports. It’s funny how the negative revision is put at the very end of their 2,000 word press release.

But getting back to the accuracy of Ivy League educated Wall Street economists – they missed by 50%. That entitles them to a $250,000 bonus. The Establishment Survey showed a pitiful 126,000 increase in low paying service jobs in March. Get prepared for the usual weather excuse. They’ve been using it for the last four months. How many companies make hiring decisions based on the weather outside? Really? Do these highly educated assholes actually expect us to believe the temperature outside stops companies from hiring? Hysterically, the BLS says that 72,000 phantom jobs were created by new companies, even though we know for a fact that more companies are closing than opening. This 126,000 number will be revised to a negative number two years from now in a press release on a Friday afternoon.

And it gets better. The Establishment Survey is the good news. The Household Survey, that calculates the fake unemployment rate, had even more dreadful results. It showed only 34,000 more people employed than last month. It shows only 130,000 more people employed YTD versus the 390,000 in the other survey. Which number do you not believe the most?

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PHANTOM EMPLOYEES AT PHANTOM COMPANIES

I’ve ranted about the BLS Birth/Death adjustment for years. It is BLS computer model generated estimate of the jobs added by start-up companies that are not captured in their surveys of large companies. The model is based upon long-term historical trends and would be relatively accurate if the world stayed the same. The BLS has pretended the world stayed the same after 2008, when it was really turned upside down.

These are the annual phantom jobs added to the BLS calculations since 2008:

2008 – 904,000

2009 – 882,000

2010 – 510,000

2011 – 490,000

2012 – 535,000

2013 – 624,000

2014 – 733,000

This is a total of 4,678,000 phantom jobs supposedly created by small company start-ups since 2008. This assumes there have been more business start-ups than business failures, just as had always happened throughout U.S. history. There had always been approximately 100,000 net new businesses in the U.S. every year going back to the 1970s. But, the BLS model has been dreadfully wrong since 2008. There has been net closures of 70,000 per year for the last six years.

The birth death adjustment should have SUBTRACTED at least 2 million jobs since 2008, not added 4.7 million phantom jobs.

There were 145 million Americans employed in 2008. The BLS says 148 million Americans are employed today. If you make the true birth/death adjustment, the real number of employed Americans would be approximately 141 million. Which figure makes more sense when you see the putridly stagnant real wages and the complete lack of retail spending from the supposedly employed masses?

Government statistics are like the American Dream. You’d have to be asleep to believe them.

HALLELUJAH!!! – UNEMPLOYMENT PLUNGES DUE TO 354,000 AMERICANS LEAVING THE WOKFORCE

This shit is almost too funny to read. The Bureau of Lies & Scams (BLS) just issued their seasonally adjusted, excel spreadsheet enhanced, monthly propaganda data for February. They have the balls to report that an economy that is hemorrhaging energy jobs, seeing retailers close stores by the hundreds, has seen manufacturing new orders decline for six straight months, has corporate profits falling, has real median household income sitting at 1989 levels and has seen 80% of all economic reports miss to the downside is creating 295,000 new jobs in the middle of the coldest, snowiest February in years. The BLS uses classic government logic. When in doubt, lie.

Of course, the BLS is still using their excel spreadsheet Birth Death model to add 132,000 phantom jobs into the calculation for all the small business hiring going on out there. It has already been documented that there are more businesses closing than opening in the US. This adjustment is a farce. It is untrue. It is more likely to be negative 132,000, which would eliminate virtually all the new jobs just reported. As usual the household survey reports an entirely different result than the blaring positive headlines in the corporate mainstream media.

A critical thinking person might wonder how the labor participation rate could go even lower (37 year lows) if the unemployment rate just reached a seven year low of 5.5%. The BLS counts on the faux journalists at CNBC and Marketwatch to not think critically. So you need to go elsewhere for some truth. Here it is:

Continue reading “HALLELUJAH!!! – UNEMPLOYMENT PLUNGES DUE TO 354,000 AMERICANS LEAVING THE WOKFORCE”

BLS PHANTOM JOBS IN A FAKE RECOVERY

Here we go again. The BLS (Bureau of Lies & Shams) with their monthly propaganda dump that has a confidence interval of about .001%. It’s nothing but bullshit, excel model created, drivel, fed to the masses and designed to provide the Wall Street banks with some excuse for taking the market higher. The fake number came in below expectations, which of course was a positive for the markets. You see, in this warped fucked up country, if too many people get jobs and see their wages increasing, the Federal Reserve would be forced to raise interest rates above 0%. Therefore, the Wall Street shysters would have a harder time borrowing for free and manipulating the stock market higher. Your pain is their gain.

The bankers who run this country love seeing wages growing at 2%, while your everyday living costs rise by 5% to 10%. This forces you to borrow on your credit card at 15% from them in order to survive. Capitalism at its best.

But let’s turn to the latest BLS turd sandwich to see how our awesome economic recovery is progressing:

The blaring headline says we added 209,000 jobs in July. Just to let you understand how important excel spreadsheets are to the BLS, the non-seasonally adjusted figure is actually a decrease of 1.1 million.
The good old birth death adjustment added 80,000 phantom jobs supposedly created by small businesses. We all know that small businesses are thriving and hiring like mad. Right? What is even more fascinating is that this adjustment should be relatively constant over time for July. In a shocking development, the 80,000 figure was the highest July adjustment in history, 48% higher than last year’s 54,000. It get’s better. Back in 2011 it added 5,000 and in 2010 it subtracted 38,000. The economy is worse this year than last. Why would small businesses, with all the Obamacare mandates, be hiring 48% more people than last year? They aren’t. This 80,000 is complete and utter bullshit.
The MSM is downplaying the fact the unemployment rate went up based on the other survey. Let’s examine that data. The working age population went up by 209,000, but the number of employed only went up by 131,000. That is pitiful. And most of these jobs are crappy paying part time service jobs.
The number of unemployed went UP by 197,000. Where is that headline? It seems that some of the free shit army was forced back into the labor force as their extended unemployment ran out and their food stamps got cut. It must be getting harder to get on the SSDI rolls as it will run out of money in less than two years.
The Obama recovery in the last year has been breathtaking to behold.
- Working age population – Up 2.3 million
- Number of people employed – Up 2.1 million
- Unemployment rate plunges from 7.3% to 6.2%. Hysterical, but this is what your government expects you to believe.
- 1.9 million Americans have voluntarily left the labor force because their financial situation is SO GOOD, according to your friendly government drones.
- The labor force participation rate is at 3 decade lows because who needs a job in this economy. It’s a goldilocks economy.

The storyline you will see peddled by CNBC and the Obama loving MSM is that all those Boomers have been retiring, and that is why the participation rate has been plunging. Facts are so inconvenient to the lying fuckers that run this country. It seems those Boomers desperately need jobs because they forgot to save for retirement. Those leased BMWs don’t pay for themselves. The people in their prime earning years lost 142,000 jobs in July. This age group still has 2.5 million less jobs than they had in 2007. If you were wondering why the housing market is tanking and consumer companies are announcing horrible quarterly profits, there is your answer.