I hope today's encouraging economic news pans out

[xiphias]

Lots more jobs! Stock market up! Umm . . . other good stuff!

On the other hand. . . I note that the Dow Jones goes up the day that they switch which stocks go into the Dow Jones. Does that really count?

And I'm cynical and suspicious enough of the Bush administration that, while I HOPE that the job picture is more or less what they're saying, I can't be certain. Not yet. I want to see someone who is as suspicious and cynical as I am, but who has accountancy and economic training, take a look at the numbers and see if it's real.

Comments

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Note that although there is a bubble in the 'number of jobs created' it's important to look at the fact that Unemployment claims went up at the same time.

Also there are stock sectors that went down to note: Construction, Real Estate, Savings & Loan.

And the Stock Sectors that went up : Coal, Oil, Airlines - basically industries that are getting hidden subsidies from the government to prop them up higher or which are being benefited by manipulations by teh current administration's actions.

I believe Raytheon and some of the other gov. military contractors got a boost, not unexpected since they just got some new federal contracts.

I also wonder how many of those jobs are folks be shuffled oversease as 'contractors' and 'security' for the war effort.

I wouldn't trust the numbers, they also tend to get re-adjusted several weeks into next month (aka adjusted) as there are a lot of 'estimates' in regards to the figures. This has happened before with this administration, where they have said one thing at the start of a month, and had to retract numbers a month later (never as much in the public eyes of course).

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, the unemployment uptick actually doesn't worry me, because that normally means that people who WERE discouraged have now decided to actually START looking for work again. But all the other bits -- yeah. . .

Re: I hope today's encouraging economic news pans out

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i haven't looked at the actual numbers at all, and i wouldn't be your kind of person anyway, but i am very suspicious of these glorious reports which are exceeding all expectations -- yet at the same time the unemployment numbers edged up from 5.6 to 5.7%. all this time we've been hearing just mildly positive news about jobs, and all of a sudden the news is wonderful -- where did those 300,000+ jobs get created, and why didn't anyone know? makes me wonder whether it's a new miracle in counting differently, such as reagan once pulled.

Trends

[(Anonymous)]

Before you get all excited about the numbers, remember that one month does not a trend make...