The conservative media, and blogosphere,
has been awash in claims that the latest employment data has been
manipulated to support the election efforts of the current
Administration. Normally, I dismiss such claims out of hand, however,
during the writing of this past weekend's missive "Employment - The Good, Bad and Ugly" I stated that: "While
I am not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch of the imagination, there
are times when the data just does not support the conclusions. This is
one of those times that make you go 'hmmmmm.'"
In the report I pointed to recent commentary by economist John Williams who stated: "Despite
some happier employment headlines, the U.S. economy is not in recovery.
Where it is not illegal for an administration to manipulate its
economic reporting, it is illegal for anyone outside of the preparing
statistical Bureau (including the White House and the Fed) to have
access to market-sensitive numbers before the New York financial markets
close on the afternoon prior to the release. Four days before the release of the October labor data, on October 29th, Washington.Examiner.com published a story ‘Axelrod: Romney camp won’t be saved by a bad jobs report.’ As to the Romney campaign being ‘buoyed [sic] by a bad jobs report,’ Obama campaign senior strategist David Axelrod was quoted as indicating, ‘I think they’re going to be disappointed.’”
Okay, so Mr. Axelrod knew what the
employment data was going to be prior to its release. While that does
smack of some less than scrupulous issues within the government - it is
not the issue that is causing me to take pause with the latest
employment data. Here is my problem.
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