Paper Moon

Even I was beginning to feel good about the recent government new-jobs report (up over 300,000 jobs) until I read the following CNBC article that puts its numbers in a more sobering perspective: CNBC Analysis. Apparently actual employment growth was only by 4,000 while full-time jobs declined by 150,000 and part-time jobs increased by 77,000. Even when things are looking up for Americans, it seems only a statistical illusion. 

One can surmise that we are now living in an Obamacare economy where job security and middle-class expansion is a thing of the past. First Senator Chuck Schumer and now the Obamacare co-sponsor, Senator Tom Harkin, is saying that the Obamacare law was a gigantic mistake … as it is far too complicated … see: USA Today Article/. (He still wants a single-payer health-care system however.)

So, once again, we see that we are living in a nation of make-believe numbers to gloss over legislative and administrative incompetence. What’s that old song, “It’s only a paper moon hanging over a cardboard sea …”?

Funny Numbers

The federal government is quite punishing to corporations which report inflated figures to their stockholders. In fact, ever since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, CEOs and CFOs must personally sign off on their financial statements under the penalties of personal prosecution. But not so the federal government. Our White House hosers feel that they can manufacture any numbers that suit their political purposes. The most recent example is the inflation of the Obamacare sign-up numbers last Spring by 1.3 million out of 8 million reported ... see: Breitbart Article. This is a 16.2% inflation of this figure ... or a "material" misstatement in corporate terms ... one that might well end the responsible executive in the hoosegow.

And this is not the first time that the Obama administration has used funny numbers to serve their political purposes. Remember how there was a convenient reduction in the unemployment rate right before the 2012 presidential election? See: My Tinfoil Hat. This, in my opinion, was due to the politicizing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This slight-of-hand has oft been repeated when Obama brags about the number of new jobs he has created ... see: Weasel Words. And, as a consequence, I have become suspicious of most of the numbers that our current government publishes ... deficits, Federal Reserve balance sheet numbers (see: Finger on the Scale), and maybe even macro-economic measures may have been compromised.

I wonder how old our president really is?