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Again! Misleading Data From the Department of Labor
Raymond Richman, 12/27/2012

ALERT!    Alert!

Once again there is misleading information from the Department of Labor about the number of initial unemployment insurance claims filed during the preceding week.  In its release for the week ending December 22, it reported that seasonally adjusted initial claims amounted to 350,000, a decrease of 11,250 from the previous week. One paragraph later, the release reported that the actual number of initial claims filed was 440,887, an increase of 39,458! We believe the seasonally adjusted figure is unreliable. CNBC and Bloomberg television reported only the seasonally adjusted number. This is a great disservice to investors who tuned in to CNBC and Bloomberg television at 8:30 A.M. on Thursday to get the latest data.  

Coupled with the news that we were going over-the-cliff on New Year’s Day when the Budget Control Act of 2011 takes effect, also never mentioned by the media, it was bad news. How many Americans know that the compromise of 200l is what the media refer to as going over the cliff? Congress, including a Democrat-controlled Senate, voted for the Budget Control Act of 2011, and it was signed by Pres. Obama. Now the Democrats and the President do not want it to take effect. ow HThe media wittingly or unwittingly are backing the discredited Keynesian economists’ desire for increased government expenditures. Knowknowledgeable investors unloaded billions of shares and the stock markets collapsed Thursday morning when alert investors learned that the actual number of  unemployment insurance claims filed was nearly forty thousand more than the media reported. The number of claims filed was a dismal number.

Most Americans have no idea that going over-the-cliff meant that the compromise in 2001, the Budget Control Act which passed the Congrsess and was signed by Pres. Obama which “kicked the can down the road” would be allowed to take effect. And now CNBC is campaigning for a compromise that will kick-the-can-down-the-road again.