Instead of 7.2 million net jobs lost since December 2007, the preliminary benchmark estimate suggests the U.S. has lost over 8.0 million net jobs during that period.

This is something I like to harp on, as any long-term reader of this blog can testify (raise up brother!). So it turns out the .Gov has ‘underestimated’ job losses over the last two years by nearly a million. Of course, these are just preliminary estimates.

Some guesses: This estimate will be “beat,” the revision number will be lower (by 100,000 or so) and everyone will cheer and the stock market will bump up a little bit, the .Gov will say “I told you so. Green shoots!”. Weeks or months later the number will be revised, showing everyone that things are, once again, worse than we actually thought.

I’ve noticed estimates to the upside tend to be high (optimistic) and to the downside tend to be low (also optimistic) unless you’re talking to Dr. Doom (Mr. Roubini) in which case estimates are based on actual calculations and not data seasoned with wishful thinking (also known as “talking your book” i.e. favorable to what you’re selling)

Tags: lies lies lies, LIES!!

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 11:15.