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U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

nbcnews.com

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Re: U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

#221

Post by vlovich123 »

jmalicki wrote: post #192
vlovich123 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what I meant. There should be error bars to reflect uncertainty of the inherent data, but they should wait until all the data that could change things comes in rather than using projections which always drastically change

No, they shouldn't. Timely estimates as to the best knowledge of our current situation is extremely important for decision making under uncertainty. If the error bars are large, that is important information to know.

What decisions are so important and time sensitive they depend on these numbers right after a month is over? And also we at one point were making decisions without these numbers yet the quality of the decision making isn’t clearly improved.

Re: U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

#222

Post by kylehotchkiss »

Waterluvian wrote: post #208
bryanlarsen wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looking at monthly numbers is stupid? The US has had significantly more job growth in 2026 than Canada has. The July numbers are convergence to a roughly common mean.

It is stupid. But the connection is that the Americans do international politics in an abusive way now. There is a very real possibility that their leader will see domestic bad number and foreign good number and throw a fit and look for something or someone to beat on. By all means, someone please tell him that looking at the numbers is stupid. In particular, the Americans have been throwing endless tantrums Canada's…

* American leadership. The president’s only understanding of our brotherly northern neighbor is South Park portrayals.

I haven’t even met a conservative who has ever had any sort of problem with Canada

Re: U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

#224

Post by glaslong »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #110
eru wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can move to Singapore, if you want a better healthcare sector. (The UK spends very roughly half of what the US spends on healthcare in terms of percentage of GDP. That's total (public plus private) expenditure. Singapore spends very roughtly half of what the UK spends by the same measure. Health outcomes amongst the three countries are comparable. If anything, Singapore is healthier.)

Singapore has severe consequences for executives who violate the public trust. That makes it hard for sociopaths to rig the system for the elites.

Stoppp, y'all really are making me want to move to Singapore with promises like that.

Re: U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

#225

Post by win311fwg »

jmalicki wrote: post #192
vlovich123 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what I meant. There should be error bars to reflect uncertainty of the inherent data, but they should wait until all the data that could change things comes in rather than using projections which always drastically change

No, they shouldn't. Timely estimates as to the best knowledge of our current situation is extremely important for decision making under uncertainty. If the error bars are large, that is important information to know.

> If the error bars are large, that is important information to know.

The data is available. If it were important to the causal reader, however, then those casual readers would have already demanded its presence. But they don't care. What difference does it make to Hilary Homemaker? She just wants to get to say "Did you hear about the bad economic news?" when gossiping with her friends.

Those who need to understand the uncertainty will already be looking at more than a news headline anyway.

Re: U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

#227

Post by biophysboy »

jmalicki wrote: post #180
biophysboy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bureau of labor statistics publishes confidence intervals in their reports

Not in their primary news release. A footnote says it is "generally conducted at the 90% interval", but the individual numbers do not have their actual computed error bars. Yes, they do publish them, but it is disappointing their primary releases do not have them. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

It’s common in scientific/stats publishing to have the headline state the avg/median, the main text plot the errors, and the supplementary give the explicit numbers. They have a big page about std errors.

Re: U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

#228

Post by inigyou »

amelius wrote: post #195
astro1234 wrote: post #105

As a data scientist it is very frustrating to see a consistent lack of error bars on these numbers or any discussion about the magnitude of uncertainty around them by all news reports every time these numbers get released

Yes they should have said 23.0 * 10^3.

2.30 × 10⁴ or bust

Re: U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

#229

Post by bryanlarsen »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #222
Waterluvian wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is stupid. But the connection is that the Americans do international politics in an abusive way now. There is a very real possibility that their leader will see domestic bad number and foreign good number and throw a fit and look for something or someone to beat on. By all means, someone please tell him that looking at the numbers is stupid. In particular, the Americans have been throwing endless tantrums Canada's…

* American leadership. The president’s only understanding of our brotherly northern neighbor is South Park portrayals. I haven’t even met a conservative who has ever had any sort of problem with Canada

That's changing, surveys show American conservative opinions of Canada has been dropping rapidly.

Re: U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal

#230

Post by Waterluvian »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #222
Waterluvian wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is stupid. But the connection is that the Americans do international politics in an abusive way now. There is a very real possibility that their leader will see domestic bad number and foreign good number and throw a fit and look for something or someone to beat on. By all means, someone please tell him that looking at the numbers is stupid. In particular, the Americans have been throwing endless tantrums Canada's…

* American leadership. The president’s only understanding of our brotherly northern neighbor is South Park portrayals. I haven’t even met a conservative who has ever had any sort of problem with Canada

I really need more Americans to understand that to the other 95% of the world you are a single entity. We don't get to do diplomacy or trade deals with the Democrats or the good Republicans or specific states. The tariffs and threats are American tariffs and American threats.
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