271–280 of 377 posts
I would hardly call it a sudden reversal, looking at the downward trend in the numbers over the last six months or so. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/non-farm-payrolls
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somehow it seems like you're implying that canada is doing better than the usa. just look at the last 10 years of real gdp growth and it couldn't be any worse for canada.
As everyone knows, real gdp growth is the only metric of goodness. All other numbers and figures are meaningless, we all down before the might RGDPG
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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.
You have to really dig into their website to find their std errors.
And, as a result, the market is ... up?
Unemployment makes it more likely for the fed to lower interest rates, which makes the stock market more attractive, so, yes. (Unemployment also generally causes lower inflation in general, at least according to the prevailing macroeconomic school of thought.)
https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch...
> The BLS said employment contracted the most in “local government education,” which declined by 50,000 roles, likely reflecting teachers during summer break. This is not entirely accurate. AFAIK, teachers usually remain on payroll throughout the summer. This stat _might_ be talking about contractual teaching roles, like adjuncts or subs, but it's hard to say from that BLS category.
This is correct, teachers don't just stop getting paid and lose all benefits every summer (my best friend is a teacher and so is his brother), but at the same time it seems tons of schools now prefer (or are only able to find positions for) short contracts, more subs and temporary positions etc. Especially if its not in a well funded area.
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That's true for the establishment survey, but the population survey, where they contact individuals, is what is actually used to calculate these numbers. It is literally calling/writing 60,000 people and asking "are you employed? did you look for a job? Etc." "How the government calculates unemployment" [0] | Does anyone in this household have a business or a farm? | Last week, did you do any work for (either) pay (o…
You have to wonder, since they are doing two different surveys trying to measure the same reality, which one more accurately measures the facts on the ground? Asking businesses how many people they are employing, or asking households whether or not their folks are working? The numbers don't really match up between the two.
GDP too. That's how you can get more accurate information, and you have actual numbers on the discrepencies.
They rely on the household data more because it doesn't have as much systemic error, even though it does have more sampling error. Asking businesses gives you a more complete picture, but it has much more bias.
Hell, this is why even in accounting, you have double-entry bookkeeping, and even there, the numbers don't always match up.
Or "my bank account doesn't match up with my cashflow statement".
It's not that one is better and you should use that, calculating multiple ways is central to accounting so you can detect errors.
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I suspect that even his proponents knew better, they just didn't care as much about the economy as they did culture wars nonsense and religious woo-woo.
To be fair, a plurality of voters care more about the culture war than the economy as well.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
It doesn't mention the right to make a buck, though it's probably implicit.
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I wonder if this is the evidence of the labor market decoupling from "the economy" in terms of economic productivity? Folks keep predicting it. Maybe it's starting?
Maybe we can finally reach communism by first getting together and all agreeing "the economy" isn't a science and if we all just believe really hard, numbers can go up forever, then we won't even need money!
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How is that different from people living in New Jersey and commuting to Manhattan?
New Jersey and Manhattan are both a part of the same country last I checked. Malaysia and Singapore are two different countries. Despite being right next to each other they have vastly different GDPs, standards of living, government benefits, etc.
New Jersey and Manhattan are in different states. But in any case, why so xenophobic? Borders are an administrative hassle, but they have no moral weight.
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No one with at least two brain cells to rub together thought the tariffs was going to make anything better.
I suspect that even his proponents knew better, they just didn't care as much about the economy as they did culture wars nonsense and religious woo-woo.
Your average rationalist techie would consider a "belief" to be some factual statement about the world, backed up with some justification, with some confidence level. "Tariffs help the economy" would mean some probabilities about likely outcomes for different actions, based on some kind of economic theory that explains why those actions make those outcomes more likely. We'd put this statement in the same category as something like "Joe works at Acme, Inc."
(And yes, I know that rationalist techies will still have plenty of irrational beliefs. But this is what we typically consider a belief to be, even if we don't always live up to it.)
But for a lot of people, it's something different. It's more of a pronouncement of faith, or a declaration of allegiance, or an expression of will. It's almost like a prayer. Pronouncing a belief like "tariffs help the economy" isn't a factual statement about likely outcomes, but more of an attempt to sway reality through faith.