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U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

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Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#301
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snark aside, I really wonder how we as a nation can get to better politics and policy when so many people are so misinformed about the basics. It seems hopeless at times.

Instilling critical thinking skills from a young age. The actual educational content is far less important. "Learning how to learn" should be the primary purpose of K-12.

How do you test and measure the effectiveness of that kind of curriculum in a standardless way for millions of school children?

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on the US tariffs thing, congress can put Trump back in his box and revert to normalcy any time it wants to We’ve already lost export market share. China, Russia and India have already begun building a trade bloc. FDI has already been trashed. We’re already in for a world of hurt. And personally, I’m eager to ensure it lands disproportionately on his voters and donors.

I think it's likely that if there was a rapid reversal, with Congress taking away the power to mess with tariffs and making it clear that it was permanently gone, there'd be some damage, but things would largely go back to normal. Not enough time has really passed for things to change _that_ much; many of the tariffs aren't _actually_ in place yet.

> if there was a rapid reversal

I have some bad news. It's already some 8 months too late for "rapid".

> Not enough time has really passed for things to change _that_ much

Here in Brazil we are in a mini economic boom because every single country is willing to pay a premium on anything that didn't come from the US. The EU is shutting up internal racist and protectionist dissidents (strong on their 2 largest economies) so that they can diversify from you. Most of the world is discussing independent payment systems... Nato countries are organizing to defend against the US and China and Russia are promising military protection to Latin America.

I wonder if things changed that fast when WWI started, but it absolutely never changed that fast in my lifetime.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not without precedent, but the fact that initial job numbers have been consistently inflated over the last 3 years and that the magnitude of the downwards revisions is on par with 2008-2009 for two years in a row (and growing) is concerning.

It’s almost like the leaders of those organizations were incompetent. Such simple statistics and data gathering should be simple for a federal organization.

> Such simple statistics and data gathering [...]

Simple?! "Sweet summer child..."

On a more serious note, how would one ensure that a government department be sufficiently independent that it can publish data (implicitly) critical of its own political leaders without fear of retribution?

Answers on a postcard, please...

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#304

How does this compare with the ADP figures for the same time period?

I do not think ADP goes back and adjusts the numbers from its previous reports. I think this is because ADP does not use sampling - ADP uses the actual data from the private companies for which it provides payroll services. With this data is pretty clear, among many other things, how many people were employed at this particular company in this particular geography at this particular time. ADP then aggregates all of this data in its report.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The need of downward revisions is 100% due to falling and selective response rate to the early survey.

That excuse works one time. After that, you fix incentives and hire competent data gatherers.

> you fix incentives and hire competent data gatherers

You assume the data gatherers were at fault...

These data gatherers work for their government. How do you ensure they're happy to gather and publish data which is essentially critical of that very government?

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#307
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people can’t comprehend that the graph can’t go up infinitely

Why not? There is no practical limit to human innovation and productivity growth.

As the saying goes. You can't have infinite growth on a finite planet

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#308
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain to me please why job numbers aren’t simply a matter of querying the Federal social security database? A longstanding process of polling businesses for what they want to report, followed by corrections up to one year later, has got to be a pantomime to fudge the numbers.

They survey businesses because the Social Security database has too much lag and does not contain enough detail. The lag is because it is based on employer submissions that are quarterly or annual.

Does that pass the basic common sense smell test? Everyone can see on their paycheck the amount, that is paid 30 days after any work day in the worst case. These payments are sent to a single federal bank account, and data-wise are combined with Social Security ID, sending bank id, date. It’s a bank, there’s a database. We are talking at most about 200mm records, a raspberry pi can process that query in minutes. If we can’t query this easily it’s by design. Or we could do some backflips and somersaults to try to come up with a reason for why the bureaucracy has to be more complicated.

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> on the US tariffs thing, congress can put Trump back in his box and revert to normalcy any time it wants to We’ve already lost export market share. China, Russia and India have already begun building a trade bloc. FDI has already been trashed. We’re already in for a world of hurt. And personally, I’m eager to ensure it lands disproportionately on his voters and donors.

I think it's likely that if there was a rapid reversal, with Congress taking away the power to mess with tariffs and making it clear that it was permanently gone, there'd be some damage, but things would largely go back to normal. Not enough time has really passed for things to change _that_ much; many of the tariffs aren't _actually_ in place yet.

The supereme court seems quite happy to do whatever the president wants through the one-two punch of fake emergency declarations and shadow docket decisions...

Re: U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier

#310
post #267
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember my parents being excited about the opportunity to refinance their mortgage to something in the high teens. And now these days headlines act like the apocalypse is occurring when mortgage rates are in the 6-7 range.

I'd rather owe 100k over 30 years at 15% than 300k at 4%.

You also need to adjust the 100k for inflation. It'd be well over 300k now. I'd rather the 300k at 4% in that scenario.
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