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Ethics and the Jobs Number

Friday Feb 5 2010

Today the Labor Dept issued the monthly jobs number claiming that unemployment U 3 has fallen below 10%. But Rick Santelli at CNBC disputed this as did the Wall Street Journal, Richard Russell of Dow Theory Letters makes this comment. 

By the way, a little article in today's WSJ is entitled, "Digest the Jobs Report With a Grain of Salt." The article details the various phoney aspects of the Labor Dept. report. And I ask, why the hell can't the government give us honest reports instead of these fake, "doctored" reports. Who does the Labor Dept. think it's fooling? Putting out misleading (bullish) reports lowers confidence in the government. At this point, everybody knows that the government is lying. How about a dash of honesty.

there are numerous questions in various accounting text books now about the wisdom of 'cooking the books,' fudging the numbers, adjusting the adjusting entry. And as Russell says, once the word is out, there is no credibility for the accounting department, in this case the Labor Dept. 

And of course this makes life even more difficult if and when things finally do improve and the numbers are better, by then there is no credibility left. 

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3 responses to “Ethics and the Jobs Number”

  1. Tammy Salinas Avatar
    Tammy Salinas

    Sounds like the boy who cried wolf. No one is going to believe the truth once it finally comes out if they keep trying to fool everyone when we already know the truth. I think it id harder to find a job now, say than it was in 2004. ;cooking the books’ is not right nor should it be used in any field. The GAAP needs to put stricter rules on the possibility of using this. It is mis-leading. Why can’t people just keep it to the basics, and not sugar coat?

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  2. Joy Avatar
    Joy

    Unemployment rates give false hope when the number is actully lower than reality. Unemployment numbers do not include those who have exhausted their benefits but have still not found employment they just are not included in the numbers. Unemployment also does not count recent high school and college graduates who have not yet entered the workforce. Can’t collect unemplyment until you have actually held a job and then been let go so all these folks are not being counted in the numbers.

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  3. Erin De La Rosa Avatar
    Erin De La Rosa

    I lost faith in our government a long time ago. When they lie I’m not really surprised. I actually expect it.

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