Obama Just Won?

While I believe the method used to mark the unemployment rate is laughable, the number still holds sway with many.

Drudge shows the number. I ask the question: Did Obama just win the election?

Yes.

/thread

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-economy-jobs-20121005,0,3919543.story

Not only was the September jobs number higher than expected the previous two months also got revised upwards by as much as 80%. I have no doubt September's numbers will also get dramatically revised upwards and then the Xmas hiring will also hit so we're going to see an economy on the upswing going into the election.

It's been hilarious seeing Republicans trying to talk down the economy and claim we're going back into a recession when not only are lots of new jobs being created but the rate of increase is actually INCREASING.

Well, the number is bogus, but idiots like you will eat it up.

I saw something on twitter just now saying that the employmentopulation ratio has gone up in the US, is that right?

The real unemployment rate is probably 7-10% higher. People will fall for the new lower figure anyway.

No. He didn't just win.

I don't disagree with the idea that the U3 is an incomplete measure. However, it works well as a proxy for the direction of the economy. When U3 is 4-6%, the economy is in good shape, even though it isn't counting the discouraged or underemployed. When U3 is 10%, the economy is in rotten shape. If it's going down, the economy is improving, if it's going up, the economy is declining. Other measures (U6, etc.) tend to move in the same direction as U3. U3 is the number we have used for decades, it makes no sense to suddenly switch to a different measurement as the standard way to understand unemployment.

That said, we certainly need to be aware of the other measures, and what kind of hardship accompanies the people who aren't in U3, but are in U6.

Yup he just won. Time to play Cool Pool.

HA! The way they calculate the number hasn't changed since the first Bush jr. term so please keep your conspiracy theories to yourself. Also right now 7600 people turn 65 and retire every day in America so most of the people dropping out of the work force are simply retiring due to old age. That and the work place participation rate actually went up last month despite all the old folks retiring.

It's pretty clear that, as usual, you're the idiot in this thread.

The baby boomer are retiring at the rate of 228,000 per month (7600 per day) so, yes, there will be more retired people now and in the future but retired people aren't looking for jobs. That said, the total work place participation rate went up 0.1% last month so despite all those people retiring more people still found jobs.

You're right that the way they calculate it hasn't changed.

The way they calculate it works when people aren't unemployed so long that they give up and die inside.

So as a percentage of the US population, more people have jobs?

Yes. 0.1% more of the population had jobs and were taking part in the work force at the end of September than at the beginning of September. So despite 228,000 old farts retiring the total number of people in the country working actually went ever so slightly up.

Republicans have been making the argument that the only reason the unemployment number was going down was that people were dropping out of the workforce because they couldn't find a job. The opposite is true. More people are finding jobs despite the fact that the total population is getting older and we're getting more retired people as a total percentage of population.

And then the pollsters will also dramatically revise Pearl Harbor and 9/11 to have not happened and credit Obama for those changes.

Not really. There was an uptick, but the ratio is still in the same dismal range it's bounced around in since the bottom of the jobs market.

And we all know what Obama would need to do in order to allow the job market to rebound. And we also all know he won't fuckin' do it.

1. Remove the illegal labor pool.
2. Bitchslap the EPA and get them off the throat of American business.
3. Stop threatening to tax the living shit out of everything that moves.

Yep, he's won. No point in any Obama or Romney voters showing up to the polls in November. Just stay home, guys.

ISWYDT, you old Gary Johnson supporter, you!

Meanwhile, they keep laying people off at Zel's work.

There is no way that number can be real. Expecting a rational person to believe it is ludicrous. From the same report, the economy added something like 114,000 new jobs. Given that it takes something like 350,000 new jobs to make a dent in unemployment this number is clearly just pulled out of the air. Christ, it is being in the Soviet Union.

Even if the number did mean something, this is hardly a game changer.

Not a game changer, just another bit of data that favors Obama. I just looked at some figures regarding unemployment and elections. Only Reagan did better in an election year at reducing unemployment, and only just better. That was thought to be pretty good by voters in 1984.

You should congratulate him for doing the work of all of those slackers who got laid off. Capitalism is a beautiful thing.

one tenth of a percent?

You can track the entire drop from almost the day Obama started running for president and demoralizing the job creators.

How does that work exactly?

Fortune 500 executive: A black man running for office? Fuck! You... over there! You're fired! And you... you're fired too! Now I'm gonna go home, drown my wife, and slit my wrists!


Anyone that easily demoralized probably has no business trying to run a company in the first place...

Actually . . .



The peak employment/population ratio was in 2000. Almost all of the decline was on Bush's watch. The last few years have seen stagnation, which is an improvement on decline, but which doesn't do anything to get labor force participation back to where it was.

One of the things not being factored in are the announcements of the large number of layoffs in the Defense industry that Obama is having held back until Nov..which is illegal because their supposed to give a 90days notice to workers but Obama has promised busniess owners the Goverment will cover the fines.

Even if the numbers will be made to look good, it does show small improvement. If that continues Obama will win.