Thursday, December 01, 2011

Politicized or optimistic?

If you're getting the feeling that unemployment numbers are always "unexpected" there may be something going on at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  As Zero Hedge notes, the jobless estimates are nearly always low and revised upwards later:
And going back to the BS from the BLS, as John Lohman's chart below shows that in 2011 initial and continuing claims have been revised higher the week following 91% and 100% of the time, respectively. A purely statistical explanation for this phenomenon is "impossible."
Bad news revised worse.

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