The “perception control” that is appearing(intentionally or not) with unemployment falls into a bigger pattern with all other economic data. Usually, if you do a little digging, most cited data for an improving economy are based on misconstrued statistics or in some cases outright lies. You can find those when Bernake or Giethner speaks.
If I wanted to be less cynical, I would say it’s a natural proclivity towards optimism coupled with a few statistical aberrations to the point of being misleading.
If I wanted to be more cynical, I’d say they are purposely misleading people to milk them of their investment money. A pump and dump coordinated between the USG and the media. An optimism conspiracy.
If this latest episode follows the same narrative as the housing bubble, any measure of the true state of affairs won’t be acknowledged by the MSM until it just can’t hidden anymore. I’d say late summer/fall we should get another dose of economic reality. Unless, that is, you are one of the recently unemployed.
Also, with the latest report:
In addition the “birth-death adjustment” was +226,000, close to double the previous month. That’s the computer model that “estimates” the number of jobs that are created in the economy but unreported.
Makes me think they tweaked the bda so the market would react to the news. Otherwise it would have looked like last months with no appearance of improvement.
