Business as usual... "correct" good news downward after the fact.

We've seen it with crime data, terror attacks, and of course job growth. Seems an easy way to weasel out of bad news- tell the people it is ALL GOOD, then, a few months later, correct your earlier sunny news with reality. Jackasses.


Reports that painted the St. Louis area's economy as a rising star on the national scene last year might be flawed, U.S. Labor Department officials say. Initial reports said the region added tens of thousands of jobs last year, placing it among the nation's leaders in employment growth.

<snip>

Now, a new set of data, released this month, is poking holes in that theory. The culprit might be a faulty formula. The earlier figures said the St. Louis area added 33,500 jobs from June 2003 to last June. In stark contrast, the new numbers say the region instead lost 6,055 jobs. The numbers include Missouri and Illinois.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/stories.nsf/story/88ED737F60E1BEBC86256F8F001A7507?OpenDocument&Headline=Job+gain+figures+here+were+way+off

eom

They spin and they spin. They tie themselves up in knots and stupid people repeat what they spin.

Did you notice immediately after the election there was an increase in the number of unemployment claims (of course this should have come out three weeks earlier but it was held up due to the election). The Repukes went around saying that the increase was due to people who had given up, coming back into the labor market. And do you know what? Every station, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN repeated this mantra. Where I come from increase in unemployment is a bad thing.

Yet no one hardly said a word about this bizarre logic. They just accepted it and didn't notice that the truth was that unemployment increased.

... in the St. Louis Metro area. This really shocking. The "correction" was HUGE!
July report:
City Increase in jobs
St. Louis 2.6 pct.
Atlanta 1.3 pct.
Los Angeles 0.5 pct.
Kansas City 0.0 pct.
Chicago -0.1 pct.


January report
City Increase in jobs
Atlanta 1.6 pct.
Los Angeles 1.4 pct.
Kansas City 0.7 pct.
Chicago 0.3 pct.
St. Louis -0.5 pct.

And Missouri was seen a swing state in July too... IMAGINE that?! Jeez. More people really need to put 2 and 2 together on this one.