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	November 30, 2003

DAMNED LIES AND STATISTICS Two recent editorials by economists suggest that private sector accountants aren't the only ones tempted to inflate and misstate the numbers to please their bosses: US Unemployment Rate is Actually 8% An economist at the University of Chicago argues that the US government, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has been playing fast and loose with unemployment numbers to make themselves look better. Not only is the real unemployment rate 8% and still rising, but with temporary and part-time work making up most of the 'new' jobs, there is little doubt that under-employment, which no government dare develop an accurate measure of, has now soared past the 50% mark. Productivity Data Assume We're Neither Working Harder Nor Exporting Jobs The senior economist at Morgan Stanley reveals that the reported jobless economic recovery, which Bush officials are so euphoric about, not only ignores the impact of massive "offshoring" of service jobs to cheaper third world countries, but also uses 'nonsensical' data on the average work week. The data assume that the average worker spends the same 35 hours a week working as s/he did a generation ago, which is demonstrably wrong. In fact one of the factors exacerbating the joblessness of the recovery is that employers prefer to pay (or cajole) their employees to work longer hours, double shifts, and large amounts of overtime, rather than search for, train and provide benefits to new workers and then, if sales fall again, lay them off and pay severance. As a consequence, the average work week, which is the denominator on which productivity data is based, is wildly understated, and hence productivity data are wildly overstated. ...And the Collapse of the US Dollar Portends Worse to Come The two charts above illustrate that the free fall of the US dollar against other currencies (the chart against the pound and yen is similar) continues unabated. While the Bush regime, always reliably thinking short term, seems to see no harm in this, it poses disastrous longer-term dangers for both the US and world economies, as I've reported earlier. Watch for the Euro to replace the US dollar as the global currency standard within a few months. Then watch all hell break loose. The staggering Bush-created US debt, which is behind all this, is pushing us to global economic collapse. 2:10:19 PM  trackback []  comment []

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