Employment Statistics and their abuse
In the past few weeks, I've seen several articles in right-wing media, such as the Wall Street Journal, that are "dissing" the Current Employment Statistics (Establishment survey) program at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, saying it's job counts are not in line with the "real world". And it's true that the Current Population Survey (Household survey) has been showing a rosier employment picture. Why is this such a big deal? Because the Republicans want to be able to say "Everything is OK", and if the numbers don't reflect that, well, get a new set of numbers, and discredit the inconvenient ones.
The Establishment survey covers nearly 400,000 establishments; the Household survey covers 60,000 households. All other things being equal, a sample of 400,000 yields better results than a smaller one.
According to this article, though, that discrepancy is only 140,000, not over a million, once y...
Posts
6 month anniversary
Close to six months of this, and I have yet to receive any hate mail. You like me, you really really like me :) Figured I'd mention this now, I'll be busy packing for my trip to Ireland soon and be very light on blogging. I'll try to get a post or two from there. Galway and Dublin, if anyone knows of good places to have a drink or smoke a Cuban cigar there, let me know. Last time I smoked a Cuban cigar was on my wedding day, thanks to the benevolence of Mrs. Datanerd's friends.
More on CAPPS II
Oh, and remember that CAPPS II thing I wrote about , that would screen airline passengers using private databases and criminal records? Well, the Transportation Security Agency didn't get any volunteers, so now they're going to ram it down our throats:
TSA May Try to Force Airlines to Share Data (washingtonpost.com)
The Transportation Security Administration's top official yesterday threatened to compel U.S. airlines to cooperate in handing over data about their passengers for a new government computer screening system, which has been widely criticized as violating privacy rights.
James M. Loy, the TSA's administrator, said yesterday that he has the power to issue a security directive, similar to other orders the agency issues to airports and airlines during times of heightened security, to force airlines to hand over passenger information so the government can screen reservation records for possible terrorists.
Loy said he intends to...
Sorry for the interruption
Been busy this past week, and I haven't had a whole lot of time to blog. Plus, really and truly, I haven't had a whole lot to add to the discourse. I really don't care who get's to be California's next governor. The Bush administration is starting to get it in the chops, both in the poll numbers (approval ratings below 50%), in the media, in the Congress (questioning the $87 billion phone bill from Iraq), and even hopefully in the Justice Department (See this little tidbit about Joseph Wilson and his wife , who may or may not be a CIA secret agent and was outed by Bob Novak).
Brad DeLong has been doing a great job this week dealing with currency issues (The administration wants a weaker Dollar policy, see The Weak Dollar Policy and Talking Down the Dollar , and reprints a great Paul Krugman essay that didn't get into his new book, The Great Unraveling. Dr. DeLong knows more about this than I do, has covered everything, an...
Steel thyself, Karl Rove
How many economists said that the steel tariffs were a bad idea? Liberal, conservative, and nonpartisan economists were all saying that the steel tariffs were a bad idea, and everybody knew the tariffs were only to increase his poll numbers. Granted, I'm not a perfect laissez-faire economist. I believe that the government has a place in the market, correcting market failures as they become apparent. But interfering in international trade was a stupid way to do it.
Steel Tariffs Appear to Have Backfired on Bush (washingtonpost.com) :
In a decision largely driven by his political advisers, President Bush set aside his free-trade principles last year and imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel to help out struggling mills in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, two states crucial for his reelection.
Eighteen months later, key administration officials have concluded that Bush's order has turned into a debacle. Some economists say the tariffs may ha...
Pantry Loaders
Power's back. And I didn't need much that I didn't have. Only one thing I did want: A simple AM/FM transistor radio. My VHF ham radios can be used to pick up FM, but they don't do a good job of it, and don't pick up broadcast AM at all. The best news radio here in DC is on AM, and their FM side is hard to pick up here. But we have a half-dozen flashlights, and everything in the fridge and freezer has stayed cold. And tonight for dinner, Chinese long beans stir-fried szechuan style with chicken.
'Pantry-Loaders' Motto: Any Store in a Storm (washingtonpost.com) :
Tamara Stoops started shopping for Hurricane Isabel at 6:10 a.m. Wednesday and over a two-day period stopped at seven stores, buying batteries, flashlights, scissors, a battery-powered radio, a handheld TV, three fire extinguishers, pipes to drain water, nose plugs, eight rolls of duct tape, a first-aid kit, light sticks, kerosene and a large tarp.
She also stocked up ...
They shouldn't have pissed off Max Cleland
He's got an editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution :
[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 9/18/03 ]
Mistakes of Vietnam repeated with Iraq
By MAX CLELAND
The president of the United States decides to go to war against a nation led by a brutal dictator supported by one-party rule. That dictator has made war on his neighbors. The president decides this is a threat to the United States.
In his campaign for president he gives no indication of wanting to go to war. In fact, he decries the overextension of American military might and says other nations must do more. However, unbeknownst to the American public, the president's own Pentagon advisers have already cooked up a plan to go to war. All they are looking for is an excuse.
Based on faulty intelligence, cherry-picked information is fed to Congress and the American people. The president goes on national television to make the case for war, using as part of the...
Isabel in DC
The federal government in the Washington area will be closed on Thursday because of bad weather anticipated afternoon arrival of Hurricane Isabel, the Office of Personnel Management announced this evening.
(snip)
Metro officials also announced that they will close both the subway and bus system at 11 a.m. tomorrow, when winds from Hurricane Isabel are expected to approach 40 mph, taking the unprecedented step out of concern that the gusts would endanger its 1.1 million passengers and blow them off elevated train platforms or lash them at bus stops.
Earlier in the day, Metro had said it would close above-ground stations if the wind got up above 40 mph. Then, they would close the whole system if the wind got up above 40 mph, because of the confusion that having some of the trains run would cause. I think it has more to do with previous weather emergencies.
After the President's Day snowstorm, where the DC area got a good foot and a half of snow, Metro opened...
Smoke Beer?
Have you ever had a smoke beer before? Neither had I, untill last night. Mrs. Datanerd's parents were in town, and we went to Max Blob's Bavarian Biergarten in Jessup, MD, about halfway between DC and Baltimore. It's a huge German beerhall, complete with German food and drink.
Being a novice at German beer, before we went I printed off their beer list from the website and looked up some of the beers on BeerAdvocate . Weihenstephaner Hefe Weisse, Franziskaner Hefe Weisse, and Celebrator Doppelbock were all very tasty choices.
After trying several other beers, I decided to order this one: Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier . Beer Advocate had rated it well. I should have read the entire review. If I had known that this meant Original Schlenkerla Smokebeer, I might have been a little more hesitant. It came out in a brow half-litre bottle. I poured and tasted. Smoky. Yuck! It got passed around the table, some people smelling, some tasting, and...
IMF Mass Arrests Improper
Surprise, surprise, surprise. Well, it only took us a year to find out.
IMF Arrests Improper, Police Found (washingtonpost.com)
An internal police investigation into the roundup of protesters and bystanders at a downtown Washington park last September found that all 400 people were wrongfully arrested.
The internal report, released yesterday by order of a federal judge, also said that a federal police official on the scene had earlier warned D.C. police that the mass arrests would be improper.
The report revealed significant contradictions between what top city officials have said publicly about the controversial Sept. 27, 2002, arrests at Pershing Park and what they knew privately about the tightly held investigative findings.
In a confidential memo to Mayor Anthony A. Williams in March, D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey acknowledged that his assistant chief ordered arrests of everyone in the police-cordoned park -- without giving an orde...
CAPPS II Passenger Screening and Airline Security
This is from The Washington Post, September 8, 2003. I've been holding off on blogging about it until I had some good numbers to work with, and today I was able to coax the Bureau of Transportation Statistics webpage to give me some good data.
The new Transportation Security Administration system seeks to probe deeper into each passenger's identity than is currently possible, comparing personal information against criminal records and intelligence information. Passengers will be assigned a color code -- green, yellow or red -- based in part on their city of departure, destination, traveling companions and date of ticket purchase.
Most people will be coded green and sail through. But up to 8 percent of passengers who board the nation's 26,000 daily flights will be coded "yellow" and will undergo additional screening at the checkpoint, according to people familiar with the program. An estimated 1 to 2 pe...
Paul Krugman interview with Buzzflash
Paul Krugman to BuzzFlash.com
One line in particular concerns me:
Right now, I'm trying to understand what a petroleum industry expert is telling me, when he says that some of the market futures suggest that the market is pricing in about a one-in-three chance that unrest in Iraq spreads to Saudi Arabia. And if that happens, of course, then we're talking about a mammoth disaster.
Is this the result of a constantly jittery commodities market? Or is there a possibility for real that Saudi Arabia may become unstable? Just out of curiosity, how is old King Fahd's health? He's been ailing for years, and I wonder what kind of intermural feuds would start between the princes if he were to pass away. Pure speculation on my part, but this would be a very bad time for this with all of the Islamic extremism going on there right now. We could get a feud between princes, "I'll be tougher on Islam, tougher on America!...
September 11, 2003
I remember the long walk when my office was evacuated. I decamped to a friend's apartment on the hill. Mrs. Datanerd was freaking out, she was on training and couldn't get in touch with me. I left her a message at her library, which she got eventually. My friend and I split a six-pack of Harp, then headed out to meet some other friends for lunch. Steak sandwich, rare, Dewar's, and Camel Lights. And this was after I had quit smoking. We found out the Metro was running again, and so about 3 I headed home. I could smell the kerosene and smoke in the tunnels when the train passed under the Pentagon. And I was so glad when I got home.
From the Philadelphia Daily News (via Atrios): WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANSWERS TO THESE 9/11 QUESTIONS?
From Slate: Bush's Many Miscalculations: On Sept. 11, the president was handed a historic opportunity. He ignored it.
I'm looking forward to Chalmers Johnson's new book
These days, he isn't writing about East Asia as much as the consequences of U.S. foreign policy, first in Blowback:The Costs and Consequences of American Empire , and the soon to be released The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. . This has the look of a excerpt from the new book. And it gives me pause. Because he looks at history, and asks "What do we do after we've thrown the current crop of bastards out?"
The Scourge of Militarism: Rome and America
The collapse of the Roman republic in 27 BC has significance today for the United States, which took many of its key political principles from its ancient predecessor. Separation of powers, checks and balances, government in accordance with constitutional law, a toleration of slavery, fixed terms in office, all these ideas were influenced by Roman precedents. John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams often read the great...
Disappointing, but unsurprising
Ala. Voters Reject Tax Increase
Alabama's conservative Republican governor yesterday met resounding defeat in his highly publicized crusade for a $1.2 billion tax increase -- eight times the biggest previous increase in state history -- to resolve an unprecedented fiscal crisis, shift the tax burden from poor to rich and improve public schools funded at the nation's lowest level per child.
With 94 percent of precincts reporting, Alabama voters were rejecting Gov. Bob Riley's ambitious package 67 percent to 33 percent, consistent with recent polls that had shown it likely to fail by 20 or more percentage points, even among low-income people who stood to receive large tax cuts.
It's a shame that poor Alabamians have been lied to by Republicans for so many years, that when one actually tries to help them they shoot him down too.
Riley, who was elected in November, said closing Alabama's $675 million deficit primarily with bu...
Aggravating, but unsurprising
Texas Governor Orders Session
AUSTIN, Sept. 9 -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry today declared an extraordinary third session of the legislature to consider congressional redistricting as 10 Democratic state senators headed home from New Mexico, where they had been holed up in an attempt to block the GOP plan.
The Republicans are breaking the seal of something that should never be opened. Someone else said they were acting like they thought they would have the majority forever. But when they lose it, well, paybacks are a bitch.
A corrollary: When Democrats get the majority back, do we give it to them three times as hard as they gave it to us? Or do we take the more statesmanlike approach and try to restore the collegial environment that existed before they took the majority? And don't give me any guff about how Democrats were just as bad when they were in the majority; they never tried to redistrict like this and they never started changing the ...
Jobs down in August
When was the last time we had even one month of growth in employment according to the payroll survey? I cannot get to the Bureau of Labor Statistics webpage to check this. 600,000 jobs lost since January, 93,000 in August alone.
Washington Post, September 6, 2003: Payroll Jobs Down in August
The continued job losses have caused some analysts to begin to worry that if employment does not increase substantially in coming months, the recovery might begin to weaken again in 2004.
"The jobs report is just awful," said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services in Boston. "Businesses across the board are figuring out ways to do more with fewer people. Practically every sector of the economy got rid of jobs in August."
If growth in the coming months "isn't enough to get any net hiring, the risks rise that the stimulus from the tax cuts and defense spending could produce a one-time boost that will fizzle out ...
Some explanation of the "Job-Loss Recovery"
This article has seen some exposure in the Washington Post and Brad Delong's blog , so I'm only putting it out there for folks who haven't already read it there. Groshen and Potter propose that the reason the economy still is shedding jobs, rather than gaining them back, is due to a change in employment patterns in this country. This structural change is from industries where people would get laid off in lean times, rehired in good times, such as heavy industry, automobiles, and durable goods, to services and light industry, where a job lost is a job lost for good. It's quicker to recall laid-off workers than it is to hire new people, and much quicker than creating new jobs.
Has Structural Change Contributed to a Jobless Recovery?
Let's not run the numbers Part I
I think this is going to become a recurring feature on here, people who say "Don't look at the numbers." This episodes winner is our only president, Dubya:
Washington Post, September 6, 2003.
Bush, who gave an interview to CNBC on Thursday as part of an initiative to talk about the economy, told the business channel that "these tax stimulations that we put out there" had "not only created more consumer confidence, but it's created demand, additional demand, and that's very positive."
" Rather than in quantifying numbers, all I want to do is create conditions necessary so that all eligible people can find work ," said Bush, the first president with a master's degree in business administration. "I'm optimistic that that'll happen. I'm much more optimistic today than I was a year ago."[emphasis mine]
Yes, pay no attention to the awful jobs numbers coming out of...
The Commercialization of America is Now Complete
Tom Shales puts it best:
American bad taste is the most powerful bad taste in the world. That seems to be what was really being celebrated on the Mall last night at an excruciating 55-minute rock concert ostensibly convened to herald the new pro football season and televised live on the struggling ABC network.
The event was deemed so auspicious that George W. Bush took yet more time off from fighting the war on terrorism to appear, via videotape, at the end of the concert and just before the game, in the manner of a TV huckster. He tried to make some connection between football and "the spirit that guides the brave men and women" of the military, much as the concert had done.
He also said pro football "celebrates the values that make our country so strong." Like what, violence and greed?
Then, in intense close-up, the leader of the Free World asked the trademarked rhetorical question, "Are you read...