Monday, September 23, 2013

Hey Rocky, Watch While I Pull A Jobs Number Out Of My Hat!

You might not be able to tell it from the Democrats right now, but 2014 is an election year.

But Scott Walker sure as heck knows it.  And he's scared.  He's got nothing to run on.

Taxes? They went up.

Poverty? That went up.

Corruption? That went up so much it blew the roof off the place.

Jobs? That's about the only thing that didn't go up.

So what is Walker to do?

Well, he's going to do what comes naturally for him.  He's just going to make things up and lie about it:
Now, with Walker's next election a little more than a year away, and the latest census job numbers due out later this week, Walker is highlighting a different metric.

“Rankings that come out are typically based on quarterly numbers that come out from [the Bureau of Labor Statistics], which are a six-month lag,” he says. “What we're trying to look at is not six months ago … but where are we going to be in the next six months.”

Walker is talking about the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's Leading Index, a complex prediction of where state economies are headed based on several factors, including housing permits, interests rates, and hours worked in manufacturing.

Marquette University's Charles Franklin says it's telling that Walker is moving away from a hard job count that's easy to understand to a much more complicated estimate that's hard to explain. “Politicians are not economists,” he says. “What politicians care about is the perception of how the economy is doing rather than the best or most reliable measure.”
It's interesting that he's trying to seize on a momentary blip on the Philadelphia Federal Reserve's Leading Index. As Jake at his Economic TA's Funhouse points out, that's not even a very cheery picture when looked at in the big picture.

Sadly, we won't be able to count on the corporate media to hold him accountable as he pulls these random numbers out of thin air.  However, something tells me that despite the regurgitated talking points that the media will present as news, this is still going to come back to bite Walker in the ass.

1 comment:

  1. More like " Hey Rocky watch me pull the job Numbers out of my ASS."

    ReplyDelete