Statistical Propaganda?

SnowJob: Revising the Non-Farm Payrolls Report
 
It appears as though the concerns expressed by the Administration about the snow storms and their impact on lost employment was overdone, if not misplaced.

The market is pleasantly surprised with this -36,000 jobs number, since the expectations had been calibrated lower so effectively.

In fairness to the Obama Administration, they are only doing what Bush II, Clinton, and Bush I* had been doing right along with almost every statistic that they have issued.

It's called 'perception management.' Greece used one method of accounting management in shaping the numbers, and the US uses its own approach to what is essentially a similar problem.

Propaganda proceeds by psychological manipulations,
character modifications, and the creation of stereotypes
useful when the time comes.

The two great routes that propaganda takes
 are the conditioned reflex and the myth.

Jacques Ellul

…perhaps the US economy and its monetary system are an increasingly untenable Ponzi scheme, the mother of frauds.

Mr. John Williams of ShadowStats, the must read site for commentary on US government statistics, had this say this morning about Non-Farm Payrolls:

"With an unchanged unemployment rate and a near-consensus payroll number reported this morning (March 5th) by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), I certainly misread the nature of Larry Summers’ employment comments…Historically, at least with earlier administrations, it has been unusual for individuals in positions such as Mr. Summers’ to offer comments on employment in the week before a pending release, without having a specific political or market-related purpose.

Distortions to economic reporting — in seasonal factors and in other methodologies not designed to handle a protracted and severe economic downturn — appear to be continuing."

I think that Larry Summers did have a definite agenda in his remarks, and said so.

…There are no accidents in politics.

Jesses’ Crossroads Cafe