More than One Way to Skin a Recovery

Just as there is more than one way to skin a cat (apologies to all you animal lovers out there), there are plenty of ways to disembowel arguments that we are witnessing the unfolding of U.S. economic recovery. Today's evisceration comes to us courtesy of the Zero Hedge blog, with a post entitled "TrimTabs Continues Throwing Sand In The Eyes Of Fake Economic Data":

Recently there has been a notable media campaign claiming released economic data is either wrong or outright manipulated. Not in China mind you, but here in the U.S. The latest to jump on the bandwagon for economic data correctness is TrimTabs, which released this zinger earlier:

TrimTabs Investment Research estimates that the U.S. economy lost 488,000 jobs in July, considerably more than the consensus estimate of a loss of 305,000 jobs. In addition, TrimTabs expects the Bureau of Labor Statistics to revise its job loss estimates sharply higher for the first half of 2009 based on the latest unemployment insurance survey results.

“While Wall Street is convinced the recession is over, the economy continues to shed jobs at an alarming rate,” said Charles Biderman, CEO of TrimTabs.

TrimTabs’ employment estimates are based on analysis of daily income tax deposits to the U.S. Treasury from all salaried U.S. employees. Historically, TrimTabs’ employment estimates have been more accurate than those of the BLS.

At least someone is using actual data to derive non-propaganda conclusions. TrimTabs continues:

“The personal income report the Bureau of Economic Analysis released Tuesday contained huge downward revisions to wage and salary growth,” said Biderman. “Now that the BEA is using unemployment insurance reports from the first quarter to estimate current wage and salary growth, its data confirms what we have been reporting for months.”

The BEA’s estimates of wages and salary growth changed from year-over-year declines of 0.8% in April and 1.1% in May to year-over-year declines of 4.0% in April and 4.2% in May. Also, the BEA reported that wages and salaries dropped even more sharply in June, falling 4.7% year-over-year.

“Two months ago, we asked BEA economists how they reconciled the huge declines in real-time tax deposits with their report of a modest decline in wages and salaries,” said Biderman. “They could not answer our question. We know now that by ignoring real-time data, the BEA was providing an inaccurate view of the economy’s health.”

While Zero Hedge has been wondering vocally for months why there was never an 8-K released indicating that the second (through fifth)-lien lender formerly known as General Electric had acquired the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, it is about time that some other much more legitimate media outlets than Zero Intelligence started asking the same question.

Comments

[rb]

Did you mean to call them Zero Intelligence at the end of the post?

[Michael Panzner]

I believe "Zero Intelligence" is the sarcastic epithet that some mainstream broadcasters have used to describe the Zero Hedge blog. The writer of ZH thinks it's funny (and so do I)...

[Morocco Bama]

Why no 8-K? Why bother when the SEC is in your hip pocket. What a worthless, and hopelessly corrupt organization that is, founded, as it was, by a mafia bootlegger and Wall Street Insider, Joseph Kennedy. Talk about putting the foxes in charge of the hen houses.

Hey, but they put Martha Stewart behind bars. There's justice for you. Meanwhile, the elephant's still in the dining room and the precious china (no pun intended) is beginning to crumble.

[david]

Unemployment cannot be hidden by statistics.