Michael Perelman:
> I don't think that there is a contradiction between Doug and
> Lou. There are criticism's about the method of calculating unemployment -- the
> discouraged workers being excluded.
The BLS currently calculates an unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers. In fact, I cited it in my previous missive on this subject.
> But such matters are
> transparent, not
> the result of skulduggery.
Even if the estimates are totally wrong, there is no way that the BLS could hide the rise of unemployment. Unless, that is, they changed the definition of unemployment. This is something the Thatcherites did again and again, but in the US, it's only been done once: the Reaganauts decided that domestically-stationed U.S. military personnel should be counted as "employed" to lower the unemployment rate. This didn't have much effect and the attempt was eventually abandoned. This doesn't say that it won't be tried again, though.
I guess an alternative method would be to tell the BLS samplers to be sloppy. But if that happened, it would come out pretty quickly. It's not like corporate finance, where it's easy to fudge if one has a captive board of directors and auditors.
JD
