02-09-2010, 12:56 AM
Quote:Vague!!!Yes, vague. A small adjustment in the unemployment rate, which was corrected months later by the very same Bureau - this is the horror? This is the fraud? This is what makes you unable to trust the government because it's just lying to you to lull you to sleep? This is a statistical error, caused by the difference between survey results and modelling, and the eventual full data. Sucks that it was lower, but this makes no sense as a conspiracy.
Quote:What do you call it when a company falsifies their income reports to make themselves appear more favorably to the markets?The idea is what, that the government needs to raise money? They can already borrow at absurdly good rates. Investors are scared, and would dearly love to buy more safe, gentle US government bonds.
Quote:They only need to cheat, and in a particular direction when it suits their purposes.Okay. What purpose did it serve? And why did they re-adjust the numbers? If they needed a temporary boost that they could pay for later, then fine, but there was nothing they needed the boost for - no election, no nothing. This doesn't make sense. There's no reason to commit fraud if you're just going to admit to it right afterwards, for no gain.
Quote:Also, by my figures ~800,000 / 6,800,000 is about 12% error.If you're going to join in the nitpicking, you might want to nitpick something other than me quoting you quoting the article you cited.
From your own link, it's the difference between 4.8 million jobs lost and 5.6 million. That's a difference of 800,000 jobs over a denominator of 4.8 million (not 6.8 - where's that from?) for a total of 17%, rounded up. The whole calculation is worthless, as far as I'm concerned, but we might as well do our arithmetic right.
-Jester