"If you're thinking of studying computer science in college, don't waste your time." LOL, this guy sounds more cynical than our very own FR! It may surprise this fellow, but there are people out there that actually enjoy thinking all the time, and it's not about getting the best-paying job possible.
You sound like a fellow tech, maybe even a (former?) programmer. Do you agree with this guy that we're just going to stop innovating?
M. Ramsey King Securities, Inc. Monday Aug. 16, 2004 – Issue 2974
"Independent View of the News"
While we were away the employment report was highly disappointing for the precise reason that we warned. The CES Business Birth/Death Rate was due to deduct jobs for July (-83k in ’03), and given the 182k jobs it manufactured for June, the July number would be down at least 265k jobs. The actual B/D rate for July was -93k…Economists that forecast a higher number based on 4 to 5-years ago and 30-years ago data do NOT understand their milieu. Today’s employment numbers cannot be compared to numbers from different years because they are compiled and tabulated differently.
There was no B/D Rate prior to a couple years ago. It was the ‘plug’ or ‘bias’ rate. And that did not start until 1985. Furthermore, the survey and its sampling have repeatedly been changed or altered. A year ago the BLS commenced altering seasonal adjustments each month. The previous few years, the seasonal adjustments were changed semiannually. And before that the seasonal adjustments were altered annually.
There are an inordinate number of economists and forecasters that don’t know or understand how certain economic data is compiled, calibrated or calculated; and they don’t know the methodology. Yet brokerage firms pay them princely sums for their wisdom that is based on faulty data, which is in violation of the ‘scientific process’ that is learned in most high schools.
As dawn follows night, permabulls immediately upon release of the grossly disappointing non-farm jobs number bellowed that the Household Survey is the better indicator of US economic strength. Of course they have not been reading our missives or they would’ve learned not only does the Fed and other bean counters adhere to the CES due to its superior surveying sample and means, but the Household Survey counts jobs that don’t exist and paychecks that don’t exist. Several times this past year we have included verbatim BLS verbiage that lists the numerous non-paycheck earning jobs that the BLS includes as a ‘job’ in the Household Survey.
If you lose your high-paying financial industry job and then become a day trader or hedge fund manager or consultant or web site operator or professional gambler or ‘talent’ scout, you are employed as far as the Household Survey is concerned, whether you have earnings or not. And if your spouse takes a job selling real estate or also becomes a consultant, your household now has produced a net 1 new job (2 new jobs minus your job loss). And if a formerly unemployed household member becomes your assistant or helper, your job loss has produced two new net jobs as far as the Household Survey is concerned.
For those that have not paid attention or are new to our report or are insufferable permabulls, we will once again cite the BLS verbatim from the "Employment Situation Explanatory Note" to its monthly employment report as to the questionable employment it counts as jobs.
"Household survey. The sample is selected to reflect the entire civilian noninstitutional population. Based on responses to a series of questions on work and job search activities, each person 16 years and over in a sample household is classified as employed, unemployed, or not in the labor force.
People are classified as employed if they did any work at all as paid employees during the reference week; worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm; or worked without pay at least 15 hours in a family business or farm. People are also counted as employed if they were temporarily absent from their jobs because of illness, bad weather, vacation, labor-management disputes, or personal reasons.
Differences in employment estimates. The numerous conceptual and methodological differences between the household and establishment surveys result in important distinctions in the employment estimates derived from the surveys. Among these are:
--The household survey includes agricultural workers, the self-employed, unpaid family workers, and private household workers among the employed. These groups are excluded from the establishment survey.
--The household survey includes people on unpaid leave among the employed. The establishment survey does not.
The final arbiter of US jobs, IRS data, has shown little of no job growth the past few years, which contradicts the Household Survey.
You can ‘DK’ the ISM employment opinion surveys; they don’t include firms that have gone tapioca…PS - the household survey is subject to lying about one’s predicament – few people like telling strangers that they are indigent or unemployed. And there is the quality of jobs issue – as low paying gigs proliferate.
Remember the Atlanta example we mentioned in the spring? BLS said Atlanta had 84k new jobs in 2003, but the state later discovered that it had lost 65k jobs because the BLS did NOT sample closed firms.
California has discovered it has a big drop in jobs for July. San Francisco Chronicle: "California lost 17,300 payroll jobs in July, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday, an unexpected drop that overshadowed a slight dip to 6.1 percent in the state's unemployment rate." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/08/14/MNG51886891.DTL
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