A Most Interesting Unemployment Claims Report; The Rise In First Time Claims Double What Analysts Forecast

Read the story at the link very closely. See if you can see what seems very, very strange.

Remember, this is an administration that is thinking politics 100% of the time. This is an administration that would allow the IRS to target a political party. There is a mid-term election just a few months from now. With those hints, did you see what seems to be very, very strange?

Reuters is reporting:

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, but the underlying trend continued to point to some strength in the labor market. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 326,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

Claims for the week ended March 22 were revised to show 1,000 fewer applications received than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast first-time applications for jobless benefits rising to 317,000 in the week ended March 29. 

First the spin: the story does not point out how badly this new number was. The analysts had expected a rise of only 7,000 -- which is pretty bad in itself considering the time of the year and considering where we are in the economic recovery. 

A rise of 16,000 is/was more than double the expected 7,000.

More spin, despite the four-week average getting worse, Reuters interprets the number differently than I would have:

The four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of underlying labor market conditions as it irons out week-to-week volatility, nudged up 250 to 319,500. This indicates a firmer bias in the labor market. 

If one assumes the administration has known for quite some time that unemployment numbers through 2014, an election year, would be bad, one can only assume an administration that sics the IRS on a political party would also massage the unemployment numbers if they could.

Did you see the interesting data point in the article alluded to earlier? Another hint: depending on how you count paragraphs, it's in the sixth paragraph.

Okay, here it is:

The government made revisions to the model it uses to smooth the claims data for seasonal fluctuations. It also revised claims data going back to 2009.

Do you think this administration would change the model to actually make things look worse than they are? LOL.

I assume that's why the four-week average only "nudged up" despite the most recent initial unemployment claims came in twice as much as expected.

[By the way, the four-week average does not make sense. Going back to the original Bloomberg source last week, the four week average was 317,750. I reported last week:

March 27, 2014: claims drop by an astounding 11,000, unexpected. Now down to 311,000; analysts expected 323,000. Four-week average is 317,750, the lowest since September 28, 2013.

Today the government says the four-week average nudged up 250 to 319,500. If the "250" is correct, then the massaging of the numbers affected last week's four-week average. In fact, jump from 317,750 to 319,500 is 1,750, a bit more than a nudge.]

Disclaimer: I often make simple arithmetic errors. The sources are linked if one is interested in checking the data.

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An Inconvenient Truth

ClimateDepot is reporting:

Green guru and geophysicist James Lovelock, considered one of the pioneering scientists of the 20th century, has officially turned his back on man-made global warming claims and the green movement’s focus on renewable energy. Lovelock conceived the Gaia theory back in the 1970s, describing the Earth’s biosphere as “an active, adaptive control system able to maintain the earth in homeostasis.”

In an April 3, 2014 BBC TV interview, Lovelock has come out swinging at his fellow environmentalists, accusing the new UN IPCC global warming report of plagiarizing his now retracted climate claims from his 2006 book The Revenge of Gaia.

"The last IPCC report is very similar to the (now retracted) statements I made in my book about 8 years ago, called The Revenge of Gaia. It's almost as if they've copied it," Lovelock told BBC Newsnight television program on April 3. 

BBC interviewer Jeremy Paxman noted to Lovelock during the April 3 program:  ”Sure. But you then, after publishing these apocalyptic predictions, you then retracted them.”

The newly skeptical Lovelock responded: ”Well, that’s my privilege. You see, I’m an independent scientist. I’m not funded by some government department or commercial body or anything like that. If I make a mistake, then I can go public with it. And you have to, because it is only by making mistakes that you can move ahead.”