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Did the White House leak Friday's employment report? Obama has before.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs set the rumor mills a-grinding with a statement earlier today that may be a preemptive strike against any surprise "uptick" in unemployment.
WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The White House has seen evidence that the U.S. November unemployment rate might creep upward from October's level of 10.2 percent, spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Thursday.
Gibbs told reporters that he did not know what the November payrolls data, to be released on Friday, would show.
But citing a recent data signal on payroll perfomance, he said that the White House would not be surprised if it rose from the previous month's 10.2 percent reading.
"One payroll estimate came out ... yesterday and it seemed to suggest that it might tick upward," Gibbs told reporters.
"What we have always said, we're going to have to get to a level of continuing to make progress in seeing a decrease in the number of those who are unemployed each month, in order to see either stability in the jobless rate, or have to have that jobless rate tick down," Gibbs said.
Dial back a few months and recall the August NFP headline figure of -247K...remember the one Goldman so presciently nailed the day prior, lowballing the consensus? As this NY Post article, explains, it was confirmed by none other than the POTUS later that night:
First, President Obama tipped the world off to the Friday number well ahead of time.
Speaking Thursday night at a campaign rally in Tysons Corner, Va., Obama pleaded his case that we've turned the corner economically -- despite a record number of people on food stamps and no slowdown in home foreclosures -- with these words: "I'm convinced that actions we've taken in the first six months have helped stop our economic freefall. . . . We're losing jobs at half the rate we were at the beginning of the year."
But the president appears to have helped people who weren't in that crowd break the laws against insider trading.
The White House and the Treasury Department get the jobs report one hour after the financial markets close on Thursday. But the rules are that these numbers are confidential, and they are supposed to stay secret for a reason. Since investors are trying to make a profit by trading securities at any time somewhere in the world, having knowledge of this very important economic statistic could be used for vast personal profit.
The 247,000 jobs that were later reported to have disappeared in July were, indeed, less than half the number being lost earlier this year -- at least in the official Labor Department tally. But job losses during June were 467,000, which was more than half the amount lost earlier in the year.
So the president had to be referring to the new (and supposedly secret) July report and not the one for June.
Okay, so Gibbs denies knowing the contents of the NFP report and, according to the NY Post article, the White House should not yet have that data until after the close today. However, given that the primary mathematical tool of government econometricians is linear regression, it wouldn't take more than a ruler and a pencil for them to project an "uptick" in unemployment.
Fortunately, the exodus from long term Treasuries over the last two days has stymied any dent to risk assets, and the global markets seem poised to run up equities in a consumer driven economy where approximately one in five people no longer work. No need for panic until next Wednesday's 10 year auction.
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Legalizing cannabis would be better for the economy. This could also be a whole new industry. And everyone would be a lot happier because its 13 degrees in New England.
What surprise?
Next thing they do is convicting Fibozachi for insider trading (Re: "It's 3:27 pm ... SELL !!!").
Gibbs knows, they all know.
Wow insider trading, I'm so surprised /sarcasm
The markets are rigged, I'm sure that surprises no one here. Like all casinos it's in the houses favor.
And as to the job numbers, of course there is going to be an uptick on unemployment. Water is still wet right? As long as the polices we have stay in place unemployment will continue to rise, that's the trend. Ok caveat on that I would expect unemployment to eventually drop off, say in the north of U6 25% range, after all we have a lot of tax leeches that will be employed right?
Benny almost leaked the number during his testimony today but he caught himself
here's the clip (might take a while to load - seem to be problems with their site)
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/ID/216306&start=4050&end=4148
Nothing like coming out a day before the employment report to state you are trying to make things better.
That's not ominous.
I find this all sadly comical. Its also important to note the differences between the household survey and the payroll survey
Leak is obvious. S&P going sub 1080 tomorrow. Huge gap down setting up.
Leak is obvious. S&P going sub 1080 tomorrow. Huge gap down setting up.
The leak is obvious. S&P going sub 1080 tomorrow.
S&P falling at end of day. Did the insiders on Wall Street also get a peek at tomorrow's report?
The country will be much better once it's officially broke. Then there'll be no reason to lie.
You can always tell when the masters of the universe are feeling their oats. They don't even try to cover up the manipulation. It's all one big in your face f**k you. Basically they're acting like the school yard bully right after you just told him to cut it out.
His response? "Make me." Raw power, exercised in the most basic manner. There it is, on the table. What are we going to do about it?
From the White House Press Office -- Press Release: Administration set to unveil its targeted policy to remedy unemployment: Legalizing Cannabalism
A modest proposal if ever there was one.
There is gonna be one
For a minute there I thought it was leaglizing Cannabis - put the unemployed on every street corner selling " lids , lids , got lids?" . Sorry that dates me some .
Legalizing cannabis would actaully have some interesting effects on employment levels. Making it legal would probably actually cause more job losses, in the black market, as dealers whose jobs are unreported lose their income streams as consumers move to higher grade marijuana and grow themselves. However, the social benefits of not misallocating taxpayer resources to pursue and lock up non-violent drug offenders would be somewhat offsetting.
At least people would feel better. Pot prohibition should be ended. It's ridiculous.
Agreed. Legalize it and tax it. I'll volunteer to be the pot czar. <raises hand>
I think we should legalize pot but only for government office holders, this would keep them slow, fat and smiling and totally unable to do anything.
Then we legalize cocaine for everyone else and watch productivity skyrocket ;)
>this would keep them slow, fat and smiling and totally unable to do anything.<
They're already slow (to think), fat (at the taxpayer's expense) and smiling (all the all the way to the bank) and totally unable to do anything (like run the gov't per the Constitution?)
I agree. But Weed is just so damn easy to grow because it's a weed from a seed. Tobacco and booze are more complicated homegrow operations. Lots of quality issues.
I'm sure the gubmint masters worry more about losing a signifigant piece of a tax pie they get no taste from anyway. That's how they think.
> any surprise "uptick" in unemployment
Did you mean:
> any "surprise" "uptick" in unemployment
If BS were green, Gibbs would be an 18 hole golf course. Of course they know the figures at this point, its the White House for God's sake. Given the endemic corruption in Washington, would anyone there actually consider it beyond the pale for a White House operative to pressure some statistician into coughing up the data? To vermin like these, this kind of presumption is standard issue.
The Ends justifies the Means