With A Straight Face, US Government "Finds" Number Of Retiring 20-24 Year-Olds Has Doubled
Earlier today we reported that when it comes to one of the most important data series that feed directly into the US GDP calculation, namely construction spending, the US government admitted it had literally made up numbers for the past 10 years. The phrase used was "processing error":
In the November 2015 press release, monthly and annual estimates for private residential, total private, total residential and total construction spending for January 2005 through October 2015 have been revised to correct a processing error in the tabulation of data on private residential improvement spending.
A processing error that lasted for 10 years? And one which, mysteriously, ended up boosting both the construction spending "data" in 2015 and, as a result, the GDP?
Odd coincidence, that.
But nothing compares to the latest farce released recently by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the same guys whom we caught fabricating jobs data back in September 2013.
As everyone knows, one of the biggest question marks surrounding the US labor market is the 95 million of Americans not in the labor force, resulting in the lowest labor force participation rate since the mid-1970s.
The answer to this question is critical because it would explain why despite "5% unemployment", wages in the US stubbornly refuse to rise 7 years after the recession "ended" even as a record number of Americans aged 55 and over have jobs (mostly of the low-paying variety).
Of course, the logical explanation is that due to various generous welfare state support nets, due to "disability" and due to $1.3 trillion in student loans, tens of millions of Americans of all ages have found other options: whether to stay in school for decades, to collect various forms of welfare, or simply because millions have given up trying to find a job since the labor market is not anywhere nearly as strong as the government would like to make it appear (especially after a few hundred thousands US workers lose their jobs after the $5 trillion in global M&A "synergies" hits in 2016), and have dropped out of the labor force entirely.
But, in these trying times, logic does not make sense. So a few months ago, the Atlanta Fed tried to answer this question. Its answer: the labor force is plunging because people simply "don't want a job." No really:
The decrease in labor force participation among prime-age individuals has been driven mostly by the share who say they currently don't want a job. As of December 2014, prime-age labor force participation was 2.4 percentage points below its prerecession average. Of that, 0.5 percentage point is accounted for by a higher share who indicate they currently want a job; 2 percentage points can be attributed to a higher share who say they currently don't want a job.
That "explanation" did not fly with the goalseeking statisticians manning the Arima-X-12 seasonal adjustment vacuum tubes at the BLS, so, as Bloomberg reports, in a new Bureau of Labor Statistics report, these same career economists tired to provide fresh answers to this critical question.
And here we cross in the twilight zone, because while fabricating numbers is one thing, engaging in absolute lunacy as a form of scientific inquiry is a bridge we did not think even the BLS would dare cross. we were wrong.
Here's Bloomberg's summary of what the bureau found, broadly: Thirty-five percent of the U.S. population wasn't in the labor force in 2014, up from 31.3 percent a decade earlier. (You're considered out of the workforce if you don't have a job and aren't looking for one. That's distinct from the official unemployment rate, which tracks those out of work who are actively job hunting.)
Drilling down into the numbers reveals more about the shifts in the reasons some people forego a paycheck. In all age groups, for instance, more people cited retirement as the reason for being out of the labor force, and it wasn't just older people.
So far so good: who knows if this is true or not, but since it is a "scientific" study it probably can be replicated. Unfortunately, not in this case, because here was the punchline:
For Americans between the ages of 20 and 24, the share of those sidelined over the past decade because they were in school increased, unsurprisingly, during the decade that included the Great Recession. What's more unusual is that the share of 20- to 24-year-olds who say they're retired doubled from 2004 to 2014.
At this point we stopped reading for one simple reason: the fact that a "scientific" study can "find" that the number of 20-24 who have retired has doubled, shows that those conducting said experiment were simply said lunatics who had set up their experiment and null hypothesis incorrectly, had asked all the wrong questions, and worst of all, given themselves a "sanity check" and passed with flying colors despite something as glaring as this "finding."
What is most troubling is that these are the same economists in charge of "creating" seasonally adjusted, statistically relevant and completely fabricated job number which drive the market month after month. And then, when the bottom falls out of the economy, these same people will at their data and, like with the construction spending numbers, admit it was all a fraud.
And sadly, this takes place every cycle: goalseeked, smoothed garbage data on the way up, then once the bullshit overflows and reality can no longer mask the underlying lies, everything falls apart, and back to square one we go.
We can only hope that we are much closer to the end of this particular cycle, of both business and epic stupidity, one in which waiters, bartenders, and minimum-wage salespeople, or rather figments of a statistician's imagination, are the forefront of the so-called US "recovery."
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I don't blame them. If my parents had been rich I bet I'd be a duchebag too.
perhaps you could learn to spell "douchebag" also...
If his parents are rich it doesn't matter how he spells doughbag.
Doosh-bag
channeling stocks dot com!
See, what you do is you buy low, & you sell high (the same stock, over & over). As long as 'Grandma 'Douche Bag Boy haircut' keeps printing the paper sheckels to keep u alive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUpidCc7wwY
I'm jealous of the 20-24s who are already retired.
If I had to do my early 20s all over again I would have quit my dead end retail job and just backpacked around the country or possibly the world.
Instead I bought into the illusion of picking up extra hours or extra shifts at work so I could have a couple extra dollars to buy some trinket at a mall I didn't really need.
I look back at the disgusting customers I had to deal with, incompetent managers, arbitrary company policies that were selectively enforced, a revolving door of new co-workers who didn't give a crap, just complete madness that I foolishly went along with. I chased the BS American Dream because my family did it, my neighbors did, and peers did it.
If you are in your 20s, please by all means "retire". When you get to be in your early 50s, your joints don't work as good as they used to and you constantly have aches and pains. Be active now because it goes down hill after 30.
The "real" Tyler Durden sums it up nicely
https://youtu.be/CWRTqMGvdpc
I read all of the horrors of radical Islam, or Fascism, or communism, or any other flavor of totalitarianism on here constantly. There is one evil that is seldom mentioned on here and that is something called a job. The minute you punch that time clock you are in bondage to the whims of a soulless corporation. Bob Black's "Abolition of Work" sums up the evils of the corporate world succinctly.
My hope for the future are that all tasks are automated, we have 100% unemployment as employment is abolished, basic income for all, and entrepreneur innovators who develop new systems are rewarded handsomely. I advocate a resource based economy with a libertarian market based slant for innovators.
As one who had a wife and kid at age 19 (and another 'oops baby' ten years later)...I have to agree with The9thDoctor. The shit I had to endure is way too much for your generation.
Honest to God, Doctor, that is the best post I have read ever on ZeroHedge.
agree with your sentiment that it's good to take some time when you are young and free to travel and see the world, even at the expense of work and money.
however, to say that a job is "evil" is absurd and ignorant. providing goods and services for others gives one a sense of accomplishment and self-respect, as well as respect from others.
if you want to sit around in your underwear and not do anything, you have that right of course, just don't expect that others will produce things with their labor for you.
the things you buy - food, car, housing, etc, don't magically materialize out of nowhere. they are produced by other human beings who should properly be compensated for their efforts.
everyone already has a "basic income", it is $0. if you want anything more than that, make an effort and do something useful.
Such a future will be more Soylent Green than gentle retirement.
Or Logan's Run.
If I could redo things, I'd forget college for sure (as everything we were taught in Finance at the time turned out to be completely wrong and stupid, as proven by LTCM). Instead of college, I'd have learned to cook meth or grow weed, pocket $1M, and move to Vietnam...sadly I chose the chump route. Correcting that now by learning to cook meth.
All Commies want a basic income for all.
If you don't take care of your joints, sure they won't work at 50. Not everyone is doomed to go downhill after 30. And if you don't believe you can abandon society and backpack around the world at 50 then you're a fool who still believes in the American Dream BS. I'd encourage you to sell everything you own and seek the nearest exit while you still can. Maybe pick up some healthy habits to reverse the damage to your body.
The9thDoctor - I assume you missed out on the mid to late 60s and early 70s because what you describe was exactly the philosophy then.
Daesh-bag?
Dewshbagh
Dewsteinberg-bag
Jew-shbag
Dooshi-bag
My favorite: DÜSH BAG
Choke those kind of comments are for facebook or reddit.... Take your high moral self righteous ass and fuck your self who care's how the message is devlivered we care about the message so fuck off!!!
Logic, reasoning, coherentness do not matter...it's the opinion we value.
[I'm not even going to include a /sarc here.]
If'n ya gots dat kinnaa mooney, youse dont knead 2 spel dukebag! You dukebag!
FROWIERD SLOVETSKI!
Are you inviting everyone to take a swing at your low-hanging comment? It's awfully tempting but you made it WAY too easy and that sucks all the challenge out of it.
We retired some folks......
We put some folks on the farm.
I think I just became disabled and will now retire waaay before my "life expectancy" is over, print moar you cocksuckers.
Into the abyss we go.
Toooo-gether ;-)
+1
Well, its always good to have company ;-)
Cheers ;-)
The Queens Speech 2015. MUST WATCH! The Real Unedited Version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDO1JfZ3aRI (5:45)
Published on Dec 26, 2015
This is the version filmed the day before christmas that the Royals and the BBC did not want you to see.This recording was scrapped due to the Queens revealing comments
oi vey!
goes hand in hand with these swindlers.
http://s43.photobucket.com/user/tlthe5th/media/catholic/gal.jpg.html
https://patriotnewstwo.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/bush_bow.jpg
Ha ha, you made me look. You are such a punk, Goldilocks. It's time for you to mature beyond the Onion. Until then you should stay off this site lest you be just an unwitting troll.
About twenty years ago my dad retired and started receiving Social Security (and other pensions). After one month he came to say he was the best retiree ever because he already got a raise.
Didn't tell him I got a $10,000 raise in one day, didn't want to spoil his fun.
Not surprising - I'm sure the very very wealthy 20-24 somethings that invented and sold, or held on for IPOs in the past 5 years vs 10+ years ago is at least double. Probably 5 x as many who have the wealth to "retire". And go and invent the next big thing. Some may have to reenter the work force down the road and unretire, but I know quite a few "kids" who have retired since 2010 that are under 30.
when is Justin Bieber gonna retire?
One could only pray that a wayward bus would do the job for us...
I guess if the bus stops, backs up and rolls over him again he'll be retired
You wouldn't believe what skin looks like after a couple sets of semi duellies have gone over it.
due to $1.3 trillion in student loans ... working in the black market, growing pot, geeze these guys are dumb ...
"We can only hope that we are much closer to the end of this particular cycle, of both business and epic stupidity"
That's what I asked Santa for this year. Please, can we be done with this bullshit already. I love The Twilight Zone but living in it, what a mindfuck!
To Serve Man. great episode.
I must be the only one who does not want the current system to end. Sorry, but I've learned enough about what's going on that I want as long a timeline as possible to make my moves prior to the mother of all hangovers.
Give me another year, please Mr. Yellen, please oh please.
the trend motion of stupidity is more a parabola than a circle
I am related to one young kid that is probably the only one in that age group that I have met who has any chance of holding on to money. He is quite penny pinching and niggardly (yes! I finally was able to use that word in a sentence).
His girlfriend complained to me once that she wouldn't take him to the store because he would insist that canned tomato sauce is just as good as the stuff in the jar and half the price. He calculates how many hours of work it takes to buy things. I thought damn, that one might have a future. Good thing he is cute or it would be a lonely future probably.
Niggerly vs. Niggardly ?
Take down that Confederate Flag and put down that Mexican taco and get back to work! You're liable to bruise someone's 'sensibilities.'
never one roach killed at a flick of the lights.. I think he was kidding. Do you want to storm the Mexician border with rainbow flags?
How would you feel if the country banned your fag flag? 50 shades of homosexual defeat. 50 States telling you to STFU and stay in the closet.