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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As an aside, if you can remain unemployed and live on the Government's (we the taxpayer's) dime, isn't that essentially like being retired? Instead of drawing down your IRA, you get some food stamps and an assited living check each month. The stats might be true, just the definition of retirement is now skewed.
Half the country is retired.
I'm working on it, but, alas...No Pension
Johnny Manziel is 23. I suspect he may be retiring this week and not even know it.
Now THAT'S a doosh box !
Only members of "the lucky sperm club" get to retire at age 24...
Wait until the next headline...
US.gov spends 300Billion to study why 20-somethings are retiring early.
I can tell them with 100% certainty what is the cause if they just pay me a nominal fee...
What is causing and has enabled this behavior is a libtard utopinista concept called...
WELFARE!
Why produce when you can raise a family or become a societal parasite on someone elses' dime?
Clusterfuck nation full of libtard Fucktards, one and all!
Why get a job? Someone will expect you to pay for your Obamacare or forfeit your wages to the taxman as a penalty for not buying Obamacare. These are the healthy young that are expected to pay for the elderly as planned by .gov.
Under the table income is where it's at. Live cheap in a multi-unit, a camper, shower shit and shave at Planet Fitness, collect all the sweet monthly bennies you can, that's the way to go!
I call it ....wait....here it comes..... "Going Mexican"
Stay off the radar
Out of " the system "
Get paid cash
File taxes..haha! Maybe with a fake #
No habla English..
Was at the DMV last Thursday, renewing tags. Watched two people, one 70+ black dude and a white guy from WV ( this is Md) , who wanted ID cards. NOT driver licencses, id's. White guy had a fucking passport , black guy had 5 olds id's and and original SocSec card. Both were sent packing because docs were not good enough. I could not believe it.
If Julio Rodrigez, no habla engleesh came in, they would walk him through, give him a Licencse, and oh yeah....motor VOTER. Dem, of course.
We're fucked.
Edit. Same with a buddy who moved and had to enroll his kids in school. A day off work, birth certificates, complete vaccination records, proof of residence, with at least two months of utility bills.
So how come half the kids in some of these schools are from south of the border? How in the fuck do they get in? I'm sure they are vaccinated ,too.
You are absolutely right. Four years ago I moved from New York City to Nevada. The Nevada DMV would not accept my NYS Drivers License as proof of identification! I was astounded. Meanwhile, if I were an illegal Mexican I could tell them my name was Desi Arnaz and I had no papers and they'd give me a license in no time. We are now living in backwards land.
How does a system collapse?
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
Work is for suckers and the workplace is just a modern day plantation.
Anyone who wanted to could lead a lead a leisurely/retired lifestyle if the welfare-warfare state didn't have it's boot on the neck of humanity.
Exactly.
Wars to spend the surplus production so the proles don't benefit from the natural rise in productivity and have the free time to think, endless bread & circuses to help distract, relentless propaganda from the elite-controlled media, and the capper is endless inflation that naturally prevents capital accumulation.
It's a huge shit sandwich boys, and we all get to take a bite.
“In a way, the world view of the Party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.”
-George Orwell, 1984
Half the country is retarded.. retired! I meant to say retired.
I'll say it - RETARDED and I MEANT TO SAY RETARDED!!
Veterans can now be given discounts just by showing the Driver's License at local businesses. New DL will carry notation of whether the person is a US veteran so this will be a simple process for these patriots who have risked life and limb to gain access to another nation's natural resources and sell them on the black market, funding the very entity they signed up to fight. Brahahahahaha Yes Sir, VETERANS are going to be wearing a MARK on the ID cards. Because, obviously, OUR VETERANS ARE SPECIAL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I74C7BlAzM - Monterey News 11/25/2015 - Discreetly broadcasted major news - It's hard to find ~News~ because it is a secret.
Step out of the car sir.. keep your hands over your head...
"Processing error"? Jeezus, these folk really are fucking shameless, aren't they?
Apparently 'reality' is just a state of mind, these days.
I totally love being unemployed and owing money on my taxes this year because I had to withdraw my 401k to pay rent (at least I'll got the money before China crashes the market).
It's really fucking sweet.
Thats why I never opened a 401K.......
too illiquid for my tastes......
Plus I don`t trust politicians to not change the rules to steal my money....
The marxocrats have put foward rolling 401k`s in social security several times.....
I've often wondered if these fucking idiots who make up all this shit data (government mostly) ever reads the articles here on ZeroHedge and the comments by the subscribers. What a bunch of bottom feeding scum bag losers, I swear.
Come on man, would you be here dealing with the badthink, or rubbing one out on the clock if you worked for the .gov?
Revolving door between the reporters at BLS and CNN.......and MSNBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, FOX........
Pap production at its finest..........
Breaking News,
Minimum wage increases to $40/hour to combat Federal Reserve printing inflation.
Maybe, just maybe they recognize what a fools errand it is to climb on a 40-60 hour wheel chasing currency that other people create out of thin air. Maybe they aren't so dumb after all.
My brother's there.
So's mine, (well step-brother) and at 40. He finally said fuck it.
I'm still working, I couldn't do that voluntarily...yet.
Ya retirement it's great, I work a high level job, but only at 10 hours a week, I enjoy my free time to read, study, fuck bitches, and garden. If I worked more I couldn't do these things, because I would have to pay for my healthcare, food, and housing. oh by the way i'm under 30. Keep working fucking suckers. Especially you liberals work harder.
Idiot............
Too bad this troll doesn't realize where he is. :/
Cheers to you!
Never fuck with a man over 50 with a gun.
These are the kids of the baby boomers. They probably don't need to work since their parents are going to be millionaires with paid off houses, have few kids and thus will be cashing in big time when their parents check out.
Maybe they are also setting up to take care of their parents in old age and the lot of them will be living off dad and mom's SS and government pension checks
It's not the super rich, it's mostly grifter immigrants on disability, and once you get on disability they pay you to breed.
Jizya bitches, all ova yo face!
An invasion toll http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jizya
I retired at 30. All you have to do is marry well. Just saying. What's that old quote from W.C.Fields? You can marry more money in 7 minutes than you can make in 7 lifetimes.
A boat docked in a tiny Greek village. An American tourist complimented the Greek fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
"Not very long," answered the Greek.
"But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the tourist.
The Greek explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The tourist asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"
"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings I go into the village to see my friends, dance a little, play the bouzouki, and sing a few songs. I have a full life."
The tourist interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you.
You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middleman, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Athens, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise."
"How long would that take?" asked the Greek.
"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the tourist.
"And after that?"
"Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the tourist, laughing. When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!"
"Millions? Really? And after that?"
"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your grandchildren, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife, and spend your evenings singing, dancing and playing the bouzouki with your friends.
Retiring in your early 20s? Why didn't I think of that a few decades ago? After all, as Brendan Behan told us, "a job is death without dignity."
Jobs are overrated.
If these kids retired from a start up that went public and cleaned up, great. If they don't have trust funds and think that government benefits will always be available, er um, better hurry up and stack up your "experiences" because you'll probably need to come out of retirement within the next 3 years if the Republicans get the White House or within the next 8 years if HItlary gets in and the country collapses under the weight of its public obligations and debt service. We all realize that most companies put a woman in as CEO when the business is a total turnaround story that no one expects to turn around.
While not exactly retiring at 23, I did finally say fuck it all and quit my job at 40. I mean really, screw it. I had done everthing right up to that point, lived frugally, saved a ton of each paycheck and invested it all. Got burned in 2000 and learned my lesson so I was prepared for 2008. I cleaned up in 2009 and saved up enough monopoly money to call it quits in 2013. Never took any government bennies, so I guess I am a sucker in that regard. Just living frugally and continuing to make shrewd (I hope) investment decisions. Goes without sayin I once again have raised my cash pile rather high in anticipation of a bear market. Bring it!
I think what we see here is mainly a doubling of the number of 20-somethings who give smart-ass replies to government surveyors.
WAY to many laws. BUT the law which punishes government drones who fabricate lies with jailtime still doesn't exist.... Now isn't THAT ODD ?!
more laws do nothing to stop those who will break them anyway but only serve to further oppress the law abiding.
smart enough to retire but not enough to stop eating McDonalds.
yeahhhh... its all bullshit
Want to retire in a few years ? Buy BTC !
They retired ?
OR
Were they retired?
In Colorado with the legal pot now...we have thousands of people moving here just so they can get high all the time...not a good employment base.....so my friends that have businesses tell me...