“In economics, if somebody gets the right answer once, it makes his career. In engineering, if he gets the wrong answer once, it ends his career.”
The Jobs Number!!!
Today’s “better-than-expected” jobs number is another in a long line of unreliable and manipulated government statistics of little long-term informational value to serious investors (e.g., those with time horizons longer than the lifespan of gnats). Ten of the last eleven jobs numbers have been revised (downward of course), suggesting that these reports best be considered “estimates” when issued. Revisions naturally receive less attention from the financial media than headline numbers which suits the government just fine in an election year. But even in other periods, statistical adjustments render employment numbers in an economy as large as America’s unreliable.
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