Donald Trump's colossal error on jobs during his press conference [GAFFE DROOL ALERT]

CNBC ^ | Jan 11, 2017 | Steve Liesman

[expat_panama]

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in Trump Tower, New York, January 11, 2017. Trump's plans for rebooting the economy 15 Hours Ago | 03:22

Donald Trump wasn't asked much about the economy during his press conference on Wednesday, but when he was, the president-elect managed a rather colossal error.

Trump said that there "are 96 million wanting a job and they can't get (one). You know that story. The real number. That's the real number."

It is unfortunately very far from the real number. There are in fact 96 million Americans age 16 and older who are not in the labor force. Of this, just 5.4 million, or 91 million fewer than the number cited by Trump, say they want a job. The rest are retired, sick, disabled, running their households or going to school. (This number is 256,000 fewer than last year and 1.7 million fewer than the all-time high for the series in 2013.)

Defining the size of the jobs problem in America is critical for the administration and the Federal Reserve to get economic and monetary policy right. If there is indeed a large cadre of Americans who want work but can't get it, it makes sense to have strong fiscal and monetary stimulus. If that number is shrinking, as the data suggest, it means much less policy is needed and too much could ignite inflation.

A more charitable explanation for Trump would expand the number to include those people who are working part time because they can't find full-time work, all the unemployed and those marginally attached to the workforce. This broader measure of slack in the economy, known as the U6, is about 14.7 million. It's the lowest since May 2008, and has come down by nearly 12 million since...

[Gaffer]

Defining the size of the jobs problem in America is critical for the administration and the Federal Reserve to get economic and monetary policy right.

Yeah, like the BLS getting it right and giving us the true numbers, huh? Regardless of what part of that 96 million has gone to SSI; SSDI; retired at 62 or earlier; UIC; or has gone onSNAP, TANF, EITC, AFDC and Section 8, the REAL FACT is that the number of work eligible adults NOT WORKING has gone up - significantly, under Obama. Little CBC Stevie can stick his nits up his a$$.

[babble-on]

He won the election, you’re right about that. I don’t think he’s a guy who spends a lot of time on details, however. I think that’s not his personality or his strength, but it does mean he gets the details wrong when he speaks off the cuff. Details are not crucial for a president to know. He’s the Chairman of the Board, and other people have to manage the small stuff, but if he’s going to talk about economic statistics, he’s going to sound dumb to people who actually understand them.

[expat_panama]

Good morning and the key headline is Trump Press Conference Propels Markets  Nick Mastrandrea - Market Tea Leaves 1 hour ago  Yesterday the Trump Press Conference helps to propel the markets forward. Will this hold true today? Read on to learn more...

Stocks rose a 1/4% in mixed volume while gold and silver shot up to $1,204.15 and $16.96!!!  Futures traders say metals are super hot at +0.87% tho they think stocks are looking more like -0.24%.

Big shipment from the Uncertainty Factory:

8:30 AM Export Prices ex-ag.
8:30 AM Import Prices ex-oil
8:30 AM Initial Claims
8:30 AM Continuing Claims
10:30 AM Natural Gas Inventories
2:00 PM Treasury Budget

Followed by a plethora of presently posted pundit prose production:

• Punishing Theft Does Not Violate Free Trade
• Trump’s presser threatened to wreck his own stock-market rally
• Trump’s Trillion $$ Infrastructure Investment Could Create 11M Jobs, According to Georgetown
• Beware of the ‘Trump dump’ in stocks as rally peters out
• The Incredible Shrinking Stock Market

[exit82]

Trump is a man who can size up a volume of information quickly, and is not paralyzed by inaction or indecisiveness.

He obviously understands economics—being the only person in the last 25 years to show how the globalist policies of the NWO are crippling America.

As for economic statistics, they are a huge waste of time and a means for misdirection. Like blind men describing an elephant, no one gets it right.

And for the last eight year, they are the stuff of fiction.

[babble-on]

I agree. He’s a synthesizer of themes and ideas, with a belief system on economics. But he’s not a policy wonk. He’s not someone who understands the ins and outs of the budget reconciliation process and what aspects of Obamacare repeal and replace can be passed via that mechanism and which ones not. He is going to use the bully pulpit to command the senate and house to do his bidding, but that may not always go well. Yes he can beat individuals, but that might be at the expense of his agenda.

[exit82]

Knowing the ins and outs of the budget reconciliation process is not paramount—he has others to know that.

Heck, even the GOP doesn’t understand it, or they would have acted on it in the past two years, whether Obama would veto or not.

The GOP is finally acting because of Trump, not in spite of him.

I think we can agree that Trump is a force of nature, and anathema to the corruption stranglehold in DC. I care less about how much he knows and more about how much he will accomplish.

Other,lesser lights can deal with the details. But Trump knows details as well, and they will not be able to buffalo him like they think..

[ClearCase_guy]

Perhaps Trump's phrasing was off, but he was making a valid point, right? We've all seen this graph. It tells a bad story. Employment is not all happy, happy, happy although Obama and the media say it is.

[babble-on]

I agree with all that. But I’m just saying part of being a successful president will be to maximize the things he’s really good at and minimize the things he’s not. When he starts saying that the replacement bill for Obamacare is going to be ready for passage by the end of the month, he’s saying something that is not and will not be true. You can yell at congress and say they suck and need to do their jobs, but this is not building an office building and yelling at the contractor to work around the clock to install the windows. There are steps to this that will take time. There are 52 Republican senators and one of them is Rand Paul who has his own ideas and already has bucked the system once this year. If he loses a couple more of these guys, he will get NONE of what he wants. He’s not the King. Other than launching missiles there’s nothing he can do without the congress. Easy to say, well then we’ll primary them and they’ll lose in 2018. Fine, but that’s two years with nothing accomplished when you supposedly had the congress on your side.

[BobL]

Actually the answer is IN BETWEEN, both sides are wrong.

Some of those 96 million definitely don’t want jobs (housewives for example married to a way-paying husband), but MANY can go either way (housewives and retirees). If decent jobs are wanting, they’ll work. If decent jobs are not out there, then screw it.

...and don’t get me started on ‘disabled’ types, where the growth there is about double the population, and the last time that I checked there was no epidemic of ‘disability disease’ running rampant.

[wastoute]

The only people “not looking for a job” are the folks who don’t need to. Sort of like “which of these boats in the marina are for sale?” They all are.

Some don’t need a job because they have been so productive for so long they cant be attracted. Some, because they have been worthless for so long they aren’t likely to change soon. The real question is which do we want more of? Like G Gordon used to say, you get more of what you subsidize.

[chiller]

You know that story. The real number. That's the real number."

Once again, liberals take him literally rather than seriously. 96 million is the largest number of adults out of work ever. Of course not all are looking for work, but a huge number are and many more want a full time job rather than 1 or 2 part-timers. Therefore that is the number that matters. We know what he means. The real number.

[Does so]

​

[gogeo]

Fake news. Lieesman is well named.

[Steven Tyler]

Hey, all of you progressives and mooselimbs about to be flushed out of DC and all of the Federal Government jobs, you really have nothing to fear. There are lots of jobs out there

[gogeo]

What’s more, it’s closer to 94 than 5.4.

[harpu]

This MSN BS is just that. Nobody but RATs care or watch MSNBC...it's just more lefty dribble and will go no where.

SAD to even see it posted here!

[gogeo]

You just don't get it, do you?

You can hire any number of advisors for little money who understand how the process works. Those who recognize the forest for the trees and can effectively communicate the same are much more rare.

Trump has, in the language of communication, "set an anchor." This is Trump's opening shot to define real unemployment.

Liesman and his intellectual brotherhood say the unemployment rate is below 5%. At the end of the day, those with any intellectual independence and some grasp of economics will understand the fact that 62% workforce participation is a much better indicator of unemployment than 4.7%, the 'official' number.

[DoodleDawg]

The real number.

So what is the real number?

[babble-on]

The unemployment rate under Carter was high, early in the Reagan recession it hit double digits at ten percent, a real crisis.

Are you saying it’s 6 times higher than that now?

[expat_panama]

BobL  the answer is IN BETWEEN, both sides are wrong.

That was my take too at first, but I finally got around to checking the actual transcript to find out what Trump said.  Here it is:

There will be a major border tax on these companies that are leaving and getting away with murder. And if our politicians had what it takes, they would have done this years ago and you'd have millions more workers right now in the United States, that are 96 million really wanting a job and they can't get. You know that story. The real number. That's the real number. So that's the way it is.

There are easily 96 million Americans who want a job they can't get.  There's no way around the fact that CNBC lied when they changed the quote to read "they can't get (one)" in an effort to purport that T said we got "96 million unemployed" --something he clearly did not say.   He never said "can't get one" and he never said "unemployed and looking".  Classic lying strawman.   It's like wastoute  said that the "only people “not looking for a job” are the folks who don’t need to."

Bottom line (from gogeo ):  Fake news. Lieesman is well named.