like the 100,000 new teachers or cops...Right-- or the number of people killed by global warming or the number of women beaten by their husbands. My question has always been, why stop? Why don't they just say:
Vote for Kerry or else the universe will implode!!!
They won't do that because it borders on having a "message" rather than sheer hatred. They are more likely to say: Vote for Kerry because Bush is the anti-Christ.
http://www.cdharris.net/archives/2004_03.html#003414 Beware Democrats Bearing Statistics
Bruce Barlett takes a look at why the two surveys used to measure unemployment - the household survey and the payroll survey - show such a wide disparity:
- The payroll survey double-counts many workers who change jobs and is now artificially deflated because job turnover is down. Decelerating turnover in 2002-2003 explains up to 1 million jobs artificially "lost" in the payroll survey since 2001.
- The BLS household survey indicates record high employment. The disparity of 3 million jobs (in employment growth) between the household and payroll surveys since the recovery began is unprecedented.
- The disparity between the two BLS surveys of total employment is cyclical. The disparity widens during recessions and narrows during periods of rapid growth in gross domestic product (GDP). Such variation strongly suggests a statistical bias in one of the surveys.
- Payroll survey data are always preliminary. Past revisions have regularly shown the initial estimates to be off by millions of jobs. For example, initial estimates of job losses in 1992 were revised in 1993, 1994, and 1995, and now show net job creation.
The payroll survey does not count the surge in self-employment. The household survey has recorded a surge of 650,000 self-employed workers. This number may be even higher if modern workers in limited liability companies and in consulting positions with traditional firms are not identifying themselves as self-employed. [Emphasis added.]
And so, just as was the case in 1992 (when the last "worst economy in 50 years" turned out to have been an exceptionally mild recession that had already turned the corner into recovery), we are going to have a Presidential election debate about the state of the economy based on inaccurate, preliminary, and incomplete data. I will wait with breathless anticipation for the "conservatively biased" media the lefties are always going on about to pull out all the stops to spread the word that the employment situation may not be so dire as the Democrats would have them believe.