More "BS" From The BLS

The media will no doubt grab onto today's jobless claims report as more evidence that the economy is improving.  But recall that Bernanke stated clearly yesterday that  high unemployment is going to persist for a long time.  Also, not widely reported, is that for the second month in a row it was reported yesterday that job openings in December were lower again and that the metric fell to its lowest level since September.  Not only that, but the number of employees hired also declined.  Here's the report: LINK

So todays lower-than-expected jobless claims report has to be greeted with a high degree of skepticism and a real desire to see exactly how the Government creates its "seasonal" adjustments.  I guess there could be a high correlation between new claim filings and the bad snow storms hitting a large part of the country.  But shouldn't there be "adjustments" to normalize for that? 

And actually, on an "unadjusted" basis, the number of claims actually were about 20k higher than expected. Even more troublesome, and something that will absolutely not be reported in most daily newspapers or local news broadcasts, was the fact that the number of claims for extended benefits - these are the people who are on the 2 1/2 year benefit roll (aka welfare) - increased by over 100,000 to 9.4 million.  Let's put this number in perspective.  The BLS reported that the labor force was around 63 million.  With 9.4 million of those receiving jobless bennies, this means that a full 15% of the "labor force" is essentially part of the welfare expenditures.  Here's the full report:  LINK

Also not widely pointed out was the fact that Obama has proposed a moratorium on interest payments for States which have had to borrow from the Federal Govt (that means you, the Taxpayer) in order to fund State unemployment benefit programs.  IF this proposal becomes a reality, and States like California stop making payments to you and me, collectively the Taxpayers, how is this any different than a de facto debt default?  This is indeed a default because it means that these States had the choice of not making payments under Federal claims OR not making payments to ALL creditors, including municipal bond holders like Pimco.  THIS WILL BE A DEBT DEFAULT.

The only difference between this and a default is that Obama, on behalf of Us, has the authority to propose and legislate a "deferral, thereby technically circumventing a legal default.  Of course, you can refer to money printing as "quantitative easing" so that it appears to be something other than that which it really is.  And you can call "stronzata" a "rose," but it will still smell like stronzata.

It's getting worse by the day, not better like Bernanke and Obama and the media would have you believe.  The reports of silver and gold bullion shortages in Australia, Asia, Europe and Canada are now proliferating and have a high degree of credibility, especially as reflected in the soaring lease rate for silver.  This tells me that the rest of the world smells the stronzata eminating from Washington, DC and Wall Street...