Your article, once again, is both entertaining and insightful. No doubt that errors were made and are being corrected, sometimes factually, and sometimes with a bent towards political messaging.
I think the jury has to still be out on Trump’s job creation record for the second term.
Occam’s Razor tells us that the more assumptions you make, the weaker your argument and the more problematic your conclusions. That article makes a lot of assumptions. I am not keen on large numbers of assumptions.
That said, removing large numbers of illegal aliens from the labor force is going to have an impact both on wages and overall employment—and may even percolate through to consumer prices.
Trimming the federal workforce was a major focus of DOGE initially, but I’m not sure DOGE was as successful there as the Trumpian narrative argues. The federal workforce has been trimmed somewhat, but whether it was trimmed enough and what the long-term ramifications will be are simply not knowable at this time.
Will Trump’s policies spur job creation and wage growth over the longer term? That is possible, perhaps even probable. Certainly that is what people want to see. It’s what I want to see.
However, we have not seen the job growth and wage growth yet.
This is why you have not seen me describe Trump’s policies as “good” or “bad”, or pass any sort of economic judgement on the man. My criticism is of him taking a victory lap on the economy that is premature at best. We’re not living in a “golden age”, certainly not for the American worker.
Trump’s policies may yet bring one about, however, and I for one do not rule that possibility out in the slightest.
I support Donald Trump, and I voted for the policies he is putting into place. I do not support Trumpian rhetoric that pretends the policies have already succeeded, because they haven’t.
It took Ronald Reagan two years to get to an economy that was growing and putting people to work after the stagflation of the 1970s. Trump’s first grade on the economy is not going to come until right before the mid-terms next year. Next summer I shall be far more willing to reach conclusions about Trump’s policies.
In the meantime, I focus on what the data is telling us about the state of the economy today, be it good, bad or indifferent.
Why are the markets shrugging off the dismal BLS, unemployment and looking like stagflation as you said…bizarre.
Praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and our country and for the media to NOT throw gasoline on this…perhaps some influential people can humble themselves and have rational conversations.
And now we have activist judges attempting to tank the tariffs that were partly designed to bring jobs back to the US. The activists don’t want people working, they want them on government subsidy. It’s a control thing.
Am I surprised about the government padding the numbers to make the Biden administration look good? Hell no. Just another reason to not trust the people in elected (or appointed) office who are supposed to serve the people, not their party.
Geez! Are there any gov’t agencies that weren’t corrupt and politicized against Trump? We see it in these numbers. We see it in the undercover reporting by James O’keefe. We see it in what’s been uncovered by DOGE. We saw it in the lawfare against Trump.
It’s to the point where I assume every gov’t agency is politically biased.
To anyone asking why the whole system needs to be burned down and rebuilt, a story like this is exhibit A.
Well, well, well, looks like additional evidence of the political nature of the BLS. When were the “great” numbers cobbled together? And when was the “correction” finally applied? The questions answer themselves. If walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
While I am reluctant to conclude that the BLS data errors are evidence of political bias, there is no escaping the reality of the errors and the seeming inability of the BLS to address them.
The choices for the BLS are stupidity or malice. For number crunchers either one is grounds for dismissal due to professional incompetence.
The BLS needs root and branch reform. That much the data proves beyond all doubt.
"...stupidity or malice...", I would say cross reference your jobs data with the disability data from insurances and you'll have your answer, although also likely is more awkward questions😉🤫
Personally, I think its both stupidity AND malice. BTJMO😉
Congratulations on being brilliant and RIGHT AGAIN, Peter. And yes, it is infuriating that corporate media is getting away with falsely blaming this on Trump. The average voter will not look at the data long enough to realize that this happened mostly under Biden’s reign.
What’s the solution to politicized data from government agencies such as the BLS? Does Congress need to pass a law requiring better accuracy, or can Trump fix this by firing certain people and threatening others with job loss? To restore some semblance of trust in government, we should at least be able to have confidence in economic data!
The solution is simply honest journalism and critical thinking. Neither of which has much of the media applied to the job reports at the BLS.
When nobody asks hard questions there can be no accountability, and without accountability there can be no excellence. In every discipline, every profession, every human endeavor imaginable, that has always been the order of things and there always will be. There are precisely zero alternatives to this.
All of corporate media and most of the alternative and independent media sources are far more interested in promoting a preferred narrative than in asking challenging questions about the data we are given.
When media outlets and their audiences are more concerned with demonizing or deifying Donald Trump than in examining the jobs data and what it tells us, the end result is exactly what we have now: garbage data and garbage reporting about the data.
People deserve better than this, and need to demand better than this.
When I was a kid, it seemed that the mindset of investigative reporting was a competition to uncover lies, report truth, and get to the bottom of every mystery and coverup. What a bunch of pathetic sheep they’ve become! Peter, if you ever see a chance to lead the profession of journalism back to high standards, I hope you will take it - you’d be doing them, and our country, a great favor!
Incidentally, yesterday the Minnesota Star Tribune, which is essentially the only newspaper left in Minneapolis, announced that they will be closing their printing facility. They are laying off 125 employees, and outsourcing the printing of the newspaper to Iowa. They claim that it’s because of a loss of print subscribers, but I’m sure they are also losing digital ones. They have lost so much credibility that people are ignoring them now. Something new - like Substack writers! - is taking on the task of actual reporting!
The challenge is going to be constructing a sustainable business model to support the new generation of independent journalists. The social media models currently in vogue encourage promotion of narrative over facts, unfortunately.
True! And God help the people who are speaking truth. The reports on Substack Notes right now are that Charlie Kirk has been shot. I literally was just now writing out another check to his organization.
Whoever thought killing Charlie Kirk was an answer to anything has pushed this country that much closer to civil war. We're losing the reasons not to prevent it.
That's a very dangerous place to be, and that's exactly where we are.
You are very right, Peter. The Left can’t beat us in facts or logic, so they - who shout for “gun control” - shoot down anyone who says something they don’t like. “Cancel culture” isn’t enough for some of them.
Peter, you are very much like Charlie Kirk, bravely presenting facts and evidence they don’t want to hear. I know you are a strong man who can take care of himself. Your rational arguments cannot be refuted, and you’ll win any debate. But that infuriates some people to the point that they might use violence, so watch your back.
It’s going to be within Trump’s domain to keep this from becoming a civil war. He has been the target of assassination attempts himself, so he’s going to take this seriously. Thank God for that.
Your article, once again, is both entertaining and insightful. No doubt that errors were made and are being corrected, sometimes factually, and sometimes with a bent towards political messaging.
What do you think of this take on corrections?
https://substack.com/@therealamuse/note/p-173393308?r=1wqs8q&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
I appreciate your thoughts. Thank you.
I think the jury has to still be out on Trump’s job creation record for the second term.
Occam’s Razor tells us that the more assumptions you make, the weaker your argument and the more problematic your conclusions. That article makes a lot of assumptions. I am not keen on large numbers of assumptions.
That said, removing large numbers of illegal aliens from the labor force is going to have an impact both on wages and overall employment—and may even percolate through to consumer prices.
Trimming the federal workforce was a major focus of DOGE initially, but I’m not sure DOGE was as successful there as the Trumpian narrative argues. The federal workforce has been trimmed somewhat, but whether it was trimmed enough and what the long-term ramifications will be are simply not knowable at this time.
Will Trump’s policies spur job creation and wage growth over the longer term? That is possible, perhaps even probable. Certainly that is what people want to see. It’s what I want to see.
However, we have not seen the job growth and wage growth yet.
This is why you have not seen me describe Trump’s policies as “good” or “bad”, or pass any sort of economic judgement on the man. My criticism is of him taking a victory lap on the economy that is premature at best. We’re not living in a “golden age”, certainly not for the American worker.
Trump’s policies may yet bring one about, however, and I for one do not rule that possibility out in the slightest.
I support Donald Trump, and I voted for the policies he is putting into place. I do not support Trumpian rhetoric that pretends the policies have already succeeded, because they haven’t.
It took Ronald Reagan two years to get to an economy that was growing and putting people to work after the stagflation of the 1970s. Trump’s first grade on the economy is not going to come until right before the mid-terms next year. Next summer I shall be far more willing to reach conclusions about Trump’s policies.
In the meantime, I focus on what the data is telling us about the state of the economy today, be it good, bad or indifferent.
Why are the markets shrugging off the dismal BLS, unemployment and looking like stagflation as you said…bizarre.
Praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and our country and for the media to NOT throw gasoline on this…perhaps some influential people can humble themselves and have rational conversations.
And now we have activist judges attempting to tank the tariffs that were partly designed to bring jobs back to the US. The activists don’t want people working, they want them on government subsidy. It’s a control thing.
Am I surprised about the government padding the numbers to make the Biden administration look good? Hell no. Just another reason to not trust the people in elected (or appointed) office who are supposed to serve the people, not their party.
Geez! Are there any gov’t agencies that weren’t corrupt and politicized against Trump? We see it in these numbers. We see it in the undercover reporting by James O’keefe. We see it in what’s been uncovered by DOGE. We saw it in the lawfare against Trump.
It’s to the point where I assume every gov’t agency is politically biased.
To anyone asking why the whole system needs to be burned down and rebuilt, a story like this is exhibit A.
Well, well, well, looks like additional evidence of the political nature of the BLS. When were the “great” numbers cobbled together? And when was the “correction” finally applied? The questions answer themselves. If walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
While I am reluctant to conclude that the BLS data errors are evidence of political bias, there is no escaping the reality of the errors and the seeming inability of the BLS to address them.
The choices for the BLS are stupidity or malice. For number crunchers either one is grounds for dismissal due to professional incompetence.
The BLS needs root and branch reform. That much the data proves beyond all doubt.
"...stupidity or malice...", I would say cross reference your jobs data with the disability data from insurances and you'll have your answer, although also likely is more awkward questions😉🤫
Personally, I think its both stupidity AND malice. BTJMO😉
Congratulations on being brilliant and RIGHT AGAIN, Peter. And yes, it is infuriating that corporate media is getting away with falsely blaming this on Trump. The average voter will not look at the data long enough to realize that this happened mostly under Biden’s reign.
What’s the solution to politicized data from government agencies such as the BLS? Does Congress need to pass a law requiring better accuracy, or can Trump fix this by firing certain people and threatening others with job loss? To restore some semblance of trust in government, we should at least be able to have confidence in economic data!
The solution is simply honest journalism and critical thinking. Neither of which has much of the media applied to the job reports at the BLS.
When nobody asks hard questions there can be no accountability, and without accountability there can be no excellence. In every discipline, every profession, every human endeavor imaginable, that has always been the order of things and there always will be. There are precisely zero alternatives to this.
All of corporate media and most of the alternative and independent media sources are far more interested in promoting a preferred narrative than in asking challenging questions about the data we are given.
When media outlets and their audiences are more concerned with demonizing or deifying Donald Trump than in examining the jobs data and what it tells us, the end result is exactly what we have now: garbage data and garbage reporting about the data.
People deserve better than this, and need to demand better than this.
Well said!
When I was a kid, it seemed that the mindset of investigative reporting was a competition to uncover lies, report truth, and get to the bottom of every mystery and coverup. What a bunch of pathetic sheep they’ve become! Peter, if you ever see a chance to lead the profession of journalism back to high standards, I hope you will take it - you’d be doing them, and our country, a great favor!
Incidentally, yesterday the Minnesota Star Tribune, which is essentially the only newspaper left in Minneapolis, announced that they will be closing their printing facility. They are laying off 125 employees, and outsourcing the printing of the newspaper to Iowa. They claim that it’s because of a loss of print subscribers, but I’m sure they are also losing digital ones. They have lost so much credibility that people are ignoring them now. Something new - like Substack writers! - is taking on the task of actual reporting!
The challenge is going to be constructing a sustainable business model to support the new generation of independent journalists. The social media models currently in vogue encourage promotion of narrative over facts, unfortunately.
True! And God help the people who are speaking truth. The reports on Substack Notes right now are that Charlie Kirk has been shot. I literally was just now writing out another check to his organization.
Whoever thought killing Charlie Kirk was an answer to anything has pushed this country that much closer to civil war. We're losing the reasons not to prevent it.
That's a very dangerous place to be, and that's exactly where we are.
You are very right, Peter. The Left can’t beat us in facts or logic, so they - who shout for “gun control” - shoot down anyone who says something they don’t like. “Cancel culture” isn’t enough for some of them.
Peter, you are very much like Charlie Kirk, bravely presenting facts and evidence they don’t want to hear. I know you are a strong man who can take care of himself. Your rational arguments cannot be refuted, and you’ll win any debate. But that infuriates some people to the point that they might use violence, so watch your back.
It’s going to be within Trump’s domain to keep this from becoming a civil war. He has been the target of assassination attempts himself, so he’s going to take this seriously. Thank God for that.