RUSH: State-Controlled Media can only talk about how great is the unemployment rate. ‘Lower than expected.’ Let’s go to the audiotape.
VARNEY: The unemployment rate falling to 9.7%. That is an improvement from the previous month. It’s better than expected.
TODD: The unemployment rate surprisingly dropped below 10% to 9.7%. That’s the good news.
LEE: …falling to 9.7%, and that’s an improvement from last month and better than expected.
JOHNSON: That headline number is absolutely huge. You can’t underestimate that.
ELAM: We haven’t seen unemployment that low since last summer.
RUSH: Yeah, except the problem is it’s not accurate. They did include the revised number of unemployed people up to eight million instead of seven, and they did include the first wave of Census Bureau hires — and they’re going to be hiring these workers all through June and they’re gonna hire a million of them. So you’re going to see the unemployment rate drop because of that, but keep in mind those Census jobs are temporary. They’re going to lose their jobs when the Census work is over.
They did two tricks today in addition to what I just mentioned to you. In fact, Rick Santelli on CNBC this morning said that the level of manipulation on these numbers is intensifying. Without the move to remove how many jobs there are in the marketplace, he says the rate would be 10.6% for January, and let me explain what he means. He was specific on the Obama administration lowering how many jobs are even in the total marketplace. I think they took it from 136 million and changed it down to 129 million. So if there is a smaller universe of jobs, naturally you’re going to have a lower percentage of those unemployed. They have been manipulating and doing everything they can to keep this number at or below 10%, but of course this is what’s called the U3 number. The U6 number includes — and this is the number that’s around 17 or 18% — people who have stopped looking, and that number continues to expand. These are the people whose unemployment compensation benefits have expired. So this 9.7% number… We’ll wait for the revisions as we always do, and we’ll pound the revisions to you when they come out. The State-Controlled Media will, of course, ignore them. But folks, it’s just not what it seems to be. I really wish it were. I wish that I could wholeheartedly endorse this. But everybody was stunned by this. Not just the usual experts were surprised. Everybody, and I’m wondering…
I’ll tell you why it a was surprise: Because everybody was told that there was going to be a revision on February 5th that would add a million more unemployed from the last year than were originally reported. So everybody was saying, ‘Oh, my God, it’s gotta skyrocket.’ Now it comes in 9.7, down three-tenths of a point. So I’m beginning to wonder if they set everybody up with all of that the last couple days about 800,000, almost a million jobs they missed and unemployed people they missed. So now look what they’ve done: They’ve created this pleasant, shocking surprise. Why, even though 20,000 more people lost their jobs… The 800,000 that we forgot to count last year, why, lo and behold, the unemployment rate still went down! Whoa! Are we great or are we great?
‘See, we’ve lost 800,000 jobs that we forgot to count last year. In January, 20,000 more jobs were lost. And yet the unemployment rate went down three-tenths of a point. And, yeah, we’ve got eight million jobs versus seven million, a million more jobs than we thought,’ and yet the unemployment rate goes down? Ha! Of course the State-Controlled Media is not gonna delve into it anywhere near like we have here at the EIB Network. But they just lowered the number of available jobs to get a lower percentage.
Listen to this convoluted paragraph from Reuters: ‘While a sharp increase in the number of people giving up looking for work helped to depress the jobless rate, some details of the employment report were encouraging. The number of ‘discouraged job seekers’ rose to 1.1 million in January from 734,000 a year ago.’ That’s encouraging? ‘The number of ‘discouraged job’ seekers rose’ 400,000, and
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RUSH: As far as the unemployment numbers are concerned, all the socialists care about is the headline. They just want the headline because they know that that’s what the on-camera anchorettes, infobabes, anchors, and Ken dolls are going to say (and the same thing on radio), ‘Ooh, unemployment rate down.’ That’s all the socialists want, and that’s what Obama got. Now, the bottom continues to fall out of the stock market today. We’ve gone under 10,000. Europe may very well be pushing the markets down, but if Obama had not launched his War on Prosperity — you know, the trillion-dollar slush fund, socialized car companies, budget blowouts, the attack on banks and all that — we would be better able to absorb the blows of international downturns, and they’re having some problems over there. Greece, I’m told, is what really bothered everybody yesterday. And Spain and Portugal are saying that they’re going to have much larger deficits. Oh, and this is funny. Paul Krugman — who looks like a ferret to me. He does. He’s weasel-like. Go get a picture of a ferret and get a picture of Paul Krugman. We’ll do that on the website and you’ll see. He’s out there saying our deficits are not big enough. We need even bigger deficits; we need bigger than a one-and-a-half trillion-dollar deficit. We need to spend more.
Yet in the next story is the concern in Europe over Greece not being able to repay some of its debts. A lot of European countries are not going to be able to pay back the money they’ve loaned. A lot of banks are not going to be able to get repaid by Eastern European countries. And these budget deficits — these countries are warning, Spain, Portugal — are gonna be even higher and that’s causing the market here to have a little pain. I still say that if it hadn’t been for what Obama’s done to our economy, we could better absorb the blows of what’s happening in Europe. Obama has given the markets and the economy no margin for error here. Now, every report out of Washington roils the markets. Every job gained or lost is magnified because everybody knows what Obama hopes to pass going forward. He wants to pass more budget-busting legislation. He’s not giving up on health care. He wants cap and trade. Who knows what the hell else. The investors are well aware of what Obama will never consider signing into law and they’re well aware of what he will sign into law.
It’s not just what this ideologue will sign; it’s what he would never put his signature on: No tax cuts, no real budget cuts. Only an ideologue would reject those tried-and-true solutions, especially given all of these big government failures, one after another for the past year. So here’s where we are. See, even on Fox, ‘January Unemployment Rate’ giant, giant letters; giant font ‘Drops to 9.7%.’ No, it really didn’t. But they got their headline and that’s what they want. Here’s the point, folks: America is no longer in the driver’s seat of our economic bus. This is why there is all of these little silent protests, tea parties and what have you, effervescing out across the fruited plain. We don’t control our economic destiny anymore. And as bad as the news out of Europe impacts our markets, imagine if we were to find out that the ChiComs don’t have the economic juggernaut that they claim to have. What if Thomas Friedman is wrong? (Which would not be odd.)
Word to the wise: Never trust the information coming out of closed societies. Never. And ours is rapidly becoming a closed society. Never trust information coming out of a socialist government. And that’s what we’ve got today in the unemployment numbers. As an example: Any jobs report the Obama administration puts out or any CBO budget estimates or assertions where the AIG bailout money went. Closed societies run by socialists put out information to suit their own purposes, and the same thing goes for the ChiComs. Now, the ChiComs are putting news out there that they are rock solid, that they are experiencing all kinds of economic growth. I hope it’s true, but it doesn’t look like it is true, ladies and gentlemen. This is from the Washington Times. This is to go along with the jobs report, which is totally manipulated. The bottom line is more and more Americans are out of work.
Let me run through it for you. We’ve added a million jobs that we didn’t count lost last year. So eight million instead of seven million unemployed. Twenty thousand more jobs lost in January. And yet the unemployment rate went down. Makes no sense, does it? No, unless you do two things: Unless you shrink the universe of jobs in the marketplace, which they did, and if you don’t count the people who have given up. You’re looking at 10.6% unemployment if you keep the same number of jobs available in the marketplace, and you’re up to over 18% now if you count the people who are no longer looking, in addition to those who are still looking that are unemployed. So that’s what happened here. That last fact has become a loophole to create a phony unemployment percentage. But that’s what central planners like Obama do. The facts always obscure their pronouncements and image, so they create their own facts. It’s just like ClimateGate. It’s no different. The bottom’s falling out of the whole climate change thing. We now know it’s all fake. It’s all made up.
Now, here’s the headline from the Washington Times today: ‘With Suspicious Statistics, China Obscures Economy.’ Uh-oh. ‘One problem with China’s method of economic measurement is politically motivated fudging of the numbers, but another is a different method of calculation. … Regardless of accounting details, Mr. Chang and Mr. Rawski said, other Chinese economic figures are inconsistent with Beijing’s official picture of robust growth. … ‘They couldn’t admit to poor performance because the government believed it was necessary to maintain the image of a vibrant economy.” So the Washington Times is telling us that the ChiComs are lying about their boisterous economic growth as well, and if this becomes popular knowledge, I shudder to think what’s going to happen on Wall Street. So my question is: Is Obama creating a Jobsgate? Is jobs data being manipulated for political purposes? Who would doubt it? We know that liberals and socialists will do it in the climate movement. We know that they will do it everywhere. Liberalism is a giant lie. Socialists have to lie. They have to obscure facts.
Look, we’ve got evidence. Obama has been lying about ‘created or saved’ jobs for over a year because there’s no way to calculate a ‘saved’ job. So basically he’s failing and he’s showing us a forged report card with these job numbers that came out today. Now, Drudge found something from August 1st of 2003. It’s a release from the office of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi with the headline: ‘Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?’ This is August 1st, 2003. This is only two years after 9/11. ‘House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ announcement that 470,000 people abandoned their job searches in July and that 3.2 million private sector jobs have been lost since President Bush took office. ‘The fact that President Bush’s misguided economic policies have failed to create jobs is undisputable. Since President Bush took office, the country’s lost 3.2 million jobs, the worst record since President Hoover. And today, we learned that in July nearly half a million people gave up looking for a job. Job losses are taking a real toll on the financial security of American families.”
Now, remember, we’re talking about 3 million jobs here, two years after 9/11. We’re at 8 million jobs here, and Pelosi is not sending out a statement asking, ‘Where are the jobs, Mr. President?’ Now, the Congressional Black Caucus is beginning to ask, ‘Where are the jobs, Mr. President?’ but they were slapped down. (doing Obama impression) ‘You can complain to me in private all you want, but don’t go public with it anymore. You notice that my Aunt Zeituni is in a wheelchair now? I’m just saying.’
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RUSH: Morris County, New Jersey, Tom, welcome to Open Line Friday. You’re up first today, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, I’m so pleased to talk to you but I gotta report: It’s a miracle! It’s an absolute miracle! If I hadn’t seen it myself I’d never believe it. In the State of the Union Obama says, ‘We will have jobs,’ and now how long past it, the unemployment numbers down! Evidently we don’t need a jobs package now, Rush.
RUSH: Well, that’s one way of looking at it. We could also take the unspent portion of the stimulus, which is about $500 million, and use it for debt reduction. But, we’re not going to do that.
CALLER: Nope. Nope. I have to admit I was wrong. I should have voted for him. Rush, I had no idea the power the man had.
RUSH: (laughing) No idea of the power the guy had. Yes, there’s no need for a jobs bill. That’s exactly right. No need. Why, Obama has saved us! He has saved us! He saved us from the hole we find ourselves in.
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RUSH: I’m going to tell you something, folks. I feel sorry for the next president. You talk about the next president is gonna inherit something? This is going to be an absolute disaster. Whoever the next president is is gonna inherit all this debt and all of this bureaucracy, one disaster after another created by this president. You talk about inheriting? Obama inherited a recession, caused not only by the business cycle, but by the collapsing housing market resulting from decades of left-wing policies manipulating mortgages and the subprime crisis.
Obama saw an opportunity to blow the lid off the budget, off the debt — and now he takes credit for anything he can cling to while denouncing everybody else, while the whole situation gets worse. Make no mistake about it, ladies and gentlemen: It’s getting worse out there by the day. I’ve had some people say, ‘Rush, there’s too many people involved to cook the numbers. They can’t manipulate the unemployment numbers.’ Well, let me take you back to August 9, 2002 and a Robert Novak column: ‘The Commerce Department’s painful report last week that the national economy is worse than anticipated obscured the document’s startling revelation. Hidden in the morass of statistics, there is proof that the Clinton administration grossly overestimated the strength of the economy leading up to the 2000 election. Did the federal government join Enron and WorldCom in cooking the books? Through all of President Clinton’s last two years in office, the announced level of before-tax profits was at least 10 percent too high.’ Remember this? We reported it at the time ‘a discrepancy rising close to 30 percent during the last presidential campaign. Most startling, the Commerce Department in 2000 showed the economy on an upswing through most of the election year while in fact it was declining.’ Bush inherited a little recession, and then 9/11 hit.
‘The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis quarterly estimates before-tax profits of domestic non-financial corporations, releasing the information the last week of the month following the quarter. Revised figures last week showed profits were really lower by 10.7 percent, 12.2 percent, 15.2 percent and 18 percent for the four quarters of 1999. In 2000, this gap became a chasm. The revised quarterly profits for the election year are lower than the announced figures by 23.3 percent, 25.9 percent, 29.9 percent and 28.2 percent.’ So don’t tell me they don’t make up the numbers. They clearly do.
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RUSH: Where we going on the phones? Because we’re going to go back to the phones here. Who’s up? Bob in Philadelphia. I’m glad you called, sir. Your turn. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush.
RUSH: Hi.
CALLER: It’s a pleasure to speak to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: Just an observation. Do you think the Democrats are being very hypocritical? Because during the Bush administration, I remember — when the Iraq war was really going really, really flying — they’d have all these people come up and say, ‘Oh, we support the troops but we’re not for the war.’ And now they’re saying, ‘Well, we support Obama and Obama’s ratings are very high, but his policies aren’t really bad. We don’t support them.’ Now, here’s what I’m thinking. The reason I’m thinking that Obama’s approval ratings are so high is because the people who are asked the question in these polls, they don’t want to be seen — they don’t want to be perceived — as being racist, so they say, ‘Oh, yeah, we like him!’ They’re not racist, but they really don’t like the guy.
RUSH: I think that’s a large factor. It’s been proven that people answering pollsters’ questions don’t want to be thought of by the pollster as either racist or bigoted or sexist or homophobic. It is an interesting analogy that you draw: ‘We support the troops, but we hate the war.’ You can’t do both at the same time. But you could like Obama. He could have a likability factor that you like, but you don’t like his policies. I also think (to the extent that people are phonying it up on the answers because they don’t want the pollster to think that they are racist) that the media did such a marvelous job of ginning up pure hatred for George W. Bush that anybody, by comparison, is likable. It isn’t going to be long — and by the way, Obama’s approval numbers are below 50% now; likability is above 50, but the approval is not. And that disparity could be some number fudging, could be the Bradley Effect. You remember the Bradley Effect? It’s telling a pollster you’re going to vote for a black guy then not doing it, telling the pollster you like the president when you don’t. Because, I mean, if you don’t like his policies and more and more people are opposed energetically to his policies, it does stretch belief that the likability factor is that high, but we’ll wait and see. Time will tell.
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RUSH: Let’s see. Greenville, South Carolina. Hey, George. It’s Open Line Friday and you’re next. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s an honor. Rush, I’m 45 years old, I’ve got five kids, and I’ve seen my share of State of the Union addresses. This last State of the Union address… For the first time, I was actually embarrassed and stood there with my children in front of that television. I just didn’t know if you noticed the fact that… You know, my kids, they’re homeschooled. They’re smart. They know the condition of the nation. They know what it used to be and what it is now, and they know that 25 to 27 million people out of work and 40 million plus lost their homes. My kids are aware of that, and they’re watching the State of the Union address, and it seemed like it was more like a Saturday morning cartoon, that there was so much (unintelligible) and laughing and taunting the Republicans and making the Democrats —
RUSH: I know. Plus it was defensive and it was petulant and it was childlike and there was not one word of motivation or inspiration in that entire speech. Amen.
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RUSH: Here’s Joe, a cell phone from Atlanta. Open Line Friday, you’re next. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: The one point I wanted to make — and then I wanted to make a suggestion. Not in any way to help you, because you are the man. But, you know, I’m watching TV like everybody else, and I hear them do everything they can to tout their unemployment numbers as not being as bad as they are by leaving out people that are not looking for jobs as if they’re still not unemployed. And then when they want to talk about health care, they look under every stone that there is to call somebody uninsured even though they’re looking for a job or ‘in between’ jobs.
RUSH: Excellent point. Excellent point. They never do count the people who have given up looking. But when they find even a sea turtle that doesn’t have health insurance, they talk about it.
CALLER: That’s right. I look at that, and I’m like, ‘God, are people that naive or that blind to the fact?’ I mean, it’s just blatant lying to the American people.
RUSH: Some people only see headlines. Remember, now, every television network is only reporting the headline: ‘Unemployment Drops to 9.7%.’ That’s it. The trick here is not just lying about the number but making the number the only story.
CALLER: That’s right. Hey, since they’ve taken the liberty to create this new thing of jobs ‘created or saved’ I thought maybe any time a Democrat’s in office can we come up with number of poor ‘maintained, elevated or saved;’ number of middle class ‘maintained, elevated, or demoted;’ and number of upper class ‘maintained or demoted into poverty’? Can we start tracking them on that?
RUSH: We could do that. The Census could certainly do that beginning now. We’re getting ready to tabulate all that kind of stuff. I’ve got a story here about how the middle class is vanishing. More and more people are becoming homeless. I’ll find it.
CALLER: Rush, I just wanted to let you know: You’ve got me for one. I’m back reading my history books. I’ve gone back and I’m trying to tell everybody I know. I got a degree from college but I got my masters listening to you, even a Ph.D., and I want to thank you for putting this old boy back to work reading my history because I love this country.
RUSH: God bless you, sir.
CALLER: And I’m glad your ticker is doing good. You keep up the good fight, and I’ll be helping in my small way.
RUSH: God bless you, sir. Thank you very much. I sincerely appreciate that.