RUSH: The big news. It’s just amazing the narrative here. It’s Friday, so what’s the big news? The big news is the unemployment number. Whatever the number is and whatever the employment rate is, that’s the big news. Obama just had a press conference — well, he didn’t have a press conference, but he had an appearance at Thompson Creek Manufacturing company in Landover, Maryland, to talk about the monthly employment report that came out today. And let’s go through the State-Controlled Media and the way they report this, even though it’s predictable. First up from the Associated Press — and it sounds to me if you read the AP today, and I don’t know how much media attention you’ve been paying today, but depending on where you go the media is saying: ‘Finally, all right, 9.8 to 9.4, hundred thousand new jobs, all right, all right, coming back.’ Then you go to the Fed chairman, it ain’t that good, and other places, it’s not that good. Other places they’re throwing a party. So what is the truth about this? Well, let’s examine it all before I tell you what’s really happening here.
Faced with the opportunity here, folks, and with the raw numbers, 9.8 down to 9.4, 103,000 new jobs. I mean compared to 34,000, 22,000, why, they had an opportunity here to portray a full-fledged economic recovery going on and they’re doing just the opposite. ‘The Labor Department says employers added 103,000 jobs in December, an improvement, but far below most analysts’ expectations. Private employers added a net total of 113,000 jobs last month. Government shed 10,000.’ By the way, any of you happen to know what the expectation of analysts was? Is that ever reported? I happen to know what the number is. I’m just asking you if you do. What is it? Wrong. Wrong. Yep. Stick with me and I’ll tell you. H.R. just made a guess on the IFB. Every week we hear that the result, whatever it is, is unexpected or shocking or surprising to analysts who had predicted something else but we never see the story on what the analysts had predicted. For example, next Monday or Tuesday, will we see a story: ‘Analysts are expecting X,’ whatever the number is, ‘on new jobs at the end of this week –‘ you never see the story. All we get is it’s surprising, it’s not as much as they expected or way above their expectations.
The fact of the matter is AP’s got it right here, ‘far below most analysts’ expectations.’ The truth of the matter is, the expectations were as high as 300,000. That is why the tone of this story and everywhere else, that’s why Obama had to go out there and try to spin this today because it’s perhaps worse news than we’ve had in a long time, even though 9.8 goes to 9.4, because, again, it’s how you set the table. It’s what’s the baseline, what are the expectations, as we talked about the during the lame duck and the Bush tax rates staying the same versus being extended or suspended and therefore rates going up. There was no tax cut, but the way they set the table that’s what the debate ended up being about.
The experts last week said 300,000 new jobs would be created, the most recent reporting period, and it’s 103,000. That’s one-third. That is 30% of what they were expecting. As a result, the stock market’s dropping today. The price of gold is perking back up. And there’s a household survey out there, and that’s been typically weaker than the main report that actually showed a jump of 297,000. So they were expecting in the 279 to 3,000 range, they got 103. Over the past three months the economy’s added an average of 128,000 jobs. That’s just enough to keep up with the population growth. Nearly double is generally needed to significantly reduce the unemployment rate. So all through this AP story they’re wringing their hands, they’re worried. It’s as though, folks, they’re getting tired of carrying Obama’s water on this. We’re heading now into the third year pretty soon, and it’s getting worse. They had every opportunity here, using the ignorance of their customers, ’cause who knew the 300,000 number that was expected when the experts predicted? Who knew that?
And don’t forget, Joe Biden, Vice President Bite Me, assured us the economy would be creating 500,000 jobs a month, starting last spring as a result of the stimulus. Okay, so that’s AP. And, by the way, the bottom line is that people still are not hiring, even though there’s 103,000 jobs. It’s like the birth rate. We’re producing enough new human beings to maintain our population rate, that’s called replacement birth levels, but we’re not doing anything to increase our population. We are not doing anything to increase the number of people working. You ask, ‘Well, okay, how come the number can go from 9.8 to 9.4?’ Very simple. The government just decides that there are 400-plus thousand fewer jobs to be had. So the universe, the total number of jobs available in the country, they just decided to cut by 400,000.
So as a percentage of people unemployed, if you take the number of universe of jobs and make it smaller, that’s how you can lower the unemployment rate from 9.8 to 9.4, but believe me, everybody knows this is a ten to 17% rate of unemployment when you factor in the people who are no longer seeking work or given up looking for wok, you know, that’s the U6 or U3 number that never gets reported. But AP’s alluding to it here, not insignificant. Wait a second, now. By golly, it’s the same reporter — well, look at this. Folks, I have to sort this out. I thought I had two different stories here, and I do, but it’s the same reporter, and he’s written a very positive story — why, let’s take a brief obscene profit time-out here, let me sort through this because here’s the headline of the story I just read: ‘Unemployment Rate Falls to 9.4%, Hiring Up.’ ‘December Jobs Report Seen Showing Greater Hiring,’ is the second story. Both of these are by Christopher S. Rugaber, and they are 20 minutes apart.
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RUSH: All right. It’s even better than I thought. As a media exercise, this is even better than I thought. I had two stories here from AP. One is before the jobs data came out, so it’s a story on expectations — and, of course, where do they get the data for their story on expectations? They get it right out of the BLS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They get it from the regime, and it’s so rosy! Both Reuters and AP, and everybody else in the news media, just knew that the numbers were gonna be great for December because first they had the ADP number of 292,000 jobs that ADP said that private employers created. These two stories that came out before the official numbers were released.
These two agencies, AP and Reuters, had no problem whatsoever reporting news that hadn’t happened yet, like the unemployment report, as long as it would help Obama and the Democrats. Then when the numbers came out, that’s why AP went slash-and-burn on ’em: Because it is such a stark difference from what they were probably told to expect. The first story before the numbers came out ran about 9:10 this morning: ‘December Jobs Report Seen Showing Greater Hiring — The government is expected to report Friday that businesses stepped up hiring in December, a trend likely to gain momentum in 2011. Economists are predicting that employers added a net total of 145,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent.
‘Some are even more optimistic after a private payroll firm estimated this week that companies added nearly 300,000 jobs in December. Also encouraging was a report that fewer people applied for unemployment benefits over the past month than in any four-week period…’ Oh-ho-ho, this is all starting to come together now. Ha-ha-ha-ha. They’re finally tell the truth about why fewer people applied. It’s because they stopped looking for work, not that they found work. Now, get this: ‘[A] payroll tax cut that goes into effect this month will give Americans even more money in the new year. Economists expect that will boost economic growth and give businesses more confidence to hire.’
So what’s that? The AP is suggesting that tax cuts might boost the economy and hiring? Look at all of the rose-colored garbage they put in this story before the numbers came out! I mean, folks, they were having the orgasm here before anything it takes for an orgasm (if you get my drift here). They were looking at Playboy before opening the cover, and then the numbers came out, and just 30 minutes later they write a report that scathes. Now, Reuters, again, before the news came out: ‘Payrolls Seen Hitting Seven-Month High — The US economy probably created…’ Probably? ‘Probably’ is in a news story, now? It’s a news story. ‘The U.S. economy probably created more jobs in December than any month since May,’ (panting), ‘confirming a self-sustaining recovery is underway,’ Yay! ‘but the unemployment rate is seen edging down only slightly. Non-farm payrolls increased by an estimated 175,000,’ blah, blah, blah.
So the truth comes out, and we’re back to this: ‘The nation’s unemployment rate dropped to 9.4% … That was because more people found jobs, but also because some people gave up on their job searches. The Labor Department says employers added 103,000 jobs in December, an improvement from November’s revised total of 71,000 but far below most analysts’ expectations.’ So it’s quite an interesting study. We do this all the time, but today it especially rings true because they were expecting 300,000 jobs. It gets even worse. ‘Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress [today] that there’s increasing evidence that a ‘self-sustaining’ economic recovery is taking hold, but he said the Fed’s $600 billion Treasury bond-buying program is still needed because it will take years for unemployment to drop to more normal levels.’
Somebody translate this for me. Normally I’m the one that does the translating. Bernanke said the recovery is on track but not enough to create jobs. So there you have it, Workers of America: The economy and the recovery are on track (whispers) but not enough to create jobs. We’re not ‘creating.’ That’s the keyword. We’re not CREATING. The number of jobs created is not increasing the number of people working. We’re not above replacement levels. Here is Bernanke. Audio sound bite number three on Capitol Hill, Senate Budget Committee hearing. We have two bites. Here’s just one.
RUSH: Who are these ‘most participants’ he’s talking about? That would be Obama, and that would be Bite Me and everybody in the original economic team when the Porkulus bill was signed into law; because they said because of the Porkulus bill, we’re gonna have 8% employment in two years, and Bite Me said 500,000 jobs. Now Bernanke is out there saying (summarized), ‘Ehhhh, yeah, 8%, but it’s gonna take four or five more years.’ Four or five more years? What will have happened by then? Well, Obama will have left office. In four or five years from now, that’s, what, 2015, 2016? Yeah. Conservatives will hold the White House and the Congress, and they will have been implementing common sense fiscal policy since 2013. So it makes sense, Bernanke basically saying the recovery is gonna happen and the unemployment numbers are gonna drop with real jobs created once we get rid of Democrats in power.
That’s not what he said. We know that’s what the future holds as we sit here today.
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RUSH: This is John in Albany. John, welcome to the program. Nice to have you with us, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Wow, what an honor to talk to you, Rush. Thank you very much.
RUSH: Appreciate that, yeah, thank you, sir.
CALLER: I did say I was from Williamsburg, New York. I should have said Schenectady, and Schenectady is in the news because our president is coming to town here —
RUSH: When?
CALLER: Tuesday, so —
RUSH: Tuesday.
CALLER: I just wanted to —
RUSH: Well, you’ve got enough time to leave.
CALLER: The reason I called was I was thinking, is it possible that these numbers are correct and that, hmm, the Republican Congress is to get the credit for the revised figures in unemployment?
RUSH: Well, the numbers are not good, is the point.
CALLER: Rush?
RUSH: Yeah. You hear me? We got a problem here when people are on cell phones. They can’t hear me half the time and I can’t hear them any. (interruption) No, they can never hear me is what it is. He was gonna ask me further if — (interruption) no, he wasn’t. This is somebody totally different. That guy must have dropped off. He said the analysts overshoot because the — (interruption) No, no, no. I don’t think the analysts overshot because of the Republican victory in terms of the number of jobs they expected to be created. I think that more than anything that was the ADP report, 292,000 jobs, and I think it was a continuation of — look, folks, as long as we’re gonna be talking about these experts every week, I don’t care what the unemployment number is, the experts are surprised, right? So why should we pay attention to them at all? All they are is a funny media contrivance.
I don’t care what the numbers are. Like this report. The experts are surprised. The number here is unexpected. They were expecting three times this number of jobs. So he wanted to know, ‘Well, why were they expecting three times as many? Could it be because the Republicans won the election?’ No, the experts are not gonna predict that kind of a swift uptake before those Republicans even take office. We’re talking about December numbers here. So I think what does it matter why? They’re never right. They’re always shocked. So what difference does it make why they think what they think? They’re just a media contrivance.
John in Columbus, nice to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. My wife owns a small business, so what you’re talking about makes a lot of sense to me. And the point I’m trying to make is that, you know, it doesn’t matter what the numbers are, it’s confidence in the economy. I think that’s what’s hurting us. We’ve been trying to get a loan, and we even worked with somebody from the Small Business Administration.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And we’ve been turned down by banks because they’re telling us in private, it’s just confidence, they have no confidence in what’s going to happen in the market.
RUSH: Well, that’s probably true. I don’t doubt that. But they also don’t have to loan you any money to make money. They’re getting replacement funds from the Fed at zero interest rates. It’s practically zero. Money costs nothing. They take whatever they get from the Fed or from the borrowing, they just invest it and whatever it grows they don’t need to loan it to you to make money, so that’s another factor happening here, too, and that’s Fed policy.
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RUSH: I’m just not. I’m not gonna use it. I don’t care what he says. It’s BS. I’m not gonna use all these sound bites talking about how wonderful the unemployment news is ’cause we’ve already debunked it. Everybody knows the media just follows what the regime wants. So screw it. So that means you can skip everything up to number seven. We’ll pick up with number eight. Greetings, and welcome back, folks. It’s El Rushbo starting a million conversations with mind over charter on Friday.
JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!
RUSH: Happy to have you here. Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882. And the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com. No, I’m not gonna play ’em. I just decided. If I was gonna play ’em I’d-a played ’em before I went into the whole explanation of why — look, the AP got it right. Why should I spend time playing sound bites on a bunch of propagandists just reading off the fax they got from the White House? I can tell you what the media said, take a lot less time than it would to play ’em and you know. Like Obama, had his press conferences, (imitating Obama) ‘Great news out there today, we knew the numbers can jump up around, but we got a hundred thousand new jobs, we got a drop in unemployment, whoa.’ It doesn’t mean anything. The AP may be — long shot here — may be getting tired of carrying their water, puts the truth to the numbers, which we shared with you in the first hour.
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RUSH: Here’s Doug in Great Falls, Montana. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush, always great to talk to Mr. Big. Hey, going back to your talk about unemployment, I’m a self-employed masonry contractor, and I’ve been unemployed for about two months, but I don’t show up on any government list as unemployed because I don’t pay into unemployment. I take care of myself. When times are good I save; when they’re bad I live off my savings. I know dozens of guys in this small town that are in the exact same boat as me and we don’t show up.
RUSH: Right. You’re not even allowed to get unemployment.
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: And this is evidence for more unemployment than what’s being reported?
CALLER: Well, yeah, I don’t know what the number is. I’m not Thomas Sowell, but there’s a lot of guys just in the small town where I am that are in the same boat I am and I can only imagine nationally with the building crisis as bad as it is, there’s gotta be tens of thousands of guys that aren’t reported that are just in my little niche world.
RUSH: Right. Well, you know, the Labor Department just announced today, I am told that the Labor Department’s gonna start counting self-employed employment statistics starting this month because — yeah, all those guys. There are a lot of them. So the Labor Department’s going to start trying to keep track of them. There are six different unemployment numbers the Labor Department releases. U1 threw U6, and I get them confused, but the one that’s reported that gives us 9.4% is not the real accurate number because it doesn’t count those who have ceased looking for work. I think the real unemployment number is U3 or the real one might be U6. That number is at about 17 or 18% because it counts the actual number of people who have been trying to find jobs or who have given up, are still outta work, who aren’t working. The number that’s reported just counts the numbers applying for unemployment benefits. There’s a whole lot more outta work people than just those applying for benefits. And that number, as I say, is around 17%.