"Bad News Is Now Great Headlines"

Tyler Durden:

Today's initial claims print was the 5th week out of 6 in which expectations missed: instead of coming in at the consensus number of 375K, down from last week's 382K, the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] reported a miss to expectations of 7K, resulting in a seasonally adjusted number of 382K, or what is now once again secular shift higher.

But, wait big miss was actually good news: why? Because the ever data-massaging BLS was kind enough to revise last week's print upward (for the 86th week in a row) from 382K to 385K (just as we predicted last week) which in turn led to such farcical headlines as "U.S. weekly jobless claims drop slightly to 382,000" ...

And so bad news is now great headlines: Orwell would be proud.

To observe the simply ridiculous disconnect between initial claims prints and subsequent revision, is the following chart of cumulative claims changes courtesy of John Lohman, which shows an epic gap of 131,000: based on -133K of cumulative initial announcements and just-2K per revisions.

And there is your BLS data propaganda at work.

 

If you can't make out the legend, the red line is Change Per BLS Revisions. The blue-black line is Change Per HEADLINES. Both are year-to-date.

 

Now back to Tyler.

 

Another divergence: S&P vs Claims:

 

In a direct slap to the US nanny state, those receiving extended benefits dropped by 41K in the past week, and is now lower by 1.38 million compared to last week. Hopefully all these people have found a cushy retirement in the recesses of Disability and Food Stamps.

 

 

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

A lie, said Emerson, is "a stab at the health of human society." If he was right about that -- and of course he was -- then in a second Obama administration this nation will surely die not by a thousand cuts but by a near-infinitude of official lies. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this administration is nothing but lies: a weekly multitude of lies about the size of our unemployment problem, lies about how four brave Americans were butchered in Benghazi, lies about Iran and its intentions, lies about our intentions toward Israel ... a plethora of lies, lies, lies -- every one of them a stab in the mortal flesh of the American polity. We are bleeding to death -- and the astonishing fact is that roughly half the American people don't recognize the sight of their own blood.