An economist debunks the job truthers

[swag]

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/05/an_economist_debunks_the_job_truthers/

By Andrew Leonard

So why is it wrong to wonder whether the BLS stats have been fudged?

Justin Wolfers: I’ll give you three answers, in order of how convincing I find them.

First, if you know and understand the BLS and its structure — its statutory structure and its employment structure — you understand this simply isn’t how things happen. The BLS is independent of the Department of Labor. If you go to the BLS website, you won’t even find a picture of the Secretary of Labor there. It’s completely firewalled.

The one exception to this would be the Commissioner of the BLS. The president appoints a BLS commissioner, but for most of this administration it’s been a Republican. When his term ran out, Congress refused to confirm Obama’s appointee. So the current commissioner is in fact a career guy from within BLS, and if you know the institution at all, the BLS is an institution of nerds, by nerds.

So you could even argue that Republicans have protected the BLS from political influence by refusing to confirm an Obama appointee?

Those would be your words, not mine!

But there is literally not a political appointee in the building. Furthermore, the process involves so many staff, and the culture of independence is one of, if not the most, deep-seated value within the organization. The problem with the conspiracy theory is that there are so many staff who work on the numbers in various stages that such a conspiracy would be pretty much implausible. Were one to even attempt to do that there would be so many whistleblowers that you would have heard about it already.

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[Indpndnt]

1. Hahahahahaha! What a total smackdown.

Brilliant. Highly recommended read! Thanks for sharing this.

[cr8tvlde]

2. Who the hell comes up with "Job Truthers"??? Why are Ds only good at Defense?

Income Taxers Truthers ... come on, y'all...can we squeeze in a meme here? This person yapping on stage with our President could very likely be a felon. We don't know, though, and why now? He's giving us all "the finger", now firing PBS and Big Bird, lying out his ears, and now Salon gives them the legitimacy of The Truthers????? calling Obama and the D's The Liars, by default?

Or, the Tax Truthers...that gets him on a personal and a political Lying Scam...and includes Lyin' Ryan as a Tax Liar as well.

WTF??? Gotta go take my blood pressure now. Not really.

And no, I'm not ready to "just say no" to Romney's cheating in front of 67 million people. Cheatergate 2012