constitutionalley.us

First, here’s the raw employment/unemployment numbers for March, not seasonally digested, mind you:

Note that the increase in the number of employed persons equals the increase in the size of the civilian labor force plus the decrease in the number of unemployed which dropped by over a half-million. The labor force participation rate remained unchanged, but the unemployment rate dropped.

Next up are the part-time stats:

The number of persons working part-time dropped by a whopping 924 thousand (588+336). That seems to be something other than “lackluster” or “disappointing” as many of the reports, including the Wall Street Journal, would have you believe. So, in this case at least, seasonal adjustment is somewhat less than helpful.

Finally, we have the Sevakis Report:

But, alas, we still have a long, long way to go . . .

Ciao,
Dennis

P.S. Happy Easter/Passover

Today I received the following from one of my correspondents:

Former Pentagon Official Says All Chinese Electronics In The US Could Have Built-In Trapdoors by Robert Johnson, Mar. 30, 2012, 6:13 AM

Richard Clarke has another disturbing prediction for America.

[snip]

Clarke, like the rest of the world, knows China is sending compromised electronics to the U.S. by the boatload, to be used in military vehicles from submarines to fighter jets, and that many of them are poor quality, counterfeit, and worthless, but he thinks they hold another secret.

He believes the Chinese, already known for their industrial espionage, and electronic subterfuge, have built “logic bombs,” “Trojan horses,” and trapdoors into all manner of electronic components that could be activated at a moments notice, sending a digital apocalypse to the U.S. military with a few simple keystrokes.

Is this threat real? Or (just) another theory to scare the s… out of us?
— Shirley C.

Shirley, I always take what Mr. Clarke has to say with a fair dose of salt. That said, know that the operative phrase is “could have.” It’s a possibility, but no one knows just how big the problem actually is. (Or they’re not telling!) This issue has been recognized for some time and previously reported. The first “official” confirmation I have of it came from the following source, Office of the Director of National Intelligence:

Remarks by the National Counterintelligence Executive
Dr. Joel F. Brenner
Applied Research Laboratories
University of Texas at Austin
Business Strategies in Cyber Security and Counterintelligence
April 3, 2009

Wherein Dr. Brenner makes the following statements:

Counterintelligence used to be (a) challenge for the FBI, CIA, and the military. Now it’s a challenge for every private firm that lives on a network – which means all of them. Here are a few examples – all real – of threats you face:

• A leading US firm enters negotiations with the Chinese, only to realize midway through that the Chinese know every one of their bottom line positions as a result of having hacked their network.

• A US computer security expert gets off a plane in Beijing with a new PDA, turns it on, and by the time he gets to his hotel, finds a handful of beacons remotely inserted. Some are designed to track his movements, others to infect and investigate his home server when he emails home.

• A US computer security firm wanting to do business in China hires a group of Chinese. To do what? Research security vulnerabilities. Do they vet them? Apparently not. They include at least one hacker with ties to the PRC government.

• A PRC intelligence officer approaches an ethnic Chinese, US citizen who is highly placed in the CIO organization of a US firm. They want him to spy on his own company. He turns them down. Later he’s approached again — this time to say that his mother in China needs hospitalization, but the hospitals are, you know, crowded. Does he want to reconsider?

• Data loss stories now too numerous to keep up with—often relegated to inside pages of newspapers.

• Criminal scams getting much more sophisticated. There’s now a well-developed black market for stolen information. The Russians are into this big-time.

• We’re also seeing counterfeit routers and chips, and some of those chips have made their way into US military fighter aircraft.

This is America’s military and commerce on Chinese electronics. Any questions?

Obviously, the Chinese don’t play by the same rules as we do. And this does not appear to be to our advantage, to say the least. However, the Republicans say that we must live by the mantra of “Free Trade” — even if it kills us, I suppose.

But then, we’ve been giving stuff away to the Chinese for a long, long time. See:

Connecting Nuclear 9/11 Dots That Aren’t in the Headlines . . . or Ever Have Been. (updated)

Ciao,
Dennis

P.S. Anyone know where the F-22 O₂ system is made?  F-22 Woes Continue to Flummox Air Force

Athens, Tennessee, that is.

Now, I wouldn’t want anyone to get any crazy ideas, however, in 1946. . .

I believe that Tennessee is the only state that has armed insurrection in its constitution as an authorized cure for tyranny. But don’t quote me on that. :)

Ciao,
Dennis

Update I from a correspondent: I never heard of the Battle of Athens, I appreciate the history lesson. If something similar were to happen (today), the feds would wipe out the entire town and NBC would report that it was caused by a massive gas leak. E

Update II: Mr. Jay was kind enough to remind me of his treatise on the subject of revolution and the fact that Tennessee is not the only state with a revolutionary “right” built into its Constitution. More on the subject may also be found at Wikipedia here.

For what it’s worth, here’s an update to my multi-dimensional employment/ unemployment chart. I don’t think I’ve goofed anything up. The full spreadsheet is available here if you’d care to track down and critique my number crunching. I do appreciate error catching as accuracy is always of importance to an engineer. :)

I’ve modified it so that future updates will be semi-automatic and require less manual labor on my part. Otherwise, I don’t think I’d bother with it any further. As it now stands, a few minutes intense effort after the next BLS report and you should be gifted with another update. Whoopee!

Lo and behold:

Ciao,
Dennis

Update – Viewing/browsing spreadsheets offline vs. online:

Yes, the SkyDrive viewing setup is marginally useful, and a reader has suggested that I modify the spreadsheet so as to make it more readable online.  That would, however, reduce its structural functionality.

A better approach is to download the spreadsheet and browse offline. The file can be downloaded to your computer by clicking on the “Download” button near the upper left-hand corner of the viewable spreadsheet window. If you do not have Excel installed on your machine, you may download the Excel Viewer here without charge.

Again, the employment spreadsheet is to be found here. Readers not familiar with spreadsheet structure: please note the sheet tabs at the bottom of the window. Just click on a tab and you will then be viewing a different sheet.

Update II: Gallup unemployment/underemployment numbers. If you’ve not as yet had your fill, here’s a bit more cud to chew on:

March 8, 2012
U.S. Unemployment Up in February
Underemployment is 19.1%, up from 18.7% in January
by Dennis Jacobe, Chief Economist

PRINCETON, NJ — U.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased to 9.1% in February from 8.6% in January and 8.5% in December.

Cont’d. . .

And, no, I’m not Mr. Jacobe’s doppelganger. Though it might be interesting to see how my percentage table would look with his raw numbers. It’s also interesting to see how Gallup’s survey methodology differs from that of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can find that at the end of the Gallup survey writeup.

Canadian commentator Ezra Levant rants about the “Keystone Calamity.” Haven’t found a syllable I can challenge. Especially the opening bit describing Obama as America’s “Manchurian President.” Truer words were never spoken.

12m38s of unadulterated fact:

While New Jersey governor Chris Christie concerns himself with lowering the flag to half-mast so as to honor the recently departed singer Whitney Houston, the U.S. and its allies are cutting back on their Lightning II orders:

Weekly Standard
Leading Indicator of Decline
Richard Cleary and Thomas Donnelly
February 16, 2012 4:24 PM

The $489 billion cut to defense budgets engineered by Barack Obama — as well as the played-for-fool Republican accomplices on Capitol Hill — won’t just mean less American military power. These cuts have significant consequences for America’s allies, as well.

Consider the case of the F-35 Joint Strike fighter program. The Obama Pentagon has reduced the 2013 purchase of Lightnings from 42 to 29 and reduced the planned five-year buy by more than 100 aircraft. This will drive the cost of each F-35 up, yet again; the development costs of the plane remain the same regardless. And because the JSF program has been an international effort since its conception, Obama’s decision increases the cost for everyone.

Thus it comes as little surprise that yesterday Italy announced a significant reduction, from 131 to 91, in its planned F-35 purchases. Rome’s decision threatens to sow doubt among other international partners. The timing of the announcement, only days after the U.S. fiscal year 2013 budget was released, shows that the Italians are following Obama’s lead — the White House has given them cover in using defense reductions as the principle ingredient in accepting government “fiscal discipline.” In “extending” the U.S. buy of F-35s—in practice, the purchase of 179 fewer Joint Strike Fighters through fiscal year 2017—the United States has thrown into question the economics of the program and opened the door for partner-nations to back out of commitments.

[snip]

Indeed, the fate of the F-35 program is as good an indicator of the depth and breadth of Barack Obama’s retreat from U.S. military preeminence. If more international partners on the project start bailing or similarly “extending” their F-35 plans, the pace of American and allied decline will accelerate.

This will come as no surprise to Weekly Standard readers since this was foreseen some 2½ years ago when “A Good Day for the ChiComs” appeared in the magazine’s blog.

We’ve gotten to the point in the development of UAVs – Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – that we can at least imagine the disappearance of live, in-the-cockpit pilots. So, if we don’t need pilots, we won’t need piloted aircraft, right? Cargo carriers are already moving to one pilot for over-the-water operations. The solo pilot will just sack out except for takeoff and landing while the flight is monitored and controlled remotely. In the recent Trainorders posting “Pilots or No Pilots” retired American Airlines Captain Steve Chealander is quoted as saying “that, within the next 10 or so years, all UPS and FedEx cargo flights will be with pilot-less aircraft.”

Well, we’ve certainly come a long way since Lindberg’s day, though a bit of his American “Spirit” somehow seems lost.

We certainly won’t need any piloted aircraft for tactical nuclear weapons delivery since we won’t have any — tactical nuclear weapons, that is. With our fairly recent signing of a nuke weapons reduction treaty with the Ruskies, and our even more recently announced unilateral nuclear disarmament plans, Obama has moved a long way towards fulfilling his campaign pledge to give us a U.S. nuke-free world. He just seems to have forgotten about everyone else on the planet.

Meanwhile, the Chinese just keep expanding their 1999 Panama beachhead. Wonder how long it will be before Mandarin replaces Spanish in Latin America? Perhaps the People’s Liberation Army would be interested in buying the ol’ Rosey Roads naval base and air station on Puerto Rico that’s up for sale online? After all, we don’t need it anymore.

Or do we?

Have a nice weekend.

Ciao,
Dennis

Well, now you can pursue the answer to that question on your own. I’ve uploaded a new spreadsheet to my SkyDrive for your perusal and downloading, should you be so inclined. The latest and greatest constitutionalleysis combines a summary of the monthly unadjusted household employment data found in BLS Economic News Release Table A-1, “Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age” with a portion of the data found in Table A-8, “Employed persons by class of worker and part-time status.” I’ve also included mid-month population data from the St. Louis Fed so that you could get some notion of just how many are institutionalized, should that be of concern to you.

Also included is a copy of the zerohedge.com seasonal adjustment graph by Tyler Durden which clearly illustrates the distortive effect these “adjustments” can have on comparing January to December with the coming of each new year. Mr. Durden’s critical analysis of the recently released BLS employment stats may be found here.

Now, for the first time, you can find in one place all the basic employment/unemployment data you could possibly desire. Voilà! Seasonally unvarnished monthly stats from January of 1980 to January of 2012 are yours for the taking! The Bureau of Labor Statistics is not nearly so kind. Have fun.

Just give me a smidgen of credit if you use the stuff in a publication. Thanks.

Ciao,
Dennis

The ‘un/employment’ numbers for January were released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to much fanfare from the Associated Press, and even the Wall Street Journal, as can be seen respectively here and here.  The AP gleefully exclaims that “Unemployment rate hits 8.3 pct. after hiring burst” while the gurus over at the WSJ quietly reassure that “Jobs Data Show Sustained Growth.”

Is that so? Well, let’s do a little constitutionalleysis, shall we?

For your convenience I’ve upload my latest handy-Jim-Dandy BLS stats spreadsheet which you can open here. I recommend you do so in a new browser tab as that will make the referencing process much simpler. Note that the spreadsheet consists of four [now five] sheets which can be individually selected by clicking on one of the tabs found near the bottom of your browser window. To start, select the “Historical” tab so as to afford ourselves a bit of perspective regarding the BLS unemployment numbers.

First, notice that the second column is titled “Civilian non-institutional population.” This is the starting point for all of the BLS computations. I’m not exactly sure as to who all is included in the “institutional  population,” but it’s a pretty big number. In July of 2011 the total population of the U.S. was estimated at 311.8 million. As shown in the BLS table, the non-institutional population was at that time 239.7 million, thus the institutional population must have been 72.1 million persons. More on ‘institutional’ vs. ‘non-institutional’ persons later in the program.

To get away from the issue of who is and is not included in the unemployment percentage figure at any given time, I suggest that we use the number “Percent of population not working.” This includes both the “unemployed” as well as persons not in the labor market, that is, actively looking for a job or whatever. This number can be found in the last column of the “Historical” sheet, is derived from the original BLS data, and would seem to be a better measure of economic activity than the narrowly defined BLS unemployment number. For the period shown in the table, the percent-not-working (PNW) has varied from a high of 42.2% in 1983 to a low of 35.6 in 2000. The average rate for 2011 was 41.6%, much closer to the historic high than low.

It’s at this point that the meaningfulness of the BLS stats become increasingly suspect. Is the Dec. ’10 to Dec. ’11 drop in the unemployment rate from 9.4% to 8.5%, nearly a full percentage point, a better indication of economic activity/recovery than the fact than the PNW number remained nearly constant? Dropping only 0.2% from 41.7% to 41.5%? These numbers are also affected by the number of persons counted as ‘in the labor force’ which actually dropped as a percentage of the ‘non-institutional’ population from 64.3% to 64.0%.

So, essentially what’s happened here is that as the non-institutional population grew, the percentage of persons counted as participating in the labor force dropped and the percentage of persons not working remained constant, but the unemployment rate went down by a percentage point. And that’s the number that everyone touts.

The “Jan ’12 orig” tab is “Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age” as it comes directly from the BLS factory. It’s included for reference purposes only. Let’s move on to “Jan ’12 mod”, shall we?

Starting out, it seems advisable to take a peek at the footnote at the bottom. There, BLS is kind enough to inform us that “The population figures are not adjusted for seasonal variation.” But if you look at the numbers, the only one that remains constant is the “Civilian non-institutional population” figure. Huh? Also noted is the advisory that “Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.” I don’t know about you, but “population controls” sounds a bit too fudgeable to me. All that aside, let’s move onto the results.

The yellow-highlighted rows are the official BLS unemployment rates for each of the given age and sex categories. Seasonal adjustment provides a 0.5% improvement in the overall unemployment figure, but men of all ages, and both sexes aged 16 to 19 years, did better by a full percentage point. Guess women 20 and over just don’t seasonally adjust as well. (Just kidding, ladies.)

Let’s look at the details of the “Men, 20 years and over” seasonal adjustment that resulted in the 0.3% improvement in their unemployment rate from Dec. ’11 to Jan. ’12, rather than what would otherwise be an unadjusted 0.5% increase in that one month span.

So, looking at the last column, for “Men, 20 years and over” the “Not in labor force” category dropped by 377 thousand, while the “Civilian labor force” for this group went up by almost exactly the same number. There were 633 thousand fewer unemployed and 377 thousand new jobs created for this group (1,010 – 633). But wait, isn’t that the same number as the reduction in the “Not in labor force”! Ah, so that’s from whence they came. How convenient.

I’m not so sure about that “Seasonally Adjusted” BLS unemployment number. Are you?

Ciao,
Dennis

P.S. If you find an error please let me know and I will correct it. Thanks.

Update: Added a fifth sheet to the spreadsheet that is an expanded version of BLS Table A-8. “Employed persons by class of worker and part-time status.” This was done partially in response to Mr. Strzelczyk’s post at American Thinker, “January Unemployment Report: The Devil is in the Details” which is a sentiment I obviously agree with. In addition to the new spreadsheet page, much of the specific information found in the AT posting is available from the BLS here in the “Employment Situation Summary.”

If you wonder why I even bother with any of this nonsense, I do it primarily so that I might find some reasonable level of understand regarding the economic and political but mostly legalistic Kabuki dance that is the United States. After working at this for ten years, I’ve reached the conclusion that we are one of the worst-governed industrialized countries, as individuals occupy a much smaller area of free space than we think we do, and are distracting ourselves into oblivion with our national addictions to money, celebrity and self-indulgence of a licentious nature. But then, nobody’s perfect.

However, politics as usual is not going to change any of it and get us out of this existential mess. Well, I don’t think it will. And at least Mr. Steyn agrees with me.

Update II: You may wish to take a look at Mr. Kaminsky’s post on this subject over at the American Spectator blog. He is of a different opinion regarding the subversive nature of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but I suspect that to some extent he’s conflated census adjustments with seasonal ones. But, however one looks at the numbers, the “Percent not working” measure doesn’t paint as optimistic a picture as does the Wall Street Journal and quite a few others.

You can check on the current size and composition of our national debt by taking a peek here at Constitutionalley’s exclusive “Whoop-de-doo-doo Budget Deal” deficit & debt forecaster. I mention this only because of the recent rumor that the deficit will again exceed $1 trillion this fiscal year, $1.08 trillion if you’re picky.

But wait, isn’t this precisely the same number that was forecast by the original FY2012 budget? Why, yes it is! — if you accept the original budget’s revenue number, that is. However, if spending holds at “budget” but revenue comes in at 90% of forecast, the deficit will be something in the order of $1.34 trillion.

This would appear to be closer to “reality” if you take a look at the current debt burn rate which stands at $4.38 billion/day for this fiscal year. That’s just about a billion a day greater than last fiscal year when the deficit came in at $1.3 trillion and the debt increased $1.23 trillion. At the current rate of debt accumulation, we’ll be a cool $1.6 trillion deeper in the hole come September 30th next.

Tennessee Ernie Ford was sadly prophetic when he lamented, “Saint Peter dontcha call me ’cause I can’t go, I owe my soul to the ‘company’ store.”

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Ciao,
Dennis

Here’s the next step in DoD’s mini-sizing the Air Force – aka ‘bye, bye USAF’ – project:

Military.com
Venerable A-10 Warthog Faces Extinction
January 31, 2012
by Michael Hoffman

The venerable A-10 tank killer aircraft is taking a hit of its own as part of the Defense Department’s decision to eliminate six of the Air Force’s tactical air squadrons and one training squadron.

Air National Guard squadrons will bear the brunt of the losses. Three of the five A-10 squadrons going away will be Guard units. Air Force leaders plan to eliminate one Reserve and one active duty squadron.

[snip]

First built in 1975, the A-10 Thunderbolt II – better known as the “Warthog” — is known as the infantryman’s favorite Air Force aircraft because of its ability to fly low and slow over a battlefield providing close air support.

The Air Force flies 189 A-10s in the active duty, 108 in the Air National Guard, and another 48 in Reserves. Air Force leaders plan to phase out the A-10 and allow the F-35 Lightning II to take its mission sets once it enters the Air Force fleet in numbers.

But the F-35 program has experienced problems and Panetta announced in his budget “preview” that the Pentagon would delay it once again.

But, I thought the F-35s were supposed to make up for the F-22s we didn’t build? What am I missing here? Looking back a tad:

Weekly Standard Blog
A Good Day for the ChiComs
Posted by Michael Goldfarb
on July 21, 2009 01:35 PM

There will soon be a crisis of American airpower: old F-15 and F-16s, aging F-18s and not enough of them to fill carrier decks, too few F-22s (that you’re going to be very reluctant to use) and late arriving (and limited) F-35s (and what’s the likelihood that F-35 goes forward according to plan?), plus a dinky and old bomber fleet. I haven’t worked out the numbers, but if you look forward 7-10 years, the picture has got to be very ugly.  [emphasis added]

But then again, since there are going to be no tankers, it doesn’t matter that there are no fighters.

Also, the Air Force’s Minuteman III ICBM force has been taken off line re-targeted:

Washington Times
April 7, 2010
Obama strategy frustrates nuke foes
Bill Gertz and Eli Lake

The Obama administration’s nuclear strategy review made public on Tuesday keeps in place all strategic weapons needed to fight a nuclear war and presents only minor policy changes, a move that upset arms-control advocates who had sought major cuts in U.S. forces.

The report of the yearlong Nuclear Posture Review changes how nuclear arms will be used against non-nuclear weapons states. Nuclear-missile forces will remain on alert to be fired within minutes to counter a nuclear strike, but the intercontinental ballistic missile warheads now are targeted on open oceans — not Russian or Chinese cities — in case of an accidental launch, senior administration officials said in releasing the report. [emphasis added] 

“This review describes how the United States will reduce the role and numbers of nuclear weapons with a long-term goal of a nuclear-free world,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said at the Pentagon, echoing President Obama’s pledge last year.  

The missiles may as well have been taken off-line since re-targeting the fleet takes about an hour. Essentially, this gives the Russians/Chinese a first strike option against our land-based missile force. Not to worry, though, since they’re our friends. Right?

I can’t help but wonder what Greenpeace thinks of Obama’s “Nuke the Whales” ICBM targeting plan.

Keep in mind that Robert Gates, a Bush II appointee, was Defense Secretary until July 1st of last year. Panetta is just continuing with the Gates USAF downsizing project which is really the brainchild of the Bush clan. But that’s a story for another time.

Just how many ways are there of spelling S*U*R*R*E*N*D*E*R?

Ciao,
Dennis