Tuesday, June 09, 2009
The Media Fall for Phony Jobs' Claims - WSJ.com
Are we being snookered on jobs counting?
Some people think so...
Some people think so...
William McGurn writes about it in the Wall Street Journal:
"During a March hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Max Baucus challenged Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the formula.
"You created a situation where you cannot be wrong," said the Montana Democrat. 'If the economy loses two million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs. You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct.'
Now, something's wrong when the president invokes a formula that makes it impossible for him to be wrong and it goes largely unchallenged."
