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Mathematical misconceptions ...
Kansas City, Dec 1st, 2011 - Numbers don't lie, people do
Every year, at least for the three last years, December comes up an "unexpected" high number of claims for unemployment defictis. There is nothing new in that and for sure nothing "unexpected". However, due to short memory and the general lack of mathematical understanding, those numbers cause. as usual, a hot-headed discussion about alleged failures, alleged success and more important alleged guilt. Which is basically the reason, why I thought, it's worth to dedicate an article to the mathemaitcal facts behind those loud numbers:
Fact one: New claims raise always with the end of November. A lot of plants produce during the summer for the winter season. You didn't really think, all those fireworks is made during the Fall or early Winter, did you? So for a number of plants, the Christmas business, including temporarily jobs, is already done. This is a factor, that raises new applications at the end of the year. Everywhere and every year.
Fact two: While Christmas brings up a number of temporary jobs, those jobs will not be in any statistics based on November's number. How can they if hiring those temporary manpower starts only beginning of December. So while the holidays cause a number of temporary employments, the will for sure not paint the statistcs nicer, we get beginning of December. And they will not change a lot, because the number of tamporary jobs isn't big enough to compensate for fact one plus the joblosses in other areas.
Fact three: The economy went already through three years of permanent job cuts. That means, most companies are basically reduced down to the edge of operability when it comes to workforce. Normally, that would lead to a decrease in the number of new applications. The companies have nobody anymore, they can fire. But the number of new applications stays high and in fact, it makes no difference whether we talk here five-thousand more or less. That's in the usual statistical uncertainty in a system with so many parameters. Technically, every number above 380,000 in a month, even it would be celebrated as success of politcs, hides exactly one scary truth: Those new applicants are either replacements or even worse, they are new jobless because the companies they worked for went out of business.
Get me right here! Those are of course not the only mathematical effects currently working in or rather against our economy.
Long queues of unemployed waiting at job fairs

There are more, so many more, it would go far beyond the limitations in article length, available here. And I don't claim to know all of those factors. But then, nobody really does, that's the deeper reasons, while the experts are so rarely right on target with their estimations.
My goal here isn't anyway to make everyone an expert in his own rights. The point is to understand, what those numbers really mean:
Number of new claims:Means basically nothing as long as we don't know how many people got jobs in the same time. Standing alone, this number isn't more than smoke and mirrors to acknowledge or contradict a political opinion without complete facts. Or even worse, a blatant attempt to sell voters as stupid.
Net joblosse/jobwins: This number has a certain worth in itself because it tells us how many jobs are really created or lost. However, it is worth to take it with a grain of salt. It includes temporary jobs and government jobs as well. Since government jobs rarely follow the normal market rules, they spoil the statistics by hiding the tendency on that normal labor market. And before some cheer, there is another factor in it, one has to know to understand the meaning of this number: We need basically a monthly net job creation of about 150,000 to 200,000 just to make no loss because every months, people come out of schools and enter the job market. Thus a net job creation of zero doesn't mean we didn't lose. We lost in fact already in that case because we have between 150,000 and 200,000 new unemployed persons out there.
Unemployed Americans: This number is a blatant lie. It tells us, how many people get benefits, not how many people
are without job. After three years of economic disaster,there are thousands and thousands, millions in fact, without job and out of benefits since a long time. They are just not counted anymore.
So, we end up at the question, everybody talks about. Is it the fault of the "evil rich people", who hoard money and fire people? Lets have a look on the math:
The often quoted middle class exists because people have middle class jobs. But the middle class rarely create jobs.
The income and power of the rich is based on investment aka capital gains. Thus, they are a base for job creation, but usally not the source of jobs directly. However, driving this capital power out of the country takes the financial base from the job creators.
Companies, big and small, are the primary job creators. Everyone offering a service or producing a product is a potential job creator and be it only the own job in the first place. But the bigger products get or the more complex services are, the more manpower is needed to render those services and build those products. The often overlooked fact (and it isn't accidentally overlooked) is, that jobs cost money first before they bring in profits. So the companies have to lend money first and hope, it pays out in the future. The "evil rich" give them the money in the hope for future profits.
So forget everything about "trickle down" or "evil rich", you have heard. Of course, wealth trickles down and of course, there is somewhere someone really evil and really rich at the same time, but those are statistical exceptions. Wealth is created by jobs. It's that simple. And without companies, there are no jobs. And without the rich investors, there are no companies. And that, is a hard mathematical provable fact. So, what we need to do is, to make it worth for the investors to invest in America instead to drive them to other countries. Any envy driven movement, any class warfare rethorics from politcs, costs indirectly jobs or prevents the creation of new jobs. Again, it's that simple ... as long politics isn't playing with the numbers to catch mathematically inept voters.

- PB -
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Copyright if not otherwise mentioned Peter and Diane Brendt 2010-. All copies, also in parts, demand the written consent of the copyright holders