Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Op-Ed Columnist: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
Krugman is an intellectual sham. His column is based solely around the BLS employment figure that fits his ideology.
He mentioned the household survey and the employer survey differ. He also says the household numbers are better "but not particulary good." Any chance he'd define "good" or mention that the household survey show 500,000 jobs created?
He parenthetically questions this discrepency and summarily dismisses it with "We don't know".
Sorry, Professor. Your position turns entirely upon this discrepency. If the statistics measure the same activity then they should be roughly the same. The fact that both differ in great magnitude should be the question we seek to answer. The inconvenient fact that the government chooses the household survey to calculate the U rate didn't change with the Bush Administration. (Why the household survey? We don't know.)
The fact that you elect to ignore one statistic in favor of the one from which your column flows either demonstrates the lack of this particular insight or flat out deception.
Given your professional standing in a "science" whose validity is steeped in statistical measures, I'd opt for the latter explanation.
Krugman is an intellectual sham. His column is based solely around the BLS employment figure that fits his ideology.
He mentioned the household survey and the employer survey differ. He also says the household numbers are better "but not particulary good." Any chance he'd define "good" or mention that the household survey show 500,000 jobs created?
He parenthetically questions this discrepency and summarily dismisses it with "We don't know".
Sorry, Professor. Your position turns entirely upon this discrepency. If the statistics measure the same activity then they should be roughly the same. The fact that both differ in great magnitude should be the question we seek to answer. The inconvenient fact that the government chooses the household survey to calculate the U rate didn't change with the Bush Administration. (Why the household survey? We don't know.)
The fact that you elect to ignore one statistic in favor of the one from which your column flows either demonstrates the lack of this particular insight or flat out deception.
Given your professional standing in a "science" whose validity is steeped in statistical measures, I'd opt for the latter explanation.
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