Economics

Government economic wonks have published the results of extensive number crunching and have declared that it's worse than they imagined. How much worse and in what direction is still unclear, as the results seem to indicate that 2 + 2 which was formerly interpreted as 5.8635, is in fact, closer to 8.1638.

If the above interpretation proves unsatisfactory, there is enough information here at Zero Hedge (pdf) to keep you wondering what's going on for some time. Interestingly, these folks talk about unemployment using the U-6 figure which includes people working part-time who want to work full-time, as well as the discouraged workers. Rather than the more commonly publishes U-3 figure, which is currently about 9.5%, the U-6 is running 16.8% nationally, and into the 20s in CA, MI, RI, OR, SC, and NJ.

The thing about economics is that if you want a second opinion, all you have to do is ask the same person the same question again.

Filed under Economics and Mad Science. But I repeat myself.