FactCheck.org Cites Chart Made by Geoff of Innocent Bystanders in Knocking Down Lunatic "Saved or Created" "Staistics"

I'm desperately trying to figure out how to insert myself into this and claim some credit.

But as things have turned out, even with the big spending package in place, the jobless rate shot up to 9.4 percent in May, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here's how the real, monthly jobless figures look when plotted on the Obama team's own chart, with the red dots indicating the actual rates:

The second chart was created by "Geoff" at the Web site Innocent Bystanders. We've checked it and can vouch for its accuracy. The Obama team did not give the precise figures that lie behind their chart, and the chart is based on quarterly figures while the BLS figures are monthly. Nevertheless, this chart gives a reasonably good picture of how far off the Obama team's projections have turned out to be, at least so far.

Not surprisingly, Republicans are pouncing on this. Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California and five other GOP members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform signed a Jan. 11 letter complaining that the administration had used murky methods to support its claims. They accused the Obama team of using "creative models to produce speculative macroeconomic forecasts" and asked for detailed explanations of the "factors and theories" behind the administration's projections.

Even better, the FactCheck.org piece runs in Newsweek, prominently linking Innocent Bystanders, which means their traffic is about to skyrocket by 10, maybe 12 percent.

Thanks to Slublog.

posted by Ace at 08:05 PM

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