Your source has the coolest internet handle. Hope he's right.

Well, I named him that. He's not really on the internet; he's actually a "government source."

He may or may not be a "narrative device" composed of several different sources blended together in order to sell a book and/or screenplay.

I will not say until he has died.

If these numbers are *really* positive on Friday I demand cowbell. Lots of cowbell. And maybe that Drudge-style red light.

Promise?

I don't want to say, because I don't believe in counting cowbell before it's clanged.

Let's just say that positive jobs news is what the cowbell was created for.

The household survey is largely dismissed by Greenspan and other neutral economists as not having validity in measuring true job creation, based on polling techniques and family's inaccurate responses...self-shielding on status...in denying household members are in fact jobless.

It goes like this. Man finds his electronics engineering job outsourced to China. Nothing else similar in job opportunities currently exists within 200 miles of his Ohio residence. He finds some work painting a friends house, doing part-time lawnmower repairs. To the globalist faction of the Bushies now pushing jobs overseas - that makes the man a "Self-Employed Business Entrepreneur" under the Household Survey, and he has a gainful job. His wife has to go to work based on his now making about 200 bucks a month, and she gets a job on the 12-5 shift in a shoppe that sells scented candles made in Pakistan. Chalk up another job creation victory according to the Household survey. And the couple lies about their daughter, who has a part-time fast food job...not so hot...so they tell the survey group she is a telecommunications consultant for the Entrepreneur Dad, because ahe has taken some calls scheduling a lawnmower repair dropoff for him. Chalk up another new exciting jon on the Household Survey tabulations!

So for the election, the media is mostly sticking with payroll numbers as the credible stats for job creation. Everytime Mankow or one of the other "things are just wonderful in the economy" cheerleaders attempts to bring up the vast, vast, number of new "small biz" entreprenurial jobs not accounted for - they get laughed off.

Cedarford, you mindless slut:)

Outsourcing is either an anal retentive reflex or good news, depending upon what you are told versus the truth of the matter. I used to cringe everytime someone from the administration would say outsourcing is good for the economy and overall job growth. Until I read why and from people who know why. Maybe you should?

Also, your scenario assumes one thing that all the big word snobs do: Americans are all liberal liars that wouldn't be caught dead without a job. That is arrogance personified.

Cedarford,

Did you try reading Ace's post? Nothing in the post suggests the jobs revision is dependent on the household survey. The two numbers are mentioned to point out some of the disparities. Oh, and Mankiw didn't mention the household survey either. Please don't conflate issues. It makes you look like a moonbat...

Otherwise, what the hell is wrong with painting houses? Could your example be reversed. Guy loses job at manufacturing plant that paid $12/hr. Starts to paint houses and is paid by the job. Makes considerably more money. Impossible? That's the great thing about using anecdotes to argue--anybody can do it. YEAH ANECDOTES!!

Assuming you're a liberal, why are you against people performing an unskilled task? Or a skilled trade like painting? Puh-lease.

Don't cry for me; I'm already dead.

The person who posted without a name was less kind than I.

Bet a dollar I know more about econ and int'l trade than you do, Cedarford. Wager a buck?

The household survey is largely dismissed by Greenspan and other neutral economists as not having validity in measuring true job creation, based on polling techniques and family's inaccurate responses...self-shielding on status...in denying household members are in fact jobless.

As Birkel says: Read.

This is not dependent on the household survey. It's a revision done every year based upon a better, year-long re-evaluation of monthly calculations of job creation. The household survey is mentioned as one (1) factor suggesting a big upward revision.

But the revision is not based on the household survey. The household survey is just used as tea leaves to divine what the revision will be.

The main evidence is the trend of upward revisions during recoveries. Which, by the way, we're in.

Ace-

The best 101 moments of SNL was on some cable channel last weekend. The cowbell skit was in the top 10.

Ace,

one distinction, the Fed doesn't put out the Employment Situation Report, it's the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Really, the bigger October surprise might be over at cnsnews.com

Well, if the news pans out, we'd better get our frickin' cowbell, you no-cowbell-givin' bastard.

One has to wonder what the thought process was within the Bush campaign in agreeing to the specific timing of this debate. Although they may feel confident about the September jobs numbers and the revisions that will be released on October 8, they cannot know for certain what they will be. And if they are not good, it will be very, very bad for them, at least within the context of the dynamic of the discussion that night.

It just seems as if the risk is disproportionately on their side, and that perhaps they should have insisted on Thursday being the day of the second debate. If that was an option, of course.

You want cowbell? I've got yer cowbell right here, ya frickin slackers!

http://www.bustedtees.com/product_info.php?products_id=84

Birkel -

I have a MBA. I no more trust the neocon school of "supply side, free trade" economists theories than I trusted Arthur Anderson -style theories on creative business accounting.

The Household Survey is important because the Bushies have tried to use it several times to argue that the tax cuts are producing tremendous job creation. But Greenspan and others have shown fact checks on what familes say, vs. reality, ate two different things. So the survey gets little credibility, even as certain Bushies keep crying that 3 million or so wealthy entrepreneur and small family biz jobs aren't counted and try pressuring BLS to jack the numbers up.

This comes up every year, ACE.

I personally think it is long past due that US labor analysis and official stats move into the modern age and accurately measure household wealth and jobs, and count those long-term unemployed.

BTW - Your logic that going to a low-paying service job from a manufacturing one is generally a boon, because it leads to entreprenurial wealth is fatuous, in that we already know from outsourcing stats that it leads to an average 30% drop in pay. Arguments to the contrary are just an replay of The Famous Amos Fantasy.

BTW - I am politically neutral on this. We all know the Bushies lie through their teeth on the economy, but so do Kerry's people. Bush AND Kerry are both bought and in the pocket of the people calling the shots on illegal immigration, shifting American industry overseas, and calling a 450 billion deficit and a 550 billion trade deficit "healthy".

Cedarford, Where did you get your MBA from? I am sure that you had lots of republican profs............NOT

HT,
George Bush has gambled his political life time and again, on the GWOT, the Iraq invasion, elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, tax cuts in the face of falling revenues due to a collapsing economy and massive new outlays to fund Homeland Security, Medicare prescription drug benefits and educational benefits. I doubt that he views the September jobs report timing vis-a-vis the debate schedule to be any more of a gamble than the aforementioned.