[TheRealThing]

^ With all the "numbers" accomplishments the country has enjoyed under his leadership, could you imagine how well we could have been if the republicans weren't trying to block every effort, at every turn. The numbers don't lie, this nation's economy is moving forward under this President. He had a lot to save from the last President, and he is doing a fairly good job, even though the other party is using a pretty strong defensive line against him. He saved us from the next depression, upon taking office.

We don't agree about the numbers. Case in point. The new formula for calculating unemployment rates is what has the rate down to 6.1. Under the old system, the one Dems like to hold Republicans to while they use the new calculator to draw a dramatic improvement, the rate would be much higher.

Going into the heat of the 2012 election season, the Obama administration changed the way we calculate unemployment numbers. It was at that point that we changed from the Establishment Survey and adopted the U-3 Survey. The following article from Forbes addressed the problem as it was going down back in 2012. Of course, that is considered ancient history now as the wildly optimistic U-3 model is the new standard.


EXCERPT---
"All in all, the U-3 unemployment number is deeply flawed and should not be relied on as the business media and even the capital markets do. A better (though still flawed) indicator of labor market conditions is the U-6 measure. For both August and September, U-6 showed an unemployment rate of 14.7%. Unlike U-3, U-6 adds back to both the labor force and to the unemployed “discouraged’ and “marginally attached” workers, i.e., those who have stopped looking for work but still want a job, and accounts for part-time workers who want full time employment. The flaw is that U-6 removes the long-term discouraged worker after 52 weeks of unemployment. Nevertheless, it is still a much better indicator than U-3. John Williams estimates that if U-6 counted the long-term discouraged workers, the unemployment rate would be 22.8%." http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspecula...t-numbers/

The point is, one can make numbers say anything they want them to. Hence Darrell Huff's book "How to Lie With Statistics"

Like I said, the urgency with which we have seen this administration assault traditional values to effect the changes favored by the liberal, has out of necessity, usurped the orderly processes of the Congress. Like trying to cram a Giant Redwood into your woodchipper, so the normal workings of the US Congress are clogged with the machinations of a Super Power in the throes of redefinition. Those on the left insist that Republicans, who are already backing up like a turbo charged crawdad, need to just step aside and let them bang afterburner. My question has always been and to my mind has yet to be answered, would be as follows. If as the left insists, all this advocated change really is the will of the people, why risk everything on a suicidal roll of a die? Could not we absorb said change with a certain measure of dignity? In other words, what's the rush, is America not the world's best?

Of course, I would never accept the liberal rationale, as it seeks to adjudicate morality according to faddish notions of the day. From the Declaration of Independence--- "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Thomas Jefferson