CHRIS MATTHEWS INTERVIEW OF JACK WELCH IF BUSH WAS STILL IN THE WHITE HO– USE
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By Gary Kaltbaum-Oct 7, 2012
This is the interview Chris Matthews would have done if the Bushies were still in the White House and Jack Welch called them out on the recent employment figures. Enjoy!
Matthews– Joining me to talk about his controversial tweet about this administration’s obvious manipulation of the employment numbers is the ex-CEO of GE and a great American…Jack Welch. Thanks for joining us on SOFTBALL!
Welch– Good to see you Chris!
Matthews– You really gave me a tingle up my leg when I read your tweet. The only question I had was how can anyone believe these numbers are for real when this administration says that the unemployment rate has gone from 8.3% to 7.8% in just 60 days with only creating less than 200,000 jobs?
Welch– Chris…it is great to see the media do their job by actually investigating these numbers. The fact is they don’t pass the smell test. Somehow…some way, this BLS is now trying to tell us that the total number of workers surged 873,000 last month…the highest jump in 29 years…this while GDP has gone lower and this while I have personally interviewed a ton of companies where they have all said we are doing no hiring. This has got to be the work of corrupt people in Washington.
Matthews– Are you saying this is the work of Rove, Bush and Cheney? Because if you don’t say it, I will. In fact, I walked the streets of Georgetown today asking numerous businesses whether they did any hiring in the past month and none said yes.
Welch– I can’t say for sure but something is quite wrong here and there should be no coincidence that the election is just around the corner.
Matthews– Well I don’t need to know any more. It is obvious that a racist and criminal administration is behind these completely fake numbers. After all, we have seen millions of people supposedly taken out of the workforce over the past 4 years to where if we just had the same workforce participation number as we did 4 years ago, the unemployment rate would be 11%. This is disgusting Jack Welch. I personally emailed the BLS and asked for the list of the 873,000 people who supposedly now had jobs and asked for a list of all the people that supposedly left the workforce over the past 4 years. I finally received an answer. The BLS, in an email told me and I quote” we do not keep any of these lists!” So Jack…is this just all made-up fantasyland numbers ? Just who is running this country? Are we in a banana republic now where the Bushies control government statistics in order to keep their power?
Welch– I cannot say for sure but the numbers speak for themselves. They are as clear as day. Keep in mind, the big numbers come off of a household survey of 50,000 households…and where the margin of error is get this? 400,000 is the margin of error…so as you can see, it doesn’t take much to extrapolate that they went after the number they could play with the most. The amazing thing about all this is that there were some smart people actually predicting this number would go below 8% because that is the number the Democrats have been harping on for so long that under Bush, for 43 months, the unemployment rate has been above 8%. And by the way Chris, this 7.8% number, if actually real…still sucks. It is still a terrible number and to watch Bush taking victory laps on 7.8% while so many are out of jobs is sickening.
Matthews– Good point Jack. This is why it is so important we remain on the air because this is Softball…no one gets away with getting one over on us. You all saw how we were front and center on how this Bush administration mishandled Libya and then lied! (Matthews screaming) They lied and people died. An ambassador and others were murdered on our soil by terrorists and this Bush administration told us for days and days it was because of a video that no one even watched. We stood tall as a journalistic outfit and risked being ridiculed by holding this administration’s feet to the fire on their lies in plain sight. We were the ones that showed that this administration wrote the story for all of us so as to not believe this was a terrorist attack. But as non-biased watchdogs, we wouldn’t fall for that. This is what they taught us in journalism school…to be watchdogs and not lapdogs with our paws in the air, tongues wagging and just agreeing with the guys we like and making stuff up on the guys we don’t like. This is Softball and we mean business.
Welch– Well Chris…you and the rest on your cable channel are fantastic. Keep up the great work as you expose the chicanery going on.
Matthews– Jack…you are a great American. Thank you so much for your courage in exposing an obvious manipulation of the numbers in order for some to just solidify their power.
Gary,
You’re making yourself look like a fool since you obviously don’t know how the two surveys work and how they differ
I worked for 21 years in the department in Arizona where we collected the data for nonfarm payroll employment and also ran the programs that calculated the labor force data, including the unemployment rate. The Current Population Survey (CPS), from which the labor force data is derived, is a totally different survey from the nonfarm payrolll data program. CPS measures whether someone in a household is working or not and will only count someone once even if someone has 3 jobs. The nonfarm payroll data counts all jobs at the place of employment, not where the person who works lives. You cannot compare these two surveys because they look at different data sets.
The 200,000 nonfarm payroll jobs you mentioned for the last two months has nothing to do with 800,000 people now working out of their homes. They are not related, because nonfarm payroll doesn’t count those jobs. Also the change in the CPS employment number was over 3 months, not 60 days, and the numbers are subject to revision for two months afterwords. So the 7.8% jobless rate may go back up to 8% within a month or two.
Also, how much do you know about the CPS? Probably very little. The survey rotates groups of people in and out of the survey every four months. So a new group that came in during July may be reflecting different data than the previous group. The previous group may have not been picking up the growing number of people working out of their homes. In addition, the CPS now smoothes out the data so it doesn’t have as many wild fluctuations as previously. But once in a while this fluctuation may occur and surveys of the next few months will determine if this month’s (and July and August as well) data is an aberration, or if it is for real.
Another thing you need to remember is that a lot more people are now working out of their homes than in the past. The payroll survey is not always going to be picking up all the employment that is transpiring. If someone can’t find work the standard way, he/she may decide it’s worth trying to go into business for themselves. Or one of the household members may be out of job and the other starts a home-based business to make up for the lost income.
I know people tend to believe all these conspiracy stories nowadays, but Obama cannot get the Labor Dept. to suddenly move the data one way or the other. He’s not allowed be near the data and if someone in BLS saw what was happening, they would report it. It’s too big of an agency for someone to try to manipulate the data. These are long-time professionals running these programs, not political hacks. Now I will say that that the woman in charge of the Labor Dept., Solis, would not even be qualified to work at the Labor Dept. if she was trying to get a statistical job. She barely can say something intelligent. But that doesn’t detract from the professionals who do work there.
For you to come out and act like the numbers were “fixed” is sad, particularly since you obviously don’t know the ins and outs of the survey process. These surveys were developed over decades and are retooled every so often. STick to what you know about investing because I enjoy your show and have listened to you for about eight years and value your information, have used your guiding principles and attended one of your seminars. You do great things for the Boys and Girls Clubs. However, I hate to see you follow Jack Welch’s lead. He looked like a fool on Hardball on Friday night. He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Sincerely,
Brent Fine
Chandler, AZ