----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 10:55 PM Subject: Re: The New Math
> > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 7:37 PM > Subject: Re: The New Math > > > > > Maybe I am just misunderstanding. > > > > "The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, > > unadjusted, totaled 516,501 in the week ending Dec. 27, an increase of > > 91,785 from the previous week. There were 620,929 initial claims in > > the comparable week in 2002." > > > > It looks like a comparison between the previous week and then with the > > same week in the previous year. Where would you get a seasonal > > correction out of that? > > I got it from > > "The Labor Department (news - web sites) reported Wednesday that new > applications filed for unemployment insurance dropped by a seasonally > adjusted 15,000 to 339,000 for the week ending Dec. 27." > > Which was in his first post on the subject. I also saw the report on the > seasonal adjusted unemployment elsewhere. Well....I read that in the original post also, but I don't see how it is relevant. Without more information, "seasonally adjusted" could well be a euphemism for "sanitized for your misdirection". <G> IOW, the phrase by itself doesn't tell me what is being measured. 200k people are absent in that measurement as compared to the general stat and I am wondering what their status is that they don't count as unemployed. Please excuse my skepticism, but undefined statistics irritate me because they leave one guessing at the meaning of the information they are supposed to convey. MY guess is that the "seasonally adjusted" numbers exclude the people who are almost always unemployed at this time of year and/or those who *are* employed at a time when they normally wouldn't be. But that is purely a guess and I know this. xponent TIA Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
