When good news is bad.
0 comment Saturday, May 17, 2014 |

Oh, like say the new unemployment figures. announced today. "Unemployment" is down because more people dropped out of the work force -- just flat-out stopped looking for a job. Hardly good news.
Let me explain. Suppose ten people in a hundred have no job but they're looking for one. That's a 10% unemployment rate on the U3 line. Scary.
But if five of those ten people take a job-search break, that brings "unemployment" down to 5%. It's called the "labor force participation rate."
In fact, the number of unemployed people who aren't even trying to find work is at a 30-year high. And they don't "count." See how bad good news can be?
On a brighter note, this is definitely the time to do something really bad, what with the Charlie Sheen coverage and Quadafi and all. What's that? What about Mark Sanford?

Umm, who's Mark Sanford?

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