Market Manipulation Addendum

At times over the past few months you have seen me post some minor rants when one of the weekly/monthly economic report comes in at "better" or "much better" than expected and causes a huge rally.  Then, a week or month later, that "better than expected" number ends up getting revised down, or up as the case may be, to the real number, which in fact only "meets" the original consensus expectation, or may even come in lower than expected.  Of course, a week or month later, that's old news, and when announced, we see no comparable selling.

Yesterday I penned a longer piece about our markets being manipulated and broken. Today, I make a quick call-out to the Government controlled reporting agencies who have been busy aiding and abetting the corrupt Fed and Wall Street bankers in their efforts to perpetually ramp the market higher.  In the spotlight today, thanks once again to the research of our friends at zerohedge.com, I present you with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, which should now actually be shortened to simply "BS", after reading these statistics.  For those not aware - these are the folks who are responsible for tracking and reporting weekly/monthly initial and continuing unemployment claim data.

Most of you already know by now that the manner in which the BLS/Government reports unemployment as an overall percentage of the work force, significantly under-represents the true story (they publish 9.5%, but we all know it's closer to 20%).  This has even been reported in mainstream media and newspapers, so I won't go into that all now, but if anyone isn't sure what I'm talking about, leave a comment and I'll address it separately.  Today's topic however is focused on the published reports coming out of the BLS on a weekly basis regarding initial and continuing claims.  Full article from zerohedge can be found [here],  but the bottom line is, the BLS has misreported their initial claims for unemployment in 22 out of the last 23 published reports, and in all 22 cases, these figures have later been revised higher.  Clear text translation - in 22 cases, the BLS has reported initial unemployment claims being lower than they actually are, thereby attempting to paint a rosier picture of the economy.  Here's a nice little visual for you from the original ZH article.

Now riddle me this.....how long would you remain employed at your current position if you fucked-up 9 out of 10 weekly/monthly reports?  I mean seriously, most of us wouldn't even get the opportunity to reach 22 out of 23 times...so what are we to derive from this?  Either:

1.  Every single person within the BLS reporting chain is completely incompetent (possible, but not probable);

or

2.  The BLS is corrupt from the inside, and on their own, are purposely trying to make their unemployment numbers look better (again, possible, but not probable...after all, they're govt. employees and get paid regardless of the results);

or

3.  The BLS is being directed by the Administration, the Fed, Wall Street, or a combination of all three to purposely misrepresent their statistics.  In other words, to lie. Lie to you, lie to me, and lie to all Americans.  And why?  So the Wall Street crowd can goose the market higher on "better than expected" unemployment figures.

I'll go with option 3 above, and call it Exhibit 4 in support of  my broken, manipulated market thesis.  If you haven't read yesterday's post, Exhibits 1 - 3 can be found [here].

Good luck trading!