The New Math

I remember back when I was in grade school. I was in about the fifth grade when I first heard of the "new" math. Something new and completely different from the century old reading and writing and arithmetic was being put forth to our little minds. And quite frankly, I don't believe that we or any that followed were ever the same after that quantum shift in education took place.

I never really grasped the ideas of the new math, no more than when later in life, when I failed to grasp why so many Americans suddenly hated their country. It must have been something in the Kool Aid or the jiffy pop. But I did eventually come to a point in my life when I developed a great admiration for one Samuel Clemmons and his sage wisdom concerning statistics.

Samuel (Mark Twain) once remarked, "there are lies, there are damn lies and there are statistics." And no more of a truism has ever been uttered IMO. What better illustration of our skewed government and skewed world and skewed way of looking at things, than to consider Twain's simple maxim.

Take for instance.....our present economic dilemma, also know as "the recession." Has anyone ever seen such pitching of outlandish analysis and numbers as we have witnessed in the past year? And where do they get their numbers from? I suspect that my failure to grasp the new math so many years ago is contributing to my inability grasp the great mechanics involved in explaining our present unemployment rate and economic decline.

For instance, for over the past year, I have witnessed the weekly release of "first time unemployment filings." Usually the numbers are in the 450,000 range weekly, but we have seen months where the numbers bumped up to 600,000 new filings per per week. So these are the "weekly statistics" of those "first time filers" for unemployment? I realize that I am not necessarily the sharpest pencil in the box when it comes to numbers? But I am reasonably sure that those kind of numbers represent close to 2 million jobs a month being lost. Times 12 months? And that strikes me as being in the neighborhood of 24 million jobs lost in the past year, not including those lost in 2008 when the recession first began.

Yet our official numbers reflect what? Somewhere around 16 million Americans out of work? And 7-8 million of those represented the base line of unemployment (around 5%) before the recession ever began.

And then today? This report

85,000 jobs lost in Dec., but Nov. revision shows jobs growth

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy lost more jobs in December and the unemployment rate was unchanged, as a sluggish economic recovery has yet to revive hiring among the country's employers.

The Labor Department said Friday that employers cut 85,000 jobs last month, worse than the 8,000 drop analysts expected.

Yet there are these reports.

First Time Unemployment Claims Rise

The number of people that filed unemployment for the first time rose last week, according to Labor Department reports.

Americans filed 434,000 unemployment claims for the week ending January 2. That is an increase of 1,000 from the prior week.

So which is it? I am confused. Did we only lose 85,000 jobs in December? Or did we lose 434,000? I feel like that old TV detective Columbo. Help me out here. Something just doesn't work out with these numbers. See the problem?

Or is it just me? Has my failure to grasp the new math, simply led to an obvious shortcoming and blindness to "fuzzy math?" All I do know is this. I know manure when I see it and what the American people are being fed as facts and statistics by the media and government daily, is nothing short of a conveyor belt full of the stuff.

I am reminded of Mark Twain's remark frequently as I wade through these weekly economic reports and I realize that there is no reconciling these crap statistics that are passed off on the American people on a regular basis as supposed accurate representations.

If there are that many people filing for unemployment every week? And they are all first time filers? Not even recidivists? Then what the hell is going on in this country with unemployment and job losses? And how long can this level of job loss and unemployment payments be sustained.

And that begs the next big question that no one is owning up to which is...."what do we do once all these state unemployment accounts go bust?" (and many of them already have). The question then becomes not so much how many people are out of work and who is going to pay their benefits, as much as it becomes where is the money for unemployment going to come from.

Meanwhile, I just sit here in my own personal bewilderment and ponder the sentiments of the great minds that preceded me in life. Those like Samuel Clemmons and later one Will Rogers. Where are these people today when we really need them.

Rogers often lamented the goings on in Washington and frequently acknowledged that in the absence of a congress, he would have long ago been out of work as a humorist. Based upon that revelation of truth and observation? I's say that this country ought to be ass deep in humor right now.

Rogers once said....."An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out." I may not be the sharpest pencil in the drawer? But when it comes to my government and their statistics? I am pretty sure that I ain't ignorant.

So as Will Rogers later said...."Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for." And I say.."if ignorance is bliss, then that explains all the smiles on the faces of the dumb masses."