LATER: Just in case: the bit at the end is humor, such as it is. Sorry, I'm kind of desensitized on race to the point that I'll joke like that. But I had someone else who I have no doubts about flinch under a similar joke, and I'm seriously not sure how the Professor took it. So in the world's first display of Black Liberal Guilt, I'm making it clear, and will likely keep such humor confined to the Other Site.

Dear Mike,

With respect to Tim Kane's "Presto, A Better Jobs Picture"...

Last February 11, in his Congressional testimony, Alan Greenspan gave his and the Fed staff's common view of the discrepancy between the (deeply depressing) payroll employment survey estimates and the (less, but still depressing) household employment survey estimates. Greenspan's and his staff's common view--which is the consensus view among competent, unbought economists who have looked at the issue--is that the principal cause of the discrepancy is not that the payroll survey is missing lots of newly-created jobs, but that the household survey is relying on estimates of immigration that are, since 911, much too high. As it was reported at the time:

'I wish I could say the household survey were the more accurate,' Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman, said in congressional testimony on Feb. 11. 'Everything we've looked at suggests that it's the payroll data which are the series which you have to follow.'... The Fed's conclusion was that the household survey's results had been inflated by overestimates of population growth.... If the population estimate is too high, the estimated number of jobs will also be too high. The bureau bases its population estimate on the 2000 census, but it then updates that estimate yearly with data on births, deaths and immigration. But immigration numbers are largely guesswork, because so much immigration is illegal. Fed officials suspect the immigration estimate is inflated because it fails to reflect tighter immigration controls since Sept. 11, 2001, as well as declines caused by the economic slowdown...

After Greenspan's testimony, I (naively) thought that we would see an end to the political hacks claiming that the labor market and the employment picture are hunky-dory, and that the household survey numbers gave the more accurate picture of the labor market--I thought that this particular zombie had been staked. Anyone making the argument would have to answer the question, "Why does Alan Greenspan--who says that he wishes you were right--say you are wrong?" And they would have no answer.*

What I said:

I thought this nonsense about using the household survey data instead of the payroll survey data was effectively debunked. I know this is a Krugman quote an so won't convince Bushites in and of itself. But maybe they'll note where I got the link from; I found the most commercial guys I could, to show people who are serious about understanding how the economy works have taken note.

The Krugman quote mentioned the same Greenspan statement Prof. DeLong quotes.

But I was naive. Here the zombie is again, like the last five minutes of a badly-written Buffy episode--back in the LA Times in a truly extraordinary piece of mendacious dreck:

"the household survey should be seen as the standard for long-term analysis, and payrolls should be kept in perspective. If the economy is going to take center stage in the political debate, we need to ensure we're arguing from accurate figures.

Note that Kane does not dare claim that the factors he stresses account for all, or even much, of the discrepancy between household and payroll estimates. Indeed, he does not even dare give any numbers about the size of the discrepancy--currently running at about 3 million since the business cycle peak of 2001:

What I said:

In order to spin things positively, Type Two Tim must avoid providing the actual numbers involved. He must also avoid mentioning that with 60,000 respondents as opposed to the payroll survey's 160,000, he's arguing in favor to the statistically less reliable of the two reports.

How much does job-changing distort payrolls? The BLS says it overstated payroll job losses by a quarter of a million, but it uses cautious assumptions. And let's not forget the fact that payrolls overlook many workers, as mentioned above. As a result, the study from BLS offers the lowest possible estimate of the overstated job losses. Its acknowledgment is just the tip of the iceberg.

But does it really matter how big the hole is in the side of the Titanic? The point is, the payroll survey is now officially suspect. At the very least, it shouldn't be viewed as superior to the other sources of economic data. Analysts have little choice but to reevaluate all their economic assumptions.

To add insult to injury, Kane is as deceptive on the sinking of the Titanic as on the state of the American labor market. The size of the hole in the Titanic mattered a great deal. Had the Titanic rammed the iceberg straight on, or had it suffered a single puncture, it would have stayed afloat: its internal watertight compartments would have preserved it as they limited the spread of water within the hull. The Titanic sank because it *almost* missed the iceberg, and as a result the iceberg cut a very long gash down its side that opened not one or two but many of its compartments to the sea. To claim that it didn't "really matter how big the hole" in the side of the Titanic was is to demonstrate a truly amazing degree of ignorance about that historical tragedy.

So, tell me: how does the LA Times get caught assisting in the game of "Opinions About Shape of Earth Differ"? And what institutional mechanisms exist in the LA Times to help you keep from being an unwitting participant in this game?

So I hit all the same points Prof. DeLong did.

Three days ago.

Betcha he gets all the credit, too.

It's racism.