Its The Revisions Stupid.

The January NFP came in at -20,000 jobs. Amazingly only some 5,000 away from the 4Th Branch Of Governments (Goldman Sachs) official estimate of -25,000. The estimates were for a gain of 10-15K. The unemployment rate edged down drastically to 9.7%. Obama probably had a smile at that moment until he saw the revisions for December and all of 2009.

But its really the revisions that are truly disturbing. The 2009 benchmark revisions reveal that 2009 was much worse than originally seen or believed. The revision in 2009 showed 600,000 more jobs lost then previously stated. Also the number of long term unemployed (27 Weeks or longer) keeps rising. People have become so discouraged that they are no longer looking for work. All in all the revisions continue to be negative as December was also revised down to a lose of 150K form loss of 85K.

We all talk about the Birth Death Model and how that has skewed NFP results. That model is responsible for more than 2/3 of the jobs that were created in 2007. It was phony job creation. The above revisions will set the story straight on how lousy the employment picture really is.

Back to the jobless rate of 9.7%. This is a fine piece of fooling the public into thinking horrible news is good news.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/35254420

"A sharp increase in the number of people giving up looking for work helped to depress the jobless rate. The number of 'discouraged job seekers' rose to 1.1 million in January from 734,000 a year ago."

This type of circular logic is utter nonsense. People who have given up looking for work for the lack of a better word are UNEMPLOYED! Do not try to spin this any other way. They should be added to the jobless rate not detracted from it. This is beyond disingenuous to state otherwise. Why do we have to put up with this trash? As a former trader I am disgusted by trading types who continually tell the rest of us that less horrible news or even horrible news is somewhat positive. When will the frogs of society stop listening to the scorpions on Wall Street?