Paul Craig Roberts

On March 9, 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that 227,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs were created by the economy during February. Is the government’s claim true?

No. Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that 44,000 of these jobs or 19% consist of an add-on factor derived from the BLS’s estimate that 44,000 more unreported jobs from new business start-ups were created than were lost by unreported business failures. The BLS’s estimate comes from the bureau’s “birth-death model,” which works better during normal times, but delivers erroneous results during troubled times such as the economy has been experiencing during the past four years.

Taking out the 44,000 added-on jobs reduces the February jobs number to 183,000, but does not provide a full correction. In an economy as troubled as the US economy is, most likely the deaths exceeded the births, but we don’t know what the number is. Was it 20,000? 50,000? What number do we deduct from the 183,000? We simply do not know.

Williams reports that seasonal adjustment factors do not work properly during troubled economic times and add their own overstatement to the jobs figure. If anyone could estimate the overestimate of new jobs that results from malfunctioning seasonal adjustments, it is John Williams, but he doesn’t provide an estimate.

Most likely, the new jobs did not exceed 150,000, a figure that would merely keep even with population growth and thus not reduce the rate of unemployment, which, consistent with this deduction, remained constant.

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Stephen Lendman

Blood is seen near a shoe and a hairband inside a room
where five members of an Afghan family were killed by
U.S. forces near Gardez, in Paktia province.

In his book titled, "Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire," John Pilger discussed Afghanistan, saying:

"Through all the humanitarian crises in living memory, no country has been abused and suffered more, and none has been helped less than Afghanistan."

He described what looked more like a moonscape than a functioning nation. In Kabul, "contours of rubble rather than streets (exist), where people live in collapsed buildings, like earthquake victims waiting for rescue....(with) no light or heat."

If hell on earth exists, it's headquartered in Afghanistan, but has many global affiliate locations.

Afghanistan's Troubled History: A Brief Account

It goes back centuries since before Alexander the Great. Afghans endured what few can imagine. Marauding armies besieged cities, slaughtered thousands, and caused vast destruction.

In the 19th century, imperial Britain and Czarist Russia intervened. "Great Game" struggles followed. Wars, devastation and deep poverty resulted.

Until 1919, Afghanistan was a UK protectorate. After Czarist Russia fell, King Amanullah declared his country's independence. At the same time, he signed an aid and friendship treaty with Lenin and fought Britain.

Border skirmishes followed. Kabul was bombed. Finally London gave it up and quit, but conspired with anti Amanullah elements against him. As a result, he abdicated in 1929. Warlords contended for power.

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