How many democrats are needed to bias unemployment figures?

I do not consider any possibility that the Current Population Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for September 2012 is biased by CB or by the BLS, This is not the case. There is another hypothetical way to bias the data. There are around 70000 households surveyed by the CB. These households include approximately 200000 persons (mean household is 2.5 people). All these people (excluding several percent not responding ones) answer a few questions associated with their current status: employed, unemployed or not in the labor force. There current level of civilian labor force is approximately 155,000,00 with 12,000,000 unemployed. These figures are calculated by a projection of 200,000 to 310,000,000 using population controls. In essence, one person represents 1550 people.

How many people are needed to increase the rate of unemployment by 0.1%? The rate of unemployment is calculated as the ratio of the number of unemployed and labor force.   So, 0.1% of unemployment rate with the level of labor force of 155,000,000 corresponds to 155000. Since one person in the CPS represents 1550 people, one needs only 100 people to increase the rate of unemployment by 0.1%. To decrease the rate by 0.3% , only 300 (democrats -Spartans?) are needed.

I do not say that the result for September 2012  is biased. I say that the Current Population Survey procedure is wide-open for manipulations.

7.8% unemployment was predicted in April 2012

In 2006, we developed three individual empirical relationships between the rate of unemployment, u(t), price inflation, p(t), and the change rate of labour force, LF(t), in the United States. We also built a general relationship balancing all three variables simultaneously. Since measurement (including definition) errors in all three variables are independent it may so happen that they cancel each other (destructive interference) and the general relationship might have better statistical properties than the individual ones. For the USA, the best fit model for annual estimates is a follows:

u(t) = p(t-2) + 2.5dLF(t-5)/dtLF(t-5) + 0.0585 (1)

where inflation (CPI) leads unemployment by 2 years and the change in labor force by 5 years. We have already postedon the performance of this model several times.

Here a model with monthly estimates of CPI, u, and labor force is presented. The time lags are the same as in (1) but coefficients are different since we use month to month a year ago rates of growth. We have also allowed for changing inflation coefficient. The best fit models for the period after 1978 are as follows:

u(t) = 0.63p(t-2) + 2.0dLF(t-5)/dtLF(t-5) + 0.07; between 1978 and 2003

u(t) = 0.90p(t-2) + 4.0dLF(t-5)/dtLF(t-5) + 0.30; after 2003

There is a structural break in 2003 which is needed to fit the predictions and observations in Figure 1. Due to strong fluctuations in monthly estimates of labor force and CPI we smoothed the predicted curve with MA(24). The rate of unemployment became more sensitive to the change of inflation and labor force. Alternatively, definitions of all three (or two) variables were revised around 2003, which is the year when new population controls were introduced by the BLS.

All in all, the monthly model predicts the observed rate of unemployment which has recently dropped to 8.3%. We expect the rate to fall further to the level of 7.8% by the end of 2012.



Figure 1. Observed and predicted rate of unemployment in the USA.

Jantung & Ayam Masak Lemak (Banana Heart in Spicy Green Broth)

There is always one or more of my banana trees fruiting and of course that would mean there is banana heart too! This is an ordinary dish in Perak but since I have not shown it before and I had little time today to snap a photo, giving me the opportunity to share with you herewith. (Actually the office was blacked out just after 5pm... that would force all of us to leave office on time instead of stucked in there until dark... felt so good to be able to reach home in day light... lalalala....)

By: Roz@HomeKreation
1 Banana Heart - peel the hard part away & slice
4-5 pieces Chicken
10 Chili Padi*
1 Green Chili*
3 Shallots* (* pounded) 
6 Cengkil Leaves - see here - slice finely 
1 Turmeric leaves - slice finely
1 bowl Coconut Milk
Salt

METHOD:
1.  Place all in a pot & stir frequently until boiled.
Let it cook until chicken is well done and banana heart is soften.
2. Serve with white rice.
**********************************

BAHASA MALAYSIA VERSION
Sonok nya hari ni dapat balik awal dari opis.... Ada pulak jantung pisang yg hubby petik dari belakang rumah. Alhamdulillah, rezeki dari pokok pisang memang tak putus walaupun Along takda kebun berekar2. Bukan jantung sahaja - cili api, daun cengkil, daun kunyit pun dari belakang rumah juga.... tq pokok ku... love you all....hehe. Ini lauk biasa2 jer, orang Perak memang suka masak Gulai Lemak, tapi rupa nya Along belum kongsi lauk ni kat sini dan harini berkesempatan pula nak snap gambo.... dah berapa hari tak pegang kamera, rindu lak!

By: AlongRoz@HomeKreation
1 biji Jantung Pisang - kopek & buang bahagian yg keras & hiris isi yg lembut
4-5 ketul Ayam
10 Cili Padi*
1 Cili Hijau*
3 ulas Bwg Merah* (* tumbuk) 
6 Daun Cengkil / Pucuk Buas - tengok kat sini - hiris nipis 
1 helai Daun Kunyit - hiris nipis
1 mangkuk Santan
Garam

CARA2:
1.  Masukkan kesemua bahan2 ke dalam periuk & kacau sehingga mendidih.
Masak sehingga ayam & jantung lembut.
2. Hidangkan dengan nasi putih.
-

Gary Johnson for President Crowd Surfs

Word is starting to roll out about Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson's Salt Lake City Crowd Surfing Event yesterday.  What started out as a free, public, packed, standing-room-only, Townhall of 200 attendees ninety minutes and one innocent inquiry later may have witnessed the only known POTUS Candidate Crowd Surfing event EVER.

As Gary spoke for the first half hour, you could feel his enthusiasm for liberty and ending government largess in a plethora of areas: war, debt, drugs, marriage, and spying.  He comes across pragmatic in his approach dealing with liberty-oriented solutions and pround of his veto record as the former twice-elected Governor of New Mexico. 

He mentioned one bill he veteod was to force pet shop owners to exercise their pets.  While he personally favors pet exercise, he doesn't want to pay for the pet exercise police.  It is this passion--even insatiability--for reducing spending that caught my attention early on when Gary was in the GOP debates prior to his exit last December to run on the Libertarian Party ticket. 

The balance of the time was spent in answering questions from the public on topics A to Z with a line that never ended. (Excerpt video)

This is an exciting time for Gary as the two monopolistic parties have candidates very similar in ideology.  Whether Gary is the next president or not, with every percentage of vote Gary gains, he wins.  He commented that he was in this commitment through 2016 so while not a formal announcement, you can expect that Gary will not be absent four years from now.

Millions of Americans Unable to Afford Prescription Medication

Prescription medicine is often unattainable for millions of Americans simply due to the price of these drugs.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey illustrates the difficulties in accessing medicine that exist for a significant proportion of Americans.  In the past year, 10.1% of non-Hispanic white adults reported that drug costs prevented them from buying necessary medications.  That percentage jumps to 13.2% for Hispanics and rises further to 14.7% of non-Hispanic blacks.  Interestingly, there are significant variations between Hispanic sub-populations: while 16.4% of Puerto Rican adults could not afford prescription drugs in the past year, a comparatively low percentage of Cuban adults (10.8%) were unable to buy necessary drugs.

Society for the Study of Economic Inequality: working papers

Top 25 Working Papers by Total File Downloads

1 The effects of Fair Trade on marginalised producers: an impact analysis on Kenyan farmers


Leonardo Becchetti and Marco Costantino


2 GDP growth rate and population

Ivan O. Kitov


3 Poverty among minorities in the United States: Explaining the racial poverty gap for Blacks and Latinos

Carlos Gradín


4 Inflation, unemployment, labor force change in the USA

Ivan O. Kitov


5 Microsimulation as a Tool for Evaluating Redistribution Policies

François J. Bourguignon and Amedeo Spadaro


6 Theil, Inequality Indices and Decomposition

Frank Alan Cowell


7 Inequality of opportunities vs. inequality of outcomes: Are Western societies all alike?

Arnaud Lefranc, Nicolas Pistolesi and Alain Trannoy


8 The effects of inequality on growth: a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature

Christophe Ehrhart


9 The measurement of gender wage discrimination: The distributional approach revisited

Coral del Rio Otero, Carlos Gradín and Olga Cantó


10 A model for microeconomic and macroeconomic development

Ivan O. Kitov


11 Evolution of the personal income distribution in the USA: High incomes

Ivan O. Kitov


12 Modelling the overall personal income distribution in the USA from 1994 to 2002

Ivan O. Kitov


13 On analysing the world distribution of income

Anthony B. Atkinson and Andrea Brandolini


14 Modeling the evolution of Gini coefficient for personal incomes in the USA between 1947 and 2005

Ivan O. Kitov


15 All types of inequality are not created equal: divergent impacts of inequality on economic growth

Stephanie Seguino


16 The demand for socially responsible products: empirical evidence from a pilot study on fair trade consumers

Leonardo Becchetti and Furio Camillo Rosati


17 Poverty and Time

Walter Bossert, Satya R. Chakravarty and D’Ambrosio, Conchita (Conchita D'Ambrosio)


18 The Household Wealth Distribution in Spain: The Role of Housing and Financial Wealth

Francisco Azpitarte


19 Reconsidering the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis: the trade off between environment and welfare

Nicola Cantore


20 Recent trends in income inequality in Latin America

Leonardo C. Gasparini, Guillermo Cruces and Leopoldo Tornarolli


21 Measuring Bipolarization, Inequality, Welfare and Poverty

Juan Gabriel Rodríguez


22 Modelling the age-dependent personal income distribution in the USA

Ivan O. Kitov


23 Multidimensional Poverty Measures from an Information Theory Perspective

Maria Ana Lugo and Esfandiar Maasoumi


23 Inequality Decompositions ?A Reconciliation

Frank Alan Cowell and Carlo Vittorio Fiorio


25 Changes in poverty and the stability of income distribution in Argentina: evidence from the 1990s via decompositions

Florencia Lopez Boo

Rich Oreo Brownies from Cake Scraps

 Yes, you are reading the title right.... this cake is made from leftover cake scraps! Next time you have cake scraps after making decorated/layered cake, don't throw them away. Usually ice layered cake will have some scraps from trimming and eating them is boring because they don't look presentable or appealing that even children will feel as if they are fed like street beggars because of the ugly broken pieces. Turning them into something delicious and beautiful like what I make here, guarantee no waste and more so everyone crave for more! The unfortunate part is that you cannot easily make this again unless you have more cake scraps...LOL!

 After much searching in the internet for ideas on what to do with my cake scraps, I finally gave up and decided to create something by myself. My children love Oreo Brownies so I thought that was exactly what I wanted to make! Look carefully in the photo above and you can see the layer of oreo! You will feel melted oreo in your mouth in each bite!

 

Remember the Red Velvet Merdeka Cake that I posted earlier here? You can also see how much scraps I gotten myself in there. I froze the cake because I was too busy to make something yet. When finally had time, I placed the cake scraps in a food processor and turn it into fine crumbs - see photo below.

Lebihan kek di kisar sebelum digunakan

Oreo cookies are arranged on half of the batter and then topped with remaining half batter... wow making the brownies super delicious with melting oreo in your mouth of every bite!

Susun biskut oreo serapat2 nya supaya lebih nyummy!

 I must be so excited with my own creation that I babble a lot more in this entry....LOL! Let's not wait and see the recipe now.

By: Roz@HomeKreation
Makes 9" square
INGREDIENTS:
250g Butter
1 cup Condensed Milk
2 large Eggs
½ cup Cocoa Powder
1 tsp Bic Soda
½ tsp Baking powder
3½ cup Cake Scrap Crumbs (I used red velvet cake from here) 
1 cup Hot Water*
6 tbsp Chocolate Flavoured Milk Powder* (* mixed) 
2 packet Oreo Cookies

METHOD:
1. Beat butter and condensed milk until white and fluffy.
Add in egg one by one - mix well in each addition.
Add in cocoa powder, BS & BP and mix well.
Add in cake crumbs and mix well with wooden spoon.
Finally add in the hot chocolate milk.
2. Pour half of the batter into lined and greased tin.
Arrange oreo cookies like shown on the above photos.
Top with the remaining batter.
3. Bake for 55-60 minutes at 180C until cook.
4. Cool on wire rack before slicing.

BAHASA MALAYSIA VERSION
Satu lagi kek rekaan Along sendiri yang amat sedap tak terkata... super delicious! Tekstur kek yg 'crumbly' dan cair di mulut, rasa yg lemak bercoklat & tidak terlalu manis amat sesuai dgn citarasa yg Along idamkan! 

Kek ni Along buat daripada lebihan kek yg sebelum ni - tengok kat sini. Banyak pula lebihan scraps selepas kek tu di potong2. Orang rumah ni tengok kek hancur berterabur camtu memang takda yg teringin, tambahan bila ada kek velvet yg cun buat apa pula nak suruh dia org makan keredak2 tu, Along sendiri pun tak teringin nak makan kek hancur2 tu. Nak buang sayang, jadi Along cari idea kat internet nak buat apa dgn lebihan kek tu. Takda idea yg menarik pun... rata2 cadangkan buat trifle - orang kat rumah ni semua nya tak minat makan dessert yg manis2 lembik2 camtu (kecuali Along yg memang tak cerewet!). Akhir nya Along pun give up, meh lah reka2 buat brownies campur oreo sbb org kat rumah ni semua suka brownies dan oreo. Bila dah masak.... walaaaaa.... memang sedap, super sedaaap! Excited tak terhingga dgn new discovery ni. Lepas ni dah dapat idea nak buat sesuatu lagi dgn lebihan kek nanti.

oklah, jgn celoteh panjang2 lagi.... meh jenguk resepi. Lenkali kalau anda ada lebihan kek, simpan dalam peti beku dulu kalau takda masa nak buat. Bila kelapangan, masukkan kek tu dlm pengisar sampai jadi crumbs!


By: AlongRoz@HomeKreation
Saiz: 9" persegi
BAHAN2:
250g Butter
1 cwn Susu Pekat
2 biji Telur (grade A)
½ cwn Serbuk Koko
1 st Bic Soda
½ st Baking powder
3½ cwn Kek yg di kisar ( spt gambar di atas Along guna lebihan kek red velvet cake dari sini) 
1 cwn Air Panas*
6 sb Susu Tepung perisa Coklat* (* campur) 
2 bungkus Biskut Oreo

CARA2:
1. Pukul butter & susu pekat sehingga kembang.
Masukkan telur satu-persatu sambil di pukul sebati.
Masukkan serbuk koko, BS & BP sehingga sebati dgn sudu
Masukkan kek yg dikisar sehingga sebati.
Akhir sekali campurkan susu coklat panas sehingga sebati.
2. Tuangkjan separuh adunan ke dlm tin yg di lapik kertas & di minyak.
Aturkan biskut oreo seperti gambar di ats.
Tutup dgn adunan yg separuh lagi.
3. Bakar 55-60 minit, suhu 180C sehingga masak.
4. Sejukkan kek sebelum di potong.