I Have Seen The Light

Wow, I've never seen anybody work so hard to change reality as the good folks at AEI:

[D]on't believe the widely reported loss of millions of manufacturing jobs since the Bush administration took office. All these alleged facts are either wrong or greatly exaggerated, based on the same faulty source.
...
There are two sources of labor market statistics, the Establishment Survey and the Household Survey--both conducted by the Labor Department. The first asks manufacturing and service sector companies how many employees they have. The second asks a sample of people whether they have jobs.
...
For the year ending in August, the Establishment Survey shows a loss of 463,000 jobs. The Household Survey shows that the economy added 313,000 new jobs in the same period. The Establishment Survey also shows the much discussed job loss since the Bush administration took office--2.7 million jobs. The Household Survey reduces the loss to 220,000, not good but far more typical of a period with recession and slow recovery. As the speed of recovery picks up, the latter loss will disappear by early next year.

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up. I wonder when BushCo will be touting this line: "You're looking at the wrong report. Only a couple hundred thousand jobs have been lost, not a few million." Thank god for those tax cuts! I take back all the mean things I've said about the administration's brilliant economic policies, and I hereby announced I will be voting GOP until the day I'm thrown in a Navy brig and identified as an "enemy combatant" for having once supported Howard Dean.

ntodd  ¶ 8:41 AM