Just Crazy

I didn't have a chance earlier to think carefully about what the hell the Bush administration was actually claiming with their 2004 jobs projections, though I knew it sounded pretty weird to me. Brad DeLong pulls out an envelope and doodles some numbers on the back of it and realizes that the Bush administration is projecting that we will gain 470,000 320,000 jobs per month. Every month in 2004.

I believe after the last tax cut I promised that if they made their jobs projection I would vote for Bush in '04. I make that promise once again with this new round of numbers. Not going to lose sleep over it. That's one crazy-ass prediction. And, it's evidence enough that we should believe nothing that comes out of the political wing of this administration.


...Billmon suggests that it's time to rename the CEA the Council of Economic Whores.

...and Brad realizes how they came up with the number. Pure bullshit.

...Brad made a wee error with the dates/baseline. But, it's still a pretty ludicrous prediction, given the other predictions. And, as he points out, it implies they're predicting 0% productivity growth.