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Jerry Wickey
Key West, FL, USA
+1 800 722 2280
jerry@jerrywickey.com

Content Updated October 10, 2024

For May 6, 2011

Employment Picture

The piper will be paid. The longer we wait to pay, the higher the price.

"THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- APRIL 2011

"Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 244,000 in April, and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today."

Those were the very first words of Friday's official US employment situation summary report. That doesn't even make sence. Both employment and the unemployment rate rose?!?? (technically possible when employment rises, but more slowly than population increase justifies.)


GRAPH A

That doesn't even make sence. Employment and the unemployment rate both rose?!??

Forget the official words. Look at the numbers!   Table A of the official report shows clearly that the number employed fell by 190 thousand over the month, while those unemployed rose by 205 thousand and (this is a big AND) those no longer counted in the labor force rose by an additional 131 thousand. That is a total of 336 thousand people that were counted as working last month, but which are not working this month.

The huge jobs falloff stopped about a year ago, and there is meager jobs growth which has not kept pace with population growth as the graph A shows. The sum of the red and yellow areas is the difference between the number employed and the number of people who need to be employed to keep the average standard of living the same as it was for the last twenty years, currently about 19 million people. That is more than double what it has been over the last twenty years which was around 8 million.

GRAPH B data source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics
That is a big number. The thing that worries me the most is the fact that the administration, the people who are supposed to know feel it necessary to hide this number. What terror looms which they fear that much? Dr. Bernanke should have gotten his numbers straight before committing the livelihoods of millions of people to his plan. Perhaps he should have consulted a computer programmer, someone who reduces everyday and complex, ordinary and irrational, hairy chested, real life circumstances down to an unambiguous sequence of definitive imperatives and does so on a regular bases. Something of which government seems incapable on all levels. There are fewer computer programmers in the world than there are Ph.D. OK... `nough raggin` on the good doctor.

To maintain the standard of living to which we are familiar, a certain portion of the US population must remain productively employed. That portion of the population continues to increase as the general population increases. Beginning in November of 2008, the US BLS reported an arbitrarily reduced number affecting a feigned decrease in the unemployment rate (since that rate is simply the number of people employed divided by this reduced number they report.) The divergence which began in November 2008 is represented on graph A in yellow. The divergence continues to grow amid repeated reports of recovery.

Graph B corrects the unemployment rate for this discrepancy. All data, including that portion of the population which was employed for the preceding twenty years is derived from US BLS data.

The BLS twice attempted to bring their reported number back to reality. Almost succeeding the first time. (See the red line nearly touch the yellow line in early 2009) Yet each time, employment took coincidental dives and the BLS was forced to keep driving their reported number down to prevent having to report a shocking upward spike in the unemployment rate. Their number continues to slide slightly downward while population increases, new mouths to feed, and the increase in the number of new job seekers attempting to feed those mouths continues its relentless growth.

How long will the government think that we can't do math? Our current system of election ensures that those elected to office know how to get elected, but are not required to know anything else. This failure could merely be the result of government incompetence. Learn more about government incompetence.

Careful examination of the system reveals that there are no motivations for any elected official to actually do what is needed to remedy our current discrepancy between employment forces driving the US GDP and US equities value. Such a discrepancy in any particular sector is the definition of a financial "bubble."

For April 22, 2011

New Software

Search the text of the Christian Bible for concepts and ideas not just for the literal spelling of a word. Word Cloud Bible Search

I had to write this software because I was tired of telling someone the Bible said this or that, then take hours to back it up because I didn't remember the exact wording. 'Fixed!

I also spent a little time updating my arbitrary math package. I put it on the web for anyone to use. Go to math.jerrywickey.net when you need arithmetic results to extraordinary precision or need to work with numbers of unusual precision or size.

Finding 0.99999999999999999999999999999367 raised to the trillionth power is no problem. Takes less than a few seconds to calculate and will yield the results to whatever number of digits you desire.

Ever have the hankering to quantify the likelihood that the small chance intelligent life might arise on any given planet arose more than once among millions of trillions of planets? Ever have the need to know the chance of occurrence, at least once, among an astronomical number of attempts at an event of infinitesimal probability? How about the likelihood that prebiotic compounds randomly assembled themselves into the first self replicating molecular system given a billion years and all the atoms on the entire surface of the planet?

I did and I found the answers, but for such questions, something more than a desktop calculator is needed. For that reason, I wrote this software and offer it free for your use.

For March 4, 2011

Police Officer's Axiomatic Credo:

1) Service is prime.

2) Apprehension and punishment of wrong doers is of little value to a civilization, but is a nuisance task required to "cleanse the land."

3) Service and punishment can never constitute the same action, because punishment arises not from action but from intention.

4) Strong and definable forces drive centralized systems of government toward incompetence.

They are these forces against which our founding fathers warned us to be ever vigilant. In which vigilance we are gravely remiss.

Any officer who does not have ready and considered answers to the questions posed in this link, should quite his or her job, before they endanger their immortal soul or hurt someone.

For February 28, 2011

eSheets are almost here

A Belgian research team finally did it. They produced an organic semiconductor based processor which can bend and flex. Currently the organic processor elements are too large to fit enough in an eSheet to provide processing power similar to a laptop. Soon these will be built far more cheaply than electronic equipment; and your data, files and programs will be stored on a distributed network rather than on your own local machine allowing you to pick up any eSheet anywhere and work on your files in your own customary screen. Any eSheet anywhere is your own computer.

Doctor's waiting rooms might have a stack of eSheets instead of magazines. Just pick one up and work or read any publication, even watch TV while you wait. When finished set it back down on the table. Keep a couple of eSheets in your car and a few scattered around your home, just in case you or anyone else needs access.

World's First Flexible Microprocessor Made With Organic Semiconductors

For January 27, 2011

Biological Immortality

"These mice were equivalent to 80-year-old humans and were about to pass away," says Ronald DePinho, co-author of the paper and a scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. After the experiment, "they were the physiological equivalent of young adults."

article in Wall Street Journal

Human biological immortality is happening even faster than I had predicted.

Population growth and aging:

Many might be concerned about uncontrolled population growth if a simple one time medical treatment inducing biological immortality became available. The math does not support this concern. Menopause, the cessation of the ability to bear a child, is unrelated to telomere driven apoptosis, the aging process.

A biologically immortal woman still enters menopause after her 40th or 50th year. The current birth, reproduction and death life cycle dictates that at any given time, only one third of the female population can bear children. If a population becomes biologically immortal, over time, the portion of the female population that can bear children decreases to become negligible. A biologically immortal species will be completely unconcerned with birth control. It's emphasis will be instead maintaining a minimum reproductive capacity.

For January 8, 2011

Jobs Report: 400,000 Fewer Have Jobs This Month Than Last

Drawn directly from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics employment situation summary report released yesterday morning, 297,000 more people are employed this month than last and the number of unemployed people dropped by over 500,000. As a result the US BLS reports a half point drop in the unemployment rate, from 9.8 to 9.4.

However, the last line of the employment situation summary table A which can be found in table A of the BLS employment situation report states that 434,000 more people are no longer in the labor force than last month!

So.... 300,000 more people have jobs, but 400,000 fewer people are actually working?

What the f**k!

Perhaps economic conditions are improving so much that maintaining same family income levels require fewer people working?

I'm sure that the government has a good explanation, because we all know how well things work out every time government gets involved. "All institutions of centralized government are constrained by robust evolutionary selective pressures which favor incompetence." It has nothing to do with corruption, conspiracy, ignorance, stupidity, or greed. Click for the alternate explanation.

If mysterious government math weren't mystery enough for one week, thousands of birds In Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana and Sweden fell dead from the sky, and a Canadian river turned fluorescent green!

Birds Drop Out Of The Sky Dead

Swedish News

I'm sure the birds were merely scared to death by a thunderstorm and in Sweden coincidental fireworks, because birds mysteriously fall dead out of the sky just as often as government projects finish on time and under budget. I really have no theories for the bird deaths or a river in Canada turning fluorescent green for six hours, but two mysteries of this magnitude in one week is curious. And with no science news this week, I'll be watching.

A River Turns Neon Green

Canadian News Source

"Some water in a river on Vancouver Island has turned neon green, prompting an investigation by B.C. environment ministry officials.

"Residents living near the Goldstream River west of Victoria notified authorities Wednesday and took pictures of a 400-metre section of the river as it flowed by, looking like anti-freeze.

"It's not known what caused the discolouration or if the substance in the river was toxic.

"The river runs through Goldstream Provincial Park, known for its annual salmon run and as a home to bald eagles."

For August 18, 2010

Storm Season in the Keys

On August 5, NOAA reiterated their pre-season forecast of an extremely active hurricane season, citing La Niña conditions as an indicator. La Niña conditions are the cooling of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. However, that was two weeks ago, a date before which less than 14% of the season's tropical storm and hurricane activity normally occur. We are now in the 230th day of the year, before which 25% of all tropical storm and hurricane activity should have already normally occurred.

For the previous ten years in the Florida Keys, half of all activity for the season occurred in the month of September, between Aug. 30 and Sept. 28, but the middle of the activity was Sept. 7 and by Sept. 28, 80% of all activity had already occurred.

Past activity is not a prediction of future activity, but does inform valid and useful statistical models. La Niña conditions have already begun in July as NOAA had predicted. Unless the next four weeks see a change in the way in which conditions in the Pacific interact with the Atlantic, extrapolations of statistical data from the previous ten years suggest only 7 more tropical storms and 7 more hurricanes. Which would make this year's activity below average. In addition, the three storms which have already occurred this year were each short lived.

While such a change is possible, each passing day reduces it's likelihood. NOAA forecasts an additional 12-17 tropical storms and 7-11 hurricanes for the remainder of the season. Average Atlantic hurricane season activity for recorded history is 12.5 tropical storms and 9.5 hurricanes. This average might oscillate over a forty year cycle between low activity (9 storms, 7 hurricanes) and high activity (15 storms, 12 hurricanes) We are currently in the latter portion of a high cycle.

Wrap up for 2010

This year was ever so slightly above average, only 2.96% above average storm days. 2005 was far above average, 88.3% above average. This despite the number of storms were 1/3 less than average and hurricanes were 1/3 more than average; all were less powerful and shorter lived.

The number of storms and hurricanes this year was 7TS and 12H. The average is 12TS and 9H. On Aug 18, straight mathematical extrapolation of activity predicted 10TS and 9H for this year. By Sept 20, I adjusted that extrapolation for activity to that date to 8TS and 12H. Spot on!

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