In case you missed it on Friday, over the weekend via HuffPo, Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz commented upon former GE CEO Jack Welch’s tweet, wherein “the serial job killer” who virtually “invented the practice of offshoring American jobs” exclaimed to his followers (via Bloomberg)…
…“Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers,” the former General Electric Co. (GE) chief executive officer said in a message posted immediately after the U.S. Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, the lowest since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009…
Bold type is diarist’s emphasis.
Here’s the report on Stiglitz’ comments on MSNBC on Saturday, via the folks at HuffPo…
“Joseph Stiglitz: Jobs Numbers Conspiracy 'Literally Absurd'.”
Huffington Post
October 6, 2012 12:06PM
Joseph Stiglitz appeared on 'Up w/ Chris Hayes' to discuss the jobs report released on Friday. Several prominent conservative figures, including former GE CEO Jack Welch, have accused the Obama administration of skewing the numbers to appear in its favor.
"No president, maybe except Nixon, would actually try to change what the Bureau Labor Statistics does or what the DEA does. These are really independent agencies and the idea that they would do that is literally absurd," Stiglitz said.
Stiglitz said the only thing that presidents can do is explain the numbers and put them in context of larger economic tides…
Here’s the link to the Stiglitz video,
courtesy of MSNBC.
Moving right along as the weekend progressed, someone forgot to inform Mr. Welch that the best way to get himself out of his hole was to stop digging. As of this evening, again according to HuffPo, in their report on a follow-up tweet that Welch published early Sunday night, he’s now pulling a Reagan, claiming: “Have never commented on White House in any tweets I can recall.”
Yeah, Welch must have been referring to some other “Chicago guys,” and not the team currently residing in the White House. (The Cubs or the Bears, perhaps? Heh.)
I’m sure Mr. Welch would like us to just forget the entire thing. But, that’ll have to wait until at least Tuesday, since another Nobel Prize-winner, Paul Krugman, is calling Welch out in Monday’s NY Times for being at the forefront of this truly “deranged” movement…
Truth About Jobs
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
October 8, 2012 (edition)
If anyone had doubts about the madness that has spread through a large part of the American political spectrum, the reaction to Friday’s better-than expected report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have settled the issue. For the immediate response of many on the right — and we’re not just talking fringe figures — was to cry conspiracy.
Leading the charge of what were quickly dubbed the “B.L.S. truthers” was none other than Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, who posted an assertion on Twitter that the books had been cooked to help President Obama’s re-election campaign. His claim was quickly picked up by right-wing pundits and media personalities.
It was nonsense, of course…
…
…the employment data do suggest an economy that is slowly healing, an economy in which declining consumer debt burdens and a housing revival have finally put us on the road back to full employment.
And that’s the truth that the right can’t handle. The furor over Friday’s report revealed a political movement that is rooting for American failure, so obsessed with taking down Mr. Obama that good news for the nation’s long-suffering workers drives its members into a blind rage. It also revealed a movement that lives in an intellectual bubble, dealing with uncomfortable reality — whether that reality involves polls or economic data — not just by denying the facts, but by spinning wild conspiracy theories.
It is, quite simply, frightening to think that a movement this deranged wields so much political power.