Talk Nation Radio for December 30, 2011
Breaking through media deceptions about the reality of the jobs and health care crisis, Dr. Margaret Flowers, Steven F. Hipple, Bureau of Labor Statistics

(News overview and analysis: There has been an inflating of the US success story on jobs at market news sites like Market Watch and CNN Money as well as Nightly Business Report, PBS. We go beyond the headlines about improvements to talk about the reality of what the numbers mean.

Also, there has been little or no mention of the problem of corporations and Wall Street investing in health care as a core reason for inflated costs for both health care and health care insurance. Health Care For All activist Dr. Margaret Flowers talks about the crisis provoked by Wall Street speculation in health care stocks, and points out that by getting Wall Street out of health care it would be much easier to make it affordable.

TRT: 29:16 music fades
Produced by Dori Smith, Storrs, CT
Music of Fritz Heede, plus clips: NPR, David Rovics

-Margaret Flowers, M.D., is a congressional fellow with Physicians for a National Health Program (here) and a pediatrician based in Baltimore, Maryland. She has been provoking national debate on health care with her protests at Congressional meetings in Washington D.C. and at meetings where health care corporations were discussing ways to make more money on Wall Street. Dr. Flowers has pressed the issue through protests at these events, and has gotten her views across despite the lack of an invitation. She was also arrested on several occasions where powerful committee heads did not wish to hear what she had to say.

-Dr. Flowers also talks about the data in the October2011.org Occupied Super Committee report on health care.

-First, we go over the past few months of news on the way new unemployment claims have been reported. In many cases news outlets used a slight decline in weekly claims to argue that unemployment rates were falling dramatically. The information appears to have helped volatile stock markets recover, but was it true? As we learn, much depends on who is counting, and what data gets included in the reports. It had been widely reported that the US unemployment rate fell to 8.6%, a drop from last year. But we were skeptical. So we turned to Steven F. Hipple of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for answers.

-We soon learned that the numbers were not inclusive enough. âWhen you add these marginally attached, again that was about 2.6 million people, when you add that into the unemployment figures we call it U5 the actual rate would be 10.2% and that is published each month.â Furthermore, large numbers of unemployed had not been included in the figures being used during November and December of 2011. (See U5 chart here. )

We also mention a report from CNN.com December 30, 2011 where a negative set of numbers on new unemployment claims is made to seem positive.. (See: âItâs impressive to finally see unemployment claims fall below 400,000,â said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist with PNC Financial Services, who said that if there were a magic number for unemployment claims, 400,000 would be it.â)


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