Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures." -- Daniel Webster
Thursday, June 09, 2011 :::
Glenn Reynolds likes to make fun of the use of the word "unexpected" when disappointing new economic numbers come in, but I'm not sure it's justified here. Given the noise in the jobless claims data, a change from 426k last period to 427k this period when the consensus forecast was a change from 422k to 419k doesn't really constitute a forecasting error. Claims were flat, just as they were expected to be.