Posted 10:06 AM by Robert

Brad DeLong: Deny! Deny! Deny! But Keep It Bloated And Mostly Indirect!

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Dear me. Employment numbers way up - retroactively. Other economists are saying things like "Employment has turned the corner earlier than we anticipated. … The improvement in employment suggests that consumer spending should receive a boost towards the end of Q4." [Jayanth Nazareth, economist, JP Morgan Chase Bank] And Good Professor DeLong was surprised by the employment news, too, since he wrote only hours ago:

The always-wise John Berry of the Washington Post peers into his crystal ball and tries to gauge the future of the economy. [Mr. Berry predicts with complete confidence and no qualifiers whatsoever that] tomorrow the [Labor Department] will release a report covering employment and unemployment in October. Surveys of analysts show an expectation that the number of payroll jobs rose 60,000 last month, about the same as in September, with little or no change in the 6.1 percent jobless rate...

It turns out that the always-wise John Berry's crystal ball has a severe astigmatism! He and it and the Good Professor all missed the great majority of the extra 441,000 jobs that the Labor Department found. Well, now, that could happen to anyone.

But isn't that all worth a bit of re-revising of the Good Professor's personal estimate of the fourth quarter GDP growth rate - an estimate that has never been disclosed. Hey, he said it was "personal!"

Today's waffling DeLong post appears entitled: Todays Good Employment News, but the article's title in the Good Professor's index is Todays "Good" Employment News.

Showing a few cards as to our state of mind, are we, Professor?

UPDATE: Perhaps because he has been outed, the article's title has been changed to conform to the Good Professor's index and inner longings. Good. So good. His is a vanity site - where reality need not intrude. Now it's time for the Good Professor to hop off and think about movies!

MORE: Not that there's anything wrong with writing about movies! It's the Good Professor's sudden and all-too-obvious urgent need find some peace of mind by radically changing the subject that's amusing.