Is berm bandit?
Down south it'd be pronounced "bum bandit".

Amazed you had the wit to spot the play on words old son…absolutely amazed 😯

mikertroid – Member

Ernie,

found a link for you here

Thanks, that is very revealing. First of all it shows that the article you quoted from was published on 18 December 2008. So it's almost one year old then ……. obviously the official figures for unemployment are now completely different.

Secondly, it shows that the article was heavily culled. One bit which you completely left out said, quote :

"The best estimate of unemployment is calculated by the Office for National Statistics. It uses a definition set by a United Nations agency, the International Labour Organisation. This rate counts people who want to work, are available to work, and are actively seeking employment – based on survey data."

This is precisely what I have been telling you along, and what you have been denying. Just to repeat : the best estimate of unemployment is calculated by the ONS using the definition set by the completely neutral United Nations agency the ILO. I hope we can both agree on that now.

So the latest 'official' unemployment figures is 2.47 million or 7.9%. As reported here by the BBC :

UK unemployment climbs to 2.47m

Quote :

"Unemployment increased by 210,000 to 2.47m in the three months to July, taking the jobless rate to 7.9%, the Office for National Statistics said."

However what Tom Whipple does say in his article, is that if you were to include all the housewives who don't work as "unemployed" then that would push the figure higher. If you included all those who care for sick or elderly relatives as "unemployed" that would also push the figure higher. If you included all those 'gentlemen of some means' such as CaptainFlashheart, who don't "need" to work, then that again, that would push the figure higher.

But that isn't exactly surprising is it ? And you can hardly accuse the Labour government of "massaging the unemployment figures" for not including them – no other country does. And certainly no Tory government has.

And btw, even if you included all those people as "unemployed", it still wouldn't push up it up to 6 million which is what you claimed was the "true" figure :

mikertroid – Member

Ernie, sorry to burst your bubble but that figure is wrong.

Clearly the figure differs depending on which criteria one uses, but "unemployed" in the true sense is approx 6mill.

Posted 2 days ago

Ernie,

Precisely! the fact that it is a year old is worrying; those figures will be higher. His claim was 7.9. I'll settle for 6.0!

But whatever Ernie, nothing that anyone mentions here will have any credence over your opinion because you must be right: Arrogance you see.

mikertroid

Unfortunatly Ernie is right and you are wrong. Its as simple as that.

Ernie,

You're demonstrating your inability for independant thought and low effective intelligence here; the fact that the article is 12 months old means that those figures will be higher. That was a simple demonstration of the fact that the ons don't include the artificially high number of Students (who would never have gone to higher education in the past) and those legions of fake incapacity claimants.

But you just keep taking those pills, Ernie! Go take a hike. Thanks.

But whatever Ernie, nothing that anyone mentions here will have any credence over your opinion because you must be right: Arrogance you see.

😀 He he says the man who thinks he knows better than the United Nations how to define unemployment ! 😀

Did you take up Junkyard's offer and inform the UN agency in Geneva that their method of calculation is all completely wrong ?

I am unlike you however, perfectly prepared to accept the ILO/ONS figures. As I said myself on this thread :

ernie_lynch – Member

I'm hardly in a position to make my own independent analysis of the state of the UK economy. I will wait until the ONS releases it figures.

Posted 1 day ago #

I am also prepared to accept that a member of the Bank of England rate-setting committee is better informed than I am – you on the other hand, think you know better.

As far as the article you quoted from being almost a year old, yes it is very relevant. Because when you falsely claimed "According to official statistics, the unemployment rate is just 6 per cent – 1,864,000 people."

I thought to myself, that's not true – those aren't the official figures…….why didn't you mention that your "official figures" were a year old, eh ?

And you accuse the government of 'playing around' with figures !!!

Getting back to your central point. Yes of course if you include all the students at universities, all the housewives, all the people lying sick in hospital beds, etc, then the unemployed figure would be much higher – clever you for pointing that out. And naughty Labour government and United Nations for not including them. I look forward to the next Tory government including them all in their unemployment figures 8)

BTW, just a couple of final points. Your claims that, quote :

"nothing that anyone mentions here will have any credence over your opinion because you must be right" and "You're demonstrating your inability for independant thought and low effective intelligence here"

Contains a serious contradiction…… ie, is it my own opinion ? Or do I have no ability for independent thought ?

You're probably right about "low effective intelligence" though – I couldn't have thought of anything as clever as,

"But you just keep taking those pills, Ernie! Go take a hike."

absolutely amazed

Doesn't take much, does it?
Very clever name BTW, obviously showing that you like riding bikes around corners and buggering other men! Genius!

Erniel – you missed a bit of Mikert's "central point" I've put it in for you though out of fairness.

"Getting back to your central point. Yes of course if you include all the students at universities, all the housewives, all the people lying sick in hospital beds, and those legions of fake incapacity claimants, etc, then the unemployed figure would be much higher – clever you for pointing that out. And naughty Labour government and United Nations for not including them. I look forward to the next Tory government including them all in their unemployment figures"

This post takes me back to the 80's arguments, the names have changed, the paries have changed sides but it's the very same argument. I can remember being in heated conversations about the 7-8 million unemployed under the tories. Same party tricks applied by the same type of people they just call themselves a different name. Call me a cynic but it's just history repeating, nothing learned.

MT – apart for Labour have taken steps to make the unemployment figures more accurate – whereas the tories took steps to make the figures lower.

Did you take up Junkyard's offer and inform the UN agency in Geneva that their method of calculation is all completely wrong ?

The fact that we've offloaded thousands of unemployed as students and 'incapacity' claimants is hardly the UN's fault!

And you accuse me of quoting 'official figures'? I quoted an article demonstrating that the way we feed those figures to the agencies is wrong. Date is irrelevant.

But you clearly lack the ability to figure that out yourself. You are the weakest link. Goodbye 🙂

So, back on topic – what about that Clarkson, eh? Isn't he a card!

Still a funny article though if not taken toooo seriously!

you accuse me of quoting 'official figures'? I quoted an article demonstrating that the way we feed those figures to the agencies is wrong. Date is irrelevant.

The date is irrelevant ? 😀

You provided figures which you claimed were the "official" unemployment figures. These figures were very clearly wrong. But it wasn't until I discovered they were 12 months old, that I realised why they were so wrong – it had nothing at all to do with the government releasing false figures !

So why didn't you make it clear that they were 12 months old ? Would you have been happy to use 20 year old "official" figures because date is "irrelevant" ? And you accuse the government of "massaging" the figures ! 😀

.

The fact that we've offloaded thousands of unemployed as students and 'incapacity' claimants is hardly the UN's fault!

Well don't you think you should approach the UN agency in Geneva the ILO, armed with your evidence that the UK government is falsifying the unemployment figures – I'm sure they would be very interested as I believe they have quite a hefty legal department and the figures are being published as "ILO figures" :

ILO Unemployment in the UK remains unchanged

And if you don't fancy emailing the ILO as Junkyard suggested, you can phone them direct, do it – that's why after all, they give contact details :

http://www.ilo.org/employment/SupplementalNavigation/Contactus/lang–en/index.htm

Of course if anyone should protesting about "false" ILO unemployment figures for the UK, you would expect it to be the Tory Party, wouldn't you ?

Unfortunately mikertroid, the Tories don't agree with you. They fully accept the ILO defined figures as being perfectly correct. They even quote them on the official Conservative Party website. From July 15 2009 :

Unemployment rose by 281,000 in the past three months, bringing the total number of jobless to 2.38 million.

And even though in the article they say that Theresa May the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, "accused Labour of being “in denial” about the true scale of the problem" nowhere on their site do they claim that unemployment is really 6 million – as you do.

I accept figures because there are sufficient reasons to believe them to be true – not because they fit my own political agenda. Shame you appear unwilling to do the same mikertroid.

Still never mind.

BTW : "You are the weakest link. Goodbye"

That's from an amusing TV quiz show isn't it ? I'm not sure point you were trying to make – but yes very funny 😀 *thumbs up*

so, to conclude:

1) unemployment goes up in recession.

2) Clarkson winds up a lot of people.

3) you can prove anything by google.