on last month's labor statistics, and elsewise

the bureau of labor statistics has once again figured in a sizable number of job creations through firm birth in this last round of labor market statistics. apparently, 220,000 new hirings were estimated to have been effected by new business openings. relative to recent months, this is a staggering development: the bls thought net job creation from firm birth and death was -345,000 in january, returning to positive territory (+134,000) in february, before doubling in the past two months. they apparently have two approaches that make up their methodology in this regard, the first being to exclude firm birth/death completely. the other is

an ARIMA time series model designed to estimate the residual net birth/death employment not accounted for by the imputation. The historical time series used to create and test the ARIMA model was derived from the UI universe micro level database, and reflects the actual residual net of births and deaths over the past five years.

meaning that they are getting their data from five years of (ultimately baseless, but contemporarily accepted) economic boom. in other words, they're sticking to gaussian methods typical of intervals of regular normalcy, and excluding the characteristics of this particular period because they represent an outlier. at least, this is what i'm assuming of them; their own explanation is terse and so not very helpful.

in other news, a guy with 'von' in his name shot up the holocaust museum. is this the first shot in a militia uprising? i hope so. if they all did just come out and stand in one place together, it'd be that much easier for the national guard to blow their maladjusted brains out.