Decoding the Wall Street Journal: The Truth Behind an Op-Ed

The opinion page section in the WSJ is hand downs legendary. It’s where presidential hopefuls look to make their case to the broader financial community (you know, the people that don’t land an office visit), ex. Federal Reserve Chairman try to relive their glory years of global influence, and self-important money managers seek to boost their own status amongst their peers. Want two wonderful examples that the WSJ looks to not be a friend to the masses? First, there is no picture of the person that authored the content for someone at home to make a visual connection (we have provided a picture of Ed Lazear, who authored the piece highlighted today). Second, the author’s background contains very minimal detail and is placed at the end of the rant. Since an opinion piece is heavily biased in any number of ways, the WSJ should realize that not every reader knows Ed Lazear had a gig with President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors (low class Cabinet, just sayin) from 2006-2009, therefore slanting his views in favor of the former Commander in Chief.

To his credit, Mr. Lazear did an admirable job to not bow to the past president and either political party, noting the labor market (people in the workforce) remains “very depressed” (poor fella, he isn’t creating as many jobs as he should be) and hints at recent improvement in economic data as nothing more than transitory (meaning the good vibes could go up in smoke, soon). Just as the reader was perhaps giving a two thumbs up to Mr. Lazear for holding back on the smarty pants lingo, they are nailed with this dose boringness:

“Even if 200,000 jobs were added each month, it will take about four years to get back to the employment levels at the peak.”

#1. 200,000 people in the U.S. now are collecting checks from a company rather than a government agency.
#2. 200,000 jobs have to be created on average (September, October, November for example/3) for the U.S. to have the number of jobs achieved at the “peak”, which is going to mean 2007 oftentimes.

Decodable Moments

• “Quality of the labor market: Like a piece of meat in the cooler section, the labor market has to be of good quality for the economy to be properly nourished. To gauge the quality of the labor market, look for the types of jobs added in any given month; manufacturing jobs pay more and offer longer hours than retail, for example.
• “Administration”: Always refers to the president and his advisors, either past or present.
• “Service sector jobs”: Yes, this includes a front desk operator at a hotel or a waitress at the Waffle House.
• Labor market is “fluid”: The amount of people working day to day changes constantly.
• “Slack” labor market: More workers are hungry for jobs than actually exit. The opposite would be a “tight” labor market.

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