An analogy to describe the unemployment bas-ackward logic:

Pretend you have a house for sale in the San Francisco area. It's a real nice house on a hill with a beautiful view. However, the reason you want to sell it is because it's slowly sliding down the hill, eventually to be totally destroyed by the time it reaches the bottom.

I know, I know, nobody would ever buy it, but I'm trying to make a point to explain the stupid logic about the reactions to the unemployment number.

So you have it for sale for $2,000,000. Every month you take a measurement to see how far the house has slid down the hill. You keep lowering your expectations about selling it, so you keep lowering the asking price. After a year a pattern has developed. Every month is slides about 12 inches. Every month you've been lowering your asking price. After a year it's down to $1,000,000.

Then finally, out of the blue, you take your monthly measurement and SURPRISE! It only slid down the hill 11 inches this month. WOW, that's much "better than expected" so you increase your asking price up to $1,200,000.

</analogy>

Terry