When Media Reporters Are Out of Touch With Business Realities

This morning, I heard CNBC "senior economic reporter" Steve Leisman's laughable explanation for his too-low estimate of the Labor Department's October jobs creation numbers.

He said he thought that weak productivity data over the past quarter would have led CEOs of large US companies to suspend hiring. I think this shows how out of touch he is with the way businesses run.

First, I doubt most CEOs can effect their company's employment levels with the speed of monthly data feeds. Typically, hiring for a given year is set late in the prior year's budget process, then possibly pre-empted by some crisis that leads to a hiring freeze in the current year. There's usually little in the way of alternatives in between.

Second, the labor dept report then added jobs to prior months, in their adjustment process, making the new-to-reporting additions of jobs soar over the past several months.

Essentially, the data made monkeys out of Leisman and all of his favorite on-air guest pundits. What did all these consulting sages do? They hemmed, they hawwed, and, in effect, complained that the data is of poor quality, and what we really need in this country is better economic data!

Translation: I got the estimate of new nonfarm payroll additions wrong this month, so the data is in error- again. I have my conclusions- now go get me the data to support them. If not this month, you just wait....any month now, job numbers will be down.

It reminds me of the constant bear market pundits of the early '90s. By calling for a bear market during pretty much the entire decade, they were finally able to be correct in 1999. But doesn't that equate to about a .100 batting average? I think something similar is going on here. Economic pundits get very angry when they play the 'estimate the number live on camera' game and get it wrong. So they explain why they'll soon be right, or the numbers are meaningless anyway.

I suppose it would be far too much to ask, or expect, that these pundits, starting with CNBC's Leisman, simply wait to interpret any of this data until it's been revised. Which one of my two favorite CNBC on-air personalities, Joe Kernan, explicitly suggested this morning. Suffice to say, Leisman's jaw nearly dropped at the suggestion, and he just looked dazed. Truth is, jumping on these numbers immediately upon initial release invites confusion and misinterpretation. Which is perhaps why I am so jaded about the misdirection and confusion sown by these economic wannabe-pundits throughout the year, affecting investor reactions and, thus, market prices of equities.

And that, dear readers, is entertainment, CNBC style......