September 10, 2025 • 30 mins
Join Jim and Greg for the Wednesday 3 Martini Lunch as they tackle a pivotal Senate race twist, Israel striking Hamas leaders in Qatar, Russia violating NATO airspace, and the brutal downward revision of U.S. job growth.
First, after noting that the Democrats may end up with a fierce U.S. primary in Maine, Jim and Greg break down the Israeli bombing of Hamas targets in Doha, Qatar. Several of the highest ranking figures survived but it sends a clear message to Hamas. Of course, the usual domestic and international voices are condemning Israel's actions.
Next, they react to at least 19 Russian drones entering Polish airspace. Three of them were shot down, possibly more. This is another example of Putin crossing boundaries to see what the response will be. Jim offers some advice to the U.S. government on a message that he wants to be very loud and very clear.
Finally, they shudder as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revised job growth from April 2024-March 2025 downward by more than 900,000 jobs. The BLS revised the numbers down by more than 800,000 the year before that. Greg wonders whether the monthly jobs reports still provide much value if they are regularly way off base. Jim offers some practical and comical reasons for why the monthly reports need to stay.
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This Fall, save up to 50% on select plants at Fast Growing Trees—plus get an extra 15% off your first purchase with code MARTINI at https://www.Fast-Growing-Trees.com (limited time, terms apply).
First, after noting that the Democrats may end up with a fierce U.S. primary in Maine, Jim and Greg break down the Israeli bombing of Hamas targets in Doha, Qatar. Several of the highest ranking figures survived but it sends a clear message to Hamas. Of course, the usual domestic and international voices are condemning Israel's actions.
Next, they react to at least 19 Russian drones entering Polish airspace. Three of them were shot down, possibly more. This is another example of Putin crossing boundaries to see what the response will be. Jim offers some advice to the U.S. government on a message that he wants to be very loud and very clear.
Finally, they shudder as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revised job growth from April 2024-March 2025 downward by more than 900,000 jobs. The BLS revised the numbers down by more than 800,000 the year before that. Greg wonders whether the monthly jobs reports still provide much value if they are regularly way off base. Jim offers some practical and comical reasons for why the monthly reports need to stay.
Please visit our great sponsors:
Support your health with Dose Daily. Save 25% on your first month when you subscribe at https://DoseDaily.co/3ML or enter code 3ML at checkout.
Find the right support that’s right for you with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at https://BetterHelp.com/3ML
This Fall, save up to 50% on select plants at Fast Growing Trees—plus get an extra 15% off your first purchase with code MARTINI at https://www.Fast-Growing-Trees.com (limited time, terms apply).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to The Three Martini Lunch.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
and Jim Garritty of National Review.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Free Martini's coming up.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
So glad you're with us for the Wednesday edition of
The Three Martini Lunch. Jim and I are excited not
only to go through our major topics today, but to
once again remind you that soon, and very soon, in fact,
next week, you will be able to access the full
video of The Three Martini Lunch on YouTube. Hopefully already
subscribe to us on YouTube. You get our reels there,
(00:35):
and you can get the full audio of the podcast
on YouTube as well as your favorite podcast platform. But Jim,
we're about to enter a whole new world here, a
whole video world for the Three Martini Lunch.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I was gonna say, the reels have been out there
for a while for those of you who have a
particularly short attention span. And also look, video is enhanced
by the fact that you on the days when there's
construction noise on my own office, I'm recording from somewhere
else and because of that, my web camera is looking
directly at my nostrils, and that is just a visual
(01:08):
you're just not going to get on a lot of
other podcasts, So it's very special today. What people have said,
it's like, well, I love this podcast. They always said
they love that it's short. It's about twenty to twenty
five minutes. You know, you know, it's like that's saying, oh,
that restaurant, the portions of the food are so small. Now,
if you've always said I need to know what these
guys look like as they when they're saying these things,
(01:30):
soon you will have it and probably be deeply disappointed.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
You're about to find out very soon. And before we
get to our slate of Martiniz today, which includes everything
from Russia's latest misbehavior to put it mildly as it
relates to Poland, actually will also be talking about the
downward revisions of job creation over the past year, and
it's not even close to what we were originally told.
(01:56):
We'll also have plenty to say about Israel taking out
some Sea year leaders of Hamas in Qatar. But just
to follow up briefly on yesterday's first Martini Jim, we
talked about Graham Plattner. He's a Bernie acolyte and he's
also had some very questionable things to say in the
wake of nine to eleven. But he's not the only
candidis race. There are already a few other people, most
(02:18):
of them pretty low profile. But getting a staff together
for a potential Senate run is main. Governor Janet Mills,
who's real claim to fame is telling Donald Trump that
she would see him in court earlier this year to
Governor's meeting at the White House, and you know how
how much she'll probably try to play off on that.
She is the perfect candidate for Senate Jim not policywise,
she'll be a train wreck in that department, but she
(02:40):
would be almost seventy nine if she were to get
elected in late twenty twenty six, which means she'd be
eighty five by the end of her first term. So
we don't want her to win, but she's pretty much
in that wheelhouse where people start to think about a
Senate run.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
She is seventy nine, or as Joe Biden would call her. Yeah,
so matcha. This is kind of fascinating because Platner, as
I mentioned, got a fairly big New York Times profile
right out of the gate, and it seemed like there
was this consensus this is the next hot new outsider
candidate who Democrats were going to fall in love with
(03:14):
and was going to be the next Beto or the
next person who Janet Mills jumping in is kind of saying, no,
you know, not so fast. I am still interested in
this because I've got a lot of years ahead of
me and I want to spend them in the US Senate.
And look, if you have a limited number of time
of years ahead of you, maybe you want to spend
it in the in the Senate because it'll feel like decades.
It'll feel like it's going really low. So I could see,
(03:37):
you know, governors. Obviously she's won twice and she presumably
have you know, good fundraising, good resources, and so maybe
you're going to have a big MESSI Democratic primary between
these two candidates. Or maybe not. Maybe she'll squash Platner
like a bug. We will see, but I think it's
kind of interesting either way. It's it's gonna be probably
gonna be a hard fought competition for the right to
lose to Susan Collins.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
By the way, Susan Collins, who's been in the Senate,
will be thirty years by the time she's up for
a reelection. This this next time next year. She's only
seventy two, So.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I'm looking full other term in Fresh new Blood, the
youth movement represented by.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
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first martini. Good martini, of course, many people and our
(05:56):
domestic politics and on the international stage wringing their hands
in fear today because the Israelis took out more Hamas officials.
This time it wasn't in Gaza, this time, it was
in Doha. Qatar, where Hamas leadership has been hanging out
basking in the lap of luxury since really before ten seven,
twenty twenty three, coming up on two years since those
(06:19):
heinous attacks here in just about a month, and so yesterday,
as you point out in the morning Jolt, fifteen Israeli
fighter planes went over there. It's a long flight, they
had to refuel in the air multiple times. I ended
up dropping ten bombs, killing a bunch of people. They
didn't kill every person there were targeting, but the message
was definitely received. Kind of hilarious to watch the mainstream
(06:40):
media and other people reacting saying these were the negotiators,
They were there to make a deal, except if you've
paid attention to the negotiations over the past several months,
Hamas is always finding a reason not to make a deal. So, Jim,
I know your tears have not started falling yet. Make
of the attack and whether or not Israel is going
(07:03):
to have to pay some sort of diplomatic or other
price here.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Well, my first question, Greg is how do you wring
your hands in fury? Crocodile heres might be a more
accurate description, because, as my colleague Henry Olsen pointed, out.
As you alluded to, these Raellies had to do mid
air refueling several times during this The most direct route
is over Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Both of them have
(07:29):
put out what I think we can say our pro
form of statements of how dare you? While it's pretty
clear that there was very hard for Israeli to have
the Israelies to have done this without some sort of tacit,
if not cooperation, then looking the other way. Also, yes,
today apparently Israel did hit some Syrian air defense sites
to you know, presumably related to this operation. In other
(07:52):
shocking news, Syria still has some air defense sites because
they were pretty much taken out. And speaking of Syria,
when I talked about this story, I thought it'd be
useful to go back and say why is Hamas in Doha.
Doha is very far away from Israel, and you strongly
suspect they wanted a site that was what they thought
was out of the range of Israeli jet fighters. Hey,
(08:13):
guess what fellas, It's not as far away as you thought.
So they used to be based in Damascus in Syria,
and around twenty twelve, the Syrian Civil War is starting
to heat up the US. According to the Katari government,
the US wanted Hamas to be operating in Doha. The
Obama administration remembers it a little bit differently that yes,
they did want to have a line of communication to Hamas,
(08:37):
and so the Qataris wanted to host them. They discussed it,
They discussed it with the United States, and the United
States said go ahead. So that's how they ended up there.
And as you met, like I've been to Damascus earlier
this year, even before the war, it was in rough shape.
It's in really rough shape now. Doha, Greg that's where
the cruises go. Doha. You know, it's nice. It's got
(08:58):
all kinds of luxurious shopping and fancy hotels and all
that stuff. And in today's Morning Joel I lay out
reports about how the leaders of Hamas, some of them
are reportedly billionaires. Hamas gets a ton of money from
donors all around the world because they're fighting the Zionist entity.
Wink wink. This is going to help the struggling Palestindian people,
wink wink. And they are living in the lap of luxury. So,
(09:21):
as I put it today, if you happen to be
a financial supporter of Amas. A, you're a terrible person.
B you're probably breaking the law depending on where you live.
But see you're also a sucker because you gave that
money because you wanted to drive the Jews into the sea,
from the river to the sea palace, blah blah blah.
And in the end they're spending it all in living
a lifestyle that Robin Leech could have profiled on his
(09:42):
television program. Right, those hotel suites are the sort of
thing that Liberaci would say, it's a bit much, Right,
So this is this is where your money is going
if you're a Hamas supporter. But the other thing is, like,
clearly this was a place where the political leaders could say, yes,
we must fight the Zionist entity and feel secure knowing
that the you know, unless the Masads snuck in that
there was really not much chance these Raelies could reach
(10:03):
out and touch someone, as they used to say in
the AT and T commercials. Well it turns out they can.
And as you mentioned fifteen, you know, like again it's
very hard to believe the Katari's you know, air defenses,
but they have Patriot batteries, they have a fairly good
air defense system. There's a US base in that country.
The US base detected these Israeli jets, and you're kind
(10:24):
of like, well, I wonder where they're going. Oh well,
and apparently nobody reacted in any way, shape or form.
As you mentioned, ten bombs get dropped. Apparently it did
not hit the lead, the top leaders. My colleague Noah Rofman,
he wrote a column asking was somebody tipped off the
US administer? The Trump administration was informed. Trump said that
he informed the Katari government. And Trump is going through
(10:45):
the motions of saying he's not happy with this. I
would point out that on Sunday he said, Hamas, this
is your last offer, don't waste it. You know, Monday
I wrote a newsletter saying is Trump going to follow
through on this or is this just more bluster? Tuesday
the roof cames in, so, you know, Trump just not
always chicken out. This does seem like a but now
Trump has to go through and say, oh, I didn't
(11:05):
tell the Israelis to do this or anything like that.
They may not have hit the senior leaders. A report
right before we started taping this indicated that they believe
they missed the senior leaders because the senior leaders had
gone to pray, and they had left their cell phones
in the room that they're having the conference room where
they're having the meeting, so the Israelis believe they were
still in that room. So, Greg, every time there is
(11:27):
a mass shooting, we get told that your thoughts and
prayers mean nothing. Well, let me tell you prayer saves lives.
And if you don't believe me, just ask Amas. Now.
These may not be the lives we wanted to see say,
but there you go. Praying is good for you. It's
really good for you if you happen to be out
of the room when it's getting bombed. So look, I
think if nothing else, this sends a very clear message
to the remaining Hamas leadership. These rallies can hit you anywhere.
(11:49):
There is no safe space, There is no spot where
you are outside the reach of their wrath if they
are feeling like it. So when Trump says, take the
offer on the table, this is the best offer you're
going to get, release the hostages, let's go, I think
you should listen to him. I think he's he's not
always bluffing. He's not always Basically, Hamas tried the taco
(12:09):
trade that Wall Street likes to do, and it went
very badly for them. So are they the senior leadership
managed to survive. I think this is a sign for
Hamas that you're not as safe as you think you are.
And you know, maybe maybe somewhere in the South Pacific,
maybe not a GASCAR or someplace is going to be safe.
But otherwise Doha just not as safe as it seemed
to be.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And I'm already dreading the opening of the UN General
Assembly later this month. You know, it's going to be
insufferable with a leader after a leader trying to demonize
Israel that Nyahu won't care if he comes.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
But it's well, he's got to get in before, he's
got to get in before Momdami tries to arrest him.
That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
So maybe his last appearance at the UN for a while,
given the latest pull numbers in New York. All right, Jim,
onto our second, Martine, this one's definitely not good. It's
also in your Morning Jolt today, and Russia just keeps
pushing the envelope. You talk about how they're jamming airline
GPS signals over the Baltic Sea, leading to greater and
(13:08):
greater risk of an airline disaster there. But last night
Russia also engaging in what's called an unprecedented violation of
Polish airspace by drone type objects, an active aggression that
posed a real threat to the safety of our citizens.
I'm guessing that was from Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
There.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It said nineteen violations were recorded, though figures were not final,
that three drones were confirmed shot down, a fourth probably
shot down. So, Jim, you know that Vladimir Putin's got designs,
he's saber rattled with the Baltic States. Now he's doing this.
He's obviously all in for three and a half years
now and more on Ukraine. So what do you think
(13:51):
he's up to here? And how serious is this?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Greg If you'll allow me to lapse into Norm MacDonald
here for a minute. I don't know if you're a
history buff, but when a dictator with delusions of grandeur
decides to move into Polish territory, bad things tend to follow.
It's a bad pattern. You just don't want to hear. Oh,
they're moving into Poland. So look, we've seen, you know
the course of my coverage of the war in Ukraine.
(14:14):
We've seen debris fall in Poland before. We've seen drones
getting shot down and landing in Romania, landing in Moldova,
So that stuff has happened before, and it's you know,
sometimes it puts air defense systems on alert. Generally that
stuff is somewhat plausibly explained as Russians attempting to attack
(14:35):
Ukrainian targets on the east western edge of the country,
and sometimes the stuff spills over into airspace or territory
of Ukraine's neighbors. Not a good thing, still a dangerous thing,
but this is a very different category. You don't have
at least nineteen drones of which are designed to go
one way right. These are not designed to do aerial
(14:57):
surveillance and comeback. These are designed to blow up, hit something.
These drones all end up in Polish airspace at the
same time. It is very much looks like what you
think it would be, which is a probing attempt to say,
all right, if we send this stuff over the border
into Polish airspace, how does NATO respond, How quickly do
they respond? How quickly can they get fighter jets into
(15:18):
the area. Do they have patriot missile batteries and other
things that can shoot these sorts of things down. So
this really looks like a very serious escalation. Now, as
you mentioned, this is part of like, you know, Russia
has been messing with, you know, NATO countries, you know,
in lots of little ways of salami tactics, as they
sometimes call you slice it very thin. Russia is probably
(15:39):
unlikely to ever go out and say all right, we're
declaring war and we're coming at you NATO. What they'd
like to do is this gray zone combat. We saw
this in eastern Ukraine in the past. We're seeing it now,
this thing where it's again GPS jamming, it's cyber operations
and hacking, it's propaganda efforts there be and sabotage efforts
all over Europe. Russia is going to just kind of
(15:59):
grab vidually, bit by bit, escalate and see what happens,
and see how you respond. And if you don't respond
very forcefully and in a way that makes Russia realize
that it could lose something that's important to it, they
will keep doing it. So I think what happens in
the next twenty four hours forty eight hours this week
matters a lot for how Russia will treat NATO going forward.
(16:21):
Does this mean we have to go to war. No.
I don't think Russia wants to start all out, you know,
world War three. I think they just want to see
what can we get away with. How can we develop
leverage over NATO countries that are on our border, and
you know, can we turn this into the sort of
thing where we send lots of you know, these drones
regularly over the border. It's never a direct attack, but
(16:42):
at some point, you know, NATO countries get used to
it and then someday it's not just a typical probing attack.
I hoping we still have a Russian embassy here in Washington.
We also have a Russian defense at Teschet office. I
was actually walking by it an event the last week. Greg.
It is like almost literally across the street from the
Obama's house, which is weird. So I'm going to this
(17:03):
other event that was off the record. I can't really
talk about it, but I go pass like is that
a Russian flag? And it's yes. This is the building
and home of the Russian Defense Attache. Lots of countries
have defense attaches, particularly if we have significant military to
military contact or reason to worry about that. It's designed
to keep lines of communication open. I'm perfectly fine with
all of this. As much as I hate the Russians,
(17:24):
it makes sense to have regular communication with them. But
while I'm there, there's a US Secret Service patrol car
in front of that, and I was like, oh, I guess,
but I'm thinking they usually be State Department diplomatic security
type stuff. And then somebody at this event points out, yes,
it's the Obama's live across the street. If I were
the Obamas, I would never talk about secret stuff near
a window. I don't know what's in the Russian Defense
(17:45):
Attache's office, but I would guess that place is chock
full of every conceivable listening device you could possibly amatch.
So I just a little a little bit of Washington trivia.
But I am hoping that today or tomorrow or sometime
very soon, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is on the
phone or maybe even in person, meeting with the Defense
att testche from Russia and saying, are you guys trying
(18:06):
to start World War three? Because if you send lots
of drones over into NATO airspace, that's a really good
way to do it. I hope he reads in the
riot act. I hope that there is a This would
be a good time for hagg Seth to get red
in the face. This would be a good time for
hag Seth to get really angry and demonstrate this is
a provocation, the sort of thing that starts wars, and
that NATO will be responding to any further increasions and
(18:27):
treating it like an active war because they have to.
These drones are designed to destroy things. So when you
accidentally send nineteen drones over into your airspace, Poland and
everybody else has to react like this is an attack.
This is the sort of stuff that the sum of
all fears is made up. Because we really can't go
through a single podcast without citing one. Tom Clancy to
do again. I don't want to panic people, but this
(18:49):
is a big escalation by Russia, and the world will
be watching to see how NATO leaders respond to this.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Excuse me, mister Garrity. That would be Secretary of War
Pete haig Sath. That's right, yeah, not secretary of Defense.
We're on offense now. We should have hired Barry Switzer
in that first term secretary of offense. Remember that whole situation.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Now, Tumberville still available.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yes, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
All right.
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Speaker 3 (21:32):
All right, let's get back to domestic issues here. We've
had a couple of important international discussions today, but yesterday
we also got some bad news on the economic front.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that we actually created
as a nation nine hundred eleven thousand fewer jobs between
April twenty twenty four and March twenty twenty five. That
(21:54):
is a massive revision, and it follows on last year's
massive revision downwards of eight hundred eight eighteen thousand jobs.
And so basically, over the last two years, we actually
have more than one point seven million fewer jobs. Than
were reported in the monthly reports over and over and
over again, and so Heather long Over at the Washington Post,
(22:15):
who goes over these numbers all the time, says that
that means the average job gains before revision was one
hundred and forty seven thousand per month, the average job
gains after revision down to seventy one thousand dollars a month.
She says the massive fluctuations is mainly due to problems
accounting for new and closed businesses since the pandemic. You think, though,
(22:35):
that after three or four years, that'd have a pretty
decent handle on that. Either way, Jim, you would think
this would be even more impetus. Not that we want
a lot more impetus for interest straight cuts, but will
gladly see them, especially after the latest job numbers from August.
What do you make though of two straight years of
just massive revisions downward?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
So for starters, I think the US Bureau of Labor
Statistics does the best it can. I don't think that
there's a great deal of bias or playing with the
numbers or something like that. I think what they have
is ironically something kind of comparable to the problems public
opinion pollsters face. The Buereau of Labor Satistics sends out
surveys to American businesses and says, hey, how many people
(23:14):
did you hire this month? How many people did you
fire this month? You know, and looking for all kinds
of other economic data. Now, as recently as twenty thirteen,
about ninety percent of the businesses contacted by BLS would respond.
It's now down to about sixty seven percent. Now, two
thirds is not bad, but it's less than your use.
If you're used to getting ninety percent responses and now
you're getting sixty seven percent responses, you're getting less data
(23:37):
than you're used to getting, and you have to make
estimates for the rest of it. And so that's why
you see they put out the initial numbers. Sometimes more
responses come in and come later. Sometimes they learn data
from other sources and they can say, okay, we can
give you better, more more accurate numbers. The more time
goes by, and then they do these big annual Okay,
let's look at everything we did over the past year.
(23:59):
What we know now that we didn't know then, and
how do these numbers change? So I think mostly this
is a you know, lack of data input problem. Not
a somebody playing with the numbers or something like that.
I'm not saying that never happens, because I remember back
in two thousand and nine, right before we started this podcast,
right John corsiin governor of New Jersey, was talking about
his economic record. You may recall that two thousand and nine,
(24:22):
during the Great Recession, was not a great time, and
every month the New Jersey State Department of Labor was
putting out numbers that were saying, hey, we did we
created a whole bunch of jobs this month. The things
are going great. And then you'd go back a month
later and say, actually, yeah, we revised that down a lot.
And so I looked at that. I noticed that pattern,
and I'm like, look, if you're expecting revisions, you'd expect
it to go up, revised up some months, revised down
(24:45):
some other months. You shouldn't be having the same thing
happening over and over again unless there's some sort of,
you know, consistent problem in how you're fitting the data.
And oh, by the way, if a state agency keeps
saying job creation's up, the governor's doing a great job,
you know, it just seemed a little convenient to me.
I don't think that's what happening here with BLS. But
I think this also does dramatically revise what one of
(25:06):
the big narratives of the twenty twenty four presidential campaign
was was like, Wow, what a great economy Bidens has?
What a great economy? Kamala Harris is running on, Oh,
aren't you know? Red hot? And I went through a
corner post yesterday the Center for American Progress, which is
what's the word I'm looking for here? Lousey basically said,
you know, when when Biden's right after Biden left office,
(25:27):
that the Biden economy and the final year in office
one of the best in America in decades. Now, I
will just ask you, listeners, this isn't that long ago.
This was This is a time period covering from April
twenty twenty four to March twenty twenty five, so a
little bit of the very beginning of the Trump months,
but most of that is the final year in office
for Biden. Did that feel to you like the best
(25:49):
economy in decades? Does that feel better than the dot
com boom, the eighties boom, or anything like that? I know,
and you know, all year long public opinion polling said
that Americans were rating the economy the highest priority in there.
Was immigration a big issue for a bunch of folks, yes,
was abortion a big issue for a bunch of Democrats, Yes,
but by a lot. Like economy kept being consistently high,
(26:10):
and most people, including myself, like, Okay, this is a
reaction to inflation, and that even though the inflation rate
had gone down from the peaks of previous years, people
still felt like everything they went out to buy was
way more expensive than they wanted in the cost of
living Moses, And that is definitely a chunk of it.
But I think it's also probably accurate that Americans looked
around and didn't feel like hiring was you know, that
(26:32):
there were job openings everywhere. They didn't feel like there'd
been a giant hiring spray. They are talking around saying
that this economy was okay at best, and probably pretty
pretty lousy in a lot of parts of the country.
So score one for the American people and their gut instincts,
Score zero for the economists. I don't think there's any
you know, funny business going on at the BLS. But
(26:52):
you know that when you say, oh, oh, you know,
actually they created you know, less than half as many
jobs as we said they did. That's a pretty consequential
revision right there. That's absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
And if you look at the last twenty years, the
only year close to the number of downward revisions was
two thousand and nine, and as you said, there was
obviously a lot going on in two thousand and nine
in the wake of the Great Recession, Jim. So we
get these massive revisions like the month after the job
numbers come out, so like, oh, it was a good
month in say October, and then you get the November
(27:24):
jobs numbers. Now, actually it was forty five thousand less
than we thought. Now you get these massive revisions downward
on the annual basis. Does it make more sense to
just do it quarterly? I mean, I'd prefer to have
the monthly snapshots so you have more data along the
way to see where you are. But if it's constantly
being proven wrong, I'm not sure how much value there
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I've heard that argument, and I think there's a compelling
point to it. The only thing I point out is
that people who are making business decisions, you know, do
we want to open that factory, do we want to
put that off till next quarter. They want the information
as quickly as possible. And some would say, give me
the the most recent information you got, even if it's
maybe not as accurate as you'd like it to be,
(28:05):
so at least I can make my decision based on
some data rather than no data. The other thing I
would point out, Greg, how many times have we told listeners?
Have listeners told us? Has ever? Everyone tells right before
election day? Don't buy the early exit poll numbers. They're
based on, you know, just the people voting from nine
am to eleven AM or something. They're not accurate. John
(28:26):
Carey was gonna win South Carolina according to the early
exit poll numbers, and do that. I'm not making that up.
And so people like, okay, do but then every election day,
every DM so you heard any early exit poll numbers
we want, right, it's crack cocaine. We know it's not
good for us, but all of a sudden we turn
into Hunter Biden. We just like, we need the early
exit polls, right, So we want to know. And so
(28:48):
people like, oh, how's the economy doing? And if the
BLS said, well, we have some data, but we're not sure,
it's a really full picture. We'll let you know two
months from now. People like no, they're gonna grab by
the bull. I need those numbers, man, I need to
store them right up my nostrils. But this is a
surprisingly nostril heavy edition the Three Martini Lunch. So what
(29:10):
you're suggesting makes sense, and our minds should appreciate it, Greg,
our guts and our hearts may not feel the same
way way.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
We're not patient people anymore, especially in this instant information age.
So give me the wrong info, I guess, instead of
no info at all. I don't know if there's a
ton of value in that, but I guess some people
feel better about it anyway. Jim, have a great day.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
See you tomorrow. All right, sounds good, See tomorrow, Greg.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Jim Garretty, National Review. I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America.
Thanks so much for being with us today. Please be
sure to subscribe to the Three Martini Lunch Podcast if
you don't already, and tell your friends about us as well.
We'd love to have them listening. Thanks also for your
five star ratings and your kind reviews. Please keep those coming.
Get us on your home devices. All you have to
say is play Three Martini Lunch podcast. Follow us both
on X He's at Jim Garretty, I'm at Greg Corumbus.
(29:54):
Have a terrific Wednesday. Join us again on Thursday for
the next three Martini Lunch
Welcome to The Three Martini Lunch.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
and Jim Garritty of National Review.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Free Martini's coming up.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
So glad you're with us for the Wednesday edition of
The Three Martini Lunch. Jim and I are excited not
only to go through our major topics today, but to
once again remind you that soon, and very soon, in fact,
next week, you will be able to access the full
video of The Three Martini Lunch on YouTube. Hopefully already
subscribe to us on YouTube. You get our reels there,
(00:35):
and you can get the full audio of the podcast
on YouTube as well as your favorite podcast platform. But Jim,
we're about to enter a whole new world here, a
whole video world for the Three Martini Lunch.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I was gonna say, the reels have been out there
for a while for those of you who have a
particularly short attention span. And also look, video is enhanced
by the fact that you on the days when there's
construction noise on my own office, I'm recording from somewhere
else and because of that, my web camera is looking
directly at my nostrils, and that is just a visual
(01:08):
you're just not going to get on a lot of
other podcasts, So it's very special today. What people have said,
it's like, well, I love this podcast. They always said
they love that it's short. It's about twenty to twenty
five minutes. You know, you know, it's like that's saying, oh,
that restaurant, the portions of the food are so small. Now,
if you've always said I need to know what these
guys look like as they when they're saying these things,
(01:30):
soon you will have it and probably be deeply disappointed.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
You're about to find out very soon. And before we
get to our slate of Martiniz today, which includes everything
from Russia's latest misbehavior to put it mildly as it
relates to Poland, actually will also be talking about the
downward revisions of job creation over the past year, and
it's not even close to what we were originally told.
(01:56):
We'll also have plenty to say about Israel taking out
some Sea year leaders of Hamas in Qatar. But just
to follow up briefly on yesterday's first Martini Jim, we
talked about Graham Plattner. He's a Bernie acolyte and he's
also had some very questionable things to say in the
wake of nine to eleven. But he's not the only
candidis race. There are already a few other people, most
(02:18):
of them pretty low profile. But getting a staff together
for a potential Senate run is main. Governor Janet Mills,
who's real claim to fame is telling Donald Trump that
she would see him in court earlier this year to
Governor's meeting at the White House, and you know how
how much she'll probably try to play off on that.
She is the perfect candidate for Senate Jim not policywise,
she'll be a train wreck in that department, but she
(02:40):
would be almost seventy nine if she were to get
elected in late twenty twenty six, which means she'd be
eighty five by the end of her first term. So
we don't want her to win, but she's pretty much
in that wheelhouse where people start to think about a
Senate run.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
She is seventy nine, or as Joe Biden would call her. Yeah,
so matcha. This is kind of fascinating because Platner, as
I mentioned, got a fairly big New York Times profile
right out of the gate, and it seemed like there
was this consensus this is the next hot new outsider
candidate who Democrats were going to fall in love with
(03:14):
and was going to be the next Beto or the
next person who Janet Mills jumping in is kind of saying, no,
you know, not so fast. I am still interested in
this because I've got a lot of years ahead of
me and I want to spend them in the US Senate.
And look, if you have a limited number of time
of years ahead of you, maybe you want to spend
it in the in the Senate because it'll feel like decades.
It'll feel like it's going really low. So I could see,
(03:37):
you know, governors. Obviously she's won twice and she presumably
have you know, good fundraising, good resources, and so maybe
you're going to have a big MESSI Democratic primary between
these two candidates. Or maybe not. Maybe she'll squash Platner
like a bug. We will see, but I think it's
kind of interesting either way. It's it's gonna be probably
gonna be a hard fought competition for the right to
lose to Susan Collins.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
By the way, Susan Collins, who's been in the Senate,
will be thirty years by the time she's up for
a reelection. This this next time next year. She's only
seventy two, So.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I'm looking full other term in Fresh new Blood, the
youth movement represented by.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Susan Collinssan Collins, who's been there for five terms. All right,
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first martini. Good martini, of course, many people and our
(05:56):
domestic politics and on the international stage wringing their hands
in fear today because the Israelis took out more Hamas officials.
This time it wasn't in Gaza, this time, it was
in Doha. Qatar, where Hamas leadership has been hanging out
basking in the lap of luxury since really before ten seven,
twenty twenty three, coming up on two years since those
(06:19):
heinous attacks here in just about a month, and so yesterday,
as you point out in the morning Jolt, fifteen Israeli
fighter planes went over there. It's a long flight, they
had to refuel in the air multiple times. I ended
up dropping ten bombs, killing a bunch of people. They
didn't kill every person there were targeting, but the message
was definitely received. Kind of hilarious to watch the mainstream
(06:40):
media and other people reacting saying these were the negotiators,
They were there to make a deal, except if you've
paid attention to the negotiations over the past several months,
Hamas is always finding a reason not to make a deal. So, Jim,
I know your tears have not started falling yet. Make
of the attack and whether or not Israel is going
(07:03):
to have to pay some sort of diplomatic or other
price here.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Well, my first question, Greg is how do you wring
your hands in fury? Crocodile heres might be a more
accurate description, because, as my colleague Henry Olsen pointed, out.
As you alluded to, these Raellies had to do mid
air refueling several times during this The most direct route
is over Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Both of them have
(07:29):
put out what I think we can say our pro
form of statements of how dare you? While it's pretty
clear that there was very hard for Israeli to have
the Israelies to have done this without some sort of tacit,
if not cooperation, then looking the other way. Also, yes,
today apparently Israel did hit some Syrian air defense sites
to you know, presumably related to this operation. In other
(07:52):
shocking news, Syria still has some air defense sites because
they were pretty much taken out. And speaking of Syria,
when I talked about this story, I thought it'd be
useful to go back and say why is Hamas in Doha.
Doha is very far away from Israel, and you strongly
suspect they wanted a site that was what they thought
was out of the range of Israeli jet fighters. Hey,
(08:13):
guess what fellas, It's not as far away as you thought.
So they used to be based in Damascus in Syria,
and around twenty twelve, the Syrian Civil War is starting
to heat up the US. According to the Katari government,
the US wanted Hamas to be operating in Doha. The
Obama administration remembers it a little bit differently that yes,
they did want to have a line of communication to Hamas,
(08:37):
and so the Qataris wanted to host them. They discussed it,
They discussed it with the United States, and the United
States said go ahead. So that's how they ended up there.
And as you met, like I've been to Damascus earlier
this year, even before the war, it was in rough shape.
It's in really rough shape now. Doha, Greg that's where
the cruises go. Doha. You know, it's nice. It's got
(08:58):
all kinds of luxurious shopping and fancy hotels and all
that stuff. And in today's Morning Joel I lay out
reports about how the leaders of Hamas, some of them
are reportedly billionaires. Hamas gets a ton of money from
donors all around the world because they're fighting the Zionist entity.
Wink wink. This is going to help the struggling Palestindian people,
wink wink. And they are living in the lap of luxury. So,
(09:21):
as I put it today, if you happen to be
a financial supporter of Amas. A, you're a terrible person.
B you're probably breaking the law depending on where you live.
But see you're also a sucker because you gave that
money because you wanted to drive the Jews into the sea,
from the river to the sea palace, blah blah blah.
And in the end they're spending it all in living
a lifestyle that Robin Leech could have profiled on his
(09:42):
television program. Right, those hotel suites are the sort of
thing that Liberaci would say, it's a bit much, Right,
So this is this is where your money is going
if you're a Hamas supporter. But the other thing is, like,
clearly this was a place where the political leaders could say, yes,
we must fight the Zionist entity and feel secure knowing
that the you know, unless the Masads snuck in that
there was really not much chance these Raelies could reach
(10:03):
out and touch someone, as they used to say in
the AT and T commercials. Well it turns out they can.
And as you mentioned fifteen, you know, like again it's
very hard to believe the Katari's you know, air defenses,
but they have Patriot batteries, they have a fairly good
air defense system. There's a US base in that country.
The US base detected these Israeli jets, and you're kind
(10:24):
of like, well, I wonder where they're going. Oh well,
and apparently nobody reacted in any way, shape or form.
As you mentioned, ten bombs get dropped. Apparently it did
not hit the lead, the top leaders. My colleague Noah Rofman,
he wrote a column asking was somebody tipped off the
US administer? The Trump administration was informed. Trump said that
he informed the Katari government. And Trump is going through
(10:45):
the motions of saying he's not happy with this. I
would point out that on Sunday he said, Hamas, this
is your last offer, don't waste it. You know, Monday
I wrote a newsletter saying is Trump going to follow
through on this or is this just more bluster? Tuesday
the roof cames in, so, you know, Trump just not
always chicken out. This does seem like a but now
Trump has to go through and say, oh, I didn't
(11:05):
tell the Israelis to do this or anything like that.
They may not have hit the senior leaders. A report
right before we started taping this indicated that they believe
they missed the senior leaders because the senior leaders had
gone to pray, and they had left their cell phones
in the room that they're having the conference room where
they're having the meeting, so the Israelis believe they were
still in that room. So, Greg, every time there is
(11:27):
a mass shooting, we get told that your thoughts and
prayers mean nothing. Well, let me tell you prayer saves lives.
And if you don't believe me, just ask Amas. Now.
These may not be the lives we wanted to see say,
but there you go. Praying is good for you. It's
really good for you if you happen to be out
of the room when it's getting bombed. So look, I
think if nothing else, this sends a very clear message
to the remaining Hamas leadership. These rallies can hit you anywhere.
(11:49):
There is no safe space, There is no spot where
you are outside the reach of their wrath if they
are feeling like it. So when Trump says, take the
offer on the table, this is the best offer you're
going to get, release the hostages, let's go, I think
you should listen to him. I think he's he's not
always bluffing. He's not always Basically, Hamas tried the taco
(12:09):
trade that Wall Street likes to do, and it went
very badly for them. So are they the senior leadership
managed to survive. I think this is a sign for
Hamas that you're not as safe as you think you are.
And you know, maybe maybe somewhere in the South Pacific,
maybe not a GASCAR or someplace is going to be safe.
But otherwise Doha just not as safe as it seemed
to be.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And I'm already dreading the opening of the UN General
Assembly later this month. You know, it's going to be
insufferable with a leader after a leader trying to demonize
Israel that Nyahu won't care if he comes.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
But it's well, he's got to get in before, he's
got to get in before Momdami tries to arrest him.
That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
So maybe his last appearance at the UN for a while,
given the latest pull numbers in New York. All right, Jim,
onto our second, Martine, this one's definitely not good. It's
also in your Morning Jolt today, and Russia just keeps
pushing the envelope. You talk about how they're jamming airline
GPS signals over the Baltic Sea, leading to greater and
(13:08):
greater risk of an airline disaster there. But last night
Russia also engaging in what's called an unprecedented violation of
Polish airspace by drone type objects, an active aggression that
posed a real threat to the safety of our citizens.
I'm guessing that was from Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
There.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It said nineteen violations were recorded, though figures were not final,
that three drones were confirmed shot down, a fourth probably
shot down. So, Jim, you know that Vladimir Putin's got designs,
he's saber rattled with the Baltic States. Now he's doing this.
He's obviously all in for three and a half years
now and more on Ukraine. So what do you think
(13:51):
he's up to here? And how serious is this?
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Greg If you'll allow me to lapse into Norm MacDonald
here for a minute. I don't know if you're a
history buff, but when a dictator with delusions of grandeur
decides to move into Polish territory, bad things tend to follow.
It's a bad pattern. You just don't want to hear. Oh,
they're moving into Poland. So look, we've seen, you know
the course of my coverage of the war in Ukraine.
(14:14):
We've seen debris fall in Poland before. We've seen drones
getting shot down and landing in Romania, landing in Moldova,
So that stuff has happened before, and it's you know,
sometimes it puts air defense systems on alert. Generally that
stuff is somewhat plausibly explained as Russians attempting to attack
(14:35):
Ukrainian targets on the east western edge of the country,
and sometimes the stuff spills over into airspace or territory
of Ukraine's neighbors. Not a good thing, still a dangerous thing,
but this is a very different category. You don't have
at least nineteen drones of which are designed to go
one way right. These are not designed to do aerial
(14:57):
surveillance and comeback. These are designed to blow up, hit something.
These drones all end up in Polish airspace at the
same time. It is very much looks like what you
think it would be, which is a probing attempt to say,
all right, if we send this stuff over the border
into Polish airspace, how does NATO respond, How quickly do
they respond? How quickly can they get fighter jets into
(15:18):
the area. Do they have patriot missile batteries and other
things that can shoot these sorts of things down. So
this really looks like a very serious escalation. Now, as
you mentioned, this is part of like, you know, Russia
has been messing with, you know, NATO countries, you know,
in lots of little ways of salami tactics, as they
sometimes call you slice it very thin. Russia is probably
(15:39):
unlikely to ever go out and say all right, we're
declaring war and we're coming at you NATO. What they'd
like to do is this gray zone combat. We saw
this in eastern Ukraine in the past. We're seeing it now,
this thing where it's again GPS jamming, it's cyber operations
and hacking, it's propaganda efforts there be and sabotage efforts
all over Europe. Russia is going to just kind of
(15:59):
grab vidually, bit by bit, escalate and see what happens,
and see how you respond. And if you don't respond
very forcefully and in a way that makes Russia realize
that it could lose something that's important to it, they
will keep doing it. So I think what happens in
the next twenty four hours forty eight hours this week
matters a lot for how Russia will treat NATO going forward.
(16:21):
Does this mean we have to go to war. No.
I don't think Russia wants to start all out, you know,
world War three. I think they just want to see
what can we get away with. How can we develop
leverage over NATO countries that are on our border, and
you know, can we turn this into the sort of
thing where we send lots of you know, these drones
regularly over the border. It's never a direct attack, but
(16:42):
at some point, you know, NATO countries get used to
it and then someday it's not just a typical probing attack.
I hoping we still have a Russian embassy here in Washington.
We also have a Russian defense at Teschet office. I
was actually walking by it an event the last week. Greg.
It is like almost literally across the street from the
Obama's house, which is weird. So I'm going to this
(17:03):
other event that was off the record. I can't really
talk about it, but I go pass like is that
a Russian flag? And it's yes. This is the building
and home of the Russian Defense Attache. Lots of countries
have defense attaches, particularly if we have significant military to
military contact or reason to worry about that. It's designed
to keep lines of communication open. I'm perfectly fine with
all of this. As much as I hate the Russians,
(17:24):
it makes sense to have regular communication with them. But
while I'm there, there's a US Secret Service patrol car
in front of that, and I was like, oh, I guess,
but I'm thinking they usually be State Department diplomatic security
type stuff. And then somebody at this event points out, yes,
it's the Obama's live across the street. If I were
the Obamas, I would never talk about secret stuff near
a window. I don't know what's in the Russian Defense
(17:45):
Attache's office, but I would guess that place is chock
full of every conceivable listening device you could possibly amatch.
So I just a little a little bit of Washington trivia.
But I am hoping that today or tomorrow or sometime
very soon, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is on the
phone or maybe even in person, meeting with the Defense
att testche from Russia and saying, are you guys trying
(18:06):
to start World War three? Because if you send lots
of drones over into NATO airspace, that's a really good
way to do it. I hope he reads in the
riot act. I hope that there is a This would
be a good time for hagg Seth to get red
in the face. This would be a good time for
hag Seth to get really angry and demonstrate this is
a provocation, the sort of thing that starts wars, and
that NATO will be responding to any further increasions and
(18:27):
treating it like an active war because they have to.
These drones are designed to destroy things. So when you
accidentally send nineteen drones over into your airspace, Poland and
everybody else has to react like this is an attack.
This is the sort of stuff that the sum of
all fears is made up. Because we really can't go
through a single podcast without citing one. Tom Clancy to
do again. I don't want to panic people, but this
(18:49):
is a big escalation by Russia, and the world will
be watching to see how NATO leaders respond to this.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Excuse me, mister Garrity. That would be Secretary of War
Pete haig Sath. That's right, yeah, not secretary of Defense.
We're on offense now. We should have hired Barry Switzer
in that first term secretary of offense. Remember that whole situation.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Now, Tumberville still available.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Yes, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
All right.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
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(19:32):
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Speaker 1 (19:50):
You know, Greg, Let's say that you're the Russian defense
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(20:54):
support our show. The three Martini.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Lunch gen Z's behavior in the workplace is stack the
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(21:18):
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Speaker 3 (21:32):
All right, let's get back to domestic issues here. We've
had a couple of important international discussions today, but yesterday
we also got some bad news on the economic front.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that we actually created
as a nation nine hundred eleven thousand fewer jobs between
April twenty twenty four and March twenty twenty five. That
(21:54):
is a massive revision, and it follows on last year's
massive revision downwards of eight hundred eight eighteen thousand jobs.
And so basically, over the last two years, we actually
have more than one point seven million fewer jobs. Than
were reported in the monthly reports over and over and
over again, and so Heather long Over at the Washington Post,
(22:15):
who goes over these numbers all the time, says that
that means the average job gains before revision was one
hundred and forty seven thousand per month, the average job
gains after revision down to seventy one thousand dollars a month.
She says the massive fluctuations is mainly due to problems
accounting for new and closed businesses since the pandemic. You think, though,
(22:35):
that after three or four years, that'd have a pretty
decent handle on that. Either way, Jim, you would think
this would be even more impetus. Not that we want
a lot more impetus for interest straight cuts, but will
gladly see them, especially after the latest job numbers from August.
What do you make though of two straight years of
just massive revisions downward?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
So for starters, I think the US Bureau of Labor
Statistics does the best it can. I don't think that
there's a great deal of bias or playing with the
numbers or something like that. I think what they have
is ironically something kind of comparable to the problems public
opinion pollsters face. The Buereau of Labor Satistics sends out
surveys to American businesses and says, hey, how many people
(23:14):
did you hire this month? How many people did you
fire this month? You know, and looking for all kinds
of other economic data. Now, as recently as twenty thirteen,
about ninety percent of the businesses contacted by BLS would respond.
It's now down to about sixty seven percent. Now, two
thirds is not bad, but it's less than your use.
If you're used to getting ninety percent responses and now
you're getting sixty seven percent responses, you're getting less data
(23:37):
than you're used to getting, and you have to make
estimates for the rest of it. And so that's why
you see they put out the initial numbers. Sometimes more
responses come in and come later. Sometimes they learn data
from other sources and they can say, okay, we can
give you better, more more accurate numbers. The more time
goes by, and then they do these big annual Okay,
let's look at everything we did over the past year.
(23:59):
What we know now that we didn't know then, and
how do these numbers change? So I think mostly this
is a you know, lack of data input problem. Not
a somebody playing with the numbers or something like that.
I'm not saying that never happens, because I remember back
in two thousand and nine, right before we started this podcast,
right John corsiin governor of New Jersey, was talking about
his economic record. You may recall that two thousand and nine,
(24:22):
during the Great Recession, was not a great time, and
every month the New Jersey State Department of Labor was
putting out numbers that were saying, hey, we did we
created a whole bunch of jobs this month. The things
are going great. And then you'd go back a month
later and say, actually, yeah, we revised that down a lot.
And so I looked at that. I noticed that pattern,
and I'm like, look, if you're expecting revisions, you'd expect
it to go up, revised up some months, revised down
(24:45):
some other months. You shouldn't be having the same thing
happening over and over again unless there's some sort of,
you know, consistent problem in how you're fitting the data.
And oh, by the way, if a state agency keeps
saying job creation's up, the governor's doing a great job,
you know, it just seemed a little convenient to me.
I don't think that's what happening here with BLS. But
I think this also does dramatically revise what one of
(25:06):
the big narratives of the twenty twenty four presidential campaign
was was like, Wow, what a great economy Bidens has?
What a great economy? Kamala Harris is running on, Oh,
aren't you know? Red hot? And I went through a
corner post yesterday the Center for American Progress, which is
what's the word I'm looking for here? Lousey basically said,
you know, when when Biden's right after Biden left office,
(25:27):
that the Biden economy and the final year in office
one of the best in America in decades. Now, I
will just ask you, listeners, this isn't that long ago.
This was This is a time period covering from April
twenty twenty four to March twenty twenty five, so a
little bit of the very beginning of the Trump months,
but most of that is the final year in office
for Biden. Did that feel to you like the best
(25:49):
economy in decades? Does that feel better than the dot
com boom, the eighties boom, or anything like that? I know,
and you know, all year long public opinion polling said
that Americans were rating the economy the highest priority in there.
Was immigration a big issue for a bunch of folks, yes,
was abortion a big issue for a bunch of Democrats, Yes,
but by a lot. Like economy kept being consistently high,
(26:10):
and most people, including myself, like, Okay, this is a
reaction to inflation, and that even though the inflation rate
had gone down from the peaks of previous years, people
still felt like everything they went out to buy was
way more expensive than they wanted in the cost of
living Moses, And that is definitely a chunk of it.
But I think it's also probably accurate that Americans looked
around and didn't feel like hiring was you know, that
(26:32):
there were job openings everywhere. They didn't feel like there'd
been a giant hiring spray. They are talking around saying
that this economy was okay at best, and probably pretty
pretty lousy in a lot of parts of the country.
So score one for the American people and their gut instincts,
Score zero for the economists. I don't think there's any
you know, funny business going on at the BLS. But
(26:52):
you know that when you say, oh, oh, you know,
actually they created you know, less than half as many
jobs as we said they did. That's a pretty consequential
revision right there. That's absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
And if you look at the last twenty years, the
only year close to the number of downward revisions was
two thousand and nine, and as you said, there was
obviously a lot going on in two thousand and nine
in the wake of the Great Recession, Jim. So we
get these massive revisions like the month after the job
numbers come out, so like, oh, it was a good
month in say October, and then you get the November
(27:24):
jobs numbers. Now, actually it was forty five thousand less
than we thought. Now you get these massive revisions downward
on the annual basis. Does it make more sense to
just do it quarterly? I mean, I'd prefer to have
the monthly snapshots so you have more data along the
way to see where you are. But if it's constantly
being proven wrong, I'm not sure how much value there
isn't it.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I've heard that argument, and I think there's a compelling
point to it. The only thing I point out is
that people who are making business decisions, you know, do
we want to open that factory, do we want to
put that off till next quarter. They want the information
as quickly as possible. And some would say, give me
the the most recent information you got, even if it's
maybe not as accurate as you'd like it to be,
(28:05):
so at least I can make my decision based on
some data rather than no data. The other thing I
would point out, Greg, how many times have we told listeners?
Have listeners told us? Has ever? Everyone tells right before
election day? Don't buy the early exit poll numbers. They're
based on, you know, just the people voting from nine
am to eleven AM or something. They're not accurate. John
(28:26):
Carey was gonna win South Carolina according to the early
exit poll numbers, and do that. I'm not making that up.
And so people like, okay, do but then every election day,
every DM so you heard any early exit poll numbers
we want, right, it's crack cocaine. We know it's not
good for us, but all of a sudden we turn
into Hunter Biden. We just like, we need the early
exit polls, right, So we want to know. And so
(28:48):
people like, oh, how's the economy doing? And if the
BLS said, well, we have some data, but we're not sure,
it's a really full picture. We'll let you know two
months from now. People like no, they're gonna grab by
the bull. I need those numbers, man, I need to
store them right up my nostrils. But this is a
surprisingly nostril heavy edition the Three Martini Lunch. So what
(29:10):
you're suggesting makes sense, and our minds should appreciate it, Greg,
our guts and our hearts may not feel the same
way way.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
We're not patient people anymore, especially in this instant information age.
So give me the wrong info, I guess, instead of
no info at all. I don't know if there's a
ton of value in that, but I guess some people
feel better about it anyway. Jim, have a great day.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
See you tomorrow. All right, sounds good, See tomorrow, Greg.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Jim Garretty, National Review. I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America.
Thanks so much for being with us today. Please be
sure to subscribe to the Three Martini Lunch Podcast if
you don't already, and tell your friends about us as well.
We'd love to have them listening. Thanks also for your
five star ratings and your kind reviews. Please keep those coming.
Get us on your home devices. All you have to
say is play Three Martini Lunch podcast. Follow us both
on X He's at Jim Garretty, I'm at Greg Corumbus.
(29:54):
Have a terrific Wednesday. Join us again on Thursday for
the next three Martini Lunch
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