BLS Lies and the American Depression

From Reuters -

The Labor Department said the economy shed 20,000 jobs after losing 150,000 jobs in December. November was revised to a gain of 64,000, up from 4,000. Annual benchmark revisions to payrolls data showed the economy has purged 8.4 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007.

8.4 million jobs lost in 2 years sounds like a depression to me! So unemployment is getting worse right?

Jobless rate falls to 9.7 percent

Of course, because that makes perfect sense. Generally when I cut jobs my unemployment rate goes down. So things are getting better?

More Chicago-area homeowners defaulted on their mortgages during the final three months of 2009 than in any other quarter since the housing crisis began in 2006.
What the data doesn't show, but what is widely predicted, is that there will be no slowdown in foreclosures this year. Despite almost yearlong efforts to stem the tide of foreclosures, high unemployment rates are causing more homeowners to miss mortgage payments.

Well, what does the Dow Jones have to say about this!? Oh yeah, riiiiight...

That would mean the government is lying, they don't lie, right? So where is the truth? From TrimTabs -

TrimTabs employment analysis, which uses real-time daily income tax deposits from all U.S. taxpayers to compute employment growth, estimated that the U.S. economy shed 255,000 jobs in November. This past month’s results were an improvement of only 10.2% from the 284,000 jobs lost in October.
We believe the BLS is grossly underestimating current job losses due to their flawed survey methodology. Those flaws include rigid seasonal adjustments, a mysterious birth/death adjustment, and the fact that only 40% to 60% of the BLS survey is complete by the time of the first release and subject to revision.

The Real Effect
If only someone had seen this coming -

I believe that we will see the economy start to stutter like a dying giant, staggering into a recession, if not a depression. - September 22, 2005

And

Notice how on the above picture that the bottom of the "Great Depression" didn't come until much later than the intial plunge? The market is reacting like an addict, convulsing with desire for more goods (I.E. - Fiat debt-based liquidity). This will only make the fall that much harder. -
September 19, 2008

And

This is not a recession, it is a depression. And a massive one at that. We are not at the bottom, we are on gaining momentum for the next plunge down. If you thought the last drop was bad, this one is going to strike fear into the hearts of men everywhere. - June 15, 2009

And

This is higher than the unemployment during the Great Depression. In 1931, the official unemployment rate was 24.9%. It took a world war to bring it down to 4.7%. Will it take another war to bring the unemployment rate down again? - December 18, 2009

That last point is important. Did I recently see a story about a build-up in the Persian Gulf?