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By Christopher B. Daly

As a public service, I am following up on a recent post about Jack Welch, the original “jobber,” who tried to launch the rumor that the professionals at the Bureau of Labor Statistics was cooking the books on the monthly unemployment figures as a political favor to their boss. Turns out, the journalists at Fortune (where Welch had a column) could not let that stand; they did what journalists are supposed to do — they did some checking and found nothing to it.

In umbrage at their verification efforts, Welch announced that he was quitting his ties to Fortune. Hmmm…

Here’s Fortune’s version.

Here’s the take-away:

Monday morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer said there were a number of things wrong with Welch’s tweet, the biggest of which was that the economy doesn’t back up the former executive’s claim that the numbers were faked.

“I think it’s exactly the opposite of what Jack Welch is saying,” Serwer said. “Things are actually improving.”

Also, I had a chance to look further into GE’s stock performance. The 5-year chart below shows quite clearly that GE’s stock was cratering  (along with the rest of the economy) late in the Bush administration. Under Obama, the stock has steadily risen and has about doubled under the current administration’s policies.

Price Chart