As if lying about unemployment was not bad enough, the government is lying even more about inflation hitting consumers hard. by Joel S. Hirschhorn
(libertarian)
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
How do the powerful keep the US population dumb and distracted? A key tactic has been using methodologies that produce totally misleading underestimates of key economic factors. First we learned that official unemployment figures are too low by a factor of two. Now, understand that the official rate of inflation hitting consumers is even more inaccurate. You will hear about a low inflation rate of less than 3 percent. In reality, it is closer to 10 percent, according to the highly regarded analysis by John Williams.
It is difficult for any one of us to have first hand evidence that unemployment nationally is really much higher than what the government says, even though most of us know people who are out of work or taking part time work out of sheer necessity. But when it comes to rising prices hitting our pockets, credit cards and checkbooks we have a much clearer sense of what is really happening. Gasoline prices have jumped more than 10 percent in recent weeks and for most of us is about a dollar more a gallon than a year ago or so. Some experts are predicting that $4 gas will soon hit most of the nation and, even worse, that $5 gas may hit us this summer.
Food prices are also jumping like a frog on crack cocaine. Many of them are masked by smaller weight packaging. Health care costs, especially insurance premiums and drugs, have also hit many Americans substantially and painfully. High inflation especially hits hard those people who have seen their incomes decline. Those on Social Security receiving no cost-of-living increase have every right to be angry.
The federal government is manipulating statistics to intentionally get a low number for inflation as well as unemployment in order to mask just how awful and unfair the economy really is. Political leaders in both major parties use this propaganda strategy, as if there are simply too few intelligent Americans to see through the lies. Sadly, they seem to be correct. And the mass media push the propaganda strategy by continually hyping and spreading the intentionally false data.
"We have inflation now. If you go to the shop, whether it's groceries, or education or insurance or health care, prices are going up for everything. The government lies about it in the US," said Jim Rogers back in June, 2010. It has only gotten worse.
At this time John Williams has correctly described economic reality: "Near-term circumstances generally have continued to deteriorate. Though not yet commonly recognized, there is both an intensifying double-dip recession and a rapidly escalating inflation problem." Wow! How does that compare to all the glib recovery talk by President Obama and just about everyone else in government?
In addition to banks and financial companies too big to fail that benefit the rich, when it comes to the economy plutocrats think it is too bad to tell the truth.
Who is falling for the economic propaganda? Gallup measures optimism about the economy as a function of age, income and political party affiliation. Worst of all are Democrats and the young.
Meanwhile the Federal Reserve keeps printing money to cope with the budget deficit and national debt problems, which is a major reason for the sharp increases in gasoline prices.
None of any of this, of course, matters much to the rich and powerful Upper Class that is doing just fine and buying more luxury things. And the fat cats on Wall Street and in the financial sector are giving themselves huge bonuses and salaries. Dr. Phil of television fame is selling his $15 million mansion estate so he can buy an even bigger one for $30 million.
Over at Ford, the chief exec recently received $56.5 million in stock and last year pulled down an additional $26.5 million in annual compensation. The latter amounts to 910 times the annual pay of entry-level Ford workers.
In 2011, Americans who make over $1 million will pay just 23.1 percent of their incomes in federal income tax. In 1961, the Institute for Policy Studies notes in its newly released annual Tax Day report, Americans who made over $1 million in our current dollars paid 43.1 percent of their incomes to the IRS. That was when the middle class was prospering.
If congressional Republicans get their way, the middle class will feel considerable pain from program-cutting tactics to curb the national debt, while the rich Upper Class gets more tax breaks and keeps sapping the wealth of the nation as Democrats lack the courage to fight hard for increasing their taxes. With rising economic inequality the US is rapidly becoming a two-class society: 20 percent rich and 80 percent poor.
Meanwhile, whenever I listen to Obama and congressional leaders it is like watching a skit on Saturday Night Live or the Daily Show. They are that absurd.
How many more millions of Americans must experience more pain and suffering, go hungry, lose their homes, lose their jobs, postpone retirement, and go without decent health care before the public snaps out of their stupor? Not that there is very much optimism among Americans. In a University of Michigan March survey just 11 percent expect inflation-adjusted income gains during the year ahead, barely above the all-time low of 8 percent in 1980, and only 21 percent expect the economy to improve over the coming year. But where is the loud political outrage? Loud enough to scare the hell out of politicians and the rich.
When will Americans rise up as those in Tunisia and Egypt did and before that in former Soviet-bloc nations and tear down their corrupt and dysfunctional government?
Unemployment at 20 percent, inflation at 10 percent, a multi-trillion dollar national debt, and nothing but lies from politicians. Have you had enough? Do you still believe that voting in different Republicans or Democrats will fix things?
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Posted By: Roy Ellis
Date: April 19, 2011 09:56:55 AM
Inflation is up, caused largely by the FED printing money, some $600B of late and approx $2.1T over the last 4 years. Supposed to kick start the economy, jobs, etc. Hasn’t happened but, it has helped the stock market and sent inflation through the roof. But, you won’t hear that from gov’t. The gov’t is suggesting an inflation rate of something on the order of 6% http://www.tradingeconomics.com/economics/inflation-cpi.aspx?Symbol=USD while the real rate is something close to 11%. Nothing beats inflation to eat up a dwindling pay check.
Likewise, the gov’t pegs unemployment around 8% while the real number is somewhere between 15-25% depending on the inclusion of those no longer seeking work, are underemployed, etc. A recent report noted that fewer than half of the working population is working.
Say, has yore representative stopped by the barn to talk with you about the ‘new world order’? No? Well, it’s only been 30 years in the making, there’s still time don’t you think?
How about the North American Union? Nope, me neither. Gov’t is a powerful entity. Gov’t can wage war on a whim, big bad fishing boats attacking us in Vietnam, WMD’s under every tree in the Iraqi desert. Gov’t can start and stop trillion dollar programs, set the policy for energy, education, defense, healthcare, national security and so on.
I can recall the Regan era, when the policy of ‘greed is good’ was initiated. That policy was to globalize the economy. To do so, a couple of things were required. It was necessary to intertwine world economies so that no one country would want to reneg on the deal. It was necessary to circumvent US sovereignty and the US Constitution which was best handled by utilizing the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund as pseudo gov’t organizations to make and enforce the rules and carry out central planning.
It was relatively easy to merge up major US corporations to conglomerate strength, pump them full of corporate welfare, replete with tax credits/loopholes and relocate them to foreign lands to engage in the ‘wild, wild west of trade’. Thus, we had the era ‘too big to fail’, recovery act, TARP and the like to ensure their continued success with the risk of taxpayer money.
One of the more difficult tasks was to balance the ‘well being’ of countries relative to prosperity, health, security, etc. That meant the US middle cl*** worker would have to take a big hit. And, take a big hit they did but, still the hourly wage is something like $22/hr, way to high to compete in the globalised world. But, one can only be amazed at the effort put forth to get wages down.
High wage jobs were moved offshore and millions of immigrants have been moved in to put pressure on remaining jobs. Even wealthy ladies fly in and give birth to new citizens. How ironic is that? Move the better jobs offshore and import millions to compete for the remaining jobs. Since there has been no policy from any administration from Regan forward, one can correctly deduce that no policy is ‘the policy’. Indeed, the main thrust of the NAU was to have unimpeded and open borders for N. America.
Now, that we are ‘poor’ and in debt people can no longer afford healthcare, many have lost their home and retirement for many is now a pipe dream at best. Yet, the Corpocracy is pushing a healthcare policy that puts the costs beyond the ability of the now new middle cl*** with many small-mid size corporations throwing in the towel in supporting healthcare for employees. The effect being that, as planned, healthcare will continue to be just one of many aspects the Corpocracy is using to break the middle cl***.
A glaring example is the energy policy or rather the lack of an energy policy, which is ‘the energy policy’. The US has energy resources coming out our ears but it can’t be developed, Can’t use the coal, or natural gas, or shale, or crude, or hydrogen, or, or , or. . . . What we are allowed to do is continue to buy the $4-5/gal import stuff which most agree will do much to break the middle cl***. Or, we can use food stock to produce ethanol while creating strife and rebellion around the world. Some time ago the President said he would encourage the EPA to take ‘jobs’ into account when doing environmental studies. And, just recently a congressperson asked an EPA deputy if jobs were being considered. After a little stammering the answer was no. That’s much like the Border Patrol response when it comes to immigration. Not enough troops, not enough money, to rough to build fences, impedes wildlife, Interior Dept want let us come on federal land, and so on.
The heat is on. A myriad of ways to break the back of the middle cl*** is baked in the cake. There will supposedly be a big debate about adjusting taxation and entitlements. But, I suggest any new policy will be to affirm the old policy. At some point folks will become more amenable to taking on a lesser paying job, IMO. Suze Orman relates that the new norm for the ‘American dream’ is to rent a home and be debt free.
