Once again the wheels of deception go round, and round. It appears the Obama administration is continuing the official cycle of half-truths and lies and other such misrepresentations so as to mask the agenda of US dominance throughout the physical and financial world – a dominance that our government and central bank are prepared to pay for at any cost and at the expense of others. We’re ramping up the troop count in Afghanistan. We’re spending our way into oblivion. We’re exporting inflation at the risk of own peril. But on a more positive note, weekly jobless claims just came out and by the grace of God they were better than expected. As a matter of fact jobless claims have improved for five straight weeks if you believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I don’t. I believe unemployment continues to deteriorate in the US at an alarming rate and that our government is flat out lying to us. I believe the actions of our leaders are criminal to say the least and that the ramifications of their misdeeds will lead to such destructive consequences in this country that we will be ill-equipped to understand the events as they unfold over the course of the next few years.
On the cursory subject of unemployment John Williams of Shadowstats.com has this to say in his most recent report:
Employment and Unemployment Not Improving Despite Distortions from Seasonal Factors and Revisions
Updated Outlook: The Economic Downturn Is Ongoing. Just in time to boost the confidence of Holiday Season shoppers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced a 0.2% downturn in the November Unemployment rate, with November payroll employment virtually unchanged. Those results are nonsense, if taken literally. As discussed in Commentary 262, the better-quality series that underlie the government’s employment and unemployment reporting are show ongoing deterioration, particular the various help-wanted advertising and purchasing managers surveys.
Important to keep in mind is that the severity and duration of the current economic downturn — unprecedented in the post World War II era — has led to serious data distortions, particularly tied to seasonal adjustments. Such was noted recently by the Federal Reserve for some of its series, where patterns of sharp variations in reporting of activity a year ago — now being built into current seasonal-adjustment factors — are anything but regular seasonal patterns. Giving the BLS the benefit of the doubt on the unemployment rate, October’s above-consensus reported 0.4% surge in the headline unemployment rate likely was spiked by bad seasonals, which reversed in the November reporting. Such was touched upon in Commentary 262 on the outlook for today’s report. The upturn in the unemployment rate should return with December’s reporting.
Shadowstats.com reports real unemployment at 21.8%. That is greater than 1 in 5 people in the US out of a job. Add to this alarming statistic the number of people in and around the housing industry, from construction laborers, to real estate agents, to escrow officers, to loan officers and carpet installers, and small business owners numbering in the millions that support the housing industry all of which have seen their incomes decline dramatically as a result of this historic crisis. As a nation we are hemorrhaging blood at an alarming rate. Our jugular vein has been severed and the surgical team charged with our care knows only to pump more blood into the body, rather than seal the wound. My question to them is how long can we bleed?
The disconnect between the stock markets and what we know to be the underpinnings of this crisis should set alarm bells ringing in every US household but somehow this is not the case. An entire nation has been lulled into believing that somehow, someway, the rabbit’s going to pop out of the hat at any moment and we’ll all be saved. Everything will turn around. Our home values will skyrocket again, our 401k plans will recoup their losses, and everyone will go back to work selling homes to each other. This is simply not going to happen. The US housing market depended on foreign countries churning their dollar surpluses back into this country in the form of mortgage-backed-securities and US treasuries and if it weren’t for the quick printing Fed our foreign friends would have been stiffed on every home loan that ever flowed out of this debt ridden mortgage factory. Face it, the world got burned. Everyone knows it. Securitized lending is dead and it’s never coming back – at least not in time to save our sorry asses.
From RealityArbiter.com
The fact is that unemployment far exceeds what the media and government portray and even THEY admit it’s going to get worse in 2010. Hooray for the jobless recovery though! Maybe we should all go out and buy up as many stocks as we can. Goldman can pay their bonuses. GM can rise from the grave and Ben Bernanke will look like a hero as he exports inflation all around the globe. On the other hand, how about we don’t do any of those things. How about we do the exact opposite and protect our assets from lies and fraud. Taking that one step further it is a safe bet that we WILL in fact get hit to the downside again at some point – we’re just NOT sure when.
The root of this crisis was a nationally accepted policy of over-lending, over-borrowering, over-spending, and over-leveraging all of it fueled by unaffordable mortgage payments, car payments, and usury revolving debt. Foreclosures have yet to peak. Cash-for-Clunkers was a circus sideshow and our national credit card is tapped. Thank God almighty we can print our own money though. Otherwise our stock markets would reflect their real value, our banks would all be shut down, and our homes and everything else financed by this perverse system of fiat money and fractional reserve banking would come crashing down on us like Tiger Wood’s wife swinging a golf club at our head.
Final thought. Maybe taking a golf club upside the head is what we all need? I mean, think about it – maybe it was like we thought we were all doing the oiled up dream girl in the bikini this whole decade. And we need a good crack in the head with a nine iron to knock some sense into us and realize we were sleeping with these four fatties all along.
