Interpreting Government or "Official" Reports part 1

From now on, when you hear that this report or that report came out...you should think about something before you take it to heart. You should think about how many reports come out looking rosy in relation to what actually is. Then, just a week or two or a month later the same report looks quite the opposite. Another kind is where the report says that previous data will be changed (in order to make good the numbers in the current report).

So perhaps it would be in your best interest to view these reports as "What is plausible" or "What we'd like it to say" or "What you want to hear" or "Your Title Here". Because if everything was the way they reported it, things sure would be different around here wouldn't they? Instead these seem to be marketing type reports are made specifically for public consumption, not factual ones which tell it like it is. It seems that those who run the government no longer put out those kinds of reports.

Whatever happened to Just the Facts Jack! ??? Instead we get clobbered 24 hours a day via the media to "think" its okay to part with more of our money and put it into the market because the recession has hit bottom and look to the end of the fourth quarter for happy days here again. Have we hit bottom in the market? Maybe, but that doesn't mean that happy days are here again by a LONG SHOT. What with rail shipments down 20% from last year's levels, UPS package levels down 4.7% from last year's depressed levels, unemployment's continuing new claims (how about the massive number of people no longer on benefits but out of work still? How about those who have only been able to obtain part-time employment?) and all these numbers which are not reported because it would look too close to reality which isn't very good!

Hidden Facts:

• The number of unemployed persons increased by 466,000 to 14.9 million, and the unemployment rate rose by 0.3 percentage point to 9.7
  
  
• The number of discouraged workers in August (758,000) has nearly doubled over the past 12 months.
  
  
• Big layoffs at major automakers, suppliers and dealers are just one of the latest signs that the recession is still hitting the U.S. economy fully
  
  
• Related drops in consumer spending will continue to affect corporate earnings that will be hard to continue hiding, perhaps even among financials
  
  
• The majority of this recession was caused by the greed of Federal Reserve leaders and their banking friends via the whole subprime mess and longstanding credit pushing policies.

There has to be 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with population increases. Job growth over the last five years has pretty much been wiped out. It took 4.5 years to recover from the job losses of the 2001 recession. With this being the worst recession since The Great Depression do you think we'll be out of the woods in any less time? We would have to add 17 million jobs over the next five years just to get back to the levels we had in 2007 of 4.5% unemployment. Do you think that is going to happen any sooner? Like in 2010 or 2011 at the latest as they are saying on the boob-tube? Really? Oops! There goes another 12,000 jobs...this time from AT&T. 

Add to those numbers all the people that aren't reported on any longer, including those who have only part-time work but want full time and those numbers rise to like 23 million new jobs needed to get back to what is normal. So perhaps those in power will come up with a "New Normal" to define so that we won't fret and get upset at them. But wait until "normal" taxation returns! When the need to return to normal taxation levels can no longer be denied. OMG! What will you think then? Your decreased pay-check, or the pay-check that didn't see a cost of living increase in over five years will suddenly be like...OMG! But then it will come from other taxes as well, not to mention the indirect tax incurred because we have allowed the Federal Reserve to put more and more newly printed money into the system from which you are directly indebted for!

Add to this the baby boomers who, thanks to regulatory decreases in the stock market and financial sector, can no longer "afford" to retire because their investments have been largely wiped out. Which puts us on another topic we won't cover here...programs which will be needed by the elderly but will be cut despite the need. A whole new can of worms opens up here, that which would include new poverty reports, not the "official" ones. The last recession "ended" in 2001 as goes the "official" report but unemployment continued to rise till the middle of 2003. Again, this doesn't bode well for us in this...not this bad since The Great Depression-recession of 2009. If only that ringing of Change which ushered in a new U.S. President could have the power to put this country back in the great race to be #1 again. So far we're being out-performed by the likes of China, Germany, Spain, and even South Korea while we're still stuck, sucking on the oil nipple for all that its worth.

They...the U.S. Oil companies want you to be mad at the Saudis for the price of oil. Who made more money last year than any other time in their history???? (U.S. Oil companies) We are the Saudis!!

We've been told from those in the Mid-west that insurance companies are freezing their own clients out of their Annuities for up to twelve months! If  you need money and your sources are dried up, demand a hardship dispensation from your insurance company. Does this sound like happy days??

We've also been reminded of how those on Social Security have received notice that their payments won't be adjusted upwards now for several years. This is being blamed squarely on the baby boomers. But in-fact...Social Security has been raided every year to pay for part of the government debt and received nothing but I.O.U.s which have not been honored in a very long time. So its not the Baby Boomer generation that is the problem with the government not being able to do cost of living increases to SS recipients.  Whatever happened to Social-"Security" for the lifetime worker in America???

WAKE UP PEOPLE!

Happy days...normal times...won't be upon us until these numbers return to pre 2008 levels. That is when business is doing well again, and orders are being placed regularly for goods and services by business and by the people. Not just because we've run out of inventory which sat for months and now we have to order more or we'd be completely out of business.