One of the things I want to do to help you understand the quagmire we've gotten into, is expose the lies we are told every day... in the Mainstream Media, quoted by government officials, actually ISSUED from government offices. I'm not going to tell you anything you couldn't find out for yourselves with a little "Google work", but I point these things out so you can take time to think about them for yourselves, and form your own opinion. I do this because I feel some insane need to justify my thinking, and I'd like you to have as much background as possible before you dismiss me as completely batshit.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov) publishes our weekly, monthly, annual employment report. Never mind that a number that still kisses the ear of HALF A MILLION people per week filing new unemployment claims now seems like good news; their numbers are suspect, fraudulent, and skewed to make the horror seem somehow PG-13. Due to changes in the formulas used to calculate unemployment - enacted by the Clinton administration... go figure!... the rate of unemployment as of the end of September, 2010 was 9.6%. Okay, not good news anyway, right? Now go check out Shadowstats.com... this site was founded by John Williams, former chief economist for BLS - under Clinton - and tracks not just employment, but many other government-issued stats, BEFORE they were tweaked into fantasy-land.
His undiluted unemployment numbers are more like a bit over 20%. Just to hammer your head with it, that's the difference between 1 in 10 out of work or underemployed and 1 in FIVE. They say the difference between a recession and a depression is thus: If someone you know loses their job, it's a recession. If YOU lose your job, it's a depression. It's a DEPRESSION, folks. Simple.
The stock market, as of late, has completely de-coupled from the actual status of the economy. If you split the difference between bls and shadowstats, you get 1 in 15 people out of work or under-employed. Yet the stock market has surged to pre-crisis levels. How does that work? Those who study finance know the not so glorious nickname: "Quants". The other name for these schmucks is "Algos". Physics/computer geeks not making better bombs, or solving the mysteries of the universe... they create programs to essentially "run" the stock markets. A Quant is a quantitative trader, and he or she uses Algos - as in algorithms - to do very small things in a very large way:
If I buy 100 shares of a stock at $10.00 a share, and want to make $500.00 off that stock's movement, I need it to go up $5.00 a share. As a day trader, it's a bad bet. As a swing - i.e., overnight, over-week, over-quarter trader - depends on what I know about the company. Maybe yes, maybe no.
If I'm a Quant, I can buy 1,000,000 shares. If the stock moves by a penny or two per share (partially because I've just purchased a boat-ton of them, and shown the market demand), I can make my masters a boat-ton of money... I program the computer to buy at X, sell at Y, set the volume at Z, and I can go have a smoke or a drink; my work is done.
Welcome to the remaining volume on the NYSE. Welcome to a market that nears 11k on the DJIA when the outflows of retail and retiring investors is at a 6 month high (76 Billion dollars - see ZeroHedge.com).
The point? To quote Ellen DeGeneris, "and I do have one": you are being lied to, at many, many levels. It's time you saw it, and thought about it. Thinking is the only currency that can't be manipulated, and it's the ONLY thing that's going to lead you to action. What level that action takes is up to you; some are stock-piling guns and gold, some are simply getting "off the grid"... more about that in another post. Some are watching American Idol, some are doing research on their own without the help of the almighty television. The choice is yours.
Stay tuned, Smart Slackers... a little more background, and we're off to the races of how we get through this, and keep our sanity - and maybe a tolerable standard of living - through all this.
Stand, and be true.
Brutal Truth
Ya know, I have long felt that there are more than 9 point something percent of my fellow Americans who are unemployed. 20% seems way more reflective of the stories I hear around me. Thanks for validating, and thanks for sharing Shadowstats.com. Great post!
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