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When they finally saw how powerful the all-powerful Wizard really was, they were really surprised.
Two revelations in the last week about the economic statistics generated by the government revealed the breathtaking scope of the lies, damn lies and statistics that have been deployed to convince the American people that their economy is healthy when it is not. Scam number one, of course, is the claim that the president “manages” the economy. All you have to do is count the variables, and if you ever finish counting, you will see how preposterous this idea is. But the idea has been sold, and so every president — and all the minions who serve him — has to maintain the fiction that he’s in charge, and everything is swell.
President Trump brags daily that the economy is the best there’s ever been, that growth is the best ever – it will hit five per cent in the next quarter, he assures us — that unemployment has never been lower, the stock market has never been higher and therefore we would be idiots not to re-elect him. The industrial media are singing from the same sheet music.
It calls to mind the kings and high priests of old who claimed to manage the weather, and promised good weather to those who greased their palms. They prospered when the weather and thus the harvests were good, and when the weather changed got tossed into an active volcano. Mr. Trump is, of course, unaware of that history.
Although Mr. Trump exaggerates wildly the reporting of his own administration, the government has been relentless in supporting the idea of a vibrant economy that is growing rapidly and creating jobs — 223,000 a month throughout 2018, according to the Bureau of Labour Damn Lies. But a week ago, the aforesaid Bureau nervously cleared its throat and announced that actually, half a million of those jobs never existed. It was the largest downward revision since 2009. Do you remember 2009?
Funny thing about those downward revisions. For a lot of government statistics, the first announcement of what happened last month is an estimate — by which is meant a wild guess — based on preliminary data — by which is meant consultation with a Ouija Board. To be fair, although I don’t feel like being fair, gathering significant data on an economy the size of America’s takes time. But a nation with attention deficit disorder and short term memory loss does not have time, so the numbers are pitched out quickly. Then, month after month as real numbers comes in, they are revised, almost always downward.
So the job-creating, four-wheel-drive diesel juggernaut of the Trump years has been revised downward to a ‘63 Volkswagen Beetle with a missing spark plug. But it’s old news, so nobody cares.
The same thing has happened to the glorious GDP numbers over the same period. The gross domestic product — the sum of all the goods and services produced in the country — grew at an annual rate of 3.1% during 2018 (which the Trumpster Fire rounded to 4%, leveraging that to a promise of 5% this quarter). Now they have revised that damn lie to 2.9%, a rate just healthy enough to permit the patient to sit up in bed and take nourishment. But the first, most optimistic read on the second quarter growth rate is just a hair above 2%, hospital equivalent of a code blue.
Thus does the Wizard, aided by legions of federal public employees, keep alive the illusion of a thriving economy as it wheezes its way toward depression. But twice last week, the curtains were briefly swept aside and the all-powerful Wizard was revealed to be a sweaty little man with orange hair, desperately trying to work all the levers at once. And he looked back at us and said, “Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?”
Right, and China’s paying the tariffs – NOT!
I can tell you who’s paying the bloody tariffs – I am! My raw goods come from foreign lands, China and Nicaragua among them: two nations with which we enjoy, shall we say, less than cordial relations.
Wholesale prices are inching upward – mostly out of fear of supply constrictions or outrageously higher costs down the line. I can’t quote prices to my customers beyond 30 days – ninety days is standard. I’m afraid. Fear is a big driver in business.
Just ask the farmers.
“‘63 Volkswagen Beetle with a missing spark plug” TL
worn guides and burned valves.
Your description of the economy is not greatly exagerrated!
I’d have laughed at the naked emperor myself, if not for the extremely troubling ramifications at which all the facts and figures are pointing. More and more people are now warning of a financial crash around the corner just like the one in 2008, only far worse.
Here in Singapore last Saturday there was a public ‘Meet Your MP’ session during which I raised the issue how a country like Singapore, which has hardly any natural resources of her own, could cope if the major supply lines to her were disrupted by special global events. I was assured that, among other things, the government would stockpile important resources if there were an ‘imminent threat’, and furthermore — if I didn’t hear wrongly — I was told that Singapore exports even more oil than Saudi Arabia (!!) by virtue of having all the oil sent to her for refining!
I wonder if our government is naked or wearing a very tight, flesh-colored leotard?…
Reminds me of a man-on-the-street interview done by a California TV station, asking people along The San Andreas Fault if they had made any preparations for the big earthquake to which one worthy replied, “Dude, why would I do that? I got a 7-11 store right on my corner!” Problem solved.
Of course the ultimate laugh and tragedy in all of this Potemkin Village so-called economy and stock market is that the politicians creating/manipulating this utter BS actually got millions of tax paying, Industrial Strength middle class sheep to vote them into office in the first place!
When does this lunacy end?
Good ole 45 has taken responsibility for the fantastical economy, and although I don’t believe his understanding of anything is sophisticated enough to utter such a phrase, his behavior demonstrates pretty clearly a belief reminiscent of Louis XVI: après moi, le déluge. Maybe for 45 it ought to be à part moi, le déluge.
When will it end? When the charade can’t be perpetuated anymore. The precise date is unknown but the descent into chaos and collapse promises to be rapid — about the time it takes for supply lines to screech to a halt.
The operations of industrialized countries like America always use irreplaceable natural resources such as crude oil and produce irrevocable waste material damaging the environment. This irreversible process is showing signs now of peaking and societies will have to learn how to ease the inevitable powering down of this unsustainable operation..
“Societies will have to learn.” – good one!
It is just a statistical trick: you cut 0,5 million jobs in the past so that you can say that employment is still growing in the present. Come 2030 all jobs will be statistically deleted from one year to the other so that Govs can create millions of jobs each year. Amazing!:)
Aren’t they good?