Reality vs. Gummint’s Man Behind the Screen

Is it any wonder no one trusts the words issuing from politicians’ mouths? Here’s a video from a site I found via Twitter:


Free budget software – Mint.com

The government is telling us that the economic stimulus is working and the recession is over. But you wouldn’t know it from looking at the unemployment numbers. While we may have dodged another great depression, unemployment is at its worst since then, having fallen to 10 percent by the Fed’s own reckoning. And, while we don’t like to be the bearers of bad news, we do stand for transparency in reporting statistics. So we’ve produced an animated infographic explaining who gets to call themselves ‘officially’ unemployed, and why the government leaves out millions of jobless Americans in their often cited and repeated unemployment rate statistic.

If anyone has the real unemployment numbers broken down into categories by types of work, age, race or gender, I’d love to see them. Just leave a link in the comments so this post can be updated. I read in The New York Post several months ago that the real rate of unemployment for males between the ages of 18 and 24 was about 70 percent and that was across racial lines. Since then I’ve not happened upon any other concrete information.

Fortunately, in America, statisticians are still willing/able to publish the truth in this area, and the truth is that young black men will bear the brunt of this ‘recession’ despite Joe “La Boca Grande” Biden’s claim that none of the stimulus money would go to white males. Aside from ACORN employees and government make-work jobs, ask young black males about their job situation.

For middle-aged workers like the Baron or, say, USAPatriot, job prospects aren’t bright…
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…at least not in their current line of work, or what used to be their “current” work.

The unemployed who write us are becoming disheartened. Even the employed are having a rough time. One commenter reported via email that her husband, whose company was once located in the U.S., must now face extended commutes by air to visit his customers and his workplace, all in other countries. This fellow, and many others like him, will face long-term immunity and other health problems if such a draconian travel schedule continues for any length of time. Not to mention what it must do to the quality of his family life. He’s not young anymore; with family obligations he can’t just blow the job and look for something less stressful. At his age, finding employment would be problematic anyway.

The only growth in the American economy has been in government jobs. Private sector jobs have been dropping since 1999. That sad, depressing fact is borne out by the recent referenda passed by Oregon. Lots of money for teachers’ pension funds, but the rest of the populace, along with the businesses to hire them, can just vote with their feet if they don’t like it. Unfortunately for Oregon, the young will do exactly that: head out for greener job pastures.Lots of people are doing the same thing.

Following the President’s address to the nation this past week, Rasmussen has an essay on the lack of trust in government. He calls it a “deficit of trust”:

It’s important to note that the deficit of trust applies to all politicians, not just President Obama. “Americans are united in the belief that our political system is broken, that politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers,” according to Scott Rasmussen in his new book, In Search of Self-Governance,

Seventy-five percent (75%) of Republican voters say their party’s representatives are out of touch with the party’s base. Other data shows that, among all voters, 45% believe people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress. Only 36% disagree. Overall, only 12% say that Congress is doing a good or an excellent job.

On all the points raised in the president’s speech, there is a huge partisan divide. On the question of cutting taxes for 95% of Americans, hardly any Republicans or unaffiliated voters believe it’s true. However, Democrats are evenly divided: 34% say the tax cuts have been delivered, 29% say they haven’t, and 38% are not sure. [go to the essay for all his links - D]

You may want to look around on Mint, the site which carried the video. It has a broad variety of information on the economy and the changes taking place across the country. Their interactive maps have a lot to say about the state of our union.