Today’s embarrassing bread lines are now hidden from public view, making the government propaganda easier to sell
While we don’t have bread lines, we do have record numbers of people on food stamps. But these 48 million Americans who cannot provide for their most basic human needs are hidden from public view because they get debit cards and coupons to blend in at the grocery store.
Investors should be wondering if the official story isn’t just a little too good to be true. Gallup CEO Jim Clifton certainly is. Ahead of Friday’s blockbuster jobs report, the extremely credible pollster went in front of CNBC cameras and told Americans they were being misled, going so far as to call Uncle Sam’s official unemployment rate “The Big Lie.”
Sure, the headlines may be trumpeting falling unemployment and lots of job creation. But officials and pundits aren’t discussing the far more sobering reality behind the headlines.
The number of Americans with full-time jobs as a percentage of the population is at the lowest level in 40 years. Bureaucrats shift the perception by simply not counting long-term unemployed people. They want us all to assume those folks spent a few months searching for a job, but voluntarily gave that up to pursue a life of leisure instead. And BLS officials certainly aren’t out front talking about the dramatic shift in employment toward lower paying and part-time jobs.
The BLS wants to tell a story. It’s a story designed to inspire confidence in your benevolent government’s ability to produce jobs and growth. Much like in the Soviet Union, if officials can’t produce those things in reality, they will certainly try to produce the illusion.
