This is the second in a series of articles dealing with what is not right in America in our humble opinions. We are calling it in fact WRONG in that it is not beneficial for the country as a whole. These articles are not presented in any particular order of importance but merely as they might be timely.
There were times in America when the people could trust information passed on to them by the Federal Government or even State and local governments. This is sadly no longer the case. At the same time, it is ironic because computerized information technology has improved so vastly that data collection by government should be so much more reliable and timely. We stand corrected, it is timely. It does only take a few days for updates on unemployment filings nationwide and other such information being made public. The problem is, it is unreliable.
We could list several examples of this but instead will concentrate on the employment picture in America. The Department of Labor of the Federal Government comes out every week and shares with us the number of people who have filed for unemployment benefits. On a monthly basis, we get the overall unemployment rate in the country. This statistic includes a number of things such as new unemployment filings, new jobs created and also the number of people who simply ‘left the job market’ or do no longer receive unemployment benefits. This changes the base constantly and results in some truly weird numbers. There can be no doubt that some element of manipulation is involved and this is at times so apparent that one has to question the accuracy of the reports.
We will try and state our analysis in simple terms: We are, for the purposes of this view, assume that the approximate number of full employment in America is 150,000,000 (one hundred fifty million), can we not deduct that 15,000,000 equals ten percent of the total? We believe we should, it’s simple math! When the total number of people reportedly not working in America is somewhere between twenty to twenty-five million, why is the unemployment rate not at least thirteen to sixteen percent? Is this a stupid question? We do not think so! But the Government apparently believes this and the media is accepting this and reports it as such.
When the Feds in Washington report that the economic growth in the country during a given quarter of a year is 1.2 percent, how can we accept and trust when it corrects this number down to 0.5 percent three months later. This is wrong and to our way of thinking a clear sign of report manipulations that should be challenged by everybody and not at all accepted as fact. We could present many more such examples of immense inaccuracies when it comes to what the Government tells us. We are convinced that this type of reporting could easily have a political element to it. President Obama would of course like to see the unemployment go down this year and he is willing to setlle for a downward trend instead. It’s referred to as “moving in the right direction” but it is based on number manipulations that are vastly inaccurate and it should not be accepted.
Is it any wonder that Americans are increasingly suspicious of what the government tells them? To us here at Common Sense University it is not! Only the ignorant are happy and do not care what they are being told and that is a shame. Trust in government should be a goal pursued by everybody who is serving in whatever capacity the population of this country.