Deceptive Economic Statistics: While the economists lied the US economy died

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Deceptive-Economic-Statist-by-paul-craig-roberts-100817-240.html

For OpEdNews: paul craig roberts - Writer
On August 17, Bloomberg reported a US government release that industrial production rose twice as much as forecast, climbing 1 percent. Bloomberg interpreted this to mean that "increased business investment is propelling the gains in manufacturing, which accounts for 11 percent of the world's largest economy."

The stock market rose.

Let's look at this through the lens of statistician John Williams of shadowstats.com. Williams reports that "the primary driver of a 1.0% monthly gain in seasonally-adjusted July industrial production" was "warped seasonal factors" caused by "the irregular patterns in U.S. auto production in the last two years." Industrial production "shrank by 1.0% before seasonal adjustments."

If the government and Bloomberg had announced that industrial production fell by 1.0% in July, would the stock market have risen 104 points on August 17?

Notice that Bloomberg reports that manufacturing accounts for 11 percent of the US economy. I remember when manufacturing accounted for 18% of the US economy. The decline of 39% is due to jobs offshoring.

Think about that. Wall Street and shareholders and executives of transnational corporations have made billions by moving 39% of US manufacturing offshore to boost the GDP and employment of foreign countries, such as China, while impoverishing their former American work force. Congress and the economics profession have cheered this on as "the New Economy."


More at the link ---

[Hannah Bell]

1. kr

[xchrom]

2. recommend -- this 'reporting' or lying is ruining us. nt

[fasttense]

3. They have been manipulating the economic statistics for years.

We are currently near depression level unemployment but we all pretend it is less than 10%.

"Right now, if measured according to the methodology of 1980, the US unemployment rate is about 22%. Thus, the reported rate of unemployment hides more than half of the unemployed."

Look around you. Do you see good paying jobs being offered? Do you see housing prices going up? Do you see more people living in the streets?

It's as if our federal government can not see us in their economic reports. Almost as if we do not exist in this economy.

[ipaint]

4. Thanks for posting this.

Posts were popping up yesterday desperately trying to catapult the propaganda about manufacturing on the rise.

[lovuian]

5. economists know we are in a depression

Economics 101 when 90% of a country's assets is owned by a few

there becomes a Depression

everyone knows this but doesn't say it or report it

[mike r]

6. Cooking the books is an art in economic 'science'

and it's all legal too.