WHY THIS FEELS LIKE A DEPRESSION FOR MOST PEOPLE

“And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Everyone has seen the pictures of the unemployed waiting in soup lines during the Great Depression. When you try to tell a propaganda believing, willfully ignorant, mainstream media watching, math challenged consumer we are in the midst of a Greater Depression, they act as if you’ve lost your mind. They will immediately bluster about the 5.1% unemployment rate, record corporate profits, and stock market near all-time highs. The cognitive dissonance of these people is only exceeded by their inability to understand basic mathematical concepts.

The reason you don’t see huge lines of people waiting in soup lines during this Greater Depression is because the government has figured out how to disguise suffering through modern technology. During the height of the Great Depression in 1933, there were 12.8 million Americans unemployed. These were the men pictured in the soup lines. Today, there are 46 million Americans in an electronic soup kitchen line, as their food is distributed through EBT cards (with that angel of mercy JP Morgan reaping billions in profits by processing the transactions).

These 46 million people represent 14% of the U.S. population. There are 23 million households on food stamps in a nation of 123 million households. Therefore, 19% of all households in the U.S. are so poor, they require food assistance to survive. In 1933 there were approximately 126 million Americans living in 30 million households. The government didn’t keep official unemployment records until 1940, but the Department of Labor estimated 12.8 million people were unemployed during the worst year of the Great Depression or 24.9% of the labor force. By 1937 it had fallen to 14.3% or approximately 8 million people.

The number of people unemployed during the 1930’s is an excellent representation of the number of households on government assistance during the Great Depression because 79% of all households were occupied by married couples with 4 people per household versus 48% married couple households today with 2.5 people per household. The unemployment rate averaged 19% during the heart of the Great Depression. Therefore, approximately 19% of all the households in the U.S. needed government assistance to feed themselves. That happens to be the exact percentage of households currently needing food stamps to feed themselves.

We are now supposedly five years into an economic recovery. The unemployment rate, according to the government, has fallen from 10% to 5.1%. Maybe a comparison to the the Great Depression in 1937, five years after the worst of it, would reveal some truth. It is not easy to do an apples to apples comparison because very few women worked outside the home in 1937 and the average life expectancy in the 1930s was 60 years old. Today, the majority of women are theoretically in the work force and the average life expectancy is 78 years old. In 1937 only 5% of the population was over 65 years old versus 13% today.

There were approximately 55 million Americans in the labor force in 1937, according to the DOL, and approximately 47 million of them were employed. So 85% of the eligible work force was working. There was no BLS to massage, manipulate, seasonally adjust, or fake the data to make things appear better than they were in 1937. Edward Bernay’s Propaganda techniques and methodologies weren’t perfected for a few more years. According to Census information there were 52 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 44, along with another 21 million between the ages of 45 and 64 in 1937. So even considering that very few women worked and many people died by the age of 60, we had a workforce of 55 million out of an age eligible population of 73 million at a maximum. That yields a participation rate of 75%.

These facts reveal the utter falsity of the propaganda drenched duplicitous data dumped by the BLS on behalf of vested interests who have captured our government and have an agenda requiring the public to be kept in the dark regarding their own dire financial situation. No matter how you slice the data, it reveals an absolute parallel to the situation during the Great Depression. There are 251 million Americans of working age and only 149 million are employed, of which 20 million are part-time and 8 million are self employed. Only 59% of working age Americans actually work. The BLS has the cajones to declare that only 157 million of the 251 million working age Americans are actually in the labor force.

This outrageous assumption flies in the face of all reasonableness, facts, and truth. In 1937, even with women not working outside the home and very few people living past 65 years old, the participation rate was 75%. Today, with the majority of women capable and willing to work and older Americans working well into their 60s, the BLS actually expects a critical thinking person to believe the participation rate is only 62.4%, the lowest since 1977. It’s a pure and simple despicable lie. The true participation rate should exceed the rate in 1937, based on the facts. Using the 75% participation rate today, yields a true unemployment rate of 21%, not the preposterous 5.1% shoveled by the bullshit artists at the BLS. The 21% rate ties very closely to the figure arrived at by John Williams at Shadowstats. An unbiased assessment of the facts reveals unemployment numbers and people on government assistance numbers that match or exceed those of the Great Depression.

I also wonder whether the corporate mainstream media purposely chooses not to show pictures of the poor waiting in long lines to be fed because their function is not to report facts and truth, but to perpetuate the lie that all is well in America.  I pass the Grace Lutheran church at 36th and Haverford Avenue in West Philly everyday on my way to work. Every Thursday is when the church, in partnership with the Philabundance food bank, distributes free food to the people of West Philly. The line stretches around the block at 7:30 am awaiting the Philabundance truck to arrive. There are old, young, black, white, Latino, and Asian in the line. It looks exactly like the line pictured in the Great Depression above. I’m sure there are similar scenes across every city in America on a daily basis. People dependent on food banks and living in homeless shelters are at record levels. Where are the mainstream media pictures? How does that jive with Ben Bernanke’s self congratulatory book tour about how he saved America by secretly handing Wall Street and foreign bankers $16 trillion?

For the average American family, the US economy has been in recession since 2000, with the Greater Depression arriving in 2008. The working age population has grown by 40 million since 2000, with only 12 million jobs added over that time frame. Of those, 10 million were in the government controlled health, education, social services (HES) sectors, with millions of good paying manufacturing jobs destroyed, replaced by a couple million low paying services jobs. As David Stockman points out, Bernanke and the vested interests he serves continue to spew disingenuous propaganda  to cover up the fact average American households continue to experience depression-like conditions. When your real household income is lower than it was in 1989, while your basic living costs for food, energy, transportation, rent, housing, healthcare, taxes, and education have skyrocketed, you just might be experiencing a depression.

“The Fed’s balance sheet has grown from $500 billion to $4.5 trillion or 9X during that span, but job growth outside the HES Complex amounts to less than 2%. For crying out loud, that’s a 12,000 per month rounding error in an economy which has 250 million adults. Virtually every job gained since December 2009 shown in the chart below was not a “new” job at all; it was just a “born-again” job that Greenspan had claimed credit for a few years earlier. Yet Bernanke has the nerve to boast about the Fed’s success on jobs and claim that the “labor market is close to normal”!”

Edward Bernays wrote the book Propaganda in 1928. It was utilized quite well by Goebbels and Hitler over the next decade or so. But the corporate fascist oligarchy, disguised as American democracy, puts Goebbels efforts to shame. Bernays would be thrilled by the efficiency and professionalism with which the invisible Deep State governing power is able to utilize mass media, the internet, public schools, and academia to shape, mold, manipulate and alter the minds of the masses. The unholy alliance between shadowy billionaires, a private bank owned by Wall Street and controlling our currency, the military industrial complex, the sick care complex, mega-corporations peddling consumer goods, and politicians who are easily bought, has left a hollowed out rotting carcass of a nation, with the peasants experiencing a depression, while the lords of the manor feast like there is no tomorrow. But at least the 103 million peasants who aren’t working believe only 5.1% of them are unemployed. It’s a Bernaysian Miracle!!!

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” Edward Bernays – Propaganda

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NickelthroweR
NickelthroweR

Greetings,

Whether you work in the underground economy or go legit, there will only be three classes of people remaining- Owners, Government Employees and Peasants. I’d like to talk about Owners.

Owners have an asset (or two) that earn them money. It could be rental properties or the knowledge and tools to fix cars. It doesn’t matter so long as you’ve got real assets or hard skills – you’ll eat and possibly thrive as social mobility will only exist within the Owner Class. If the only thing you have for trade is unskilled labor then you will become a peasant as the law of supply and demand dictate that what is common has little monetary value.

If you wish to survive what is coming then I’d suggest that you start thinking like an owner and if you are not currently earning 20% or more of your income from the underground economy then you are only a disaster away from a disaster.

The time to start is now.

David
David

Don’t expect any improvement as the self appointed geniuses who run the country continue to gather and share higher and higher percentages of our production and manipulate interest rates and money and add more regulations.

Llpoh

I notice that mangy cur SSS slunk off with his tail between his legs once he realized he was calling out Chief Big Red Dog and not sensetti.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

El Coyote says: I’ve just been sitting here pooling my wiener.

Very funny Coyote Dopple but I would have written – pooling my pud – just to get the PP in there. Heh.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

HSF, 2 points but first let me apologize because I am not as high up in Maslow’s hierarchy nor as eloquent as you.

I saw on a T-shirt: “Points don’t lie”. Money is the way we keep score. If currency is a substitute for precious metals, credit card points and electronic credits are a substitute for currency. Money is many things and also a psychic reward, tangible proof that somebody was satisfied with our job.

Speaking of proof: “just the tip” has a variant in Mexico, it is called “La prueba de amor” – the test (or proof) of love. Nowadays, one can also procure sex without love in exchange for payment. If you attend certain clubs for gentlemen, you can pay for pretend sex with clothes on; lap dances.

Logically speaking, I should be able to pay for pretend sex with bitcoin.

SSS

“The middle class was an illusion.”
—-Sensetti (actually Llpoh)

“Psssst. And here comes the bullshit flag. What exactly WAS the middle class that was our collective illusion? Where did it go? What replaced this illusion?”
—-SSS

“I notice that mangy cur SSS slunk off with his tail between his legs once he realized he was calling out Chief Big Red Dog and not sensetti.”
—-Llpoh

I stand by my comment, Llpoh. You stigmatized the entire middle class by saying LATER ON AFTER MY COMMENT that “the illusion was that it could exist in perpetuity. That it could continue on funded by debt. That the lifestyle need not be linked to value creation or productivity or skill or education. That the lifestyle could be had with no regard to the need to compete.”

I still disagree. Yes, many millions in the middle class bought in to your tardy description, but just as many millions did not. Many of the ones who bought the carnival barker’s pitch and paid to see the Bearded Lady lost their homes, jobs, cars, marriages, and sometimes their lives. Those who worked hard, produced, created, and/or obtained a good skill did just fine, as long as they didn’t fall into the dark pit of too much debt.

The middle class has been culled mightily of its fast-track wannabes on the way up the economic ladder. But it still exists and is probably stronger, but much smaller, than ever.

Your turn, Chief.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

My granny said most people walk around in a dream until they begin to awaken after they turn 40.

Prof Pangloss said that few people achieve self-actualization. I took that for fact until I got older and realized that once folks get past the needs of the body and the needs of society, when they fulfill their own spiritual needs, their dreams, their calling – then they can be said to have achieved self-actualization; folks like Admin, Stucky, LLPOH, who have realized different dreams but they realized them. Some folks do this several times with different dreams.

The rest of us just dream. Guess I should have taken the red pill.

EL Coyote
EL Coyote

You guys have to agree on the terms, just as there are 3 averages, there are many ways the middle class can be described: the state between filthy rich and dirt poor, the Sears clientele, the prudish proletariat, the working class..

SSS may be referring to homeowners in general while LLPOH is describing homeowners with a tv in every room and a car for every person in the household.

SSS

Definition of middle class. Those making $50-100,000 a year.

I await Llpoh’s wisdom.

IndenturedServant

Llpoh says:
“I notice that mangy cur SSS slunk off with his tail between his legs once he realized he was calling out Chief Big Red Dog and not sensetti.”

Yeah, I fried his ass the other day on another thread and he just tucked tail. I still got a laugh out of it so it’s all good.

Teri
Teri

hardscrabble farmer:

I love, love, love your story! I am not a farmer (yet!) except for my suburban vegetable and herb garden, but I have worked in agriculture and outdoors for 40 years. If nothing else, there’s something special about experiencing Mother Nature and all its glory all day. I absolutely love it, so peaceful!

I have read many accounts of people who have started farming (some after having left high-powered, big income office-type jobs), and were surprised to discover, despite the hard work and doing with less, that they too became wealthier in ways they never dreamed possible.

Here’s an interesting story that was in our local teevee station online: http://wtkr.com/2015/09/25/north-carolina-pastors-idea-feeds-a-food-desert/

I honestly believe that if, as a collective, we can save ourselves from what our government is inflicting upon us, it will be through decentralization of everything, and going back to basics. People will have to first get over themselves, and get past the brainwashing that ‘Murican’s are too good to do manual labor.

Maddie's Mom
Maddie's Mom

@ Deanna Johnston Clark,

Excellent point.

Drugs of all kinds A N D gambling in our part of the world. Casinos everywhere.

Families destroyed and formerly law-abiding citizens embezzling huge sums of money for…you guessed it…gambling debts.

Keep a close eye on any workers, delivery people, etc…that come into your home. Chances are they are looking for something to steal and if they ask to use your bathroom, don’t allow it, especially if they just drove past 15 convenience stores on their way to your place. Duh.

SSS

Llpoh says:
“I notice that mangy cur SSS slunk off with his tail between his legs once he realized he was calling out Chief Big Red Dog and not sensetti.” which was followed by ………..

“Yeah, I fried his ass the other day on another thread and he just tucked tail. I still got a laugh out of it so it’s all good.”
—-IndenturedServant

Look at my response to Llpoh @ 6:08 pm above, cheesecake. As for your “frying my ass,” I am not in the habit of responding to lightweight assholes. Capiche? Are you still laughing?

If you both want to take me on in a rational discussion about what I said about the middle class, game on. Otherwise, STFU, especially you IS. Especially you

IndenturedServant

I reject your definition and put forth my own equally valid definition. The “middle class” was a propaganda tool to convince the sheep that they could work for 30-40 years, earn 12% annually on their investments then retire and live lavishly for the next 20-30 years. Perhaps a generation and a half benefited from it and it applied mostly to govt workers and union employees. Their children and grandchildren will be the ones who pay the bill for the “middle class” they will never achieve in the form of more taxes, fewer/shittier services and much lower quality of life.

SSS said:
“I am not in the habit of responding to lightweight assholes”

Either you just did or I’m not the “lightweight asshole” you speak of. In any case, I still fried your ass the other day and yes, I’m still laughing. Thank you!

Llpoh

SSS – I am too busy to give you the scalping you deserve, as my doomstead just finished, and I am real busy.

You said as many middle class are doing the right thing as are not. If that is so, and given that the median income puts folks in the middle class, why do only 20% of all 55 year olds have net worth of $250k, and 60 per cent of them have less than $100k?

Half the folks in the country make $50k or more, but only 20% of folks accumulate even the relatively small amount of net wealth of $250k by the time they are 55. And a lot of them would have inherited, or been from either side of the middle class, or only have paper wealth.

Your statement does not compute. Only a fraction of those in the middle class are doing the right things.

I could have said it better – the idea that the middle class can continue is an illusion. Debt, poor skills, education, work ethic, the welfare state, and global competition will see to its demise.

KaD
KaD

In preparation for the next leg down… any liability at the bank is in danger of being written-down should the bank fail. And guess what? Deposits are considered liabilities according to US Banking Law. In this legal framework, depositors are creditors.

So… if a large bank fails in the US, your deposits at this bank would either be “written-down” (read: disappear) or converted into equity or stock shares in the company. And once they are converted to equity you are a shareholder not a depositor… so you are no longer insured by the FDIC.

So if the bank then fails (meaning its shares fall)… so does your deposit.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-06/how-and-why-banks-will-seize-deposits-during-next-crisis

TJF
TJF

Looks like sombody doesn’t like that their chart was hotlinked.

AC
AC

In an unrelated story, imgur.com lets you rehost images.

Dick Jones
Dick Jones

“Looks like sombody doesn’t like that their chart was hotlinked.”

Well, at least the guy had the courtesy to misspell “Burning.”

flash
flash

I don’t understand why some aer so furious about hot linking…it gives their site and work more exposure public exposure right? ..and thats how I found all the blogs that I now read…what’s up with these turd pockets?

Araven
Araven

The http source shows that Admin got the chart from this guy’s blog: http://www.trivisonno.com/
Given how many comments he’s got on his blog (close to 0) I would think he would be honored that TBP and ZH would use one of his charts.

Araven
Araven

Sorry techies – I meant html source.

Stanley
Stanley

That’s a hilarious hack. Making the front page of Burning Platform more entertaining than the original chart.

And he did it while all the Big Dawgs are en route to a blowout beer fest in New York City. They probably won’t even see it until Monday.

flash
flash

Araven..thanks… ..never heard of the blog and it’s not hard to guess why.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I think I will update my TBP bookmark to Buring Platform.

It’s like he is just another shit throwing monkey but he is lobbing it in from the next tree over instead of from the TBP tree.

TJF
TJF

Anon @ 8:59 was me.

IndenturedServant

comment image

Rise Up

Great speech by Dr. Ben Carson at the National Press Club last Friday. He spoke at length about the problem with government welfare and his battles with the press. Very sensible guy.

IndenturedServant

http://postimg.org/image/to8i60tex/

Vess
Vess

LOL. It seems that somebody at http://www.trivisonno.com doesn’t like TBP hotlinking to their charts. 😀 The chart that is supposed to display the yearly food stamps shows just the following text:

“Tyler Durden sucks goat balls.
Yes, the very same goat that he
was clutching when he got off
the boat from Bulgaria.

Burning Platform sucks balls too.

Go ahead, hot-link another one
of my charts, fuck face.”

Who dafuq is Tyler Durden? It’s not a Bulgarian name….

Stanley
Stanley

@ Vess

Tyler Durden is the nom de plume for the anonymous contributors on Zerohedge.

Zerohedge is registered to a Bulgarian ex-oligarch. Few people seem to realize that Bulgaria is an EU country.

Lots of conspiracies surround the website.

Just sayin’.

Llpoh

I just dropped a dookie on that guy’s website. Mess with the monkeys and get what you get.

Joanie
Joanie

Please check/delete offensive message at the centre of today’s editorial. Thank you for all your work T.D. Appreciated.

J.W.F.

Aodh Mor MacRaynall
Aodh Mor MacRaynall

yeah, Araven, what the hell’s wrong with this fuckin faggot

JoAnn Chateau

I love that you remind us present-day ‘soup kitchen’ lines are invisible. Unemployment rates? Tweaked until they are invalid. Propaganda? Edward Bernays is credited for changing that term to ‘Public Relations,’ which seem to be the real mission of today’s corporate-owned mainstream media.

Cricket
Cricket

Rush Limbaugh just read part of this article on air and credited Jim Quinn and theburningplatform.com (via Zero Hedge). This may bring more visitors than just INTJ’s to the site.

Congratulations Admin!

Lorna

May I simply say what a relief to uncover an individual
who genuinely knows what they’re discussing online. You definitely realize how to bring an issue
to light and make it important. More people must read this and understand this side of your story.
I was surprised that you’re not more popular since you surely possess the gift.

km
km

Said it since ’08, we are in a depression! The hope and change were meant for the illegals! They are taking our jobs and our lives over, and traitors like Zuckerberg are helping it along quite nicely. Employers actually expect americans to train their replacements! Well, the elites want ONE world, it’s just about there

Beano
Beano

I would like to stand in a soup line but I don’t see any. Where do you stand in one if the economy is so bad as you say?

Werno
Werno

Excellent writing. Just one calculation that I’d be interested to hear more about:

“The unemployment rate averaged 19% during the heart of the Great Depression. Therefore, approximately 19% of all the households in the U.S. needed government assistance to feed themselves.”

How have you reached the latter 19%? Would be very much appreciated if you could point that out for me!

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