It’s funny how facts are conveniently ignored by the mainstream media pundits, paid to mouth the narrative put forth by their corporate bosses. A critical thinking individual might look at the chart below and possibly question the validity of the economic growth mantra spewed by the politicians, central bankers and mass media. As anyone with two eyes can see, the central bankers of every developed country in the world have kept real short term interest rates negative for the last eight years and continue to do so.
The last time the U.S. Federal Funds rate was 1%, the 10 Year Treasury rate was 4%. In a normal free market system, real interest rates would be 2% to 3% above CPI. The fraud and dysfunction of the current global financial system is made unequivocally clear in the chart. There has been no economic recovery for the average person. This entire farce is solely for the benefit of the financial elite billionaire class, Wall Street banks, and corrupt politicians, orchestrated by spineless milquetoast central banker puppets.
Instead of getting 3% or 4% on money in a savings account, the average person is screwed getting .15% as their dollar depreciates by at least 2% per year. And the pundits pretend to be baffled by consumer spending collapsing, retail stores closing, restaurants desperate for business, and Americans in a perpetually pissed off mood.
What makes you think the pundits are pretending to be baffled?
Because they are getting paid by their corporate bosses to not tell the truth.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair
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There’s another local CU that pays 5% on the first $500 in their First Five Savings account.
I made a mistake, I should have said: What makes you think the “pundits” are PRETENDING to be baffled” Maybe that’s clearer.
Yeah what George said, but hey, jobless claims are the lowest they have been in the last forty years. WTF??
Talk about people not understanding the smoke and mirrors BS !!
For those of us that live in the real world, the truth is as clear as a bright sunny day.
I do a quarterly financial report for my organization. One of the data points I track is the staff turnover percentage. People quit at a higher rate when the economy is good. They stay put when the economy is in the shitter. It had been rising from 2014 through 2016. In the last 12 months it has plunged back to levels seen during the depths of the recession in 2009/2010.
People aren’t quitting because the economy sucks and is getting worse.
Housing starts are collapsing, down 3 months in a row and 7 of the last 10 months.
I get your point but when 1/3 of the population that could be working is unemployed (104 MILLION WORKERS) you have to gasp at the rosy claims being projected on the interwebs. ZH for one.
Reasons these 104 million would not be seeking employment:
Death
Living off entitlement programs- BINGO
In Prison
Left the Country
ETC.
I’m going with (Living off entitlement programs).
ZH hasn’t made a rosy prediction in their entire history as a website.
Oh really? Go back and read the opening line of TD’s article you posted here on 06/13/17 titled “A RECORD 60% OF AMERICANS DISAPPROVE OF PRESIDENT TRUMP”.
Maybe I took it wrong but sure looks like TD said that.
EDIT: I said rosy claims not predictions.
Does anyone do a reality check any more? BL, did yours bounce?
“I get your point but when 1/3 of the population that could be working is unemployed (104 MILLION WORKERS)”
104M x 3 = 312 million
total US population: estimates vary between 300-340M
104M is not 1/3 of the potential workforce, unless you expect newborns, children and the very elderly to work, along with every last person between 10 and 80 years of age.
Statistics get thrown about and people need to stop and ask if they even make sense.
Snick – I stated it exactly as it is, basically 1/3 of our population that is of working age and COULD BE WORKING is not. What is your point?
Edit: There are only 78 MILLION employed people in the country which if you do your maff, which is hard, leaves plenty of babies and small children and elderly. Elderly still work these days, look around.
BL, c’mon. I am quoting YOUR EXACT WORDS below:
“I get your point but when 1/3 of the population that could be working is unemployed (104 MILLION WORKERS) you have to gasp at the rosy claims being projected on the interwebs. ZH for one.
Reasons these 104 million would not be seeking employment:”
Your first quoted sentence, in normal English usage, indicates that 104 million workers are unemployed. However, even if I granted that you were confused at typical English usage (because English actually is hard, even for native speakers), you go on to confirm that you believed 104 million people were not seeking employment. That then confirms the succinct summary I posted above indicating that it was unlikely the USA has 312 million people capable of doing paid work.
As in other aspects of life, it’s better to just admit the mistake, shrug and move on.
Snick – The figure of 104 MILLION people of working age and not employed is straight from articles I have read on the internet. Argue with them and no I am not admitting I was wrong. What is your point?
Do you agree that there are 78 MILLION people employed in this country? There are not 237 million babies, children under 16 and senior who cannot work. Some where in that figure of 237 MILLION there is a shit load of non-working Americans.
I’ll make it easy for you, we should have at least 150 MILLION people working minimum.
There are 153 million working age Americans employed and 102 million not employed.
https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea03.htm
102/104 million not working that could be working. Yup
Jobless claims at a 43 year low jobless claims DOES NOT indicate FULL employment. We are still a poorly employed nation.
WE should have 153 Ml FULL TIME employed not 78ML.
Their logic (which, as just a dumb ass citizen, escapes me) is that if everyone quits looking for work, we have full employment.
Yeah, Bernays.
Joseph Goebbels must have read his book, “Propaganda”… and it is quite a book
Available for free at:
http://www.whale.to/b/bernays.pdf
“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.”
—Edward Bernays
This is from his book review on Amazon:
“During World War I, he was an integral part of the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise and sell the war to the American people as one that would “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” The CPI would become the blueprint in which marketing strategies for future wars would be based upon”.
Mike Murray- Same as if we stop figuring food and gasoline increases into the inflation rate, then we have 2.2% inflation. I begged the question the other day that if everything is so rosy why are malls closing, retail stores going belly up , restaurants closing etc, etc. Maroons downed me and said malls are a thing of the past, restaurants aren’t closing and on down the line. Today, Admin says the same damn thing and not one maroon has disputed the obvious truth. But they all live in the real world and say that I don’t….go figure.
Admin,
100%,
excellent,
and right on.
Gold and silver, people. Now.
Tis cash for me, sir.
Uncoruscating, how about a few bitcoins on my cellphone?
For those of you chasing guaranteed higher investment returns,contact me at Tampa & Madoff,Investment Counselors.
Everybody, first, make sure to have your investment personality analyzed by TBP’s psychological evaluator, BB.
A downthumb for joking about Tampa’s joke? Are you fucking serious?
Thanks for shaming him into changing it Yipper.I have a fragile eggo.
Just realized you were talking about your own post-it was probably the guy from Birch Gold or Dennis who downed you.
I got a bit too much chlorine in one of my eyes. I can still see it with only one eye however, so it doesn’t take two.
The central bankers figured out if they *all* debase their currency at about the same rate, they can play the game a bit longer. The trick was to keep gold/silver prices down, and they figured out how to do that with paper contracts.
In our daily lives the inflation is actually staggering. We’ve stopped going to several of our once-favorite chain restaurants because the QUALITY got soooo terrible. Of course all the restaurants have raised prices, but they have also effectively raised prices by substitution of crappier ingredients (Chinese chicken, anyone?) as well as substitution and reduction of ingredients (example would be a salad at Panera still costing $8 but having 1/2 the meat it did 2 years ago.)
The real inflation rate is about 8%. And the economy has actually been shrinking since the year 2000.
How long can this keep going before the SHTF?
“How long can this keep going before the SHTF?” – Mathematically speaking, about 3 years, maybe less. EROEI – is a powerful concept, and all of us are about to learn its effects. The PTB can nibble around the edges, and like was said above, the central banks can all agree to the same thing, but they CANNOT stop the inevitable, as they only control the currency, therefore psychology. I believe privately, they know this, and THAT is why they have started to unwind. The world says “policy error”. No error, just realization. They figure in their arrogance, that they can control this on the way down, as they did on the way up. They do not control the actual purpose of the currency, which is regulation / distribution of finite resources in the REAL WORLD. THAT is their Achilles heal, and they know it. All of us living in the real world – definitely those of us on this blog -know this. The timing on this is an issue of exponents, and a funny thing about exponents is that once they have doubled enough times (Lily pad analogy) the final doubling is fatal. We are at the final doubling. The ONLY question at this point is whether this is ultimately a controlled demolition, or becomes an uncontrolled destruction. Don’t know yet, but I do know that when the exits start to fill, and panic sets in, things can get ugly fast. Act accordingly.