Obama's Ministry of Truth puts out 'The Big Lie'

We've seen it before.  Historically, the manipulation of information by the government for political purposes was wildly successful for several years just last century in keeping a corrupt and evil regime in power for a decade plus.  All of this misinformation and distortion of statistics and economic reports issued by the Obama administration for the purposes of his re-election, this has been done before to fool the public.  This administration didn't invent this tactic.

The National Socialists, or more popularly referred to back in the day as the 'Nazis,' under the leadership of Adolph Hitler, were able to fool much of the German public through brazen lies and fabrications provided by Reich Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels.  It was ol' Josef Goebbels who orchestrated the huge parades and spectacular settings for the soaring speeches of Hitler, and of convincing the German population that white was black, that up was down, that wrong was right.  And most infamously, Goebbels was able to convince the German public that Jews were responsible for everything bad in their lives.  Goebbels was the mastermind behind the 'Krystal Nacht' in 1938. Goebbels was the master of 'The Big Lie:' tell the people something so outrageously incredible, tell them the same thing over and over and over, and in time the lie becomes true, because how could it not be?  Who would have the brazen audacity to concoct something so universally broadcast to be true out of a falsehood?  Nobody would ever do this, so the 'Big Lie' (whatever it is) simply must be true.  At least, it becomes true in the minds of the masses, but the reality never changes. Obama must have read Hitler's tome 'Mein Kampf' and underscored the 'Big Lie' and its constructs. 

They say that once you mention Hitler's name in any issue, you lose the argument.  Well, maybe so.  The similarities between these two governments are just too eerily close not to bring this up.  The unemployment statistics issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are one such "Big Lie."  According to most economists (those who participate in the 'dismal science'), the concept of 'full employment' in an economy is one that for everyone who is willing and able to work, employment is available to them.  The statistic for 'full employment' is roughly 4.5%, give or take, and those 4.5% 'unemployed' folks are simply in between jobs, and that they fully expect to find employment within a month or so.  This was the rate of unemployment or close to it during much of the Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations.

Owing to the current 'Frank/Dodd/Obama Recession', this number has crept over 10% at one point, and has hovered in the 9's for most of President Obama's first (and hopefully only) term.  Now the administration puts out the newest unemployment rate: 8.6%.   Oh great!  Things are getting better, way to go, President Obama!  Woo hoo!

Not so fast, there, Joe Sixpack (Joe is the average run of the mill American, who doesn't pay much attention to what's going on the in country).  This rate doesn't include those Americans who have been unemployed for so long, that they just gave up looking for work.  And who are now no longer counted as unemployed.  They just disappeared from the books.  And this number of Americans last month who disappeared from the unemployment rolls was around 315,000 people.  The rate can be reported to shrink, but that is because the total labor force has declined (a very bad thing).  That's why we call these bad times a 'recession.' Things recede in a recession.  Am I being redundant here? Good.  And when things recede economically, that's really bad news.  We are living and breathing in a real, live recession that continues to eat at all of us.

The Ministry of Truth would have us all believe that things are getting better, 8.6%, we should all be dancing in the streets with that kind of prosperity going on out there.  Just like Josef Goebbels, the Obama administration is blowing the horns heralding our great recovery, and assuming we believe them when they tell is that up is down, that night is day, and that wrong is right.  All we have to do is look around.

That's right.  Get up and go to the mall of your choice.  Count the number of empty stores in that mall.  Subtract that number from the total stores in the mall, and then look at the ratio of the existing leased businesses vs the total available.  This is what they call the occupancy rate.  When we have full employment, most established malls have occupancy rates that are the inverse of the full employment rate: 100%-4.5%, or 95.5% occupancy.  That's in good times.

Occupancy rates these days are 70% in way too many malls across the country right now.  Or worse.  And you can see this with your own eyes.  Things are really, really bad out there right now.

Get up and take a walk around your block.  How many houses are for sale?  Quite a few, I would bet. Way more than you remember at any one point in time in the good ol' days.  And how long have they been on the market?  Quite a while, I would bet.  And how many of those houses for sale are for sale because of a foreclosure?  Quite a few, I would bet.  And that's really bad.

And how many of your neighbors have lost their jobs?  Well, those still able to pay mortgage or rent payments and are still your neighbors, probably more than anyone would care to admit.   And that's really bad.

Things are really, really bad out here.  Just open your eyes and take a look around. 

And then go back and look at what the Ministry of Truth is putting out: we're on the road to recovery!  Things are rocking and rolling, 8.6% unemployment!  Let's not change horses in the middle of the stream, re-elect President Barack Obama!

Don't fall for 'The Big Lie.'