Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

Trey Smith

The official unemployment rates (U3 and U6) no longer measure all of the unemployed. The Clinton administration ceased counting as unemployed workers who had given up looking for a job for one year or longer. No discouraged workers are included in the widely reported U3 measure. The U6 measure includes workers who have been discouraged for less than one year.

In other words, the longer an economy is in the doldrums, the less the official unemployment rates are reliable measures of the extent of unemployment. The unemployment rate in December as measured by U3 is 8.5%; as measured by U6 which includes short-term discouraged workers (less than one year) is 15.2%. John Williams’ measure which includes the long-term unemployed is 22.4%.

In other words, the real unemployment rate is 2.6 times the widely reported U3 rate, which is the rate emphasized by policymakers and the financial press.
~ from December Payroll Jobs Report by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts ~

I have to confess that I am becoming a real cynic; I no longer trust anything the government puts out! If they claim the sky is blue, I am convinced it will be any color but.

While I've understood since a young age that one should be skeptical of government pronouncements, it seems to me that the conscious obfuscation has reached dizzying heights as of late. It doesn't matter if a politician is a Democrat or Republican, any chance they get to muddy the water or flat out lie, they take it.

In order for democracy to work, there needs to be a modicum of a free-flow of ACCURATE information. How are citizens to make well thought out decisions -- electorally and otherwise -- if the information they are provided is distorted, at best, and wholly inaccurate, at worst?