Most of us have read George Orwell's 1984 -- unless you own an unread copy on Kindle. While Orwell's fictitious characterization of his Ministry of Truth -- the government office that manufactured round the clock lies -- had an eerie parallel-to-the-present ring of truth, the idea still seemed distant, belonging more to the sphere of science fiction entertainment. Science fiction future has come home to roost in the present.
As the structure of the entire banking system and US economic framework collapses before our eyes, official government released statistics have become so deliberately misleading, the numbers are virtually useless. All major U.S. news reporting agencies work in concert with the government. None of them challenge government figures and pump out a constant daily barrage of misleading headlines. Corporate owned media and our elitist syndicate government work as one in what is a stunning present display of Orwell's description of the Ministry of Truth.
Government revised figures show that the U.S. economy contracted more than twice as much as the previously estimated figures indicated, also reflecting substantially larger declines in consumer spending and housing. The previous quarterly data was adjusted significantly downward from -5.5% to -6.4%. Zero Hedge points out that "Additionally, per a brand new revision to the way GDP data is presented, the GDP decline demonstrated over the past year is now the largest since World War II. Current quarter jiggering aside, downward revisions to prior quarters have left the decline in real GDP at -3.9% in the year through Q2. And to demonstrate, the severity of this downturn, the Q2 data concluded the first three-quarter consecutive period of falling GDP since 1953-1954."
On the employment front, "the Department of Labor Weekly Unemployment Report is now so skewed by abnormalities," says Mish Shedlock, "it is difficult to get a clear picture. Because of expiring claims, continuing claims data will soon start looking better. The reality however, is things will get worse for another year as unemployment soars into double digits."
More than 650,000 Americans will have used up all of their unemployment benefits by September, and the Labor Department doesn't track anyone who has moved beyond 26 weeks of unemployment in its weekly data on continuing claims. That means in August the government will report significant declines in continuing filers and use that to generate even more propaganda.
On the housing front. Five days ago the main stream media reported new-home sales in U.S. increased 11% in June from May. The reported increase in sales caused a rise in home-builder stocks that day. But as Barry Ritholtz notes: "we in fact know that Sales fell from last year. They were down 21.3%, a number greater than the margin of error. The monthly data, on the other hand, is not statistically significant. Therefore we DO NOT KNOW what the change was from last month, as the margin of error is greater than the reported data point. The usual suspects got it wrong, as they do every month. If New Home Sales are so strong, then can anyone explain why prices are still plummeting? Median home prices dropped 12% year-over-year, and 5.8% from the prior month."
Unwrapping the government lies, the media distortions, the daily subterfuge requires an almost obsessive prodding, digging, and searching for the facts behind all the lies. Obsessions require time, persistence and interest; many who struggle from paycheck to paycheck don't have that luxury. Most Americans rely almost exclusively on the skewed reporting of corporate owned media for their picture of the world and the U.S. economy, an economy they want you to believe is well on its way to recovery. But even the least informed can sense something is very wrong, just as Orwell's characters did in 1984.
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