America’s privileged class never had things better. For the vast majority of others, hard times keep getting harder.
Commenting on Friday’s Labor Department jobs report, Trump was right calling the numbers “phony.”
America’s economy is weak, he said earlier, burdened by widespread poverty, high unemployment and underemployment, downward mobility and crushing national debt.
“Our country is in deep trouble.” Trump correctly explained millions of good, high-paying jobs disappeared, sent overseas to low-wage countries.
Most jobs created are rotten ones – part-time, low-pay, poor-or-no benefits ones. Most workers need two or three to survive. Half of the nation’s households are impoverished or bordering it – one missed paycheck from homelessness, hunger and despair.
According to economist John Williams, “Main Street USA is not happy.” Real unemployment is 23%, not the phony 4.9% reported, excluding millions unable to find work so they stopped looking, becoming nonpersons in the process as far as the Labor Department is concerned.
Real inflation is 9.1%. Phony numbers hide reality. Social Security recipients are cheated – this year no increase in benefits over 2015, next year the one announced is too minuscule to matter.
Insurers are raising Obamacare premiums by double-digits next year – on average 25%, in some states much higher, with fewer provider choices and reduced benefits in some cases, putting proper healthcare increasingly out-of-reach for millions without incurring onerous debt.
“Manufacturing never recovered from its pre-recession peak,” said Williams. “Third quarter GDP growth of 2.9% was not credible.”
“Underlying economic reality remains far from recovery and expansion. Headline GDP remained massively inconsistent with recession seen in freight traffic, petroleum usage, corporate revenues, construction, industrial production, broad employment indicators,” housing starts and other economic data.
Fed governors “redefin(ed) economic normalcy” to reflect non-recovery, America’s privileged benefitting, not most others, struggling through protracted Main Street Depression conditions likely to worsen.
Williams explained the incumbent party lost the race for the White House every time since 1932 when annual real disposable income growth was below 2.9%. In Q II 2016, it was 1.8%.
NYT reinvented reality ignored all of the above. On November 4, its editors bashed Trump for truth-telling about the dismal state of America’s economy, citing phony government figures, concealing the deplorable state of things for most people.
“Trump…presumably believes…his best shot at the White House is to insist that the economy is in terrible shape and that he alone can fix it,” said Times editors. When he disagrees with reported data, “he calls them ‘phony numbers.’ “
The Times is part of the state-sponsored conspiracy concealing dismal reality from the public. America’s economy was thirdworldized, increasingly resembling a banana republic, combining neoliberal harshness with police state repression.
With shameless understatement, Times editors said “economic recovery has not touched every American equally.” They failed to explain the vast majority was left out.
Costs of essentials to survive keep rising. Incomes fail to keep pace, so the standard of living for most Americans keeps falling.
Will Trump fix things? He’ll try unsuccessfully without majority congressional support. What about Hillary? She’s beholden to Wall Street, war profiteers and other corporate predators.
Harder than ever hard times are likely if she succeeds Obama. Her promises otherwise were Big Lies. Times editors conceal ugly truths in boosting her candidacy instead of responsibly opposing it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
