I Hope You Aren't Buying The 3.5%
by James Glaser
October 30, 2009

For starters, our economy didn't grow by 3.5% in the last quarter like Washington wants us to believe, but rather something a bit under 1%. However if it kept growing at the less than 1% for the whole year, it would be a growth rate of 3.5%. Of course that 3.5% growth rate sounds a lot better than, something less than 1%. So, you know which one Washington is going to use.

Washington is so good at playing with numbers. A few years ago, inflation was getting out of hand, so Washington changed the formula for how they figured the inflation rate, and things started looking better right away.

Unemployment is another tricky one. You lose your job and start looking for another one, and Washington counts you as unemployed. You stop looking, and Bingo! You are no longer counted as unemployed, and the unemployment rate goes down a bit. If enough people quit looking, that unemployment number starts looking a whole lot better. There are millions of unemployed Americans today who are no longer counted. That keeps the reported unemployment rate at about 10%, while in truth it is above 17%.

It was just announced that the Army met its recruiting goal for the year. Well, that wasn't totally true, as the Army lowered its goal to match the number recruited. Tricky huh?

So, you can trust Washington if you want, but I won't. It doesn't matter if the Democrats are in charge or the Republicans. They both play with the numbers trying to look better. It sure would be refreshing if one Party or the other started telling the truth. Heck they might just start a trend.

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