The depression no one wants to admit?
Unemployed Americans at Soup Kitchen during the Great Depression (USNARA)
Daily Reckoning posted the following:
Welcome to Inflationary Depression …
Is the True Inflation Rate 19%?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics simply cannot keep up, partially because the Consumer Price Index does not calculate the following: interest on anything, taxes, housing, health insurance (accurately), homeowners insurance, car insurance, government services like public schools, shrinkflation, quality declines, substitutions due to price or additional service fees.
Those are a major part of what has gone up, which is why data on particular industries show a huge gap (groceries up 35% over four years) and why ShadowStats estimates inflation in double digits two years running, having peaked at 17%. Just adding in interest, a paper from NBER estimates, takes 2023 inflation to 19%.
Various studies have shown that since 2019 fast-food prices — a gold standard in financial markets for measuring true inflation — have outpaced official CPI by 25–50%.
Getting the inflation data wrong is only the start of the problem. We’re lucky if any government data even adjusts for the wrong numbers. …
More Lies
The problems with the employment data are getting to be more well-known. Essentially, the establishment data that is normally reported is double-counting or just plain inaccurate, and there is a huge divergence with the other method of counting jobs via household surveys. …
According to official data, the dollar has lost about 23 cents in purchasing power over the last four years. Absolutely no one believes this.
Depending on what you actually spend money on, the real answer is closer to 35 cents or 50 cents or even 75 cents… or more. We don’t know what we cannot know.
We’re just left to speculate. And this problem is combined with the reality that this is not just a U.S. problem. The increase in inflation and the decline in output is truly global. We might call this an inflationary recession or high inflationary depression, all over the world. 07/12/24 https://dailyreckoning.com/welcome-to-inflationary-depression/
World Net Daily posted the following:
The depression no one wants to admit
According to official government statistics, the economy is strong. Unemployment is low (about 5%) and inflation is mild (about 4%).
Yet every single American – those of us who live in the real world, not Washington’s ivory tower – knows something is wrong. A single trip to the grocery store is enough to verify that. A new survey by Intuit Credit Karma reported, “28% [of those surveyed] said they are putting off paying for necessities, such as rent or other bills, to afford groceries – while 27% say they are occasionally skipping meals. Another 18% have applied for or considered applying for food stamps and other types of assistance, and 15% rely on or have considered visiting food banks for groceries. … In other big-picture data, almost half of those surveyed, about 44%, said they feel financially unstable. The figure is even higher for people with household incomes of less than $50,000.”
But how can this be if the economy is so strong? The culprit, of course, is how things like unemployment and inflation rates are calculated. Modern government calculators are designed to obfuscate reality and convince people things are just ducky. 07/12/24 https://www.wnd.com/2024/07/the-depression-no-one-wants-to-admit/
There is an old expression that, “Statistics don’t lie, but liars use statistics.”
Getting back to the WND article, it also has the following:
The Brownstone Institute notes, “The Bureau of Labor Statistics simply cannot keep up, partially because the Consumer Price Index does not calculate the following: interest on anything, taxes, housing, health insurance (accurately), homeowners insurance, car insurance, government services like public schools, shrinkflation, quality declines, substitutions due to price, or additional service fees. That’s a major part of what has gone up, which is why data on particular industries shows a huge gap (groceries up 35% over four years) and why ShadowStats estimates inflation in double digits two years running, having peaked at 17%. Just adding in interest, a paper from NBER estimates, takes 2023 inflation to 19%.”
Now consider Shadowstats’s Alternate Unemployment Charts, which notes: “The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.” By the 1994 calculator – and remember, the official government unemployment rate is currently 5% – the real unemployment rate is currently 25%.
As a reminder, the unemployment rate in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression was 24.9%. Let that sink in. By the economic indicators used during the Great Depression, we’re currently in a depression. …
If we ARE facing another economic depression, it behooves us to ignore the feel-good government cheering squads and act accordingly. I’ve always wondered if people knew what lay ahead in 1929, what could they have done to brace themselves in 1928?
Yes, the US government has intentionally changed how it calculates unemployment and inflation, which tends to make economic matters look better than they really are. Political greed and deceit have been used.
Instead of fixing matters, the US Federal Government continues to look at how to pump more money into the economy (out of thin air) and thus increase its inflation and its debt.
Now, despite some statistical similarities to the Great Depression, essentially because agricultural productivity and technological advancement (and massive debt), Americans are not as hungry as during the Great Depression. Hence, it certainly does not feel like the Great Depression.
That said, when the time comes that the Federal Reserve is no longer able to keep interest rates artificially low, the USA will continue past the point of no return. And its debt level already seems to be there.
The USA remains greedy. Notice that greed is believed to have been a cause of the Great Depression as the old Worldwide Church of God reported last century:
GREED — the Root Cause of the Crash
The true causes of the Depression are still with us. Burgeoning personal debt, workers demanding higher wages (often without producing any more), business cutting corners, employee theft, and stock market speculation.
The question is: HOW will these causes express themselves in the nation’s economic picture?
Statistician Roger Babson, who successfully predicted both the 1920 and 1929 crashes, has made this point clear over more than half a century of economic forecasts, and dozens of books on the subject. In essence, he said the technical statistics that economists watch are only wall thermometers telling the present “temperature” of today’s economy.
If you want to see what the temperature of the future will be, Babson counseled, look at the barometer reading — the way people as a whole are dealing with each other and how they live their own lives. In other words, are workers producing more, are employee and shoplifting thefts down, are we borrowing less, is the federal economy in the black?
On such readings of the economy, Babson was virtually the only major economist to foresee the serious crash.
The top economists scoffed when he said, on September 5, 1929, “Sooner or later a crash is coming and it may be terrific… factories will shut down… men will be thrown out of work… the vicious circle will get in full swing and the result will be a serious business depression” (John Kenneth Galbraith, The Great Crash, Houghton-Mifflin, 1955, pp. 89-90).
Government economists, on the other hand, seemingly clambered over each other to reassure the many paper-thin speculators that such talk was impossible, unthinkable, perhaps even un-American. “Don’t Sell America Short” was a common aphorism in 1929.
The Money Scramble
But had the economists looked at the furnace room — at the basic social or moral problems expressing themselves economically they would have KNOWN some kind of a “crash” was coming. Had the economists based their forecast on the materialistic attitude of most Americans, they would have seen the handwriting on the wall.
The root motivation was greed, but the main specific cause of the 1929 Depression in particular was “that private indebtedness was increasing faster than earning power, that purchasing was not keeping pace with production …” (Bining and Kleen, op. cit., p. 452).
In other words, people had bought so many items on time payments, that they couldn’t afford any more — even on installments! The people were “bought out” while the newly installed assembly lines were producing record numbers of new gadgets.
In 1929, there was a surplus of goods, but almost no buying power (money). The situation in America today is different — too few American-made goods are chasing too much available money. One causes depression, the other inflation. Both are equally catastrophic to a nation.
What then are the chances for a new kind of “depression”?
Today, America and the West still have not learned their lesson. Money madness is still a fixation of a significant sector, especially of the U. S. public. (Alexander G. THE GREAT DEPRESSION COULD it Happen AGAIN? Plain Truth, December 1970)
Yes, a great depression could happen again. Because of debt and other matters the USA is moving towards a point that it will not be able to recover from.
A recession and/or depression is likely to become one of the final factors that will cause creditors to rise up and destroy the USA.
As far as what should you do about it, physically you should prepare and realize more is coming (see als0 Physical Preparation Scriptures for Christians).
Spiritually, all should heed what Jesus said about these times:
34 “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. 35 For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:34-36)
Some items of possibly related interest may include:
There is a Place of Safety for the Philadelphians. Why it May Be Near Petra This article discusses a biblical ‘place of safety,’ Zephaniah 2 to ‘gather together,’ and includes quotes from the Bible and Herbert W. Armstrong on fleeing to a place–thus, there is a biblically supported alternative to the rapture theory. Two sermon-length videos of related interest are available Physical Protection During the Great Tribulation and Might Petra be the Place of Safety? Here is something related in the Spanish language: Hay un lugar de seguridad para los Filadelfinos. ¿Puede ser Petra?
Is God Calling You? This booklet discusses topics including calling, election, and selection. If God is calling you, how will you respond? Here is are links to related sermons: Christian Election: Is God Calling YOU? and Predestination and Your Selection; here is a message in Spanish: Me Está Llamando Dios Hoy? A short animation is also available: Is God Calling You?
Christian Repentance Do you know what repentance is? Is it really necessary for salvation? Two related sermons about this are also available: Real Repentance and Real Christian Repentance.
There is a Place of Safety for the Philadelphians. Why it May Be Near Petra This article discusses a biblical ‘place of safety,’ Zephaniah 2 to ‘gather together,’ and includes quotes from the Bible and Herbert W. Armstrong on fleeing to a place–thus, there is a biblically supported alternative to the rapture theory. Two sermon-length videos of related interest are available Physical Protection During the Great Tribulation and Might Petra be the Place of Safety? Here is something related in the Spanish language: Hay un lugar de seguridad para los Filadelfinos. ¿Puede ser Petra?
Physical Preparation Scriptures for Christians. We all know the Bible prophecies famines. Should we do something? Here is a version in the Spanish language Escrituras sobre Preparación física para los Cristianos. Here is a link to a related sermon: Physical preparedness for Christians.
Could God Have a 6,000 Year Plan? What Year Does the 6,000 Years End? Was a 6000 year time allowed for humans to rule followed by a literal thousand year reign of Christ on Earth taught by the early Christians? Does God have 7,000 year plan? What year may the six thousand years of human rule end? When will Jesus return? 2031 or 2025 or? There is also a video titled: When Does the 6000 Years End? 2031? 2035? Here is a link to the article in Spanish: ¿Tiene Dios un plan de 6,000 años?
Might the U.S.A. Be Gone in 2028? Could the USA be gone by the end of 2028? There is a tradition attributed to the Hebrew prophet Elijah that humanity had 6,000 years to live before being replaced by God’s Kingdom. There are scriptures, writings in the Talmud, early Christian teachings that support this. Also, even certain Hindu writings support it. Here is a link to a related video: Is the USA prophesied to be destroyed by 2028? In Spanish: Seran los Estados Unidos Destruidos en el 2028?
The Gospel of the Kingdom of God This free online pdf booklet has answers many questions people have about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and explains why it is the solution to the issues the world is facing. Here are links to four related sermons: The Fantastic Gospel of the Kingdom of God!, The World’s False Gospel, The Gospel of the Kingdom: From the New and Old Testaments, and The Kingdom of God is the Solution.
 |
Tweet |
|