Welcome to Midwest Free Press

Dedicated to delivering insight on today's most important issues

Archive for October, 2009

The Coming Economic Collapse

The following video is a segment from the Glenn Beck show on Fox News.  It delves into a topic that has frequently been discussed here - the collapse of the U.S. economy.  Now I must say, Glenn Beck is an ignorant pro-Zionist fool, but he does serve a purpose.  He has the ability to devote a significant amount of resources to researching organizations like ACORN etc.  But, you must understand that the only reason Glenn Beck is allowed on air is because of his support for Israel, and his absolute inability and unwillingness to criticize Jews openly.  In fact, he frequently goes out of his way to compare everything evil in our society to Nazi Germany, and flat out slanders anyone who may question our support of Israel.  These tactics seem to be what gets you ahead in conservative politics.  This boob has even gone so far as to compare the Obama administration to Hitler and the National Socialists.  He actually makes this comparison quite often on his show.  
 
This illustrates Beck’s incredible ignorance when it comes to the facts about Germany, but this is true of the majority of Americans as well.  Barack Obama is a globalist, communist mulatto who has staffed his cabinet with radical Jews (those which Hitler despised), while Hitler was a racialist, nationalist, and staunchly anti-communist.  To make the comparison between these two figures absolutely boggles my mind, but that is the upside-down world of our mass media.  Sometimes I wonder if Beck is either knowingly complacent with radical Jewish activity, or just too stupid to put all the facts together.  It is quite comical that a large percentage of the individuals he criticizes on a daily basis are actually Jews, yet he still goes out of his way to disband any Jewish criticism in our society.   
 
A few of the influential Jews I have specifically heard him criticize recently are Rahm Emanual, David Axelrod, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Andy Stern, Ron Bloom, Diane Feinstein, Barney Frank, George Soros, Arlen Specter, Cass Sunstein, Peter Singer, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Michael Bloomberg, Ezekiel Emanuel, Henry Waxman, Chuck Schumer, Bernard Madoff, Jerry Nadler, Frances Fox Piven, Lawrence Summers, Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, Saul Alinsky, Alan Grayson, Peter Orszag, Al Franken etc., and the list goes on and on.  He even points out Bloom, Volcker, and Piven in the video below.  I’m sure I am leaving many out but those are some I could think of off the top of my head.  Of course, he criticizes many liberal Gentiles too, but you must realize that Jews comprise only 2% of the U.S. population.  The astonishing overrepresentation of Jews in these agitating positions couldn’t possibly be the result of a coincidence; it is a statistical impossibility.  Also, most of Obama’s economic team is Jewish.  So how exactly can Glenn Beck claim that Obama’s policies are similar to Hitler’s, when Obama’s policies are backed by Jews?  Of course in reality Obama’s policies are absolutely nothing like Hitler’s, but it seems to be quite popular to call anyone and everyone a Nazi these days.  This mindset that Beck portrays is a result of having absolutely no understanding of the enormous differences between communism and national socialism.  In fact they are polar opposites. 
 
The real reason why I am posting this video is because Beck does a good job of explaining the current crisis looming within our monetary system.  He is the only mainstream commentator to lay out the fundamentals behind our country’s future currency problems.  By no surprise, Beck acts as if he is a revolutionary who just discovered these facts even though many of us have been spreading this news for years.  Well, maybe someone will at least listen now that it is being shown on TV.  The one thing I keep asking myself is: If Glenn Beck is so concerned with our monetary problems, then why did he do everything in his power to discredit Ron Paul in the 2008 Republican primaries?  He could have easily thrown his support behind Paul and gotten him an unbelievable amount of attention.  But no, instead Beck slandered Paul, calling him crazy and equating him with one of his violent disgruntled supporters.  Then a short time after supporting John McCain in the election, Beck started disseminating many of the same ideas that Paul espoused, and claimed that we need a third party or someone more “libertarian.”  These are the kind of actions that truly make me wonder if Beck is in bed with the system, or just truly a pathetic moron.  There is no doubt that Ron Paul’s criticism of Israel also made him “off limits.”  
 
However, I invite you to watch this video closely because it does a good job of explaining why the collapse of the U.S. economic system is virtually inevitable.  It’s a good video up until the end when he starts going off on a tangent about Nazi Germany backing their currency with land.  As far as I know, this explanation by Beck is far over-simplified.  As we have explained on this site before, for any new currency to be circulated the National Socialists required an equal value of goods or services to be produced.  Furthermore, in the video Beck describes a possible future American land grab that is overseen by China in order to secure debts.  He claims the Nazis had a similar process.  This is also ridiculous.  Why would a Nationalist Germany back it’s currency with land in such a way to possibly risk losing parts of the German state if any debts were un-payable?  Considering the German homeland was paramount for Hitler, this is absurd, but that is Glenn Beck for you.  He probably realizes that the more he criticizes Nazi Germany, the longer the Jews will be able to tolerate him on the air.  Anyway like I said, despite all of his shortcomings he does serve a purpose.  So, please watch the video and take the necessary steps to protect your family for the future.  
 

Nationalist Economics Part 2

This essay is Copyright of Midwestfreepress.com 2009.  All intellectual property rights are under the sole ownership of this website and it’s authors.  Unlawful reproduction of this material without permission is prohibited by law.  If you choose to copy this material to your website, please provide your readers with a citation.

Nationalist Economics in Action

This article is a continuation of Nationalist Economics Part 1.  It is highly recommended that you read Part 1 for a greater understanding of the points covered here.

A Gold Standard Should Be Discouraged

Many Americans, including Libertarians and some paleoconservatives, advocate that we return to a gold-backed currency in order to solve our inflation problems.  I agree that this would definitely be preferable to the system we currently have in place, but it is not the best approach.  There are many disadvantages of a gold standard.  The most obvious of these is the mere fact that the country must possess gold, or whatever commodity you are advocating.  This commodity must at least have the properties of gold, such as inherent rareness.  A currency could obviously not be backed by a commodity that was easily producible.  However, this is one problem that we run into with gold.  If gold is the backer of our currency, then any new gold found will be just as good as existing money. 

We witnessed the phenomena of the various Gold Rushes during the settling of America.  In these cases, a portion of our population dedicated their lives to discovering new sources of gold.  This not only increased our money supply, therefore creating some (although minor) inflation, but it also diverted them from other productive trades.  During this period, America lost part of its labor force to the quest for instant wealth.  At that point, gold did not have widespread use in various industries like it does today.  No, these men sought only to get rich by producing more money.  Fundamentally, this act is not all that different from other damaging speculative practices in our current economy.  These prospectors did not produce any valuable good or service, nor was their labor incredibly useful.  Instead, their goal was just to produce new money.  No value was added to our culture or society.  Instead, new influxes of gold sometimes actually served to hurt other citizens.  As large sources of new gold were discovered the available supply increased, therefore stealing the value from the existing gold in the marketplace. 

Surely our people would serve our nation better if they did not dedicate all of their time to searching for a metal that will end up sitting in a bank vault.  Basically, a gold standard is just not needed if one of the main purposes of the government is to ensure a stable monetary supply.  The only time I would advocate a gold standard is during a transition period in a country like the current USA, where we are dominated by a banking elite and we need to take the power to spend away from our corrupt Congress.  This would shift more control of the nation’s money to the people, and hopefully help us break our current descent in to communism.  However, it still would not be the ideal system when founding a new Nationalist economy. 

The gold supply can be manipulated or hoarded, both of which have happened in the past.  A gold-backed monetary system also does not eliminate the need for private banks, and therefore does not eliminate the charging of interest.  As I stated in Part 1, interest should have no place in a Nationalist economy, and therefore there is no need for private banks to exist.  Furthermore, probably the most ridiculous reason to base a monetary system on gold is that it assumes a metal can represent a person’s labor.  If gold was used in international trade transactions, or as a backing for a debt, then a country’s wealth could possibly be squandered when the population is still willing and able to work.  No, a currency must not be backed by a commodity, but instead by the productive capacity of the nation.  Take into account the following quotes taken from Ellen Brown’s Website, Web of Debt, describing the resurrection of Germany’s economy before WWII:

“We were not foolish enough to try to make a currency [backed by] gold of which we had none, but for every mark that was issued we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done or goods produced. . . .we laugh at the time our national financiers held the view that the value of a currency is regulated by the gold and securities lying in the vaults of a state bank.”

- Adolf Hitler, quoted in “Hitler’s Monetary System,” www.rense.com, citing C. C. Veith, Citadels of Chaos (Meador, 1949)

Economist Henry C K Liu writes of Germany’s remarkable transformation:

The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, at a time when its economy was in total collapse, with ruinous war-reparation obligations and zero prospects for foreign investment or credit. Yet through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full-employment public-works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies it could exploit, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began.

In Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People (1984), Sheldon Emry commented:

Germany issued debt-free and interest-free money from 1935 and on, accounting for its startling rise from the depression to a world power in 5 years. Germany financed its entire government and war operation from 1935 to 1945 without gold and without debt, and it took the whole Capitalist and Communist world to destroy the German power over Europe and bring Europe back under the heel of the Bankers. Such history of money does not even appear in the textbooks of public (government) schools today.

A Stable Debt-Free Monetary Policy

A stable, debt-free, interest-free monetary system is the best way for a nation to achieve economic freedom, and therefore overall societal freedom.  You may ask, “why is this discussion about economics so important?”  It is important because it literally provides the boundaries for how far our culture can progress, and can also dictate it’s decline.  Our current debt-based fractional reserve monetary system, as described in Part 1, has added greatly to our current state of affairs.  Traditional White families are now almost non-existent, because both spouses must work full-time in order to overcome the effect that inflation has had on our standard of living.  Because of this, along with other reasons, the White birth rate has dropped substantially. 

As a whole, we must continually go into perpetual debt in order for our current economy to survive.  This not only affects the psychological well-being of the family, but also works to steal the value of labor through the charging of interest.  In our current economy we become slaves of money; it dictates everything that is done.  Our citizens willingly destroy their own culture in the name of economic gain.  Much of this gain is stolen through the various processes of wealth-transfer seen in our economy.  We now fall into the inflationary trap, only to have more of our money siphoned away through other nefarious means such as the stock market.  But even worse, we as a people base all of our future decisions not on what is best for our genetic and cultural progress, but instead on what is the best way to improve our materialistic wealth. Under the heal of our current economic scheme our people will never be able to lead a healthy existence, as we witness further consolidation of power into the hands of small group of men.  Yes, economic freedom is an instrumental factor in achieving true meaningful advancement.

Therefore it should be the duty of any Nationalist government to provide it’s citizens with two basic economic fundamentals: Money free of debt and inflation, and full employment.  Now, many reading this will be quite appalled that I am suggesting the government ensure full employment, but actually this is not detrimental in an inflation-free monetary system.  We are told in our current capitalist system that a certain amount of unemployment (around 5%) is necessary for our economy to work properly.  This concept is damaging in a couple of aspects.  First, if a generally accepted amount of unemployment is tolerated, then there is a certain portion of the population that is unproductive at any given time.  Second, these unproductive citizens then either starve or they petition the government for free handouts. 

A non-inflationary monetary system can be enacted to achieve full employment, and here’s how: Think of the total money supply of the country as a revolving door; what is put in is later taken out.  If the government injects new public-works spending into the economy amounting to a hypothetical 7% of the current money supply, then it takes this equivalent amount of money out of the economy through taxes, thereby keeping the total amount of money in the economy stable.  The only time the money supply would be allowed to grow would be in times where it would not result in the increase of prices, such as when full employment is in the process of being reached or to account for an increase in the population.  These public works projects would not contract with private firms, assuring that no company was profiting off of this government spending.  These projects would serve a couple of purposes.  First, they would put unemployed and unproductive people to work, making them actually provide some benefit to society.  Second, it would eliminate the need for government welfare as is seen today in America.  In a Nationalist economy, an able-bodied individual would not be allowed to sit at home and collect unemployment or welfare.  Instead they would be put to work, many times doing physical labor for a low wage.  This type of work would encourage people to avoid dependence on the government, and also help to maintain the country’s infrastructure via these projects - not to mention beautify the country as well.

Since this spending is not borrowed from a private bank at interest, tax rates would be much lower than what they currently are in America.  A flat tax rate, instead of a regressive one, could also be implemented.  The tax money collected would not have to be used to pay any national debt, since all new money would be created debt-free by the government.  Instead, the tax money collected is permanently taken out of circulation.  This completes the money-in = money-out cycle.  Like I mentioned before, the money supply may sometimes be gradually increased over time without causing much rise in prices, if this new money is to account for new population or an increase in production.  One of the fundamental jobs of the government would be to ensure that prices remain stable over time.  This very monetary system was achieved with success by Germany before and during World War II.  Prices of goods remained constant in Germany between 1935 and 1945, despite massive war spending.             

International Trade

Since a Nationalist country would not expose it’s currency to international speculation, as discussed in Part 1, international trade would become more stable as well.  Currently, the relative strength of our dollar against other currencies changes all the time.  This international market value is dependent, in large part, on how we are currently handling our currency.  Today the value of the dollar has been steadily declining over the past 7 years due to our rising spending, trade deficits, budget deficits, and national debt.   American imports and exports are then likewise affected.  When the dollar is strong, imports are cheaper but our exporters suffer.  When the dollar is weak, imports are more expensive but our exporters have an easier time selling their goods overseas.  Unfortunately, our percentage of exports relative to imports keeps dwindling, and American consumers are constantly punished by a weak dollar.  Part 1 also describes the negative impact of currency speculation on the offshoring of manufacturing. 

A Nationalist economy would largely focus on making the country self-sufficient, but the importance of international trade would still be present.  There is a strong possibility that the world banking system would react negatively towards a Nationalist monetary policy, and therefore much trade may have to take place via barter system.  Again, this approach was utilized by Germany before WWII when they sought to circumvent the international bankers.  In this case the value of goods and labor would at least be maintained, as the fluctuation in currencies would be taken out of the equation.  There would also be no reason, nor would it be allowed, to shift labor overseas.  Today American manufacturers take advantage of currency markets by placing their factories in countries with a cheap currency.  This policy destroys the American working class and poses as a national security threat when our manufacturing facilities decline. 

In a Nationalist economy there would be no trade deficits.  Currently America is able to purchase much more than we produce because of the fact that we allow our currency to be traded and held as a commodity.  When other nations are willing to buy our debt, we are allowed to continue this process.  Since a Nationalist economy would not treat it’s currency as a commodity, and therefore not expose it to international speculation, then the ability to run trade deficits becomes non-existent.  This policy serves to maintain the working class, the country’s manufacturing base, and the integrity of the nation’s currency.

The Role of Government in Society

The main role of the government, besides maintaining a stable monetary system, is to ensure the physical, cultural, economic, and genetic protection of it’s people.  Unlike the current USA, the role of government would not be to subsidize and empower the weakest of all citizens, but instead to enable the strongest to thrive.  It would serve to protect the natural order of man, and encourage the division of talents instead of herding the entire White population through unnecessary and expensive college curriculum.  The integrity of our educational system has been destroyed in the United States due to this phenomenon.  It’s a simple concept really, that if your society requires everyone to go to college in order to get a job, then the quality of that college education suffers.  The country also loses it’s working class, and must be forced to either offshore it’s labor or to import foreign labor. 

As it used to be practiced in all White nations, the most intelligent and school-oriented people would find themselves in an institute of higher learning that was able to provide a much higher quality of education.  Also, the industriousness of White people would be allowed to flourish once again as it has in the past.  A working White man would be allowed to be just that, a working man.  Due to the maintenance of a non-inflationary monetary system, he would be able to maintain a good standard of living this way, and his productiveness would drive his quality of life rather than the decisions of international currency traders.  The maintenance of a White working class is just as essential to a nation as is the maintenance of the intellectual and academic classes.  This must be common sense to everyone, as not every man and woman are cut out for college studies, yet that’s where we send all of our children today, thus destroying both the integrity of our academic institutions and the sovereignty of our workforce at the same time.  Therefore, it is imperative that our government ensure the maintenance of a complete and diverse workforce, unlike the American “service economy” of today which only serves to make us dependent upon foreign nations. 

In order to achieve the economic, cultural, and genetic progress of it’s people the government must be given the authority to make swift, authoritative, and unilateral decisions.  It must have the necessary degree of autonomy to ensure that damaging or exploitative economic practices never take precedence over the interests of the people.  This notion of government may be at odds with many Americans, but it is absolutely essential that a Nationalist government have the power to make sweeping decisions to protect it’s sovereignty.  If there is an illegal immigration problem the government must have the power to immediately end it, instead of going through the foolish parliamentary bickering process in which no substantial degree of progress is ever made.  If the government observes economic practices that are damaging to society they must have the authority to end them in their tracks. 

This inevitably means the end of our liberal democratic system, which again is absolutely necessary.  The decline of Western cultural dominance can be tied directly to the widespread adoption of liberal democracy.  This is because the weak will always outnumber the strong, and therefore the decisions of the weak will ultimately triumph.  Americans have voted themselves into their current mess.  They have let Jewish media influence dictate our culture and political discourse for decades, and there is absolutely no legal way of stopping it.  By following our current political system, our only chance is to hope that the masses will disregard their immediate individual interests and vote for what is right for our people.  Unfortunately this hope is unrealistic to say the least, especially considering that most ordinary people are incapable of making such decisions at this point.  Furthermore, without the proper safeguards in place there is no stopping the re-infiltration of Jewish and liberal influence into our society if we play by the rules of America’s “democracy” and “free markets.” It is this “freedom” which has allowed our culture to be stolen from us.  The concept of American “freedom” is a farce.  Americans are only free to participate in matters of self-indulgence.  We are not free, however, to pursue what is truly meaningful in life - the quality and future of our people and culture.

Click Here to Read Part 1

Sholom Rubashkin, the Jewish owner of a kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa will begin his trial this week in South Dakota.  The other top executives of the company, all Jews of course, are being indicted as well.  Two of these men have not been apprehended, and it would come as no surprise if they were found to be in Israel.  Not only is Rubashkin being tried for bank fraud, but also for a massive illegal immigration scandal as well.  A raid conducted last year on Rubashkin’s facilities netted the most illegal alien workers ever arrested in an ICE workplace operation.  It is claimed by prosecutors that Rubashkin’s company had actually helped workers fabricate false documents in order to employ them.  This way Rubashkin could reap the profits of bypassing American labor.  There has also been over 9000 cited cases of child labor violations.  This is yet another example of Jews foregoing the interests of Americans for their own profit and advancement.  By bringing this plant and these immigrants to Postville, Iowa they have literally destroyed the small formerly all-white town.

Furthermore, if this had been a White person responsible for these crimes the White community would be the first to want him thrown in jail for the rest of his life.  But, on the contrary, the Jewish community is rallying behind Rubashkin.  They have launched public advertising campaigns with TV commercials targeted on persuading the public.  There has been widespread talk amongst the Jewish community on how this will effect their image.  A court motion for dismissal was even filed, claiming that “antisemitism” was to blame for Rubashkin’s arrest, instead of his actions of course.  This is one thing White people will never figure out; every other race looks out for their own except us.

I invite you to visit the following link and scroll through the four pages of stories on Rubashkin.  You will begin to notice the pattern: http://iowaindependent.com/?s=Rubashkin

Sioux Falls set for trial of kosher meatpacker

Fraud case highlights immigration, Iowa Jewish community

Article Source: Argus Leader

The ousted manager of an Iowa kosher meat empire heads to trial this week in Sioux Falls to face allegations that he cheated a bank, laundered more than $1 million, concealed months of fraud and failed to pay livestock providers on time.

Sholom Rubashkin will be confronted with 91 fraud-related charges Tuesday in a trial that could effectively send him to prison for life.

The former executive at Agriprocessors will step into the federal courthouse on Phillips Avenue with his wife, Leah, and their children, and sit through a courtroom struggle that could last four to six weeks.

It marks the latest turn in a case that devastated the northeast Iowa town of Postville and stoked the nation’s debate over immigration.

The trial was supposed to take place in Cedar Rapids. But U.S. District Judge Linda Reade moved the trial to Sioux Falls because of pretrial publicity that she said could influence potential jurors.

The outcome “will affect our community, especially the Jewish community, quite a lot,” said the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk, pastor at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church in Postville. “How much of an impact we feel, we don’t yet know.”

Prosecutors also have charged Rubashkin with 72 immigration-related charges for his alleged role in a scheme to hire illegal workers.

The immigration trial begins one week after the bank fraud trial concludes.

Rubashkin, 49, has pleaded not guilty but faces a maximum 1,995-year prison sentence if convicted of all 163 charges. Three lower-level managers - Brent Beebe, Hosam Amara and Zeev Levi - also are named in the indictment with the plant itself. Amara and Levi have not been apprehended; Beebe remains in Postville.

389 arrests in 2008 immigration raid

The trial comes more than a year after federal agents raided Agriprocessors and arrested 389 illegal immigrants, in what then was the largest single-site immigration raid in United States history.

The May 2008 raid devastated Agriprocessors, which under the Rubashkins had grown into the nation’s largest kosher meat supplier. The 22-year-old plant attracted an unusual blend of New York rabbis, immigrant workers and longtime Iowans who produced glatt kosher meats under the “Aaron’s Best” product line.

The plant filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and now operates under ownership of SHF, an Iowa company formed in May and headed by Montreal businessman Hershey Friedman…

Fake invoices alleged to defraud bank

Prosecutors will present evidence that Rubashkin ordered employees to create fake invoices so he could obtain advances on a revolving bank loan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan Jr. wrote in court papers.

Rubashkin was supposed to repay the bank with money from an “accounts receivable” fund, but allegedly diverted the payments to keep the money.

“By diverting the payments, the defendant was, in effect, stealing the bank’s collateral and then lying to the bank about it,” Deegan wrote…

The first trial will involve the “bank fraud counts,” which relate to alleged lies and false papers he sent to a St. Louis bank, overstating the value of the plant’s collateral, so he could obtain cash advances on a $35 million loan.

The second trial will pit Rubashkin against allegations that he harbored illegal immigrants at the plant for profit. Read the rest of this entry

Blacks Stampede For Welfare In Detroit

I should really stop being surprised at this type of behavior, but they literally get me every time.  Thousands of blacks congregating and fighting for handouts from Barack.  Absolutely pathetic.  How long will productive white citizens continue to support these people?  Yet again, everywhere blacks inhabit in large numbers they destroy.

The False American Economy

The Economy Is A Lie, Too

By Paul Craig Roberts 

Americans cannot get any truth out of their government about anything, the economy included. Americans are being driven into the ground economically, with one million school children now homeless, while Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announces that the recession is over.

The spin that masquerades as news is becoming more delusional. Consumer spending is 70% of the US economy. It is the driving force, and it has been shut down. Except for the super rich, there has been no growth in consumer incomes in the 21st century. Statistician John Williams of shadowstats.com reports that real household income has never recovered its pre-2001 peak.

The US economy has been kept going by substituting growth in consumer debt for growth in consumer income. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan encouraged consumer debt with low interest rates. The low interest rates pushed up home prices, enabling Americans to refinance their homes and spend the equity. Credit cards were maxed out in expectations of rising real estate and equity values to pay the accumulated debt. The binge was halted when the real estate and equity bubbles burst.

As consumers no longer can expand their indebtedness and their incomes are not rising, there is no basis for a growing consumer economy. Indeed, statistics indicate that consumers are paying down debt in their efforts to survive financially. In an economy in which the consumer is the driving force, that is bad news.

The banks, now investment banks thanks to greed-driven deregulation that repealed the learned lessons of the past, were even more reckless than consumers and took speculative leverage to new heights. At the urging of Larry Summers and Goldman Sachs’ CEO Henry Paulson, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bush administration went along with removing restrictions on debt leverage.

When the bubble burst, the extraordinary leverage threatened the financial system with collapse. The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve stepped forward with no one knows how many trillions of dollars to “save the financial system,” which, of course, meant to save the greed-driven financial institutions that had caused the economic crisis that dispossessed ordinary Americans of half of their life savings.

The consumer has been chastened, but not the banks. Refreshed with the TARP $700 billion and the Federal Reserve’s expanded balance sheet, banks are again behaving like hedge funds. Leveraged speculation is producing another bubble with the current stock market rally, which is not a sign of economic recovery but is the final savaging of Americans’ wealth by a few investment banks and their Washington friends. Goldman Sachs, rolling in profits, announced six figure bonuses to employees.

The rest of America is suffering terribly.

The unemployment rate, as reported, is a fiction and has been since the Clinton administration. The unemployment rate does not include jobless Americans who have been unemployed for more than a year and have given up on finding work. The reported 10% unemployment rate is understated by the millions of Americans who are suffering long-term unemployment and are no longer counted as unemployed. As each month passes, unemployed Americans drop off the unemployment role due to nothing except the passing of time.

The inflation rate, especially “core inflation,” is another fiction. “Core inflation” does not include food and energy, two of Americans’ biggest budget items. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) assumes, ever since the Boskin Commission during the Clinton administration, that if prices of items go up consumers substitute cheaper items. This is certainly the case, but this way of measuring inflation means that the CPI is no longer comparable to past years, because the basket of goods in the index is variable.

The Boskin Commission’s CPI, by lowering the measured rate of inflation, raises the real GDP growth rate. The result of the statistical manipulation is an understated inflation rate, thus eroding the real value of Social Security income, and an overstated growth rate. Statistical manipulation cloaks a declining standard of living.

In bygone days of American prosperity, American incomes rose with productivity. It was the real growth in American incomes that propelled the US economy.

In today’s America, the only incomes that rise are in the financial sector that risks the country’s future on excessive leverage and in the corporate world that substitutes foreign for American labor. Under the compensation rules and emphasis on shareholder earnings that hold sway in the US today, corporate executives maximize earnings and their compensation by minimizing the employment of Americans.

Try to find some acknowledgement of this in the “mainstream media,” or among economists, who suck up to the offshoring corporations for grants.

The worst part of the decline is yet to come. Bank failures and home foreclosures are yet to peak. The commercial real estate bust is yet to hit. The dollar crisis is building.

When it hits, interest rates will rise dramatically as the US struggles to finance its massive budget and trade deficits while the rest of the world tries to escape a depreciating dollar.

Since the spring of this year, the value of the US dollar has collapsed against every currency except those pegged to it. The Swiss franc has risen 14% against the dollar. Every hard currency from the Canadian dollar to the Euro and UK pound has risen at least 13 % against the US dollar since April 2009. The Japanese yen is not far behind, and the Brazilian real has risen 25% against the almighty US dollar. Even the Russian ruble has risen 13% against the US dollar.

What sort of recovery is it when the safest investment is to bet against the US dollar?

The American household of my day, in which the husband worked and the wife provided household services and raised the children, scarcely exists today. Most, if not all, members of a household have to work in order to pay the bills. However, the jobs are disappearing, even the part-time ones.

If measured according to the methodology used when I was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, the unemployment rate today in the US is above 20%. Moreover, there is no obvious way of reducing it. There are no factories, with work forces temporarily laid off by high interest rates, waiting for a lower interest rate policy to call their workforces back into production.

The work has been moved abroad. In the bygone days of American prosperity, CEOs were inculcated with the view that they had equal responsibilities to customers, employees, and shareholders. This view has been exterminated. Pushed by Wall Street and the threat of takeovers promising “enhanced shareholder value,” and incentivized by “performance pay,” CEOs use every means to substitute cheaper foreign employees for Americans.

Despite 20% unemployment and cum laude engineering graduates who cannot find jobs or even job interviews, Congress continues to support 65,000 annual H-1B work visas for foreigners.

In the midst of the highest unemployment since the Great Depression what kind of a fool do you need to be to think that there is a shortage of qualified US workers?

Article Source