Unemployment: The True Picture

By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

Published on DickMorris.com on March 21, 2011

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To paraphrase Mark Twain, the three kinds of lies are lies, damn lies, and government statistics. Governments lie, particularly about economic stats in the middle of a recession and the Obama Bureau of Labor Statistics has refined misrepresenting our economic situation to a high art form.

In a previous column, we reported that Rasmussen's index of consumer confidence has fallen dramatically since January from a height of 88 to 73 in mid-March. Now, from the Gallup organization comes the reason why: Unemployment is up, not down!

In other words, the American public had it right when they were euphoric in January of 2011 with a consumer confidence rate of 88% and are right, again, when they lost all confidence as unemployment soared again over the past three months.

Economists predict "false dawns" in permanent recessions when the clouds part and all seems well. But the dawns are, indeed, false, and the dismal reality of the continuing depression pushes its way back in.

You wouldn't know that the economy has crashed in the past three months by watching this president or this Administration. In fact, Ben Smith, writing in Politico.com said recently that the Obama folks were wondering when to declare that the recession was over. As joblessness was rising again to new heights, Obama was declaring, in his State of the Union speech that the darkest days of the recession were over. Nobody called him on this Hoover-esque optimism. But it now shows how out of touch with reality he is.

Not all of this economic downturn can be ascribed to the gas price increases. The Middle East turmoil that triggered it had not really hit until the middle of February. By then, according to Gallup, joblessness had risen from 8.8 in December to 10.0 in February, on its way up to 10.3 in March.

Or, if you get tired following the ups and downs, you can say that unemployment has ranged between 9 and 11 percent under Obama's entire presidency and you would be right.

Until we repeal his social engineering, reduce the economic uncertainty it has engendered, roll back his spending and his deficits, and deregulate the economy, joblessness will continue. And continue. And continue. And continue.