What is the unemployment rate in the UK, the U.S.A and Ireland?.
The numbers they publish are inaccurate. The government is lying to you. Doesn't matter the party, doesn't matter the president or prime minister.
tampabay.com/news/article473596.ece
The political blame for the slow, piecemeal distortion is bipartisan - both Democratic and Republican administrations had a hand in the abetting of political dishonesty, reckless debt and a casino-like financial sector. To see how, we must revisit 40 years of economic and statistical dissembling.
Transparency is the hallmark of democracy, but we now find ourselves with economic statistics every bit as opaque - and as vulnerable to double-dealing - as a subprime CDO.
Second is the Gross Domestic Product, which in itself represents something of a fudge: Federal economists used the Gross National Product until 1991, when rising U.S. international debt costs made the narrower GDP assessment more palatable. The GDP has been subject to many further fiddles, the most manipulatable of which are the adjustments made for the presumed starting up and ending of businesses (the "birth/death of businesses" equation) and the amounts that the Bureau of Economic Analysis "imputes" to nationwide personal income data (known as phantom income boosters, or imputations; for example, the imputed income from living in one's own home, or the benefit one receives from a free checking account, or the value of employer-paid health- and life-insurance premiums).
The Bank of England has already begun to print money. The Fed might have to follow suit. Add Obama's multi-trillion "stimulus" to the mix and there looks to be an inflationary monster 18 to 36 months out.
All I know is I'm steering clear of cash, bonds, and most equities. I'll get into energy ETF's and commodity currencies. Your strategies may vary.