Ron Paul: Federal government ‘one giant toxic asset’

The US economy has not really recovered from last year’s financial crisis, and the policies of the Federal Reserve, the US’s central bank, are ensuring that the suffering will continue much longer than necessary, US House Rep. Ron Paul told CNN on Monday.

“They claim there’s a recovery but the recovery ought to be measured by the people working. True unemployment is now 16 percent, and the people who lost money have not regained the money. The people who lost houses have not gotten their houses back. There is no recovery,” said Paul.

The official unemployment rate in August was 9.7 percent, but Paul was referring to the broader unemployment measure, known as “U-6,” which measures not only the number of people looking for work but also those people who have given up looking for work. The official unemployment measure does not include people who have stopped looking for work.

In August, the broader U-6 unemployment rate was a stunning 16.8 percent, two-and-a-half percentage points higher than it was in the 1982 recession, which had been the worst recession since the Great Depression.

“There is no recovery, all there is is a lot of fudging,” Paul told CNN’s Kieran Chetly.

rawstory.com...

Ron Paul is always right there pointing out the facts.
We ought to clone him and replace all of government with the clones.

I love that man! He is the only one speaking the truth.

Ironically....Ronald Reagan is responsible for the manipulation in the unemployment numbers as it began under his administration...and RP supported him to be President when RR first ran. Later on, RP called him a failure.

And IMHO....he was a FLAT OUT FAILURE. He gave good speeches though...just like Obama....

reply to post by David9176


Um, it was under the Clinton Administration in which all of this U-1 thru U-6, exclude "discouraged workers" horsecrap started, not under Reagan. Paul's failure comment was in regards to Reagan's promise of shrinking government and was directly aimed at the huge (at that time, yet oh-so appealing today) deficit Reagan ran up, NOT in any way about unemployment numbers. IN FACT, and I am a Ron Paul supporter, when Paul left the GOP in '87, he did it largely because of an internal disagreement in the party over disbanding the Federal Education Administration and eliminating the teacher's unions... both of which Paul wanted to see happen and both of which would have actually made the unemployment figure in this country rise.

Also, the OP article still managed to sugarcoat the issue by saying the U-6 comprises "people who have given up looking for work." They really should have added a caveat to that indicating that they have "given up" only based on a government assumption that after 12 months of joblessness, an unemployed worker has become discouraged and has "given up" searching for work. Uhm, has he also "given up" on feeding his family, sheltering them, buying anything? I've known people who have been out of work for over a year and not one of them had suddenly said "Oh hell, it's been 12 months... guess I might as well stop looking for work and just sit here on my duff until I die." But the feds paint these people with a rose colored brush to make sure nobody believes that anybody could possibly be out of work in the USA for longer than 12 months unless they have decided they do not wish to put in any more effort and "give up."

He's a good honourable man, very few others in politics.

I'm always wary of Government stats, there so politically important to whatever party is in power that it's hard to see them not undergoing a "polishing".

"Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable."
Mark Twain

From what I have seen so far this supposed recovery is built on very shaky ground, the system is the problem and that has not changed apart from the addition of a few more regulations.

reply to post by burdman30ott6

Um, it was under the Clinton Administration in which all of this U-1 thru U-6, exclude "discouraged workers" horsecrap started, not under Reagan.

My bad, I was positive it was under reagan...but hey I could be wrong! I'll look it up.

I'm actually a fan of Reagan, he was a very mild Ron Paul.

"Government is not the solution to our problem government IS the problem" - Ronald Reagan

Hear hear!

Now that is opposite of what Turbo Tax Timmy and the current Government administration is saying. They believe government should be involved with every important facet of your life. Now they're trying to link the economy and healthcare.

The Government saw a couple of big banks failing and they threw the entire banking system onto life support. The patient is stabilizing but only by suckling blood from taxpayers. Timmy is forcibly holding our necks against the fangs of the parasitic patient.



[edit on 15-9-2009 by Dbriefed]