Misleading economic indicators?

What the heck?

December existing home sales down 17%

finance.yahoo.com...

Today.......contracts to buy homes inch up 1% in December and the stock market rallies? LOL.
finance.yahoo.com...

How much longer can the media, Realtor Associations, and the government keep this dog and pony circus going? I mean seriously, this is getting downright silly. No it's good......no its bad..........it's good, bad, good, bad, stock market up down down up up down down up..........good bad bad good.........seems to me this facade could keep going well into the future.

Do you think January unemployment will be good, bad, or terrible? I'm thinking it will be probably higher than expected which will be bad.

RE: Misleading Indicators, economic & otherwise

The Wrest Of The Story...

(The Aged and the Weak are always the 1st to go)

background, lead-in;

usawatchdog.com...-1069
...when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest Producer Price Index.
'SGS' reported it this way, “Year-to-year, December’s annual PPI inflation jumped
sharply, again, to 4.4%, the highest annual inflation rate
since October 2008, following November 2009’s 2.4% annual gain.
"...year-to-year change in PPI inflation has returned to positive territory
and should continue to increase in the months ahead.”
-> [Correct predictions and information is why I regularly refer to:
www.shadowstats.com....


What Dots are we connecting ?? What larger picture is emerging?
~here's something to put into your mental grinder~



All 'Americans' relying on Social Security pension payments
have been targeted for Denial of any annual COLA increases
(Cost Of Living Allowence)
As of now, this period of negation is for the years 2010-2012....
and possibly beyond as I see it!
(Obama terms this a 3 year Budget Freeze, to curb Deficit Spending)
But at the same time... Government Service employees are still enjoying
annual 'COLA' $$ increases, regardless of the Doctored CPI figures
along with additional Congress approved funding of their groups' Pension Plan.
Even as ~20 million 'residents' without health coverage or citizenship
are soon to recieve both, free of charge, courtesy of the Master-Class



Do You See where this is going? The 'Master-Class' has decided
on one hand to economically divide the present society,
by seizing/ denying wealth , and then rationing services
such as health care, food-stamps, and vouchers to the under-class.
(This is being sold/defined as'Budget Freeze', 3 YR deficit Spending Moritorium )

A more vocal, demanding and ever growing number of civil servants
& public employees will be 'taken-care-of' (wink-nod)
washingtontimes.com...
in an plan designed for the purpose of garnering appreciative votes
being them, for ever more policies which benefits the few while distancing
them from a newly created class of 'have-nots' from the growing 'public sector'


The Haves will include those 'IN' this expanded 'Government' ,
in contrast to those outside of Gov't....
Who will be told;
"Let them eat cake" as to what the starving countrymen should eat
if they had no bread, [those words have become immortalized as
a most egregious example of what happens when the ruling class
becomes completely disconnected from regular peoples].




...the definition of being 'IN' Gov't is also fast changing
to include former NGO's (Non-Government-Organizations)
and Entities such as Banks, Investment Houses, HedgeFunds,
Think-Tanks, Too-Big-to-Fail Industrials, et al....
the former Republic is morphing into a fascist model 4th Reich.
which may then evolve a social structure akin to the futuristic
world we read in: H.G. Wells' 'The Time Machine'




Come the November '10 election cycle, all the GS employees
will be reminded that 'They' are being spared the ravages of
the planned inflation, which is a planned result of the FED
quietly intending the debasement of the USD...
'they'(the Master Class ensconced in all Gov't agencies, Banks & NGOs)
will reassure all persons in service to America that they will
be able to ride the crest of any hyperinflation wave,
(which may come about by 2012-2013)
All because of 'their' position, loyalty, Patriotism to the State
of the Union and the policies of this Administration




This is not intended as any sort of Populist poison pen Post,
This post is to help uncover the Dark workings of the Master-Class
(or call them Elites, or even Illuminati )
let's all try a little harder to discern what's hidden
'between the lines' and 'below the radar',
and expose the master-class gateways-roadmaps-schemes
which are engaged in transforming a former middle-class into serfdom



related read:
www.321gold.com...

www.nytimes.com...

www.seniorark.com...

www.lewrockwell.com...

www.thestreet.com...

www.321gold.com...

("...As a result, instead of seeding the soil for a real recovery
we are setting the stage for a prolonged depression.")
~Schiff's closing remark (above link) reinforces the message of my post/thread ~





~ Additional information just released in the Budget Proposal ~
Source: news.yahoo.com...

"...The budget also proposes making $250 payments to Social Security recipients
to bolster their finances in a year when they are not receiving the normal
cost-of-living boost to their benefit checks because of low inflation...."

here's the deal, this budget 'afterthought' by the Obama staff, is silently
admitting that the 'official CPI' is a propaganda number derivived to suit each
Administration...

Why else would Obama propose the equivelent of the 2008 increase which was +5 % ,
if inflation and the cost-of-living did not warrent a 2010 COLA increase ...
especially in this current time of spending freezes, cost cutting, Budget curtailments?

reply to post by St Udio


While I am not convinced of any grand conspiracy per se that is causing/creating this, I have no doubt that it is happening. I also think that there are those who are driving the the country to this place, perhaps as a matter of collective ideology rather than an outright conspiracy.

One of the problems we currently have is that there is such an abundance of economic statistics that when you consider how they can be manipulated, inclusive of historical trend analysis and the combination of data which have no causative relationships, it becomes impossible to discern what is really going on.

I believe what we have happening is a divorcing of the market from the reality of the economy. Another way to put it is a greater divide between Wall and Main Street. There was a time when synthetic financial instruments were not used by a vast majority of the Street. In such a situation, folks could review their pension/401k holdings and see true stocks and bonds. Things they could understand. The elite on both sides of the isle for different reasons liberalized the use of synthetics and created a situation where folks had no idea what they held in their portfolios. Hell, even the CEOs of some of these investment banks did not know what was on their balance sheets. I know because I used to work for one.

What that creates is a stock market has no relationship with what is happening on the ground due to the increase in the percentage of investments not being "real" instruments. What exactly is a credit default sway overlayed and hedged with currency derivitives anyway?

This creates a situation where so many statistics are put forth that are conflicting that all of the statistics are meaningless. The fact is simply that there is no truly predictive value in economic statistics or any projection based on statistics. When the variables are constrained you can get close, but with the level of variables and the degree of integration between these variables, the forecasts and predictions are meaningless, yet they are touted as facts.

As it relates to the OPs point. I think its true. Its all down to the methodology in how you calculate the statistics. What is happening now is that folks are short selling their homes and buying homes at 1/3 the price. The inter-relationship between the short sell and the buy is unknown unless you understand the methodology. There could be a time lag which artificially elevates "buys" for a short period until the "defaults" catch up or the defaults could be are categorized as sells since the seller is essentially "selling" the house, albiet at a value far less than the loan amount. Lay on top of that the banks that are selling hundreds of homes to LLCs with cash and they will be classified as a sell, despite the fact that they are treating the house essentially as a security.

Bottom-line for me is that you have a massive disconnect between how the folks who have money make money and the folks who have no money. That makes acquisition of money more opaque to the lower class and will ultimately create a class of permanent serfs. I do believe there are forces in government who for different reasons have this as a goal. I just am not sure how "master plan" their actions are.

Oh I have no doubt that conversations like "hey, if we legalize all of the Mexicans we'll have another 14m voters". we can also liberalize voter registration in such a way as to make voter fraud impossible to feret out. Then we can under fund the voting oversight groups to ensure that the fraud is further enabled. Oh and not forget the census we have in our hip pocket." Remember that just a few months ago Rahm wanted to personally run the census? I don't think he has a ton of time on his hands and is looking for work to do. Why do you suppose he wanted to do that?

In the earlier part of the last century, Joseph Stalin had a method he used to take control over the rural population of Russia. He would look at a small village of say, 200 people. He had sociologists calculate for him the number of folks in that village (based on that village's actual demographics) who, if killed would cause the rest of the folks to comply with the government. Then he'd send a few thugs in and immediately kill that number of people, like 16. No more, no less. Job done. The 186 would do what ever they were told to do.

If folks don't think that the left has similar statistics regarding the number of impoverished, dependant on government people we need in this society to ensure the complete take-over of the government and welfare state, I think you're being naive - thats what they've been working towards, under the blanket of compassion for 6 decades.

Again, I agree with you, I just think it is a loose ideological deal rather than a small cabal driving it

Of course there are 'misleading economics'.. add all the taxes paid by the citizens. There is NO WAY that money can be accurately tracked and accounted for by a third party. All of that money gets filtered into a near-endless maze of budgets which are then allocated to a gazillion entities, some of which try their damnedest to hide how much money they get and where it goes. The fact is we ultimately have no control over how our money is spent. The men and women we elect vote on where the money goes. As soon as we elect them it's out of our hands. We put our trust in them and hope they get the job done.

Short of violent protests and some sort of revolution I really don't see how anything will cause our country to change course. It really is obvious it doesn't matter who we vote into office. I mean sheesh it seems every one on both sides of the political spectrum are corrupt and self motivated. Even if you vote someone like Ron Paul into the White House. He's one man among a very powerful cabal. I highly doubt he would be able to change much in 4 possibly 8 years without more support from others. He's antithetical to most Republicans even though he's a Republican.

reply to post by dolphinfan


Thanks for the intelligent reply...
i do not think i'm wrong in thinking we are both under the same large canopy. You only require a greater degree of hard/factual proof that a Master-Class plan is underway.

I cannot provide any 'evidential' proof, nor could anyone else....


The new 'Volker Rule', that will curtail those 'proprietary trading' vehicles...
is the answer to your statement about those exotic derivatives, hedges, futures, & counter-party swaps/CDOs, et al
that seperates the mega-Traders of WallStreet from the less-Learned of us who dabble with MutualFunds & perhaps self-directed IRA,
here in MainStreet USA.


see ya around

Politicians are two-faced. One face supports your interests, the other face supports interests of everyone but you. When a Politician rewards his cronies, that's quid pro quo corruption.

No doubt there are subtle orders given to 'be on the team' or 'be on the same page'. We're watching corrupt Chicago politics in action in the white house. Preferential treatment of organizations that supported the elections. Same strong-arm politics can be observed in upper management of some of the less effective corporations; a strong personality surrounds themselves with 'lieutenants', and selects a few star people for protection all fiercely devoted to the personality. Everyone else is disposable, and only a few need to be made examples. Similar to what Stalin did.

With a preference of Unions and state employees, continuation of a hugely expensive pension plan that private citizens have to support, seems the 'government of the people' will become 'people of the government'. Excessive government growth, government worker preferential treatment, and support of cronies, put the United States of America on the track to becoming the Peoples Democratic Republic of America.

Dependency is a bad thing. It means giving control to the provider, in this case to a provider that is idealistic and absent of good intentions. Remember that evil is merely the absence of good.

That went way off track, but it seems the government is buying market futures and buying under any green shoot to ignite a rally. They must know how computer trading works.



[edit on 2-2-2010 by Dbriefed]