A VERY LETHAL "22"

by Al Doyle    

Shadow Government Statistics (www.shadowstats.com) by economist John Williams uses old (as in 1970s to 1990s) government methodology and parameters to calculate real-world numbers for inflation and unemployment.  Even mainstream media sources often cite Williams for his accurate and unbiased economic analysis.    

The amount of spin, trickery and outright lying that emerges as "official government statistics" from Washington each month is almost beyond measure.   The 10 percent unemployment number of late 2009 was far lower than the 17.2 percent figure calculated by Shadow Stats.  If you think that sounds bad, take a look at the latest numbers.    

According to the Obama administration, unemployment has remained relatively unchanged, but the latest Shadow Stats figure of 22 percent is more than double what the government claims.  An unemployment rate of 25 percent during the Great Depression of the 1930s is widely accepted as an accurate count, so the current situation has more than a passing resemblance to that very difficult time.  

Every segment of the job market (with the possible exceptions of bankruptcy attorneys, repo men and bill collectors) has been impacted, but blue-collar workers have taken an especially heavy hit.  According to Andrew Sum, director of the Boston-based Northeastern University Center for Labor Market Studies, one out of every six blue-collar workers has been laid off since 2007.  This came after more than a decade of wholesale plant closings in manufacturing as American jobs were exported to Mexico, Red China and other low-wage nations.      

"These guys used to be the backbone of our working middle class," Sum said.  "The really scary thing is that these guy have no jobs to come back to."  Sum noted that 65 Massachusetts construction workers are competing for each opening in the field, and the ratio for unemployed manufacturing workers to job openings is 24 to 1.