Juiced Numbers
In order to get a flavor of the statistics that are manipulated, and the effects of that manipulation, we present a partial summary of an excellent interview (conducted by Kate Welling, Editor and Publisher of Welling @ Weeden), which Williams recently gave regarding the subject of government manipulation.
Williams says that regarding “what used to be called the GNP but is now widely followed as the GDP, (and) the CPI, and the employment numbers, all have had biases built into them that result in overstating economic growth and understating inflation - - both of which are admirable political goals."
Williams has analyzed and compared the way in which the unemployment figure was historically calculated versus the way it is calculated today. He concluded that if it “were calculated (today) the way it was during the Great Depression, it is now running at about 12%." As well, he says, "Real CPI is now running at about 8%. And the real GDP is probably in contraction." Clearly, the government’s methodologies that generated these bogus numbers are all designed to paint a more favorable picture of the economy and the markets than is the reality.
He explains why contemporary unemployment numbers are bogus. Today, the unemployment number does not include those unemployed who have been discouraged and out of work for more than a year. So they are taken out of the work force completely automatically. This results in knocking about 5 million unemployed out of the broader measures of unemployment.
Thus, unemployment is about 50% higher than is commonly alleged. And thus, "Today unemployment is really up around 12%," Williams notes.
These distortions have very real, and usually adverse, consequences for citizens. Consider, Williams says, the methodology developed several years ago by Mike Boskin and Alan Greenspan for generating the Consumer Price Index. In their (erroneous in Williams' and Deepcaster's) view the CPI was supposedly overstating inflation so they "fixed" it from its prior condition of (allegedly) overstating inflation.
And here is how they did it:
Originally, the whole purpose of the CPI was to "measure the change in the cost of a fixed basket of goods over time." But Boskin and Greenspan said that we should allow for substitution because people can buy hamburger when the price of steak goes up.
But, of course, "if you allow substitutions you aren't measuring a constant standard of living, you're measuring the cost of survival." Williams correctly concludes.
But the effect of this statistical chicanery is very real and very adverse to, for example, retirees because the CPI was, and is, being used to adjust Social Security payments to compensate for increases in the cost of living.
Today, as a result of the Boskin-Greenspan "fix," it understates those increases and therefore under-compensates retirees for those costs.
In a similar manipulatory vein, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) during the Clinton Administration constructed and began to employ a weighting regimen whereby if the price of something went up it automatically got a lower weight in calculating the CPI, but if it went down in price it automatically got a higher weight. The result, of course, was, and still is, to further shaft those people (like Social Security recipients) whose income was dependent upon the CPI measure.
"If the same CPI were used today as it was used when Jimmy Carter was President, Social Security checks would be 70% higher," Williams dramatically emphasizes.
But perhaps the most outrageous aspect of the government's numbers-manufacturing business has to do with its using "hedonic pricing." ("Hedonics" is the study of how to create pleasurable sensations.) "Hedonic pricing" is the practice of creating pleasant (to the government manipulators) pricing.
Using its hedonic method, the BLS says the price really doesn't go up for a product that has "improved" in quality because the consumer is getting greater benefit or pleasure from it. Therefore, if computer power increases by a factor of 10, but the sticker price of computers has only increased by a factor of 2, then the hedonically adjusted price would be much lower for CPI calculation purposes even though the computer is actually twice as expensive (in dollars actually paid) as it was years earlier.
Williams also notes that sometimes data manipulation attempts are overt, such as the time during the administration of George Bush I, in which a computer industry official was approached and asked to boost his sales reports to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Williams is careful to point out that manipulation is a bipartisan phenomenon.
In the Clinton Administration, the manipulation resulted from the CPI numbers being re-set using weighting. "They basically reduced the number of people being surveyed in the inner cities (which had more unemployment (Ed.)) and then claimed they replaced them statistically. But the effect was immediate. You saw a drop in all the unemployment measures that would normally be influenced by inner-city surveying. Thus, of course, the statistical replacement reflected a lot less unemployment than actually existed."
The adverse effect of this "numbers manufacturing" extends far beyond its adverse affects on any particular group such as retirees. If someone relies on these buggy statistics and invests in the stock market based on happy economic reports, they may well lose the money because of that reliance. Williams says "I am…disgusted by both parties at this point, especially because we have no one of substance taking on very severe issues, like the trade deficit and federal deficit that are going to create terrible times for people in this country if they are not addressed."
Williams focuses on what he considers, and what Deepcaster considers, "so dangerous that if it isn't addressed - - and I am afraid maybe that even if it is addressed - - that it has gone past hope of repair; and that is the fiscal condition of the Federal Government."
Typical statements of the budgetary condition of the government (by whatever administration is in power) do not include accrued pension and retiree benefit liabilities. Certainly this is not a small omission - - and usually results in differences between the official numbers and the real numbers.
Williams notes "where the official federal deficit in 2004 was reported at about $412 billion and the GAAP-based deficit was around $616 billion, they said that if you added the net present valuing of the under-funding of Social Security and Medicare, the one-year deficit in 2004 was $11.1 trillion."
In fact, the 2005 statement (of the U.S. government) shows that total downstream federal obligations at the end of September were $51 TRILLION, Williams calculated.
Of course, foreigners are financing most of this deficit spending. Williams notes that last year alone, foreign investors bought enough federal debt to cover all the debt issuance of the U.S. Treasury. But we have no assurance that this will continue. Indeed, once this foreign buying even begins to slow, U.S. interest rates must rise to finance our debt, the interest costs on which are already running at nearly $3 billion per day.
As Deepcaster has repeatedly noted, this process will eventually lead to a very high rate of inflation, high interest rates and a very sharp decline in the dollar, likely followed by a deflationary depression. Williams notes (consistently with Deepcaster's view): "Once the selling pressure starts it's going to be massive. You're going to see a lot of dumping of U.S. securities, particularly Treasuries."
"To absorb them you're going to see a sharp spike in rates or the Fed will step in, provide liquidity in market………..the end result, when it does all come together, will be something akin to hyperinflation. But at the same time, you'll also have a very depressed economy." …That possibly could evolve into a hyperinflationary depression as much as I hate to use that term."
Williams concludes by saying "so we're talking about a global crisis of unprecedented proportions. Probably one that could lead to the collapse of the current currency system."…As crazy as it sounds, I think the only thing they will be able to do is go back on some kind of gold standard." And, indeed, gold is the Bedrock Asset so far as Deepcaster is concerned. And this is why the Fed-led Cartel makes such forceful efforts to cap its price.
Finally, Williams talks about where we are today. Indeed, he says we are already in a recession. "What I found is that if you adjust the real GDP numbers that the government releases for the myriad revisions and redefinitions…you'll find that there is a happy overstatement of growth of about 3% on a year-over-year basis. The problem very simply is this - - the consumer is the primary driving force behind economic activity and the only ways that consumers can fuel consumption growth are through rising income, debt extension, or savings liquidation, that's where he gets his cash."
But the consumer is not really seeing any income growth. “Now this is where the playing around with numbers really gets good.” We've already talked about hedonics and all the other manipulations of the CPI. But they all pale next to the impact of imputations in the GDP that are an outgrowth of the theoretical structure of the national income accounts.
“Any benefit a person receives has an imputed component…when the government puts all of it's imputations into income, its growth generally remains positive and has very little relation to reality."
How do we know when the end is near? Deepcaster and Williams agree on the answer. "If I were looking for one factor to signal the onset of some really serious problems, I would watch the dollar. If you start to see a sharp sell-off, or if the selling starts to pick up a little steam and begins to look like a panic, or you start to hear talk of an Asian country dumping a little extra in the way of dollars, it will be a sign of really bad times to come."
And Williams' excellent analysis raises a further question which Williams does not address, but which Deepcaster does address. When the resulting (and nearly inevitable) crash appears near, what "cover" or "incident" will the government leaders then-in-power, create to deflect the public’s justifiable rage away from the numbers manufacturers and manipulators themselves who caused the crisis in the first place?