Dear CIGAs,

When is good economic news is really BAD.

1. When the numbers are skewed from the real.
2. When the numbers are fabrications having little basis.
3. When they are designed hide the real situation.

Friday had all 3!

Unemployment falls, but only because people are giving up.
August 9, 8:28 AM
Mark Vargus

Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the official unemployment numbers. Most of the initial media reports highlighted the reduction of the unemployment rate from 9.5% to 9.4%.

It sounds good, but if you check the official chart the BLS put out and is available at their website the drop is not due to people finding jobs. In fact the BLS admits that 155,000 jobs vanished from the economy in July. In fact the only reason that the unemployment figure went down was that 267,000 people who were being counted as unemployed were declared "not in the active laborforce" and the numbers of official unemployed dropped by that amount. The unemployment numbers the BLS produces basically counts the number of people unemployed and looking for work against the total number of people either looking for work or working. 81 million adults are not counted as in the labor force, and it is this group of "not in labor force" that is increasing.

Some publications did note this. The Washington Post had an article titled: In Jobless Rate Dip, a Partial Picture, where they note that the jobless rate does not show the real picture. Even former Clinton Administration Advisor Robert Reich wrote an article for Salon warning that the statistics should not be taken as a sign of recovery. He notes:

So let’s be grateful that the economy is getting worse more slowly than it was. But don’t be lured into thinking we’re ever going back to where we were. Most of the jobs that have been lost are never coming back. New ones will replace some of them, eventually, but hardly all of them.

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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

If GM would drive a Tesla electric car they would junk the Volt immediately.

You cannot take a present GM car design and make it an electric car. First you have to make a real electric motor.

The electric Tesla does 0 to 60 MPH in 3.2 seconds!

Is General Motors backing Off Of The Chevrolet Volt Type Plug-In Hybrid?
August 8, 2009

Summary

The new Buick "two mode" hybrid is not an evolution of the Chevrolet Volt power train as this article in Popular Mechanics implies; the Buick (mild) "hybrids rather a step back for GM, and I think, an admission that all is not right with the Chevrolet Volt either in performance and range to be delivered or in marketability.

GM made a misstep listening to Rick Wagoner and Bob Lutz both say that there was no future to the full hybrid exemplified by the outstandingly successful Prius.

Analysis

Although you would think that Popular Mechanic’s writers would be familiar with the various types of hybrid power trains now in actual use or in the planning stage it is obvious from the PM article on the proposed Buick "hybrid’ that the magazine’s writers, fact checkers, and editors do not understand very much about such things at all. Or is it me?

PM has decided that a new model Buick "hybrid" is an extension of the Chevrolet Volt Plug-in Hybrid. Those of you with a memory for BS will remember that the Chevrolet Volt power train went from originally being called a plug-in hybrid, PHEV, which description is supposed to be of a battery only powered electric vehicle that can only be recharged by being plugged in to (supposedly) an ordinary household outlet (110VAC, single phase), to finally being called an extended range PHEV which will carry a small internal combustion engine the purpose of which is NOT to directly power the car through a coupling to the driveshaft or to generate electricity to directly power an electric motor coupled to (or being) the driveshaft, but only to maintain the level of charge in the onboard battery at a sufficient level to allow it to be driven to a charging point. Got that!
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Rewarding the people who did this to us while punishing the police, firefighters, and teachers guarantees the death of a society.

This is totally backwards.

Massive layoffs force teachers to re-evaluate careers
By Andrea Billups
Sunday, August 9, 2009

It’s turning into a long, pink-slip summer for thousands of the nation’s teachers caught in mass layoffs as school districts struggle to control their finances during the deep recession.

While some teachers ousted in the spring have been rehired as school systems find more money, including funds from the current economic stimulus package, other teachers have been forced to move where the work is. Some have even changed careers as what once was a wide-open job market is closing its doors.

The nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, has estimated that about 34,000 teaching jobs will be lost this year.

In Lake Oswego, Ore., first- and second-year teachers faced the luck of the draw as those slated for firing were chosen by lottery in an effort to be fair. The district’s human resources director said in media accounts that the sad process made her stomach hurt.

In South Florida, Broward County schools are facing shrinking enrollment and budget, and announced plans last month to lay off nearly 400 teachers, with 50 or 60 expected to be rehired.

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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

When you reward non-production (Wall Street) and punish production (teachers, firefighters, police and blue collar workers) you will be lucky to have even a Tent City America left.

Tent City America
The Expiring Economy
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Tent cities springing up all over America are filling with the homeless unemployed from the worst economy since the 1930s. While Americans live in tents, the Obama government has embarked on a $1 billion crash program to build a mega-embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, to rival the one the Bush government build in Baghdad, Iraq.

Hard times have now afflicted Americans for so long that even the extension of unemployment benefits from 6 months to 18 months for 24 high unemployment states, and to 46 – 72 weeks in other states, is beginning to run out. By Christmas 1.5 million Americans will have exhausted unemployment benefits while unemployment rolls continue to rise.

Amidst this worsening economic crisis, the House of Representatives just passed a $636 billion “defense” bill.

Who is the United States defending against? Americans have no enemies except those that the US government goes out of its way to create by bombing and invading countries that comprise no threat whatsoever to the US and by encircling others–Russia for example–with threatening military bases.

America’s wars are contrived affairs to serve the money laundering machine: from the taxpayers and money borrowed from foreign creditors to the armaments industry to the political contributions that ensure $636 billion “defense” bills.

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