The Artificial Eight Percent Unemployment Rate Is Immaterial

Liberal media minions are atwitter over the manufactured unemployment statistic which has been steadily lowering in recent months and now approaches the eight percent milestone. Prominent conservatives have also noted the suspiciously timed “drop” in the nation’s unemployment, and are expressing dismay over its blatantly fabricated nature. Yet at the same time they are concerned over its possible effects on the reelection prospects of Barack Obama.

Such apprehension is understandable. Historically a sitting president’s chances for reelection are nil when the unemployment rate exceeds the eight percent threshold. More significant to the present situation however is the fact that the ostensible improvement in the nation’s employment debacle is clearly contrived. The books are being juggled to a degree that makes Enron accounting look downright virtuous. Yet nowhere among the nightly news anchors is it suggested that such manipulations coming from the highest levels of the federal government might be a breach of the peoples’ trust, or more accurately, evidence of a political strategy based on total deceit.

Lengthy analyses of the raw numbers, combined with “revised” data compiled over the past several months, undeniably reveal a serial pattern of falsified government bookkeeping for the purpose of putting a positive face on the unprecedented disaster of Obamanomics. Key players within the Obama team, abetted by their media lapdogs, ominously foreshadow intentions of buttressing the shameless hoax with those unemployment numbers, their end goal being to present the public with a rosy picture of the nation’s economy on Election Day in order to convince everyone that the bliss of Obama’s America needs to be perpetuated.

Admittedly, it is understandable that the media/Democrat propaganda machine might expect this scam to be successful. In past elections, and particularly when a Republican incumbent faced a challenger, the barrage of negative stories decrying the privation and austerity of American life under heartless conservative governance was relentless. And all too often, such efforts achieved a degree of success. The ’92 victory of Bill Clinton over George H.W. Bush transpired in part from Clinton’s campaign focus on “the economy stupid,” garnished with constant stories of the widespread tragedy and hardship on the evening news.

Nevertheless, it is too far of a stretch to believe that since media caterwauling of the suffering of others can instill anxiety in otherwise happy and secure citizens, the presentation of glowing statistics and upbeat projections of next quarter’s robust growth can somehow eradicate the pervasive misery and fear gripping a nation that sees its long-standing economic engine failing. Americans are too familiar with the former times of plenty, and too painfully aware that something is now starkly different, to believe that the coordinated exuberance of the liberal press is reflective of any tangible improvement in day to day life.

While it is certain that the liberal propagandists will continue their grotesque mischaracterization of the nation’s economic health, the effort can be likened to a pilot who breaks the glass on his altimeter, then grabs the needle and holds it at ten thousand feet in hopes of preventing a crash. From coast to coast, Americans perceive looming financial calamity, and no amount of whitewashing by the left will erase the glaring evidence.

In the face of such circumstances, the barrage of liberal deceit is no more likely to boost confidence than are the incessant assertions of “minimal” inflation (as long as the costs of food and fuel are not entered into the equation) going to convince the people of the Heartland that their dollars are going just as far as they did in the past. When Americans turn off their television sets, they actually go out and purchase such commodities, and they know how significantly their costs have climbed. Having the “experts” attempt to condescendingly explain these ominous signals out of existence does not remove a penny from the exorbitant cost of filling one’s gas tank or refrigerator.

If anything, the increasingly cheery prognostications are received by the public as proof that their authors are ever more indifferent to Real America, a fact only aggravated by the lavish lifestyles flamboyantly enjoyed by Barack and Michelle Obama as they play golf and take their innumerable and costly vacations on the taxpayers’ dime. In like manner, nobody outside of the Beltway is impressed by promises of eventual environmental bliss and an accompanying boost to the job market, which we are constantly assured will be the eventual benefit of all those “green energy” corporations that keep going belly up.

Nor does the average American attempting to sell a home in the face of dropping real estate values receive any consolation from the twisted and contorted statistics presented by the liberal media machine as confirmation that the housing market may be on the verge of a “rebound.” The last half-dozen reports that it had “bottomed out” proved to be little more than mindless optimism. So, in the face of continually horrible policy coming out of Washington, why should anything be different now?

In 2008, shaken by the hype from liberal politicians and their mouthpieces in the press of a vastly overblown financial crisis, America opted to take a chance on shining promises of “hope and change.” The consequences were every bit as dire as they were predictable. Since that time, the nation has languished in an economy strangled by unprecedented governmental spending excesses and the burdens they impose on the private sector, which is the only place where real prosperity can be generated. If America desires any real change in its fortunes, it will need to institute a marked change in its leadership.