By Ray Cardello for June 14, 2023, Season 20 / Post 10

I love the phrase, “Facts don’t lie, and liars use facts.” You must do your homework whenever politicians cite facts because they will never tell the whole story. They will manipulate the figures to justify and validate their narrative. Two such sets of points are employment and economic indicators. These are two of the most confusing but anticipated data points released monthly. Unfortunately, the equations for these indicators change constantly, especially in the inflation report.

We know prices are rising quickly. We just have to look at our checkbook balance at month’s end. Aside from rent or mortgage, two of the most significant household expenses are food and energy. Neither of these commodities is included in today’s inflation calculation. That is why the report today for May of 4% is meaningless to most Americans. They know with gas prices at nearly double from two years ago, home heating fuel up 20-30%, and food prices up 10-15%, an actual 4% inflation number would be welcome. The other factor never mentioned is that inflation is a year-to-year comparison. With inflation at 8% last year and 4% this year, we are closer to a 13% compounded inflation number, or the Biden Inflation Rate. And again, that 13% is a filtered number. We need some relief and soon.

The unemployment number is as convoluted as the inflation statistics. This number is filtered to exclude people who have voluntarily or not given up looking for employment. The current rate for May is 3.7% which was a higher number than in April, but it is still a manipulated and, therefore, a useless number. So what is the value of these statistics that we use to judge our economy? They are used by the party in power to convince the gullible public what a great job they are doing.

Biden loves to brag about how his economic plan has lowered the inflation rate from 8% to the current 4%. He fails to say that he adopted an economy with a 1.7% consumer price index (CPI). With the executive orders signed on his first day and his attack on fossil fuels, he caused an explosion in the living costs of every American. You should not be able to brag about reversing a problem you created, but the American media is no longer a watchdog for a power-hungry government. They echo Biden’s words as gospel, a dereliction of duty.

Another number that Biden often uses to show his policies’ success is the number of jobs created in his thirty months in office. He loves the sound of 12 million jobs created, which is more than any modern-day predecessor. It is a bald-faced lie. It is a bogus stat. A large number of new jobs are jobs that had been put on hold by the Pandemic. Biden loves to tout the 12 million jobs lost in Trump’s term. These are the same 12 million going back to work.

Years ago, a politician would never get away with twisting numbers in such a fashion. The media would have fact-checked and questioned the speaker on the stats. There is no such action by the media, including FOX News. You rarely hear a follow-up question; the erroneous words become facts as they are reported and repeated until they are accepted as truth. We have only ourselves to be cynical and delve into the data and make our own assumptions. The bottom line here is things ost much more under Biden, and fewer people are doing the jobs America needs. That does not sound successful to me.