Deceptive Economic Statistics: While the economists lied the US economy died

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
August 17, 2010

On August 17, Bloomberg reported a US government release that industrial production rose twice as much as forecast, climbing 1 percent. Bloomberg interpreted this to mean that “increased business investment is propelling the gains in manufacturing, which accounts for 11 percent of the world’s largest economy.”

		Secretary Treasury Tim Geithner welcomed us to “the recovery.”

The stock market rose.

Let’s look at this through the lens of statistician John Williams of shadowstats.com. Williams reports that “the primary driver of a 1.0% monthly gain in seasonally-adjusted July industrial production” was “warped seasonal factors” caused by “the irregular patterns in U.S. auto production in the last two years.” Industrial production “shrank by 1.0% before seasonal adjustments.”

If the government and Bloomberg had announced that industrial production fell by 1.0% in July, would the stock market have risen 104 points on August 17?

Green Shoots, Red Ink, Black Hole

Truly terrifying data about the real state of  the U.S. economy.

By Eliot Spitzer

    I have an unfortunate sense that the "green shoots" in the economy that everyone is talking about are nothing but dandelions. Sure, forcing $1 trillion of taxpayer money—in direct capital, guarantees, and diminished cost of borrowing—into the banking sector has permitted the major banks to claim solvency for the moment. Yet we should not forget that this solvency has come not through a much needed deleveraging of the banking sector but rather from a massive transfer of the obligations of private banks to the public, with the debt accruing to future generations. And overall loan quality at U.S. banks is still the worst in 25 years and deteriorating at the fastest pace ever.