Get Your Great Depression On!

It's amusing to watch the news peoples speak about the unemployment numbers as if they are real. Since LBJ, presidents have been fucking with the number of unemployed. Everyone seems to understand that the official number of unemployed is a load of shit. They do not count people who have used up all of their unemployment benefits. They just kind of go away. Last month alone, 380,000 people were dropped of unemployment rolls. Poof! Gone!

Yay!

Reagan was pretty devious about fudging the numbers, but Clinton was by far the worst.

During the Great Depression unemployment was around 25%. So what is it really today? How about 16%? That's a depression, bitches.

Figures collected for Reuters by John Williams, from the electronic newsletter Shadowstats.com, suggest that, while we are not there yet, the comparison is not as outlandish as it might initially seem.

By his count, if unemployment were still tallied the way it was in the 1930s, today's jobless rate would be closer to 16.5 percent -- more than double the stated rate.

Hmmm, smell that? It's socialism creeping in.

Or it could be the very delightful 11%

However, some economists, including Kenneth Rogoff at Harvard University, now say joblessness could top 11 percent. Under Williams' methodology, that picture might look much more like the Great Depression.

Either way, it's not 7 fucking percent and we are all going to die.