Media Bias And The Stinky Economy

After shocking setbacks jolted the world's largest economy last week, President Obama dispatched his puppets of propaganda to brainwash Americans into to thinking it was good news that unemployment climbed and the nation's output nosedived.

Like trained lapdogs, the partisan media obliged with quotes, reports and headlines like these:

• "Mostly Encouraging Jobs News," Associated Press.
• "Best looking contraction ever," Reuters.
• "Economy Begins Year With Solid Job Gain," Washington Post
• "Latest Jobs Numbers Signal Economic Recovery," CBS News.

Obama's mouthpiece-in-chief Jay Carney couldn't resist blaming Congressional Republicans for the disastrous economic news, a ludicrous charge repeated as if it was fact by an adoring media that worships at the feet of the president.

The media cleverly quoted economic experts, no doubt supplied by the administration, to apply the spin to the worst economic news since the recession officially ended in 2009.  News reports were sprinkled with opinions reassuring Americans the dreadful economic reports were nothing to worry about.

A close examination of the economic numbers reveals genuine cause for alarm.  The economy is backsliding, not growing.  To set the record straight, here is the truth about the nation's economy: 

• The nation's unemployment ticked up to 7.9 percent in January, but the situation is even worse than the official figure.  People working as little as one hour a week are counted as employed.  A better measurement is to include not only people looking for employment, but those working part-time who want a full-time job.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that number is 14.4 percent.  Long-term unemployed, those out of work for 27 weeks or more, is a whopping 38.1 percent of the jobless number.
• There are more than 23.5 million people unemployed or underemployed in the U.S. The figure includes 2.4 million Americans who are not in the labor force, but have not looked for a job in the past year as well as 804,000 persons who are not longer seeking employment.   There are more Americans out of work today than at the height of the Great Depression (11.3 million). 
• The Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure of the economy's output, contracted in the fourth quarter for the first time since mid-2009.  Economic growth has not achieved 3.0 percent in more than four years.  That is the level that most economists recognize as necessary for healthy job growth. A contraction in the GDP is a rarity for this nation.  From 1948 to 2012, GDP growth in the U.S. averaged 3.22 percent annually.

There can be absolutely no denying that Barrack Obama has presided over the worst economy since the Great Depression. Since he assumed the Oval Office, the United States has been mired in a economic malaise marked by tortise-like growth, high unemployment and a shrinking workforce. 

Yet the mainstream media continues to smear lipstick on this smelly pig of an economy by ignoring facts and using economic "experts" to fabricate plausible reasons to dismiss the numbers. However, no amount of journalistic deception can alter reality.  

The government's own numbers are an indictment of the failed economic policies of President Obama.