An excerpt from an instructive article:
Of course, the low inflation rate also provides the government with breathing room on the fiscal side. Low inflation keeps a limit on the increases that federal agencies are required to pay out to beneficiaries of programs such as Social Security. With the budget so tightly constrained by huge deficits, the low inflation data is essential to government planners.
More chicanery can be seen on the unemployment front. The government currently claims the unemployment rate to be at just 7.9 percent. But when calculating unemployment using the pre-Clinton methodology, SGS finds it to be around 22 percent. SGS does not exclude, as the government does now, all those who have left the workforce out of despair of finding a job, or those who who have accepted part time jobs in lieu of full time employment.
A world of politically manipulated 'official' statistics and misleading Government statements makes investment decisions more difficult. The result is that, despite falsely negative 'real' short-term interest rates and an abundance of debased cash, consumers and corporations continue to hoard cash. While the Dow has in fact surged in nominal terms, the leading U.S. equity funds continue to show significant outflows of investment funds. Rising stock prices have not convinced many Americans to get into the game. This should provide needed perspective on the current media euphoria.
A healthy skepticism about big government is as reasonable as a healthy skepticism about big business.
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