Without identifying the superficially educated individual – because he’ll eventually be forced to eat crow – here’s some phraseology that a staff writer came up with in the November 21st edition of the Boston Sunday Globe. It’s an excellent example of the kind of mullarkey that’s being fed to gullible Americans by today’s controlled press:

– “… a compelling sign … of the 17-month economic recovery …”

– “Although the recession officially ended in June 2009 …”

– “They aren’t feeling the improvement of the economy yet …”

So the recession is officially over. That’s what it says in the newspapers, so it must be true. Isn’t that what Will Rogers used to tell his audiences?

Market Watch, though, provided some conflicting information on November 20th., and it’s a shame that semi-literate Americans won’t take the time to read beyond the local headlines. Here’s what Market Watch reported:

“Three more banks go under –
“Total bank failures rise to 149 for the year –

“SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) – Three banks based in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida are closing up shop and going into receivership, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced late Friday, bringing the total number of bank failures to 149 since the start of the year.

“Regulators closed First Banking Center of Burlington, Wis., on Friday. It had $ 664.8 million in total deposits as of Sept. 30, the FDIC said. The bank’s failure will cost the federal deposit-insurance fund an estimated $ 142.6 million.

“Allegiance Bank of North America of Bala Cynwyd, Penn., also closed. As of Sept. 30, it had $ 92 million in total deposits, according to the FDIC. Its failure will cost the federal deposit-insurance fund an estimated $ 14.2 million.

“On Friday, regulators also closed Gulf State Community Bank of Carrabelle, Fla. The bank had about $ 112.2 million in total deposits, the FDIC said. Its failure will cost the federal deposit-insurance fund an estimated $ 42.7 million.”

Yup. 149 bank failures … “a compelling sign that … the recession officially ended in June 2009 … and that the “economy is improving”. It’s not just mullarkey that we’re getting in U.S. newspaper headlines – it’s deliberate falsehood. Only one man, Bob Herbert at The New York Times, is telling us the truth. Here’s what he writes in his most recent article:

“Hiding From Reality” was his headline.

“However you want to define the American dream, there is not much of it that’s left anymore.

“Wherever you choose to look – at the economy and jobs, the public schools, the budget deficits, the nonstop warfare overseas – you’ll see a country in bad shape. Standards of living are declining, and American parents increasingly believe that their children will inherit a very bad deal.

“We’re in denial about the extent of the rot in the system, and the effort that would be required to turn things around. It will likely take many years, perhaps a decade or more, to get employment back to a level at which one could fairly say the economy is thriving.

“Consider this startling information from Pew Hispanic Center: in the year following the official end of the Great Recession in June 2009, foreign-born workers in the U.S. gained 656,000 jobs while native-born workers lost 1.2 million. But even as the hiring of immigrants picked up during that period, those same workers ‘experienced a sharp decline in earnings.’

“What this shows is not that we should discriminate against foreign-born workers, but that the U.S. needs to develop a full-employment economy that provides jobs for all who want to work at pay that enables the workers and their families to enjoy a decent standard of living. In other words, a resurrection of the American dream.

“Right now, nothing close to that is happening.

“The human suffering in the years required to recover from the recession will continue to be immense. And that suffering will only be made worse if the nation embarks on a misguided crash program of deficit reduction that in the short term will undermine any recovery, and in the long term will make true deficit reduction that much harder to achieve.

“The wreckage from the recession and the nation’s mindlessly destructive policies in the years leading up to the recession is all around us. We still don’t have the money to pay for the wars we insist on fighting year after year. We have neither the will nor the common sense to either raise taxes to pay for the wars, or stop fighting them.

“State and local governments, faced with fiscal nightmares, are reducing services, cutting their work forces, hacking away at health and pension benefits, and raising taxes and fees. So far it hasn’t been enough, so there is more carnage to come. In many cases, the austerity measures are punishing some of the most vulnerable people, including children, the sick and the disabled.

“For all the talk about improving the public schools and get rid of incompetent teachers, school systems around the country are being hammered with dreadful cutbacks and teachers are being let go in droves, not because they are incompetent, but strictly for budget reasons. There was a time when the United States understood the importance of educating its young people and led the way in compulsory public schooling. Now, although no one will admit it publicly, we’ve decide to go in another direction.

“In New York City, for example, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s choice to run the public school system is Cathleen Black, a wealthy corporate executive with no background in education whose children attended expensive private schools. Mr. Bloomberg has asserted that Ms. Black’s management expertise will be a boon to the city’s public school children. But the truth is that Ms. Black, if she gets a necessary waiver for her new job, will be presiding over budget cuts that can only hurt the schools. As part of a proposed austerity budget, the mayor is planning to eliminate the jobs of thousands of public school teachers over the next two years. Take that, kids.

“We’ve become a hapless, can’t do society, and it’s, frankly, embarrassing. Public figures talk endlessly about ‘transformative changes’ in public direction, but the years go by and we see no such thing. Politicians across the spectrum insist that they are all about job creation while the employment situation in the real world remains beyond pathetic.

“All we are good at is bulldozing money to the very wealthy. No wonder the country is in such a deep slide.

“We don’t seem to realize how deep a hole we’re in. If student test points jumped a couple of points or the jobless rate fell by a point and a half, the politicians and the news media would crow as if something great had been achieved. That’s how people behave when they’re in denial.

“America will never get its act together until we recognize how much trouble we’re really in, and how much effort and shared sacrifice is needed to stop the decline. Only then will we begin resuscitating the dream.” –

Ignore the spinnage that’s coming from the controlled media. Listen to Mr. Herbert. He lays it right on the line when he says that “… a full employment economy … provides jobs for all who want to work at pay that enables the workers and their families to enjoy a decent standard of living”.

And he indicts those “Politicians (who) insist they are all about job creation while the employment situation in the real world remains beyond pathetic”.

“No wonder the country is in such a deep slide …There is more carnage to come,” he warns.

There are also subtle warnings coming from overseas observers, and Americans would be well-advised to heed one of the comments carried by Market Watch. “If you think Europe is in trouble,” hints the observer, “you have not seen anything yet. By the time Europe fixes its problems, one way or another, the U.S. problems will have exploded into chaos making the present protests in Europe look like peace conventions.” Funny how outsiders get the straight scoop and we get hogwash.

That full employment economy Mr. Herbert mentions is the only way to deflect the carnage that threatens us – the chaos foreseen by outside observers. But do those politicians have a clue about the job creation they keep promising us? Not a one of them. And not a one of them is aware that the only period of full employment this nation ever had ended the Great Depression. Emergency Shipbuilding Programs were the miraculous solutions to our economic woes in the 1930s, and only another Emergency Shipbuilding Program can deflect the carnage and chaos that threatens us today.