We hear the talking heads telling us all that the economy is good or bad. We are told that economic growth is slow or perhaps that the economy is growing too fast. And all of this seems to have something to do with the opinions of the "know it alls" as to whether something is getting better or worse. We don't really think about what that something is, but it must be something that needs worrying over or all these people wouldn't be so worried about it. Oddly, this is the impression or definition of "The Economy" shared by a great many American voters.

Having been forced into early retirement by the total meltdown of the "new economy" and the H1B rip-off, I spend a good deal of time on the Washington State Ferry system commuting between my much smaller home on the Olympic peninsula and West Seattle. And I have invested some time it conducting a sort of informal survey among the people I am able to speak with on the ferry. I tell them that I am an amateur economist (which I have been for no less than 20 years) and that I am attempting to determine what normal people (which I quickly define as those who are not preoccupied with economics) think that "The Economy" might be, and what they think the talking heads are saying when the talking heads report that "The Economy" is doing well or poorly. In the face of the instantaneous blank expression I push on and ask them two, more specific and more easily answered questions so as to allow some diversion. I ask them how they think this thing called "The Economy" effects them, and how they would actually measure "The Economy" as to whether it is good or bad. I also add that there are no right or wrong answers and that it is really just a matter of opinion. In almost every case the answer to the list (all three questions instead of just one) is very immediate and employment related. The answer is sometimes very local and sometimes national but in the great majority of cases it focuses on the amount of unemployment. It focuses on "The Unemployment Rate". In the current environment, based on the current structure of business and and business employee relationships there is nothing glaringly wrong in this immediate assessment of "The Economy". In this day and time the unemployment rate (smoothed, refined, understated, and "spun" though it may be) is the only relevant measure concerning the health of the "The Economy" that one will hear parroted by the talking heads.

It is the considered opinion of the vast majority of persons interviewed in my very unscientific survey that the economy is doing well so long as those who seek to improve their life style, through their own labors will have ample opportunity to do so. And for most people this is what "The Unemployment Rate" inversely indicates. It indicates the extent to which those who seek to improve their life style through contributions to their fellow man are being prevented from doing so. And when most people are presented with statistics about "economic growth" such as the GDP (e.g. terms other than the rate of unemployment), it is an improvement or a regression in general (middle class) life style (a gain or loss in wealth for the vast majority) that they expect the statistics and the talking heads to be describing. The perception of most people is that as the general life style of all the individuals participating in the economy improves then so too does this thing called "The Economy". And as we can see: Adam Smith would agree with this concept of ( ). We are left with the impression that in spite of all attempts to confuse and mislead the American voters, and in spite of the brainwashing attempts to focus attention on "jobs" as opposed to actual life styles, Americans still maintain enough rationality to appreciate the fact that a 30 hour work week (less "job" or less "labor" if you will) for the same amount of life style would be a very good thing indeed.

Of all the current so called indicators of economic performance such as the stock market, the real estate market, the gross domestic product, inflation, interest rates, and the unemployment rate, only the latter is somewhat properly interpreted in signaling the health of "The Economy". But for the contemporary trained seal "economist", and by indoctrination, the talking heads and the rest of us, the gross domestic product (GDP) is heralded as the guiding light and primary measure of economic performance. And in this day and time the insistence upon GDP growth as The measure of performance is a misdirection and a lie. While GDP certainly does measure the exchange of money in the economy (and possibly the amount of work going on in the economy) it does not focus on what we and Adam Smith understand to be the real objective of "The Economy", i.e. it does not tell us whether or not we have created a "plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly (enabled) them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves". It does not tell us anything about whether the life style of the average participant in "The Economy" is being improved, or whether we are simply all working our butts off for nothing. And though our learned professionals of misdirection would have us believe that increasing GDP will inevitably cause a better life style for all concerned, the other statistics such as, the trade deficit, the national debt, total consumer debt, and the increasing percentage of the population that must work outside the home so as to "make ends meet" tell us a completely different story. These numbers tell us that the people who have jobs or trades or businesses are working longer hours and that more family members are compelled to work outside the home so as to produce sufficient income for the family. We also note that the earnings of these producers are being taxed and used to support all the other people that would like to contribute and are being prevented from doing so, or who are not being offered wages that are sufficient to support a reasonable life style. And these funds also are included in that great boiling cauldron called the GDP.

The other misdirection practiced on a daily basis is the cinema concerning the price of stocks, bonds, and real estate. Oh how the droning continues as the pundits, manipulators, shills, and sheep alike expound upon "The Markets", insisting on a correlation between dollar denominated prices and the well being of "The Nation". The insinuation that the increase in the price of land and financial instruments is a good thing for "The Nation" may be an appropriate position to take, but the insinuation that such price increase is a good thing for "The Economy" (as we and Adam Smith have agreed upon) is an outright lie unless the wages of the majority are increasing at the same pace or an even faster pace than the asset prices. Asset price increases are most often a measure of the additional labor that will need to be expended by a non wealthy person if that person is ever to acquire any ownership benefits, e.g. the rise in the price of real estate means that the average person, or family, will be required to labor for more years in pursuit of an owned home. Stated in a different way, the rise in asset prices does not translate into any reward to the average man. And in our current system such rise has, during the last 20 years, translated into a decrease in the wealth of the average person, a decrease in the average person's share of the economic pie. The is an indicator of the inappropriate relationship between prices and wages; even as watered down as it is by military employment it shows that the rise in asset value (land, and other monopoly privilege) actually translates into more labor for the vast majority of the citizenry as more family members are working outside the home to "make ends meet".

For our mush mouthed leaders to trumpet a rise in GDP and the price of assets as a beneficial gain to "The Economy" is akin to the claim that ancient Egypt must have been a wonderful place to live because of the number and size of the pyramids. The slaves ate and worked and the more they worked the more they ate and the GDP would have increased accordingly; so too the number and/or size and price of the pyramids. Unfortunately, however, the guys actually building the pyramids were not very well served by these increases in "constructive" activity and the government secured rights of those who owned the output.

We should be embarrassed that we would tolerate the use of the inane phrase "labor shortage". This delusion is a major binding between our purchased political leaders and and the members of our American . And whether support for this delusion is required by the members of our from those those who would seek campaign funds or other support, or whether instead, this delusion is worn as a badge of identity by potential candidates so as to garner such funds, the delusion is a symbolic binding between the two. In either case the adoption of this inanity, the pledge to employ it, serves to bind the politician to the funds and to the aristocracy. It holds the promise that our will be protected and that their stations of power and wealth will be enhanced. It is this "labor shortage" inanity that is employed to increase immigration and H1B work visas even in the face of unemployment and the increasing . The acceptance of this ridiculous charade is a testimonial to the charlatanism we have abided, a confirmation of the efficacy of constant marketing and repetition in establishing a falsehood as accepted "knowledge". This ridiculous phrase is similar to claiming that we have a "shortage" of pain or sickness. Labor is not something that is prized for its scarcity. Each unit of labor is a unit of human cost, and a load on the back of humanity; that same humanity which is to be served by proper development of "The Economy". We need not "seek" labor, for it will find every one of us in due course. Labor is the real cost, hence the actual of all goods and comforts. People do not seek labor. We seek life style; we seek security; we seek comfort. That our supposed leaders continually shout the phrase "create jobs" in the context that they do is silly enough, (as though it was good to "create" more work to do), but the idiocy of a "labor shortage" is the epitome of self serving deceit. Please ask yourself how we can have a need to "create jobs" and have a "labor shortage" at the same time. The need for specialized labor is a point to which we shall return in the succeeding section, but let us first deal with this "create jobs" pretentiousness. It is exceedingly easy to "create jobs" and to dramatically reduce both the Unemployment Rate and the . All that would be necessary is to pay workers enough that they need work less hours per week. This would mean that more people would need to be hired and thus many more jobs would be available. The immediate reaction to this is to screech that the companies would go bankrupt because of their increased labor costs. But if we did this by simply eliminating FICA taxes and increasing income taxes across the board (a revenue neutral tax shift) then production costs are not adversely effected. Even if the workers chose to work the same hours so as to earn more and spend more on lip gloss, fancy meals, and sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, the increase in demand for new workers in the lip gloss, fancy meals, and entertainment "industries", would decrease the unemployment in the economy. Another, sake of argument, alternative (which is not nearly as good) would be to pay currently unemployed workers for doing things from which private industry could not profit, like cleaning up the litter in the streets, painting the homes of disabled people, or simply taking care of some elderly folks. In any case, unemployment and drudgery would decline because of the additional demand for goods in the economy resulting from the rise in aggregate wages. The earners-consumers of the economy, having wages to spend, would increase the demand for goods. That demand will "create" employment opportunity for others, and their employment will have similar effects. And as the demand for goods would rise then so too would the reward to actual investing in plant, machinery, and fixed capital.

This is the point at which the servants of the aristocracy fall back to their second line of defense. We hear the purposeful screams of inflation, thus terminating all further discussion and discourse because all indoctrinated citizens know that inflationis a fire breathing dragon that eats little children and consigns all others to burn in hell for eternity. In directly addressing this particular falsehood, this example of brainwashing and misdirection, and exposing it as the established dogma that it is we will have uncovered the reality as opposed to the lies.

Monetary is a deterioration in the value of hoarded money as related only to wages. Such a phenomenon is of little or no concern to those who have little or no money and who are are seeking employment in "The Economy". Inflation as we have accurately defined it (a rise in wages) is of little concern to those who own shares of i.e. common stocks. As wages rise and the return to simply hoarding money disappears, the holders of money find they must invest in or find themselves being less wealthy. This actual investment as opposed to hoarding is what decreases the and the Unemployment Rate, while increasing the trade price , if not the actual value of common stocks. Inflation is of no concern and is actually of benefit to the much indebted working people in the United States (see Consumer Debt, and National Debt). On the other hand, however, this inflation is of extreme concern to the aristocracy who hold money and bonds and other fixed return financial instruments and who are collecting the interest on the national debt and the interest on your car loan and the interest on your mortgage. These are the truly wealthy people in the society who have spent the last 30 years, underpaying their taxes, lending money to the government, and drumming the fear of inflation into the mind of every Tom, Dick, and Mary Jane in the nation. The reality is that rising unemployment and the rising number of hours of labor needed to sustain the family is a result of pure greed by this aristocracy in American society. It is this pure greed that prompts those of the aristocracy to fund the campaigns of the politicians that spout inanities like "labor shortage" and "inflation monster" so as to justify increasing immigration.

This importation of wage serfs who are willing to accept lower wages (spelled lower standard of living) and who are educationally unable to be but minimally productive in the society into which they are immigrating, this importation of human robots that drags down the wages of all labor in the United States, is the major cause of the increasing wealth gap and the problems of unemployment and lengthening work weeks in the United States.

Perhaps more importantly, unemployment and longer working hours per week for those who are employed is caused by over-rewarding these masters of misinformation who benefit from the decrease in wages. This over-reward is accomplished by maintaining "interest" rates in any way at all, and most especially, by maintaining interest rates through government spending in excess of taxation. Government borrowing will reward the holders of money with higher interest on their accumulated wealth. This reward has long since passed the point at which there is no need for them to actually "invest" in the here in the USA that would provide opportunity to the new immigrants or to the labor that is displaced by the new immigrants. These "rentiers" can maintain and advance their positions of wealth (as attested to by the continually increasing gap between that top 5% and the remaining 95%) by simply loaning money to the government and taking advantage of escalating land values as immigration increases population.

And lastly, unemployment is caused by these arrogant and greedy manipulators of government and popular opinion by continually bleating about more tax cuts and less spending. Less pending, that is, on adequate general education that would improve the productivity of the new immigrants. Thus the term "human robots" which we could already have derived from the inanity of "labor shortage". The ludicrous notion that labor is some kind of commodity, some ingredient in a cake baked especially for the elite. Just import a few more Mexican robots and we'll refuse to educate them and assure ourselves of an underclass to do all the work. The aristocracy can then reward all the "good" people (those that conform to the established dogma of the aristocracy), and see to it that anyone with more than half a brain is impoverished.

Unemployment, and the are both caused by simple greed manifested in the aristocracy of our nation. It has gone far past the simple human attempt to escape taxation. Our aristocracy wishes to tax wages and to employ regressive sales taxes in lieu of taxation of incomes from rents and royalties not because they wish to enhance investment. But because they wish to enhance their own power and control. As we will see in the succeeding section, our aristocracy wants so desperately to enhance their exalted stations that they are willing to utterly destroy our technologically advanced middle class in their lust for control. And all of it is accomplished through the purchase of political puppets who, due to the lack of actual representation of the people in their government, can mouth inanities and economic falsehoods so as to justify their manipulations of the tax code and the banking system in a way that will constantly enhance the wealth of their smaller and smaller elite at the top of the society.

We should be more than embarrassed by H1B visas. We should be ashamed and angry. The H1B visa illustrates the aristocracy's intent to change a nation with a prosperous middle class into a banana republic dedicated to their own opulence and amusement. This is being accomplished by importing specialty fields from 3rd world economies so as to destroy the wages paid to those fields in the United States. Where Pol Pot massacred all the educated people, the American Aristocracy plans to just starve them out of existence. When people demand a decent return for the years they have invested in education and experience the aristocracy simply imports lesser talented but credentialed replacements on an H1B visa. Instead of paying American scale wages to people with degrees in computer science and nursing and some other fields where demand is great, the aristocracy pays their politicians to create the H1B visa program. This assault on the people of the nation imports "temporary" credentialed software people and nurses and other technical people from India, Pakistan, and other places at much lower wages than Americans would normally earn. These individuals come here on a temporary basis, in many instances avoiding US taxes, and loot our economy. They then retreat to India or Pakistan where the average annual income is about $300 per year and live very well indeed while waiting to return for another load of loot. The nations of India and Pakistan lose the services of these people in their economies, the American wage earners get the wrench, and the aristocratic asset owners make out like bandits. And the root of this problem is again simple greed and the lust for more and more power and control. The refusal to reward the American investment in education needed to fill these jobs will insure that that people will no longer invest in such education. It is the refusal to pay adequate wages which then creates a "labor shortage" in these fields. By refusing to pay adequate wages to a specialty field such as nursing or computer science a shortage will actually be developed in that particular specialty thereby necessitating a continued program of H1B work visas and a continued destruction of American wages.

Through their continued deceptions concerning the nature of inflation, investment, and debt, and by insisting that more and more tax advantage for the wealthiest Americans and less and less government will create prosperity, those who hold the majority of the assets of the nation are using the two major political parties and the trained seal economics "profession" to protect and enhance their own stations in a way that is detrimental to the nation and its people. Our current, so called, "representatives" have become so totally owned by the aristocratic minority of asset owners at the top that these individuals can accomplish their goals through the collection of interest and rent while dumbing down the wage earners and the actual producers in the economy. And the acceptance of an inanity such as "labor shortage" is a testimonial to the success of their self indulgent larceny.

Nowhere is the increasing disparity in wealth more obvious than in the Unites States today. And the "free trade" smoke screen and the tax cuts for the rich are at the center of it all. The United States of America, even after importing another 32 million people in the 1990's still has more accessible resources per capita than any other nation. Even after the influx of more uneducated immigrants the United States still has a very acceptable level of educated people, and the means to educate the immigrants. The United States has absolutely no need whatsoever to trade with any other nation at any disadvantage to the producers in this nation, no need to reduce wages or to concern itself with international "competition". Our entire trade deficit would disappear tomorrow if we were to tax transportation fuels instead of taxing wages in support of the Social Security system. i.e. if we did away with FICA tax and dramatically increased the taxation of gasoline. We do not need to "compete" in "world trade" because we need the produce of the rest of the world far less than the rest of the world needs ours. And all of the malarkey about the "competitiveness" of American labor is a self serving lie to enhance the power of the aristocratic minority of the nation. As wages fall and as asset prices increase then the ability of the average American to purchase any substantial share of the land or other assets of the nation erodes. And while the asset owners control our industries and continue their use of glitz, sex, and glamor to encourage consumption and indebtedness, the trained seal economists ignore or praise the indebtedness and increasing disparity of wealth.

At this point in time (2002) there is absolutely nothing that is of more economic importance to the vast majority of Americans than opportunity and security for the American work force, a rise in wages and a decrease in asset values. The trade deficit, the budget deficit, and the strength of the American dollar are, by comparison, mere annoyances because of our unique position of self sufficiency. And if private industry (our aristocratic asset owners) are unwilling to employ the American work force then the American government simply needs to stop sending them their welfare checks (in the form of rent and interest and tax cuts) and/or to provide employment for those who are unemployed even in direct competition with current asset owners. Unemployment (more precisely the lack of opportunity to see to ones needs by providing a service to ones fellows) is what results when the current holders of monopoly privilege (assets) have no need to invest or employ their assets. When the holders of assets can simply charge rent and interest for the use of their assets and have their ownership privileges secured by a government paid for by those who labor in pursuit of less and less attainable asset ownership then we will have ensconced an aristocracy and a caste system in which the wealthy will forever be maintained in their lofty stations and the rest of us are consigned to serfdom. We are very very close to this state of affairs in the American and World economy of today.