Heads in the Beltway Sand

Those within the Washington DC beltway are in the dark when it comes to the economy

The more I read about the U.S. Government’s view on what happened to the Economy in 2008, the more I am convinced that there is a rather large ostrich farm located within the confines of the Washington, DC beltway. The beltway is the area inside the I-495 highway that circles the nation’s capital. Within this circle reside our federally elected officials and an enormous number of Government employees.

These good folks seem to be of the mind that all is truly well with the Union; after all, the President told us so back in January. I can understand their “head-in-the-sand” mentality, but come on, surely someone there must keep up with the news or C-Span. Some form of media in DC must give them some sense of where the American public stands on issues as large as the economy.

As I’m reading “Foreign Affairs” (Jan./Feb. Issue), I realize that the article I’m most interested in is written by ex-U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger C. Altman. I figure now that he’s out of the political circus, he may actually be in touch with reality and make a rational argument for his theme, “The Fall and Rise of the West”. Then I hit upon the excerpt below:

“While the grim effects of the 2008 financial crisis still resonate across the globe, the recession wasn’t all bad:”

“…the recession wasn’t all that bad”? If it was just a recession perhaps it would not have been that bad, but we’ve encountered a modern-day depression, not a recession, a fact lost on so called “professional economists”. Anyone paying attention such as Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman will tell you we’ve been in a depression for the last five years.

A look at the real numbers will tell you right away that the banking giants of our financial system brought the entire world to its knees. Since its inception in 2008, this Depression has effectively bankrupted the Economies of Greece and Spain, wreaked havoc over much of the Eurozone and has caused real unemployment to remain high back at home.

Altman went on to say that “the result is a U.S. economy poised to emerge stronger than it was before…”

With the true unemployment figures alone, this statement is ridiculous. We have a “bought-and-paid-for” Congress that keeps trying to secure our national slide into the gutter on the orders of those who continue make record profits. We also have a large group of “higher moral” States that feel they too can run roughshod over the American Public.

These actions (or in some cases inaction) are fully supported by a relative handful of U.S. based multinational Companies and their puppets in Washington, DC. If you doubt this for a second, I refer you to ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Here are a few demographic numbers that will bear out an argument for Depression:

Manufacturing is at it’s lowest point since the end of World War II

These are figures describe the true unemployment rates in the U.S. (the SGS Alternate). It includes those who’s unemployment has ran out and those who have given up looking for work.

SGS = Shadow Government Statistics

Still, none of our financial “leaders” have been indicted, stood trial, or gone to jail and why would they? They’re the ones calling the shots, but they do so from Wall Street, not inside the DC beltway.