Posted on 02/16/2012 6:23:04 PM PST by mylife
"Perception management" can be usefully shortened to a one-syllable word: "con." The confidence-man's most basic tool is to create the surface sheen of success with minimal investment of time and capital. Thus the con-man buys a couple of designer suits, rents a cubbyhole office with a prestigious address, leases a 500-series Mercedes vehicle, counterfeits some diplomas or other signifiers of Elite status and achievement, and then goes to work conning his credulous marks.
This exactly describes the strategy being pursued by Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, the financial media, and America's scabrous political class. Consider one of the Status Quo's most valuable cons, the unemployment rate [1] as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
If we look at this chart from the St. Louis Federal Reserve, we see that employment--the actual number of people with jobs, as opposed to those who are without jobs--we see that the number of people with jobs has declined recently and is now at the same level of 3rd quarter 2009, a few months after it was officially declared that the recession had ended.
The official unemployment rate was 10% in October 2009, when about 140 million people were found to have some sort of job, and now that the same number of people have been found to have some sort of job (140 million), the unemployment rate is now only 8.3%, even though the nation has added roughly 6 million residents to the workforce.
Huh? How can 140 million jobs generate an unemployment rate of 10% in 2009 and 8.3% in 2012 while the workforce and population have grown by 6 million? If anything, the unemployment rate should be higher, since the number of people with jobs has held steady while the number of people without jobs has expanded.
Bump.
Its crazy how people eat up the lies.
I think they refer to it as “optics” now.
[Its crazy how people eat up the lies.]
It’s mind boggling, but so many just refuse to believe they are being lied to. Strange that I wrote ‘mind boggling’ because that’s what has happened to them, lol.
[I think they refer to it as “optics” now.]
Libs are good at inventing new words, in health care we are “units” and their ‘percepton management lies’ are now optic, or - sensory receptors?
I’m getting confused, lol
Never forget that debt clock.
The Fed is holding rates at near 0%
If those rates go up just a few % the debt will escalate wildly.
Heck Obama! Heap it on! the rates are almost 0%!
Libs are good at spending money to save humanity while stripping us of humanity.
I agree!
“Its crazy how people eat up the lies.”
This is something that professional con men know well and in fact rely on. People are all too willing to believe a lie that they want to be true, so it makes the con man’s job much easier. The best cons play on the mark’s hopes, dreams and ambitions.
For example, take a very simple short con, the Lottery Ticket con. Con buys a regular lottery ticket, then forges it to make it appear to be a winning ticket. Then, the con “finds” the ticket when a likely rube is passing by, and loudly announces their amazement at finding the winning ticket. In short order, the con will get the rube to pay him some amount of money less than the prize amount in exchange for the ticket, with any number of excuses as to why.
Now, the only reason that this works is because people want it to be true that they are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to get in on this windfall. If they didn’t let their emotions get the best of them, they would easily realize that there’s no good reason for the con to sell them the ticket at a discount or propose to share the winnings with them for a little cash up front. Most people just want to believe so badly that they do the con man’s work for him and push their better judgement aside.
The question with Obama is “Why are people so willing to swallow his crap?”
And the answer is that people want to believe in a black president so badly in order to alleviate an imagined guilt, that they are willing to put aside reason and turn a blind eye to anything the man does.
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