Eric Zuesse – Are US Economic Statistics Trustworthy? + Why Russia is Enormously Under Rated

8 januari 2024Businessplan, Home, Locatie, Media, Ridderboek, Zuesse0

Are US Economic Statistics Trustworthy?

According to the official statistics, US Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in current prices has been steadily increasing from $ 20.000 in 1987 to $ 80.412 in 2023, and it was $ 76.343 in 2022, so increased 5.4% during 2023.

According to the official statistics, the inflation rate in 2023 was 3.1%. On 12 October 2023, the US Government headlined “Social Security Announces 3.2 Percent Benefit Increase for 2024”. So, according to the official statistics, America’s SS retirees this year will be receiving 3.2 percent more than in 2023, which matches the official 3.1% inflation rate, and, so, these retirees won’t be experiencing a decline in living standards.

However, on 18 December 2023, the Monmouth University poll headlined “Biden gets especially poor marks on inflation and immigration; few Americans say he is paying enough attention to their concerns”, and reported that the “President Biden Job Rating” in December 2023 was 34% Approve and 61% Disapprove, and the “Biden Policy Ratings” showed that the biggest “Disapprove” and smallest “Approve” ratings were for Immigration, on which the Disapprove was 69%, and were for Inflation, on which the Disapprove was 68%. Monmouth’s article explained it this way.

‘The Biden administration keeps touting their infra structure investments and a host of positive economic indicators. Those data points may be factual, but most Americans are still smarting from higher prices caused by post pandemic inflation. This seems to be what’s driving public opinion. There is political danger in pushing a message that basically tells people their take on their own situation is wrong,’ said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

Currently, 44% of Americans say they are struggling to remain where they are financially. Another 43% report being basically stable, while only 12% say their financial situation is improving. In the three years prior to the pandemic, the number of Americans who were struggling ranged between 20% and 29% while those who reported having improved finances ranged between 20% and 25%. When the COVID pandemic hit in March 2020, the number who said their finances were improving dropped to 11% but those who were struggling were 26%, which was about on par with prior polling. This latter number remained basically steady throughout the pandemic and stood at 24% in June 2021, just a few months into the start of the current inflationary cycle. The number of Americans who said they were struggling increased to 42% as inflation peaked at about 9% in June 2022, but then went down to 37% in October 2022 as the rate of inflation started to ease. However, even though the inflation rate has continued to decline, the number of Americans who reported struggling started to increase again, hitting 41% in March of this year before registering 44% in the current poll.

Just 31% of the American public says Biden has been giving enough attention to the issues that are most important to their families. The vast majority, 65%, wish he would give more attention to those issues. Just 11% of Republicans and 25% of independents say Biden is paying enough attention to their top concerns. Although a majority of Democrats, 58%, feel he is paying the right amount of attention to their top issues, a sizable minority, 41%, wish he would focus more on those concerns.

Everywhere that I travel in the United States I see fewer well maintained buildings than before, and more dilapidated and apparently abandoned ones than before. It looks like a country that’s in economic decline, with more and more deteriorating and boarded up buildings and empty storefronts each and every year.

According to the official statistics, the US “national rental vacancy rate has declined 40.5% since 2009, when vacancy hit an all time high, 11.1%.” So, at its peak in 2009 right after the 2008 real-estate crash, it was 11.1%, but now is 6.6%. However:

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Wolf Richter – What Is the Actual Housing Vacancy Rate?”

On page 4, we see that in Q4, 2022.

Total number of housing units 143.95 million.

Year over year increase in housing units +1.34 million

Total number of vacant housing units: 14.55 million.

Total vacancy rate 10.1%, 14.55 million divided by 143.95 million.

Wolf Street, 2 February 2023

https://archive.is/MEGN4#selection-435.0-461.68

So: the nominal 6.6% vacancy rate is an actual 10.1% vacancy rate. Mr. Richter’s very informative article explains how the US Government does this.

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Furthermore.

“VACANT HOMES VS. HOMELESSNESS”

Sixteen million homes currently sit vacant across the U.S. In every state across the country, many homes remain empty while hundreds of thousands of Americans face homelessness. Vacant homes and buildings often succumb to the elements and deteriorate due to leaks, damage and general lack of maintenance, before ever finding a buyer. … There are currently 28 vacant homes for every one person experiencing homelessness in the U.S.

United Way, 28 March 2023

https://unitedwaynca.org/blog/vacant-homes-vs-homelessness-by-city/

https://archive.is/ZFtfe#selection-1135.0-1139.310

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And America’s rental vacancies are generally concentrated in its cities; and those urban vacant rental properties are approximately twice as likely to remain vacant for over a year than are ones outside the cities, so, in America, vacant rental spaces and their associated economic decline are overwhelmingly an urban problem, far less of a problem in suburban and rural areas, where most of the vacant buildings aren’t rentals but simply investor owned.

One sees these realities when traveling around the country. America’s cities are visibly in decline. Perhaps the reason why the official statistics are so strikingly at odds with what the American people see is that the US Government’s economic numbers cannot be trusted.

Therefore, perhaps a good question for pollsters to start asking would be “Do you trust the US Government’s official published numbers on the nation’s economy much, or somewhat, or little, or not at all?” Because, there is an anomaly, which needs to be explained. Why are the US Government’s economic statistics showing a successful economy while the American public’s opinions are reporting quite the opposite?

https://theduran.com/are-u-s-economic-statistics-trustworthy/

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Why Russia is Enormously Under Rated

The speculations in the US and its colonies, ‘allies’, that Ukrainian troops and NATO weapons and guidance will achieve victory against Russia in the battlefields of Ukraine are receding, if not already disappearing, down the memory hole of US empire propaganda; and, so, the time has arrived for an analysis of that memory hole itself, to see what has been forgotten or else never known to the public.

As I have previously documented, Russia has achieved, ever since Putin came into power in 2000, a rate of economic growth that is almost as steep as China’s, and vastly higher than America’s or any of America’s colonies. The stagnation now is in The West, not in The East. And the growth is especially in China and Russia. But the US regime resolutely refuses to acknowledge Russia’s success. Even more, it refuses to acknowledge America’s decline, which is blatant. And even more than that, it hides the fact that the imperial regime, US Government itself, is doing as well as it is, only by exploiting its European colonies and Japan, America’s biggest colony in The East, which are therefore doing even worse than America itself is. This is the traditional result in any empire, exploitation of its colonies, and it’s certainly the case regarding every one of America’s colonies except South Korea, whose economy is unique in the American empire, for performing better than America’s does, though still not as well as the global average.

The reason why South Korea is performing better than the imperial power isn’t yet clear, but all of the at least major nations in the empire are performing significantly worse than the global average, and both China and Russia, the two major Asian powers, are performing significantly better than any of those US empire nations is, and significantly better than the global average.

As to which nations are democracies, and which are dictatorships, the only nation that has been empirically studied in depth on that question is the United States, which in all of the studies shows as being very clearly a dictatorship by its super rich, wealthiest 0.01%, and especially by its almost a thousand billionaires,, no democracy at all. Furthermore, a NATO affiliated poll taken in 53 countries during 2022, asked in each country whether they agree with the statement, “My country is democratic,” and the highest percentage who said Yes amongst all of the 53 countries surveyed was China, at 83%. 2nd highest was Vietnam, at 77%. The US was worse than average, and was tied at N°s 40 & 41, out of the 53 nations, with Colombia, at 49%. Barely less than half its citizens said that they live in a democracy. Tied for N°s 44 & 45 were Peru and Russia, at 46% each. So, if America, which is the only country that has been scientifically analyzed to determine whether it is a democracy, and it has consistently been found NOT to be, is less of a dictatorship than Russia is, it’s only slightly less of a dictatorship than Russia is. Moreover, the United States has a higher percentage of its people living in prisons than does any other country on the planet, it is authentically N°1 on that, at 639 prisoners per 100,000 residents, whereas Russia is N° 25 on that, at 341. China is N° 117, tied with Tajikistan, at only 121. Vietnam has 128 per hundred thousand, slightly worse than China. So, on that measure, Russia isn’t nearly as bad as America, and China is significantly better than both. America is the world’s top police state. But we already know that it is a dictatorship.

Furthermore, on 8 December 2023, Gallup headlined so as for their article to get as few viewers as possible, “Russian Life in 6 Charts”, and reported actually a number of key realities that the US regime wants its public not to know, such as that “Russians See Economic Uptick and Brighter Living Standards Ahead” “Approval of China’s Leadership Climbs to Record Heights” and in Russia “Most Are Satisfied With Personal Freedoms, More Divided on Media” and “Feelings of Safety Reach Record High Among Russians” and also “Russians’ Approval of China’s Leadership Climbs, US and Germany Flat.” This last one might have been showing that whereas 71% of Chinese answered Yes to “Do you approve or disapprove of the job performance of the leadership of [your country]?” the comparable percentage regarding the people in Germany was 10%, and the comparable percentage regarding US was 6%. However, in accord with the need by Gallup, a frequent US Government contractor, to hide instead of draw public attention to, information that the regime wants the public not to know, Gallup left unanswered there what the phrase “US and Germany Flat” actually meant. It probably meant only that Russians disliked Germany’s leadership and disliked America’s leadership even more, and that Russians, NOT Chinese, rated China’s leadership 71% favorably. Gallup’s report said nothing about how Russians view Russia’s own leadership. Probably the reason for this is that the US regime doesn’t want the public to know that the reason that Putin has been winning re elections ever since 2000 is that his leadership of Russia has been stellar, easily beating that of the US or any US colony, ‘ally’. And would the US regime want the American people to know that whereas in America, Joe Biden’s leadership gets only a 39% job approval rating, and historically going back to America’s worst ever President Truman in 1945, American Presidents have averaged only a 50% job approval rating from Americans, Putin, ever since he came into power has averaged a 75% job approval-rating from Russiansm and it’s even higher now at 80%? So, instead, the US regime’s propaganda media hide that reality, and pretend that Putin is a ‘dictator’. And they hide all of the facts that were in this Gallup article and headlined it as “Russian Life in 6 Charts”, which is less interesting than any of those facts are.

So: what IS the job approval rating of China’s leader, Xi Jinping? On 20 December 2014, The Diplomat headlined “The World’s Most Popular Leader China’s President Xi” and reported:

The Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation co sponsored a survey on global perceptions of international leaders. The results, released this month, were based on polls of citizens in 30 countries around the world, who were asked about their familiarity with and approval of 10 world leaders. According to the survey, Chinese President Xi Jinping had the highest approval rating, both at home and abroad. Xi earned a composite 8.7 rating,out of 10, beating Russian President Vladimir Putin, 8.1, for the top spot.

Both Putin and Xi had astonishingly high domestic approval ratings, with Xi at 9 out of 10 and Putin at 8.7, for comparison, US President Barack Obama scored 6.2. International perceptions, however, set Xi and Putin apart. The Russian President scored only a 6 when being evaluated by foreigners, dead last among the 10 leaders included in the survey. Xi got a 7.5, just edging out Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 7.3. Xi was viewed particularly favorably in Asian countries, except Japan and Vietnam, as well as Africa.

Of course, that was being reported just a few months after America’s Obama regime had grabbed Ukraine in a bloody coup that he hid behind mass anti corruption demonstrations in Ukraine in February 2014, so, since the US propaganda factory had been portraying Putin instead of Obama as the global villain, the low international approval rating for Putin is understandable.

After the propaganda against China starting with the Trump regime in 2017, America’s Pew Research Center reported on 27 July 2023 its polling in 24 countries, mainly US colonies, concerning the person’s “confidence in Chinese President Xi Jinping to do the right thing regarding world affairs,” and found that mainly they had “none at all” and the 24 country median was 74% hostile toward him. Propaganda, such as from the Trump and Biden White House, can cause a political leader’s, such as Xi’s, polls, such as in US and ‘allied’ countries, to turn upside down virtually overnight.

The Chinese Canadian Xiaoming Guo headlined on 29 September 2022, “What is the approval rating for Chinese president Xi Jinping?” and wrote

There are no approval ratings in China domestically. China does not depend on polls to govern. The West does not depend on polls to govern either. The west depends on polls for election campaigns. The politicians of the West depend on polls to design their campaign strategies for attracting more ballots. They are, in essence, not leaders but echo to polls. They are populists. When the West says they are leaders, they actually manipulate public opinions through polls, statistics, and rhetoric. They manipulate public opinions so that voters believe in what is not necessarily true.

Xi, on the other hand, is a true leader who just does whatever is good for the people, regardless of what kind of poll is. Xi accomplished a few things that win the hearts of the Chinese people. One of them is cracking down on corruption. It is a significant turn. (…)

But Western polling firms have polled in China on how the citizenry feel about their Government. I headlined on 24 March 2023, “How Nations’ Citizens Rate Their Own Government” and reported from the Edelman Trust Barometer For “Trust in Government,” China ranked N° 1 at 91%. For “Trust in Media,” China ranked N° 1 at 80%. For “Trust in Business,” China ranked N° 1 at 84%. US scored around 40% in each, and Russia scored around 30% in each. Just about the only thing that Russians trust is the nation’s leader , which the US and its colonies want to “regime change.” They want to do to Russia and to China what they did to Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, et cetera, and, so, the propaganda media are demonizing, for “regime change”, Putin and Xi.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to US and allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’, duping the public.
Eric Zuesse blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/.

https://theduran.com/why-russia-is-enormously-under-rated/

Are US Economic Statistics Trustworthy?

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Wolf Richter – What Is the Actual Housing Vacancy Rate?”

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“VACANT HOMES VS. HOMELESSNESS”

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Why Russia is Enormously Under Rated

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