Ohio miners forced to attend Romney rally without pay...

[kandrathe]

Nevertheless, despite having seen and heard the clear implications - that the US is half as rich as in 1990, that prices have risen by six times - you still believe shadowstats? Incredible.

I don't drink the cool aid, no. William's is probably close to "tinfoil hat", but I do think it is worthwhile to question the methodology and poke holes in it.

Yes, U-6 data is available, and some of the "are you wanting a job or are you out of the labor force" questions are valid. But, we know certainly that it is also unrealistic to just stop counting the unemployed once their benefits run out. There is definitely a possible conflict of interest in the governments production of its own statistics.

Politicians (ergo the government) do cherry pick the particular statistics that make themselves look the best. It's not conspiracy theory, it's human nature. If you were evaluated by three people, getting an A-, B- and a C+ which report would you put up on the wall? I guarantee our narcissist politicians would only put up the A-, and file the others as inaccurate aberrations.

They describe a statistical property of *all* people.

Or, they describe the price experience of "no people". My feeling is that it is probably too diffuse to be of any real use. It needs to be much more targeted for particular population groups, in season, and regional.

The alternative being that the government pays retired people who live in wealthy neighbourhoods more than those that live in poor ones?

We don't need to leap to extreme either. We might change it by letting the States do more with block grants, and the Feds do less. Does it seem fair that a person who lived in NYC their entire life must leave due to cost of living issues when they retire? You could adjust the income caps, and rates by locality to absorb the costs. If you live in NYC, you probably have a job that pays a higher wage just due to cost of living. Is it fair that the person in Mobile, Alabama and NYC have the same $107K cap which the NYC person will hit precipitously more often?

If you're saying the government is involved in a Big Lie...

No, it's published in the congressional record. BI - Congress Figures Out Sneaky Way To Raise Taxes And Cut Social Security Benefits Without Anyone Noticing and more recently FP - Obama’s chained inaccuracy.