Have We Become a Population of Mushrooms?

Washington feeds us lies by the shovel-full while the truth is doled out with an eyedropper.

Courtesy: warwithoutend.co.uk

(HARRISVILLE, N.H.) - If you have ever listened to a politician give a speech telling you how things are improving and then looked around and wondered what planet he or she was living on, don’t feel alone. You walk away wondering how they could stand there and lie so brazenly. Well, they are not actually lying to you... they are simply withholding some of the truth from you.

Let me explain. For my first example, I will look at the unemployment rate. As of the month of July 2011, Oregon had an unemployment rate of 9.5% or about 3.2% higher than the national average. According to the statistics calculated and kept by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 188,829 unemployed Oregon citizens that month.

What the government is not telling you is the whole truth. The whole truth is that there were 188,829 unemployed Oregon citizens collecting unemployment benefits in July of 2011. Those Oregon citizens who had collected the maximum allowable unemployment benefits but still did not have a job simply dropped off the unemployment rolls and as far as the government is concerned, they ceased to exist.

Now we must also add to those unemployed individuals who ceased to exist, all self-employed Oregon citizens who were unable to find work because of the economy. People like self-employed carpenters, builders, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, painters, consultants of all types, mechanics, landscape specialists, etc. You see, self-employed individuals are not eligible to collect unemployment benefits to begin with so they are not counted.

As you can see, the unemployment figure provided by the government is not a lie; it is simply tilting the table in the government’s favor to make them appear that they are doing a better job for the citizen and taxpayer than they really are.

The next example we should look at is the Cost of Living as reported by the government. As you and I go grocery shopping, we notice the cost of our regular grocery list climbing week after week. Then we stop at the gas station to buy gas for our vehicle and find that the same thing is happening at the gas pump. Oh, we cannot forget the cost of heating our homes. Regardless of which fuel you use, it is costing you far more to heat your home than it did a couple of years ago.

So how is it that the government claims that the cost of living has not gone up much at all? Once again, they are not out-and-out lying to you. They are just not giving you all of the information you need. One such piece of key information is the fact that the government does not count food and fuel into their calculation for the Cost of Living. If you folks have figured a way to live without eating or using fuel, I wish you would share it with the rest of us because food and fuel certainly make-up a big portion of what it costs me to live.

Washington feeds us lies by the shovel-full while the truth is doled out with an eyedropper.

Our government has viewed us as a cash crop for too many years. It seems clear to me that the government views us as so many mushrooms. They keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit just as if we were mushrooms. Maybe it is time to raise the price of bullshit and teach those in Washington exactly how it feels to be unemployed... but, that is just my opinion!