Jay Shay writes: “I had an amusing conversation with a so-called ‘normal’ American the other day. I was presenting him with the current figures on how bad it really is on all the issues he mentioned, and he acted like it was something he had never heard before. I realized that maybe he never has heard how bad it has gotten, and maybe he didn’t want to hear it. His shock and anger were immediate and vitriolic in nature. He denounced me as a liar, and claimed I was making these things up out of thin air.”
“The fact that most of the figures and facts I gave him were from US government agencies and the newest reports did not even slow him down in his attacks. I repeatedly pointed out that the facts were coming from his oh so loved government and he almost physically attacked me. I even showed him the printed reports from various agencies and he accused me of fabricating them completely.”
I think Americans will be absolutely furious when they finally wake up and realize that significant portions of the so-called economic growth is invented hedonic calculations, that inflation has been massively underestimated by virtue of accounting chicanery and that their money is not even money. Doubt me? Look up any econ 101 textbook, which will say that one of the features of money is that it is a store of value. There may not be much inherent value to metal, stone or land – all of which have been used as currencies in the past – but there’s surely more than there is in the electrons in your bank account.