People who look at unemployment generally double the gov't figures.

The same kind of tricks are used for exports, and all kinds of things. It's a HUGE shell game and this is fairly mainstream knowledge. You have to pretend it's all legit to get a job in the US media, and you have to sound like you accept it all at face value to get various "selling" jobs where you're convincing people to give you your life savings to throw away in the stock market, but most people know much about our economy is hallucinated.

Take "Productivity" for instance. Amazing things are called "productivity" including, or should I say especially, exporting US jobs.

And here's where Kunstler is dead right, the current "booming" economy is based on the real estate bubble. Building sprawl. Building statues! More statues! Bigger statues! Jobs for all! Making the stone tools and the people who get that red rock for the top of the head, and the people who keep the grass trimmed around the statues, etc. You get the idea. A huge proportion of US jobs depend on those McMansions, and even more jobs, like nail salons and the Olive Garden, depend on people feeling "spendy" because their McMansion appreciated this year. And car sales are very much driven by "home" sales, look at all the ads on TV for trucks, showing someone loading lumber because they're gonna get some work done on the house, yep.

The gov't's job, almost, is to keep the people from freaking out, and try to make the coming Depression more of a slide than a crash. Like in The Matrix, can't break the illusion too abrubtly (sp?), it could be fatal.