Here is a good one I read today:

"Inflation was low because oil prices surged"

Actually it's real story at marketwatch. It's starting to get bad when they admit their numbers have nothing to do with reality.

http://tinyurl.com/yu7ayo
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- As odd as it sounds, the government reported that inflation was at a four-decade low in the third quarter, primarily because import oil prices rose so much.

If you don't understand that, welcome to the confusing world of national income accounting, where up sometimes is down, and where sometimes one plus one can equal zero.
The simple explantion:
Because of the way the government counts and reports the numbers, real-life inflation was understated and growth was overstated.

The economy didn't really grow 3.9%, and inflation really wasn't 0.8%. The numbers aren't as good as they look.
The complicated explantion:

When reporting on gross domestic product, the government counts up all the economic activity in the country, including consumer spending, business and residential investment, and government spending and investment. Then it adds all the exports, and subtracts all the imports. The final total is gross domestic product.
The fact that imports are subtracted is an important detail, so remember it.
Of course, all this counting is done in current dollars, the kind you and I have in our pockets, the kind that lose value every day to inflation. In order to gauge how much of the increase in spending and investment during a quarter was due to real growth and how much to inflation, the government deflates the total number of dollars by its estimate for how much prices rose.
In the third quarter, the government estimated that current dollar spending and investment increased at a 4.7% annual rate. After subtracting 0.8% for inflation, the real growth rate was 3.9% in the third quarter. See full story.
How does the government estimate inflation? The same way it estimates growth, by looking at individual price changes for consumer spending, business and residential investment, and government spending. Then it adds the price changes for exports and subtracts the price changes for imports.
It subtacts import price changes. Remember that.
Sometimes the mechanical formula produces some "quirky, nonintuititive relationships," said Shelley Smith, who's in charge of figuring the price index for the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Most of the time, the government's formula doesn't produce any weird numbers, because the mathematical quirks all cancel each other out. But in the just concluded third quarter, it did produce quirky numbers that don't accurately reflect reality, even though they are correct from an accounting point of view.

Imported crude oil prices rose from an average of about $69 a barrel in the second quarter to $75 in the third, but wholesale gasoline prices fell by about 10 cents to $2.07 a gallon. Imported prices for energy rose, but domestic prices didn't.

In the government's accounting, prices of imported goods rose at a 10.3% annual pace in the quarter, but that increase was subtracted when figuring the economy-wide price index. Import prices subtracted 1.3 percentage points from inflation in the third quarter. With domestic prices rising slower than they had previously, it was enough to push inflation to four-decade low of 0.8%.

The accounting is right. But it's not reality

The accounting is right. But it's not reality

So that means that they ARE right when they say peak-oil won't happen after all? Reality notwithstanding, 'cos it doesn't actually matter?

--
Jaymax (cornucomer-doomopian)

Ya Empires have a habit of creating their own reality, at least until they collapse of course.

"That's not the way the world really works anymore..''

...''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
http://tinyurl.com/hotkq

somehow, I believe the pundits and 'industry' experts over at Fox Business will rip apart anyone who dares question 'official' government 'inflation' numbers. At least until after the executives have purchased large sums of physical gold/silver and dried food. Then of course, its off to the races.

The sad thing is, many old grandma's and folks sending their kids to college will listen to the gubmint, of course, these people also vote. hmmmmm.

as cheerful as things are around the world, its no where near as cheerful as they're gonna need to be!