Your Lying Eyes

A lot of talking heads, news anchors, and political mouth-pieces are tossing the word "recovery" around as if the last three years were just a bad hangover.  Some of them are even out there telling you that you don't have that enormous, brain-mashing headache you've been complaining about.  "Hey, we're in a recovery!  Why, the unemployment rate is down to 8.8%!  216,000 jobs were added last month!  The stock markets are BOOMING!"   I don't want to be a buzzkill, but there are two problems with that.  The first problem?  Those are statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.  Gallup paints a different picture.  According to them, "Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, was 10.0% in March -- down from 10.2% in mid-March and 10.3% at the end of February, but above the 9.8% at the end of January. U.S. unemployment was 10.4% at the end of March a year ago. The percentage of part-time workers who want full-time work was 9.3% at the end of March -- down from 9.7% in mid-March and 9.6% in both February measurements. The current percentage remains higher than the 9.1% at the end of January but lower than the 10.0% of a year ago."  Maybe I'm just a skeptic at heart, I don't know, but they have been studying polling data independently for the last 75 years.  "Don't be so infantile, Mr. Johnson," you're probably saying, "Gallup polls about a thousand people while the U.S. Bureau of Labor counts tens of thousands, so try again, you insignificant little molecule of monkey flatulence!"  Sticks and stones, lefty, sticks and stones.  But I don't need Gallup to make my second point, all I need is Wal-Mart.  You see, I found a reciept in a kitchen drawer yesterday from 2007.  Apparently, I bought a loaf of bread back then for 98 cents.  That same loaf tonight? $1.28.  Block of Extra Sharp Cheddar cheese?  In 2007, it was $4.98, now it's $8.98.  A gallon of milk was $2.85, and I remember being pissed then- now, it's three and a quarter.  If I stopped for gas that night, I filled up for around $2.89 a gallon.  Today, it was $3.29 a gallon.  The last time I bought a pack pf cigarettes at the Wal-Mart gas station, by the way, it cost me $2.25.  Today, thanks to inflation and taxes, it would have cost me $5.55.  These days, I only get my tobacco from the Tribal smokeshops.  So much cheaper.  "So what, grandpa," you might be saying, "why don't you tell us about how you could go to the movies for a nickle when you were our age?" Where am I going with this?  Follow me.  In an age where people are already living paycheck to paycheck and thanking God that they even have a job, we're being told everything is great!  Your paycheck, if you get one, is the same as four years ago and prices have doubled, but don't worry!  Stocks are up!  We hired a whole bunch of temporary workers to fill in potholes!  The future is bullish!  Why, we're only double the unemployment and prices of 2007 back when the evil tyrant George Bush was president!  When I ask why my paycheck doesn't go as far as it did three or four years ago, why is Wal-Mart the only business in town still thriving, what answers do I get from the Huffington Post crowd and the administration they carry water for?  "Don't you see we're in a recovery?  Who are you going to believe, me, or your lying eyes?"