ESU9

I am sure everyone remembered to roll to the Sept. contract today. The market roller coastered around the chart and various economic entities debated the validity of the economic data the government has released of late.

Over at Financial Armageddon, there is an interesting article from a fellow who claims the nation’s books are grossly understating the current unemployment figures, money supply…just about everything, once you get reading the article. His claim goes something like…”the country would be flat on it’s belly if we weren’t using doctored numbers…”

I’ve never been much of a conspiracy theory kind of guy, so I find his declaration of “all things government” to be a bit hard to swallow. On the other hand, another study showed the government subsequent revisions to economic data were usually negative, that is, the revisions usually put the economy in a less positive position than the initial release. Of course, you could argue coincidence. But I’ve never been too big on consistent coincidences, either.

So I suppose the truth lies somewhere between these extreme views. The government has changed the methodology it uses to measure the countries unemployment and GDP, and by in large, the new formulations tend to understate the seriousness of the current problems.

Sheesh, sometimes the entire business wears me out.

As an aside, I have been wondering what the difference in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and the credit default Ponzi scheme AIG has saddled us with. Think about it….AIG did not have the assets to repay, nor was it even close, the entirety of the credit default swaps it issued….kinda of like Madoff, when you think about it. Only we gave AIG billions of dollars to straighten things out, we gonna give Madoff lots of years to straighten things out…in the pokey.