Looks like we're going to get some more cooked books come July.

[Fuddnik]

6. Read "Bad Money" by Kevin Phillips.

You'll find that EVERY President since Ike has cooked the books to make themselves, GDP, unemployment, and the economy look better.
Here's an excerpt from Harpers, reprinted in the St. Pete Times.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/hard-numbers-the-economy-is-worse-than-you-know/473596

Hard numbers: The economy is worse than you know

Kevin Phillips, Harper's Magazine

Saturday, April 26, 2008 4:30am


Ever since the 1960s, Washington has gulled its citizens and creditors by debasing official statistics, the vital instruments with which the vigor and muscle of the American economy are measured.

The effect has been to create a false sense of economic achievement and rectitude, allowing us to maintain artificially low interest rates, massive government borrowing, and a dangerous reliance on mortgage and financial debt even as real economic growth has been slower than claimed.

The corruption has tainted the very measures that most shape public perception of the economy:

• The monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI), which serves as the chief bellwether of inflation;

• The quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which tracks the U.S. economy's overall growth;

• The monthly unemployment figure, which for the general public is perhaps the most vivid indicator of economic health or infirmity.

Not only do governments, businesses and individuals use these yardsticks in their decisionmaking, but minor revisions in the data can mean major changes in household circumstances — inflation measurements help determine interest rates, federal interest payments on the national debt, and cost-of-living increases for wages, pensions and Social Security benefits.

(snip)