Lies, Inflation, and the Minimum WageRegular readers are familiar with the Great Inflation Lie.
Lying about inflation is a device of deceit which governments use to
pad numerous economic statistics, since most of these statistics only
have relevance/legitimacy if fully “deflated” by the (real) prevailing
rate of inflation.The example with which readers are most familiar is that understating inflation can be used toexaggerate GDP,
on a point-for-point basis. Understate the rate of inflation by 5%, and
you overstate GDP by an equal 5%. It is thus through this Lie (which is
getting larger every year) that the U.S. government has been able to
pretend that it’s Greater Depression is actually an “economic recovery”.However,
readers have also previously seen another manifestation of the Great
Inflation Lie: to hide the collapse in Western wages, which (in real
dollars) have fallen by more than 50% over the past 40 years. The chart illustrates this Lie perfectly.
Food Prices Set To Rise Again: Weather Experts Predict El Niño Comparable to the Destructive 1997-1998 El NiñoThe 1997-1998 El Niño is estimated to have caused over 23,000 deaths worldwide (source). With
forecasters saying that the signs point to an 80% chance of a strong El
Niño forming towards the end of this year, what impacts can be
expected?While some areas such as the
West Coast of the United States could get a massive amount of rain (very
welcome after record breaking droughts), other areas that rely on rain
for agriculture will be left bone dry. A strong El Niño also increases
fears that production of many key agricultural commodities in Asia and
Australia will suffer.Extreme El Niño events develop
differently from standard El Niños, which first appear in the western
pacific. The extreme events occur when sea surface temperatures
exceeding 82°F develop in the normally cold and dry eastern equatorial
Pacific Ocean. This different location for the origin of the temperature
increase causes massive changes in global rainfall patterns which
result in floods and torrential rain in some places and devastating
droughts and wildfires in others.Kevin Trenberth, a climate
scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Colorado, says the coming event could rival the one from 1997. He has
been monitoring sea levels with satellite altimetry data and has noticed
about a 20-centimeter difference between the western and eastern
tropical Pacific.
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