America's Second Great Depression 2010 Year-end Update (Part 3)

I continue where I left off from Part 2 of this report. [1]

In support of their claims of an economic recovery, Washington cheerleaders and Wall Street hacks continue to focus on ancillary metrics like GDP and corporate profits, all while fudging inflation data. [2] [3]

The claim made that a recovery is in place can be easily refuted using simple math. If you don’t have healthy employment, you don’t have a healthy economy. In a nation whereby consumers account for close to 70% of the economy, economic growth is ultimately driven by jobs. [4]

Before we examine the GDP data, I wanted to discuss some of the shortfalls with the use of this metric as an indicator of economic growth. The gross domestic product is a measure of the value of all goods and services produced in the national economy available for consumption. As the single most relied upon metric of economic health, GDP has numerous flaws which I detailed in America’s Financial Apocalypse and elsewhere.