A couple of weeks ago, a professional golfer was disqualified from an international tournament after his caddy was caught trying to hide a club in the course's landscaping shrubbery. Pro golfers are only allowed to carry 14 clubs in their bags, but this particular player was trying to gain an advantage by carrying an additional club. After the golfer's 15th club was noticed, and his caddy was seen attempting to cover up the indiscretion by concealing the evidence, he was kicked out of the tournament for cheating.
In politics, as in golf, there are certain rules that everyone is expected to follow, but some folks can't help but cheat.
For example, presidents have always been judged on their job creation policies by measuring the jobs created and the unemployment rate, among other economic indexes. Yet, in 2009, Barack Obama's Administration changed the measuring stick for job creation by including the number of "jobs saved." The Wall Street Journal quickly labeled the Obama unemployment figures "pure fiction," because "the administration has no way to measure how many jobs are actually being saved."
Fast forward to the June 2012 employment summary, which found the unemployment rate mired at 8.2 percent and job creation struggling to reach 80,000 during the month. These numbers, while startlingly high, are actually much better than they should be because they rely on bogus methods to figure job creation and unemployment.
June's 8.2 percent unemployment number removes a huge segment of unemployed Americans from the data. In fact, no one defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as "Persons Not in the Labor Force" are counted as "unemployed." This includes people who are:
• Unemployed but had a job in the past year;
• Not asked if they want a job;
• So discouraged by the job market that they haven't looked for work in the past month;
• Want a job and are "marginally attached to the labor force;" or
• Without transportation or childcare, making it difficult for them to actively job hunt.
This group of unemployed "persons" makes up almost 88 million individuals -- none of whom count towards Obama's unemployment figures.
After the real unemployment figures are analyzed, including all people who would traditionally be considered "unemployed," Americans can actually see the lies hidden in the Obama Administration's bag.
When all the facts are pulled out of the shrubs, the accurate unemployment rate is 14.9 percent. There's no way to get to Administration's invented 8.2 percent unemployment number and inflated job creation numbers without cheating. Now it's up to voters to decide if Obama should suffer the same fate as the disqualified golfer for attempting to dupe the American people.