Don’t let the title fool you; we’re not going back in time.
The reference is, of course, to the book by George Orwell. It was written and published in 1948, and
the back-story is that Orwell was playing with titles for his work. He decided
that since it was about the future of mankind he could invert the last two
numbers of the present year and come up with a probable time when it would
become fact instead of fiction.
Now some people believe that Orwell hit the nail on the head
and got the right year, but others, like myself, who liked what Ronald Reagan
accomplished while president are not so sure.
There was one aspect of the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four,
which has really blossomed in recent months and years. It was Orwell’s fictional language, the new
way of speaking called, “Newspeak.” He
even included an essay in the book to explain how the language was constructed
to eliminate certain words and augment and glorify others. One of the aims of Newspeak
was to put a positive spin on any news that would otherwise reflect negatively
on the regime.
In regards to Newspeak in our present world, there are
several economic reports that are released weekly. These show the current status of the American economy as to
consumer sentiment, unemployment, business activity and inventory and other
measurements to show the current weekly activity of our economy.
Lately the reports have been made to look positive even when
they are negative. You may ask, “How is that done?” Well, if a number goes up, it usually is a positive sign, but if
that number is a measurement of a negative trend, like the price of a barrel of
oil, then a positive number is bad news. If you report that negative trend in
words that are thought of as positive, then it can be made to look good instead
of bad.
An example of the above is the weekly Unemployment Report
that measures new claims for unemployment insurance payments for recently laid
off workers. The number has been
increasing slightly every week for about a month. That isn’t good, but when the prior week’s numbers are revised
upward as they have been repeatedly, the new total appears to be lower.
On April 19, 2012, the unemployment claims for the past week
were announced. The number was 386,000 new claims for jobless benefits, a
decrease of 2,000 from the adjusted number from the prior week of 388,000. However, the reported number of that previous week, 'unadjusted', was 380,000, so instead of a decrease of 2,000, the number
actually went up by 6,000.
Hint: If you research the numbers for past weeks you will
find that in every instance the number from the previous week is ‘adjusted’
just enough to make this week’s number a decrease. That is, it as always adjusted upward from the prior week’s
‘reported’ number. That enables the reporters to proclaim that the economy is
improving, even when the new number is ‘unexpectedly higher’ than was
predicted, another catchphrase that has found its way into the economic jargon.
I can’t resist the opportunity to input the Jobless Claims
numbers for the week of April 26th as another example of the ‘apples
to oranges’ comparisons detailed above.
The number of new claims was ‘reported’ as 388,000, a decrease of 1,000
from the ‘adjusted’ number from April 19th of 389,00. The ‘reported’
number for both dates would yield a 2,000 increase, but nobody ever goes back
to examine equivalent numbers. Are you seeing how the game is played and the
numbers manipulated?
Another example of putting a positive spin on a negative
trend: The Consumer Confidence Index recently dropped from 71.6 to 70.2
(1.4-percent of those surveyed were less confident in the economic recovery),
but the news report said that, “…consumer confidence eased.” Now doesn’t that sound like it got better?
In case you’re a skeptic, I read the other day that the
department of Homeland Security has a list of “offensive” words that might
appear in e-mail messages. They trigger
some action that could put you on a terror list if you use them in your communications. I won’t list them here—why put myself on
that list—but you can probably figure out some of them.
Yes, Winston Smith is alive and well in 2012. In case you haven’t read the book, he is the
protagonist in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
