Propaganda & Hedonic Adjusting 101
Friday, June 24, 2011 at 7:16PM Interested in a career with the government but you aren't a sociopath? Don't worry, there are lots of other positions in government that don't require extreme psychological disorders. You can grope people and dig through their dirty underwear as a proud employee of the TSA... or you can join the police and shake down people for money whenever they break any one of the thousands of rules.
Not for you? Why not join the mainstream media. But, that's not a part of government, you say? Don't be so naive, of course it is!
No experience writing propaganda? Don't worry! You can start today with this quick and easy tutorial. As an added bonus we'll show you how to manipulate government statistics to impoverish the slaves - sorry, citizens... never call them slaves in public - all in one quick & easy lesson.
Let's begin!
First, read the first three paragraphs from this recent Dow Jones "news" article:
"Lawmakers are considering changing how the Consumer Price Index is calculated, a move that could save perhaps $220 billion and represent significant progress in the ongoing federal debt ceiling and deficit reduction talks.
According to congressional aides familiar with the discussions, the proposal would shift how the Consumer Price Index is calculated to reflect how people tend to change spending patterns when prices increase. For example, consumers tend to drive less when gas prices increase dramatically.
Such a move is widely seen by economists as resulting in a slower rise in inflation. That would impact an array of federal programs that are linked to CPI including the Social Security program and income tax brackets set by the federal government."
To begin, remember, the number one objective of any "news" item is to try to make all the bad things the government does seem really good. But, this is where it gets tricky. There are not many people who will actually help you by giving you any quotes or references to use... so you just need to make them up.
We've got most of the population pretty dumbed down now and if any of them show any vigor or passion in grade school we start early to get them on pills like Adderall. So, you can just make up references in your article, no one will even notice.
As example, this whole article doesn't even quote any real people. That way we can just make up whatever we want. Notice, above, we say, "Congressional aides familiar with the discussion" said. Which congressional aides? That's not important. Further on we state that it is "widely seen by economists as...". Which economists? All of them. Sure, why not. Don't worry, no one will notice or ask us to justify it.
Now, here comes the fun part where we use the public's lack of knowledge about anything economic (thank you Department of Education!) to make something that is really bad for them sound really good! Don't worry, we've been doing this for decades without problem - just look at this "news" piece from 1933 on inflation!
Here is what the government is really doing: We are going to manipulate the "inflation" statistic, called the CPI, to make inflation seem less than it is. It's not really lying. It's a Government statistic to begin with so all we are doing is changing how we compute it.
We've been doing that for decades already with the CPI and no one ever complains. For example, one of our techniques is called a "hedonic adjustment". What we do is when an item gets too expensive, instead of increasing the CPI, we say that people will stop using it and replace it on the index with a cheaper item. For example, if the price of steak gets too expensive then we remove it from the CPI and we put hamburger on instead. If that gets too expensive we'll take off hamburger and put on bologna. If that gets too expensive, eventually, we'll replace it with cat food. Ha ha, by then most seniors will actually be eating cat food, so it actually is quite representative.
Now, in this article, we are planning to do the same with gasoline. Gasoline has gone up a lot in price lately. We've got people so dumbed down they can't see it is obviously because we are at war with and destabilizing countless countries in the Middle East. Plus Ben Bernanke is printing trillions of dollars right now, driving the prices of everything up.
But this proposal in the "news" article is that we are going to remove gasoline from the CPI. We've already removed it from the CPI in the past when we removed it from the "core" CPI. Well, now, we are proposing to remove it completely. After all, as the "news" article states, because gasoline is so expensive people can't afford to drive.
So, if we remove gasoline from the CPI completely, it will keep the CPI figure lower. What this does, in reality, is it just reduces the payments made to pensioners and seniors, because their pensions and social security are indexed to the CPI.
But, we couldn't make the headline, "Congress Proposes to Reduce Payments to Seniors"! Are you crazy! We'd have a huge backlash!
That's why we state that this is "a move that could save perhaps $220 billion and represent significant progress in the ongoing federal debt ceiling and deficit reduction talks".
Who will save the $220 billion? The Government. Who will lose it? Seniors! But it sounds so much better when we put it the way we did, doesn't it?
See, it's easy! And there is lots of potential for advancement! If you get really good, one day you could be writing the speeches for Obama-bot's teleprompter! Oh, keep the robot part quiet, people actually think he is a real human.
Reader Comments (6)
A little "tongue in cheek" today, huh? Style wise sure, but content wise.....sadly it's spot on ! We are being reduced to a pathetic bunch of sheeple......What has happened to the American spirit and drive to live free and independent ???? Oh, I think that free spirit has been diluted by the clever government who tries to hook us all on unfunded "free bees" which keeps us coming back for more, licking the boot of our master, all the while, ensuring our enslavement........how pathetic we now are.........as we submit completely, our backbone now fully replaced by a jelly like substance and our once independent will, now groveling in the dirt, searching for crumbs from our almighty masters......WAKE UP America & God help us all.
You are using scary tactics to make your point. ( TERROR ) Ha and gold is still below 3000
If I was a 13 year old Am erican ( EDUCATED ) I would not be scared of 600,000 debt per person.
Banks and you trying to pull a quicki.
Whatever,
I think Obama should spend 3 trillion on health care,
LOL Brilliant.
Love the sarcasm. Though terribly sad about how close the to realism it's rooted.
Just because we may see a tempory economic collapse ( or bust as we may call it ) does not mean the next boom could be the bigger.
A question for you to think about. Do you think we as a human race are capable of being a rational species.
If so,would that be a benefit? Or do youthink it would be better to have mass psycology?
Hal,
I am not convinced this was all sarcasm. Sure hope it was.
The usual screaming about finacial Armageddon I've heard for the last 30 years. You are dead right about the journalism though. What passes for jounalism and news reporting has declined dramatically in the US. That's why professional pranksters like Howard Stern , and comedy pundits like jon Stewart and Stepen Colbert make such a good living