Economist and founder of ShadowStats.com, John Williams says the government’s “phony numbers” don’t show the public how bad things really are with the economy. Williams prides himself in giving you the actual economic numbers without “accounting gimmicks” that make things look better than they actually are. For example, the latest official government number on inflation shows 8.3%. It’s officially a 40-year high. It gets worse when you strip away all the “accounting gimmicks,” and you see the real number that is burdening real people in the real world. John Williams explains, “My inflation number shows a 17.3% peak in June, and right now it is 16.5%. That is at a 75-year high. I think you will find people are having a more difficult time than they were having 40 years ago.”

On the unemployment front, the government is touting a 3.5% unemployment rate. What are the real numbers when you count all unemployed people no matter how long they have been looking for work? Williams says, “The unemployment numbers are frightening. . . . I think we are seeing what I consider a phony number of 3.5%. After a year, the ‘discouraged worker’ disappears as an issue. . . . The unemployment number is really 24.4% the way it used to be counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).”