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Another day, another round of the mind-numbingly repetitive “beat expectations” game in U.S. markets. Follow the 'logic' here. The same experts who have all just raised their “growth forecasts” for the U.S. economy were predicting that U.S. retail sales would fall by more than 2% in September – one of the worst plunges during this entire Greater Depression.

Even after stripping out the collapse in auto sales, these “experts” were predicting retail sales to be flat. Does this sound like rational predictions from the same group of U.S. perma-bulls who are also saying that the U.S. economy is now growing at an annual rate of more than 3%? How can these “experts” simultaneously predict terrible retail sales numbers for this consumer economy – at the same time they are predicting that this economy is now enjoying robust growth?

The answer, of course, is that it is impossible for rational “experts” to make those two predictions together. In reality, their “predictions” for retail sales were deliberate low-ball estimates (i.e. lies) – made for the sole purpose of being able to say “beat expectations” (regardless of how bad the actual numbers were).

This game has been going on for years. The difference today is that it is taking place during the U.S.'s Greater Depression. This is why this pathetic sham has reached a new level of absurdity. The same group of “experts” who all failed to observe the largest-asset bubble in history, and were all still pumping markets at their bubble-peak, are still (for some totally unknown reason) accepted as authorities.

However, for any individual capable of independent reasoning, this same group of shameless shills is now engaged in a farce so transparent that one must applaud their audacity, if nothing else. Out of one side of their mouths, these “experts” relentlessly pump the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, out of the other side of their mouths, these same perpetual optimists make one extremely pessimistic “prediction” after another – just before some new piece of data is released.

Then, once Pavlov's Dogs (i.e. U.S. retail investors) have been given the “beat expectations” signal for more mindless buying, the “experts” (without missing a beat) begin pumping the fact that the market “beat” their own expectations. Never does anyone question the fact that the same group of optimists are almost always well-below the actual numbers released – due solely to their overwhelmingly negative predictions.

Having dissected these Wall Street mouthpieces, let's turn to the numbers, themselves. The shills were claiming during “Cash for Clunkers” that this rabid, feeding-frenzy on over-priced vehicles would not be some 'one-shot wonder' for that sector. A mere month later, the same shills were predicting that auto-sales would collapse in September. As usual, the media parrots never challenged any of these shills over yet another self-contradiction.

Including auto sales, U.S. retail sales fell 1.5% in September – and that number does not factor-in inflation. You all remember what “inflation” is, don't you? It's that phenomenon which the government pretended did not exist before the U.S. economic collapse. Then, during the worst of the panic, the same government proclaimed that causing inflation (i.e. re-inflating the Wall Street Ponzi-scheme) had become the #1 goal of the U.S. government.

Now that the panic has passed (momentarily), the U.S. government has gone back to pretending that inflation does not exist. This directly implies that their previous scheming was a failure, but as I indicated before, the media parrots never point out the self-contradictions of U.S. propagandists.

We don't need “official” proclamations of “inflation” however, to know that it is once again gaining momentum – since there are several sign-posts which point unmistakably to high inflation today (and out of control inflation tomorrow). Governments have flooded the economy with unprecedented levels of liquidity – several times as much as during the worst previous episodes of inflation in market history.

This alone guarantees inflation, however for the skeptics, we also have the confessions of the very same government officials. It is called (by one and all) “competitive devaluation” of currencies. For anyone with a high-school level understanding of the English language “devaluing” currencies means exactly the same thing as rising prices. Thus, we have governments claiming they are “devaluing” their currencies while (out of the other side of their mouths) they claim that prices aren't rising.

To add another level of absurdity to this farce, the media parrots then interview the market shills about why commodity prices are rising – and the shills all shrug their shoulders, and proclaim that rising commodity prices are simply one of life's inexplicable “mysteries”.

Then there is the U.S. dollar. In a world of “competitive devaluation” of currencies, the U.S. dollar is still managing to fall much faster than all of the world's other currencies. Yet, at the same time, the U.S. government claims that U.S. inflation is lower than anywhere else. In reality, it is a matter of elementary arithmetic to conclude that the U.S. government is simply telling much bigger lies than anyone else.

Of course, I already predicted this precise scenario months ago (see “U.S. government coverts INFLATION into GDP”). Every measurement of GDP must be “deflated” by the real rate of inflation in order to ascertain the actual GDP. The failure to properly account for inflation automatically converts rising prices to higher GDP. This is one of the favorite lies of the U.S. government – precisely because it is so simple.

Prior to the official collapse of the U.S. economy (when high inflation was still ravaging the global economy), the U.S. government was using a “deflator”of 1% to adjust GDP for inflation. A lie of that magnitude was the only way the U.S. government could pretend that the U.S. economy was still “growing” - for a full year after the U.S. economic collapse had already began.

Now, the clumsy liars of the U.S. government are about to resort to similar huge lies about inflation. Because this is now the 5^th “economic recovery” predicted by “Helicopter” Ben, and because in realty the U.S. economy is now in far worse shape than just a year ago, the U.S. government has decided to invent a “recovery” in the U.S. economy (through a phony rise in GDP) – irrespective of what is actually taking place.

Naturally, with this being a “consumer economy” (i.e. a dead-beat economy which no longer generates wealth), the most important lie (outside of inflation, itself) is to pump-up the retail sales numbers. For those tired of been subjected to this nonsense, you do have an option. You can go to Shadowstats.com, and allow John Williams to translate the U.S. government's crooked numbers – using the same statistical methodology used by the U.S. government before it incorporated an endless stream of statistical lies into those calculations.

Barring that, the best option is to automatically conclude the exact opposite of everything you are told by the U.S. government. While this is a less-precise means of translating its lies, it will still prevent you from joining the herd of lemmings – who continue to pump their own money into U.S. equities, while Wall Street insiders have been bailing out of this market for the last 6 months (at an accelerating rate).

The combination of the continued collapse of the U.S. economy, rapidly escalating fiscal crises with most states and municipalities and ever-larger government lies is creating a factual disconnect of epic proportions. This can only end one way: with the abrupt crash (and accompanying panic) in U.S. equity markets.

The fact that this crash is already months overdue does not refute the fact that it is on the way. Rather, it equates to a much worse crash once it finally occurs. For the U.S. perma-bulls, who remain skeptical (and sporadically bombard me with hate-mail), I have two suggestions.

One, is to try to explain to themselves while Wall Street insiders are dumping U.S. equities as rapidly as the sheep are buying. The other option is for them to visit an interesting blog which I was recently pointed toward.

“News from 1930” is the clever concept of this blog's creator to summarize the news from this exact same date(s) from 1930. For those lacking the historical background, in 1930 after the first crash of U.S. markets the consensus from the “experts” was that the worst was over. If this does not already sound hauntingly familiar, spend some time browsing over the entries. Indeed, on my first visit to that blog (and a cursory look at the “news” posted), I mistakenly concluded that he was posting current news items.

Clearly, the horde of lemmings who continue to push U.S. markets to ever more-unrealistic valuations could desperately use the reality-check which this web-site provides. Sadly, much like most “dieting” in our societies is undertaken by relatively thin individuals, the people who need to gain this perspective the most are the same people who are least likely to risk having their market-fantasies shattered.

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