Stupid Unemployment Games

So we covered the CPI shenanigans foisted by the gubmint via the BLS in Stupid CPI Games. Whereby you think you're making/worth more, but lowfat(!) rice & lamb meal costs more yet, and still you're told by slyly slinking agent kitties that said kibble really, honestly, costs less than the price shows quite unambiguously, if you'll just look at these models and adjustments right here...

Well, here's the unemployment counterpart to that numbers racket, as explained by The Big Picture's Barry Ritholtz. And here's Shadow Stats' John Williams's take on it. Funnily (or not)--charmingly, even (or not)--'merkuns are always deriding the socialist Euros for their double-digit unemployment, presumably due to their supposedly wrong-headed disincentivization of work, and well, here we is. And this while things remain relatively good, all things considered.

Hoocoodanode (thanks, CR/Tanta!) building excess houses and buildings and paper and levering and bidding them up and borrowing on the resultant "equity" wasn't the way to endless prosperity? You don't like this? Well, sucks to your Ponzi finance, Piggy!