Article Analysis: Let's Get Fictional
The performance of the U.S. economy in the mid to late 1990s "grew at above-average rates driven by technological change and innovation." (Puplava, 2005) Today our economic strength is measured by our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. Real GDP is "the market value of final goods and services produced in an economy, stated in the prices of a given year." (Colendar, 2004). Today, as in the 1990's the U.S. has reached a record low unemployment rate, which "is the percentage of people in the economy who are willing and able to work but who are not working." (Colendar, 2004). Included in this conundrum we see steady declines in the U.S. inflation rate. Inflation "accelerates when an economy is operating above potential, one way of estimating potential output is to estimate the rate of unemployment below which inflation has begun to accelerate in the past." (Colendar, 2004).
For many economists, optimism in the economy's strong performance was, and is today, tempered with a quizzical somewhat dismayed reservation. Jim Puplava is among the many such economist with reservations. In 2005, Puplava wrote an daily editorial piece for a online publication, Financial Sense Online, dtd March 7, 2005. Appropriately titled Let's Get Fictional begins by quoting Buddha, showing his readers where he is going, leaving no questions as to his purpose for writing.
"Delusions, errors and lies are like huge, gaudy vessels, the rafters of which are rotten and worm-eaten, and those who embark in them are fated to be shipwrecked." -Buddha
Delusions, is the "gross and false overestimation of personal worth, importance, powerfulness, or attractiveness." (Encarta World English Dictionary (North Amer ...