Austan Goolsbee Obama chief economic adviser leaving, Unemployment rate above 9 percent, Orwellian spin continues

“Winston dialed “back numbers” on the telescreen and called
for the appropriate issues of the Times, which slid out of
the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes’ delay.  The
messages he had received referred to articles or news items
which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to
alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify.  For
example, it appeared from the Times of the seventeenth of
March that Big Brother, in his speech of the previous day,
had predicted that the South Indian front would remain quiet
but that a Eurasian offensive would shortly be launched in
North Africa.  As it happened, the Eurasian Higher Command
had launched its offensive in South India and left North
Africa alone.  It was therefore necessary to rewrite a
paragraph of Big Brother’s speech in such a way as to make
him predict the thing that had actually happened.”…George Orwell, “1984”

“As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any partiucular number of the Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in it’s stead. This process of continuation alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs–to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to be correct; nor was any item of news, or expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to be on record.”…George Orwell, “1984″
“the Times of the nineteenth of December had published the official forecasts of the output of various classes of consumption goods in the fourth quarter of 1983, which was also the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. Today’s issue contained a statement of the actual output, from which it appeared that the forecasts were in every instance grossly wrong. Winston’s job was to rectify the original figures by making them agree with the later ones.”…George Orwell, “1984”

Most of the key economic indicators have worsened recently, the unemployment rate is back over 9 percent and there is increasing mention of the spectre of a depression.

From the Chicago Tribune June 6, 2011.

“Top Obama economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, will quit to return to University of Chicago”

“Austan Goolsbee, President Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser, is leaving the administration and returning to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business to teach.

The announcement from the White House late Monday comes at a time when the U.S. unemployment rate is back above 9 percent, speculation is growing that the nation may be at risk of dipping back into a recession and amid intense political debate over whether to extend the nation’s debt ceiling,

Goolsbee began advising Obama before his election as president and has become the administration’s chief public spokesman on the economy. He has headed the White House Council of Economic Advisers for the past nine months. On ABC’s “This Week” program Sunday, Goolsbee emphasized that the administration had made progress on employment since the depths of the Great Recession and said “don’t make too much of any one jobs report.”

May’s unemployment rate, released last week, climbed to 9.1 percent. The stock market has been sliding recently on concerns about a slowing economy in the U.S. and globally.

Obama said in a statement, “Since I first ran for the U.S. Senate, Austan has been a close friend and one of my most trusted advisers. Over the past several years, he has helped steer our country out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.””

Read more:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-goolsbee-quits-20110606,0,7903522.story