Beware of political promises, especially when it comes to the economy.  History shows politicians have a bad track record when it comes to ‘saving’ the economy.  Sometimes they get it right in the short term, but when it comes to long term planning, forget it.  Long term should be considered 20 years plus, not ten years, or more commonly, 5 years or less.

Big news in economics involving the world and the United States.  Last week a U.S. economics professor was quoted, in the European media, as saying the world was “…partially decoupling,” from the U.S. economy (www.bloomberg.com).  What he meant, and what I’ve be warning about in discussions with acquaintances and relatives, is that the “developing economies” (which should no longer be called “developing”) have now reached a point where they do not need the United States to be economically viable.  Those countries include India, Brazil and China.

How many times has you’ve heard how the Chinese need the U.S. economy in order to continue growing?  Remember how much the U.S. is in debt to the Chinese?  Now, realize they no longer need us economically.  Uh oh.

In other economic news, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has revised, downward, it’s expectations for U.S. economic growth in 2011 (www.imf.org).  Some reasons are the amount of debt owed by the government, and, that economic data coming from the U.S. is never as good as predicted, and in some cases it’s worse.

Here’s an example: Today it was revealed, in a CNNMoney.com article, that according to the U.S. Department of Labor, for the second year in a row, the overall unemployment numbers need to be increased.  They are saying that, so far this year, 366,000 job losses have not been counted.  It was revealed, earlier this year, that 902,000 lost jobs had not been counted for 2009.  Also, the uncounted job losses for 2010 will not be officially added to the 2010 unemployment numbers until February 2011 (you have to keep that in mind every time you hear the “official” numbers reported this year).  One analyst says it is common in a bad economy to underestimate job losses.  Another analyst says the current employment models (formulas for predicting trends, or figuring out what happened) are not working.  Oh really?

We, the people of the United States, are in a predicament that was created by the short term policies of our corporate and political leaders.  Some countries called “developing economies” (formerly known as third world) have not only caught up with us, they are leaving us in their dust.  When you vote this November do your homework.  Investigate the candidates and the issues.  We need not only a high quantity of voting, but a high quality of voting.