John Williams: Believe Him or Not [by Chris Thompson]

According to Williams, the picture of our national economic health is seriously distorted in three key areas: unemployment, inflation, and gross domestic product. The real numbers today, he argues, look like the 1930s. Although economists didn't start rigorously measuring numbers like unemployment until 1940, the best estimate of non-farm unemployment during the Depression puts the peak at 34 percent. "We're not there at this point," Williams said. "But we're as bad as we've been post-World War II." But you wouldn't know that, he adds, from the official statistics.