It's no secret that Americans are worse off than they were in 1999, but somehow the Federal Government feels that if it lies long and hard enough, people will start to believe that times are getting better. Amidst a web of lies, how do you find the truth? My methods aren't traditional, but they paint a much more believable picture than the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

How? If the proof is in the pudding, the truth is in the sandwiches.

Say hello to the Big Mac Index (BMI). I didn't invent it, but I did repurpose it. Instead of using the price of a Big Mac to measure the value of foreign currencies, I use the price of a Big Mac over time to determine the real rate of inflation, which is quite different from US Government statistics (real inflation is a factor of two to three higher).

Why the Big Mac?

The Big Mac is a constant good (two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun), and unlike gold or oil, the Big Mac is resistant to speculation and the wild gyrations of financial markets. The Big Mac represents labor, advertising, commodities, electricity, transportation and management, all wrapped into one small, universally identical package. With this true measure of the cost of goods and services, I figured that I could discover a lot about rising prices, wages and the state of the US economy as a whole.

The sandwich shall set you free. Check it out.

1. The Dow Jones Industrial Average

This benchmark for stock market performance is referenced constantly as a temperature check for the economy at large. In terms of dollars, the market is up. Measured by the BMI, though, the Dow Jones is off its 1999 peak of 4712 Big Macs to 3120 at the end of 2012. That's a 34% drop, and if you were planning on eating during your retirement, you may have to cut back.

2. Gas Prices

The price of a gallon of gasoline is where most people feel the effects of inflation first. If inflation were the only reason for rising gas prices, then the price of gas should be flat as measured by the BMI. Not so fast! Even in terms of Big Macs, the price of gas has more than doubled since 1998. So, it's not just your imagination, gas is actually much more expensive.

3. Minimum Wage

In terms of dollars, people are making an extra $2 an hour over their 1999 wages. But what about the BMI? People are making almost 20% less. Now instead of 2.12 Big Macs per hour, people are only earning 1.73. Fortunately, the folks actually making the Big Macs probably get them at a discount.

4. Median Income

I've gotten a lot of flak for using minimum wage in the past, since people can claim not a lot of people actually make minimum wage. How about median income? In 1999, people earned a whopping 16,118 big macs per year. Now, the average Joe makes 11,636 big macs a year. That's a 27% drop in purchasing power. This confirms that the "Good Old Days" occurred sometime right around 1999.

5. Social Security Benefits

Retirees aren't safe either. While Grandma could purchase 362 Big Macs with her monthly check in 1999 (and 385 in 2002), she could only purchase 292 Big Macs in 2012. That's 20% less buying power.

If you didn't already suspect that your government was lying to you about the recovery, employment statistics and generally everything, this is one more nail in the coffin. Dollars, in general, are a bad way of measuring wealth, wages and prices because they are constantly losing their value relative to everything real. With their $618 million budget, it seems that the BLS ought to be replaced by a BLT.

The 9/11 attacks were terrifying for their coordination, complexity and sophistication. People wondered "How could a group of men all over the world coordinate something like this, right under our noses?"

The 9/11 attack's complexity was its most terrifying element, but it was also the attack's greatest vulnerability. Such an elaborate scheme was open to many forms of counter-terrorism measures; from wiretapping to enhanced airport security, the Feds tried to make sure something like 9/11 didn't happen again.

Smaller plots, from shoe bombs to underwear bombs to cargo plane bombs followed, and these plots failed for their complexity. Whether it was during the planning stage or during the execution itself, the plans all unraveled. Extreme pressure on terrorist groups meant that complex schemes were a thing of the past.

But the motives remained, so plots necessarily became simpler.

In 2009, Major Nidal Hasan shot 45 of his coworkers at Ford Hood, a US military base, killing 13 of them. The plan was simple, but guns aren't necessarily a possibility for every would-be terrorist.

Finally, we have the London attack: May 22, 2013, two men literally cut a military cadet's head off in broad daylight in the middle of a busy street with a knife and a meat cleaver.

They were unquestionably terrorists of the same stripe as the Al Qaeda bunch, but far less sophisticated. So unsophisticated, in fact, that their attack was all but impossible to prevent. Anyone with 20 bucks and some spare time could pull this one off, and that's actually what makes it significant. The body count is higher than the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber and the cargo plane plot combined, and the means to do a similar attack are available anywhere.

Preventing the planning and execution of terrorist attacks is treating the symptom, and dramatic, elaborate plans only serve to distract from the cause of these attacks and increase the focus of the symptom. Certainly, keeping explosives out of the hands of would be mass-murderers is a worthwhile exercise in damage control, but it does nothing to treat the cause.

The simplicity of London's attack reveals the truth about terrorism: only the motive needs to exist, the means of attack are irrelevant. So long as terrorists have grievances, real or imagined, against the Western world, the attacks will continue.

In the frantic search for anyone who might do anything bad, our Federal Government has created a 21st century witch-hunt, creating lists of potentially dangerous people containing hundreds of thousands of names.

The following is in the same vein, and is just magnificently terrible.

The Conspiracy

According to a study by the West Point Combating Terrorism Center, certain types of anti-federalist groups believe

the American political system and its proxies were hijacked by external forces interested in promoting a “New World Order,” (NWO) in which the United States will be embedded in the UN or another version of global government.

Furthermore

the New World Order will be advanced, they believe, via steady transition of powers from local to federal law-enforcement agencies, i.e., the transformation of local police and law-enforcement agencies into a federally controlled “National Police” agency that will in turn merge with a “Multi-National Peace Keeping Force.”

These beliefs, marginalized by scare quotes, are cited as grounds for being identified as a far-right terrorist. This is what George Orwell called a "thoughtcrime" in his book 1984. In 1984, a thoughtcrime is not an act, but a belief that is counter to government interests and therefore illegal. Sadly, thoughtcrimes are a big part of the ugly reality of the Perpetual War on Scary, and the very concept has become relatively mainstream.

But let's imagine, in a perfect world of white-hatted heroes, that these beliefs are only held by far-right terrorists. It would be a simple matter of figuring out who believes that a federal police force is imminent, rounding them up and putting them in jail, right?

Would it be of any concern if these beliefs were actually true? Would knowing about the federal police become illegal? Would the safeguard from government scrutiny and persecution be to believe a lie?

Conspiracy Becomes Fact

Welcome then, to the real world. Last week, the US Military announced that it granted itself authority to interfere in domestic matters, creating a national police force. This is in violation of existing Federal law, but who cares, right? Say hello to the "National Police".

I admit, the West Point study was published before the US Military granted itself the right to declare martial law without anyone's consent. However, the fact remains that people who believe what is self-evidently true are targeted by the West Point study as domestic terrorists. Are those far-right conspiracy theorists still wacky, now that they are spot on?

This is the problem with thoughtcrimes, as George Orwell foresaw;

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."

In the fight for liberty and limiting the authority of one group of people (the government) over another, all kinds of arguments have been used. Generally they fall into these categories; in what I believe are descending order of usefulness.

1. Historical arguments: "Hitler, Mao and Stalin all misused this power. Our government shouldn't have this power either."
2. Moral arguments: "Stealing is wrong. Therefore the income tax is wrong."
3. Constitutional arguments: "The Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable search and seizure."

The US Constitution is a great document, full of pithy truths, and it has demonstrated through the centuries a prescient wisdom that is quite remarkable. But as far as an argument in favor or against government behaviors, it is by far the weakest of the three. The principles behind the Constitution are so strong, and the historical evidence of unlimited government gone awry so plentiful that there is no reason to make weak appeals to the authority of a piece of paper so few recognize as valid.

To people without special reverence for the Constitution, it is a set of laws that can be changed at any time. To hardcore Constitutionalists and believers in inalienable rights, this is heresy, but it does nothing to strengthen their case in the eyes of those that feel the Constitution is flexible. As far as most people are concerned, the Constitution has been changed many times, the Bill of Rights violated intentionally many times, and no plague of locusts descended on our nation's capital.

Far more important than if something is in the Constitution is why.

Why was free speech and a free press important?

Why did the right to bear arms come next in the minds of the Founding Fathers?

Why did a trial have to be speedy and public?

Why was torture specifically mentioned and outlawed?

There is tremendous historical precedent for all ten amendments, there was when the Constitution was drafted, and the evidence in favor of an empowered population and limited government have only piled higher since.

So, instead of invoking a piece of paper, invoke the real reasons that the Constitution says what it does:

• Q: How many people died at the hands of governments in the 20th century?
• A: Over 200 million.

• Q: What is the necessary first step in committing widespread genocide?
• A: Disarming the population.

And so on. Argue this way.

Adherence to Constitutional principles can be better justified by historical precedent and strong moral argument than any appeal to the document's imagined authority. The Constitution is a great document, not because it is endowed with its own power, but because of what it says and why. If the people that needed convincing already had total faith in the value of the Constitution, there would be no argument to have. But the truth is, the Constitution in itself carries little weight with those that would see it changed. It is only the underlying principles, the central ideas, that have any power to change hearts and minds. Appeal to authority, when that authority is not recognized, is an exercise in futility.

According to Time Magazine, I am a lazy, entitled narcissist that lives with my parents. I disagree.

Anyhow, here's the cover:

I've seen this theme, actually, many times. A syndicated author in his forties takes a jab at the millennial generation, how they are lazy, narcissistic, don't have jobs and won't do anything but take selfies.

As much as you can generalize characteristics of an entire group of people, let's assume everything these fellows say is totally accurate. Let's imagine all these teenagers and people in their early twenties DO have terrible personal habits, can't come up with a coherent thought, are totally self-absorbed and cannot function in real life. Let's say they have all been coddled since birth, and think they are very nearly God Almighty. Let's say they all live in their parent's basement well into their twenties.

Okay, whose fault?

If a seven year-old is terrible, you blame their parents.

If an 11 year-old is terrible, you blame their parents.

If a teenager is getting arrested, you look to their parents to see what went wrong.

Finally, in their late teens and early twenties, you start to blame the person themselves, as these articles generally do. But truly, a newly minted adult is never moreso the product of their upbringing. They are hot off the presses.

So, if a cake comes out well, do you complement the cake, or do you complement the chef?

Instead of patting themselves on the back and scorning their children, the Baby Boom and Generation X needs to thank their parents and figure out exactly what they did to make their child a lazy, arrogant sack of turds. Can you really indict the character of a person that just learned how to drive without also taking a long, hard look at the parents? Can you look at a freshman in college, and say that his habits are totally his own and none of his behavior is related to his upbringing?

As so many authors would have it, the Millennials just hatched out of eggs, sporting smartphones and ironic hats or facial hair, only to infest the basements of hardworking Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers. But, we all know the truth: the Millennials were coddled endlessly, told they were special no matter what, given trophies for losing and never allowed to fail. They never had to get a job, and they graduated college into an economy that had been driven into the ground. All this by whom? By their parents.