Turns out that Joe Biden and Harry Reid might also belong in Ms. Pelosi's alternative reality. Let's start with the Vice President. Over the past week or so he has been on a rant that if the Republicans in Congress do not immediately pass one of the President's inane job creation bills, more women would get raped, more shop owners would get robbed, and crime would continue to go up:
“Murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crime will continue to rise,” are his exact words.
However, the Vice President apparently did not let facts and trends get in the way of his rant. Take a look at the following graph that tracks violent crime over the past 50 years through the end of 2010:
It is pretty obvious from anyone who views these fifty years worth of crime statistics that violent crime, in total, rape, assault, murder, and robbery rose pretty steadily until 1990. Since 1990, all of the trends have been steeply downward, i.e. crime rates have been steadily dropping despite what the Vice President says. How the Vice President came away with the exact opposite conclusion is almost beyond comprehension.
But I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I went to the FBI website to see if I could find FBI tracking numbers that would dispute the above graph and add at least some sort of minimal credibility to the Vice President's rant. However, on the FBI website I found a September 19, 2011 press release that contained the official 2010 crime statistics and the following insights:
"According to the figures released today by the FBI, the estimated number of violent crimes in 2010 declined for the fourth consecutive year. Property crimes also decreased, marking this the eighth straight year that the collective estimates for these offenses declined.
The 2010 statistics show that the estimated volumes of violent and property crimes declined 6.0 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively, when compared with the 2009 estimates. The violent crime rate for the year was 403.6 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants (a 6.5 percent decrease from the 2009 rate), and the property crime rate was 2,941.9 offenses per 100,000 persons (a 3.3 percent decrease from the 2009 figure)."
Given that the FBI did no release official 2010 crime statistics until September, 2011 and did not even release preliminary 2010 crime numbers until May, 2011 (another FBI press release), it is highly unlikely that the Vice President has any knowledge about 2011 crime statistics that would support his rant.
So let's review. The graph shows that violent crime is still declining, the FBI officially decrees that violent crime has been declining for the many years, and I cannot find any source, credible or non-credible, that would support Mr. Biden's assertion. But somehow the Vice President strongly asserts that crime, notably robbery and rape, is continuing to rise, contrary to all the available evidence. Only in the Twilight Zone of the political class world.
But if the Vice President is heading deep into the Twilight Zone, Senator Harry Reid is probably riding shotgun. Consider a recent assertion from the Senate Majority Leader:
"It is very clear that private-sector jobs are doing just fine," the Nevada Democrat said. "It’s the public-sector jobs where we have lost huge numbers."
Obviously, Mr. Reid is also not looking at the reality we are looking in. Let's start with the following graph, courtesy of the Heritage Foundation using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
On a percentage basis, employment in the private sector of the economy is currently (September, 2011) down 5.4% which is three four times higher than the loss of employment in the government sector. Since the private sector is larger than the government sector, both the percentage and total number of jobs lost in the private sector dwarfs what has happened to government employment, completely opposite of what Mr. Reid believes happened.
Don't believe what the Heritage Foundation chart says? Consider some other charts I researched with more Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The above chart is the straight unemployment rate of the private sector vs. the government sector of employment. Currently, the private sector unemployment is over 10%, about three times higher than the unemployment rate of government workers. What part of this simple analysis does Mr. Reid not understand?
Don't like dealing with percentages? Consider the above chart which contains the total number of jobs in the private sector and government sector of the economy over the past ten years. Not only do we see the big drop in private sector jobs a result of the Great Recession, we also see how the number of private jobs also dropped in the early 2000s as the nation came out of another recession. In both cases, government job volumes suffer very little, contrary to what the Senator says.
I am pretty sure that I am not crazy. With a degree in statistics, I am pretty confident that I can accurately analyze some simple data and charts. In both cases, the assertions by Reid and Biden make absolutely no sense. Their views of the world are in complete contradiction to our reality and what the data tells us.
There are only two possible reasons for their Twilight Zone interpretation of the data. First, they may not truly understand how to read the data and the reality that we live in. If this is the case, we should not be surprised how impotent and ineffective our current political class has become. If they cannot understand simple data and graphs, how can we expect them to understand the major issues facing the nation and develop the necessary plans to address those issues?
Second, maybe they actually do understand the data, graphs, and the reality but chose to ignore them since the facts are not in line with their political games and objectives. If that is the case, then we are dealing with people that cannot be trusted since they are intentionally misleading the public.
In either case, not understanding reality or ignoring reality, these people do not deserve to serve us and the country any longer than necessary. They either do not know how to solve our problems because they do not understand the data associated with the root causes of our issues or they do not want to solve our problems since they are too busy politicking.
Best to send them off to the Twilight Zone as soon as possible and replace them with people that are smart enough to understand simple data analysis and who are honest enough to deal with the data and our issues honestly and in a straight forward manner.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://www.loathemygovernment.com .It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/
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