September, 2014 By The Numbers, Part 2: Debt Out of Control. The Red Ink Postal System, Sinking Presidential Approval and More

On a semi-regular basis we do a series under the theme, “By the numbers.” In this series we look at the latest statistics, trends, and facts that are going on in this country, usually focusing on how the American political class, via their ineptness at doing anything right, is constantly screwing up our lives, our economy, and our democracy, based strictly on the reality of the numbers at that time.

I once worked for a boss whose favorite saying was: "There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the correct number.” Politicians do not like to deal with numbers, it messes up their political message and spin as they try to create a different, false reality in our minds. However, the numbers are the numbers and the reality of our lives, numbers devastate opinions.

A famous NFL football coach once said you are only as good as your record. You might think you have a great, talented team with excellent coaching but if you have a losing record, than the reality is that you do not have either a talented team of excellent coaching, the numbers, unlike politicians, do not lie.

More importantly, you cannot expect to resolve an issue or make life better and easier for Americans if you do not have the right, correct numbers to tell us where we are within the reality of those issues. For example, claiming the economy is doing great, even though almost twenty million Americans are still looking for good employment, does not allow you to focus on that twenty million number. 

The false claim forces you to waste time and resources trying to create the false impression that the economy is doing well. It diverts attention and problem resolving resources and attention to the lie and not reality.

So let’s take a second day and go “by the numbers” to see where America’s reality truly is today.

1) The website, Investors Business Daily, recently compared the economic numbers from Texas with the national economic numbers that have occurred under the Obama administration. The findings were quite interesting:

• Since the last recession started in December, 2007, the Texas state economy has added 1.1 million jobs to its state workforce.
• Nationally, Washington’s economic policies has resulted in the rest of the country’s workforce having 350,000 fewer people than its pre-recession level.
• The Texas economic model consists of low taxes and a stable regulatory environment.
• The Washington economic model, if you can call it that, has raised taxes and substantially increased the regulations of this country across the board.
• In just the past year, Texas has added almost 400,000 jobs to its workforce numbers, a 3.5% rate that is almost twice the national average.
• The Texas state unemployment rate has been lower than the national average for 91 straight months and is currently 5.1%, a full percentage point below the national unemployment rate.
• Since 2011, Texas, a state with about 8% of country's population, has added 14% of all U.S. jobs. 
• The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that: "the data show Texas has experienced far greater growth of 'good'-paying jobs than the rest of the nation since 2000."
• Texas has added jobs in all wage quartiles over this period. unlike other states. with the top two quartiles accounting for 55% of net new jobs. Texas is adding quality jobs.

Texas has found he right economic policies to generate outstanding economic numbers. Washington has not.

2) The website, Fix The Debt, recently put up an article on its website that reviewed the latest debt numbers from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Their findings are not good:

• While the CBO estimates that annual Federal budget deficits will come down form the past five years in the near future, they are set to rise again as the baby Boomer generation retire and the Washington political class continues to spend and waste money beyond what it is collecting in taxes. The national debt continues to be on an unsustainable course.
• The CBO estimates that the deficit will be $469 billion in 2015 but by 2024, under current spending trends, it will get back up to an annual number of about a TRILLION dollars.
• Even the $469 billion deficit next year is ridiculous. It means that every single day of the year, the Federal government will spend almost $1.3 BILLION more than it collected in taxes to cover the expense. It means that every hour of every day in 2015, the Federal government will spend almost $54 MILLION that it does not have. Ridiculously bad economic policies and spending policies.
• And if that annual deficit number doubles by 2024, these daily and hourly numbers will also double. I guess the good news is that the economy and our financial system could crash before the doubling does occur.
• The CBO estimates the public federal debt this year is at 74% of the economy, which is amazingly more than twice the 2007 level and the highest since 1950. 

Scary, scary numbers, bringing us close to the brink of financial disaster. But before that financial disaster collapse occurs, the CBO warns of the following terrible consequences of out of control spending in Washington:

• Increasing Federal spending for interest payments.
• Restraining economic growth in the long term.
• Less flexibility to respond to unexpected challenges and expenses. 
• And finally, increasing the risk of a fiscal crisis (in which investors would demand high interest rates to buy the government's debt).

And this assumes that numbers do not get worse from a spending perspective. As we all know, politicians have any easy time spending more and more money but are incapable or unwilling to ever decrease spending, even if it is wasteful and inefficient.

The CBO report summed these numbers the best: current spending trends are unsustainable. The numbers do not lie.

3) Speaking of bad numbers, consider how badly the U.S. Post Service (USPS) is doing:

• The USPS recently announced that it lost $2 billion just in the 3rd quarter of fiscal 2014.
• This is nothing compared to the whopping $15.9 billion it lost in fiscal 2012 but on track to lose more than the $5 billion in lost last year.
• It has now lost money in 21 of the previous 23 calendar quarters.
• Since the early 1970s, the USPS was supposed to be at least breakeven from a profitability perspective. That dream is long gone, according to these numbers.

Just another example of a Federal government bureaucracy that is totally broken from both a financial and operational perspective. You cannot keep on posting these kinds of losing numbers every quarter and expect to remain a viable organization.

The really sad part about this situation is that we have been writing about it for years in this blog. But no one anywhere in Washington had the ability or the will to attack the problem with some good problem solving skills. As a result, the taxpayer continues to get hammered by their incompetence.

4) The most recent job creation and unemployment numbers were recently published by the Federal government but those numbers also continue to disappoint:

• Domestic employers added just 142,000 jobs in August, snapping a six-month streak of hiring above 200,000 and thus, posting the smallest gain in eight months. 
• While the unemployment rate fell to 6.1% from 6.2% in August, that number is really not good news since more people without jobs stopped looking for one and were no longer counted as unemployed. 
• Revising past numbers, employers added 28,000 fewer jobs in June and July than the government previously estimated. 
• The slowdown was unexpected after most recent economic data suggested that the economy was growing at a healthy pace.

Not unexpected, given the track of this President and this Congress when it comes to generating good economic numbers, i.e. they have no track record.

5) According to the most recent Gallup polling numbers, the President’s job approval rating has dipped well below the 40% mark. Recent Gallup results show only 38% of survey respondents approve of his performance. Conversely, more than half of those surveyed, 54%, disapprove of the job he is doing.

Given that this is the lowest approval numbers for this President in the Gallup polling process, that cannot be good news in the White House. But given a broken postal system, out of control spending and debt, busted and ineffective economic policies when compared to Texas, and the bad numbers we discussed yesterday, this low approval number should not come as a surprise. Numbers do not lie, even if this Presidency does.

One last set of numbers tomorrow to wrap up this update to our continuing series, "By the numbers." Hint: tomorrow's numbers are not any better than what we have reviewed so far so be prepared for more bad news, more bad numbers.

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Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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http://www.reason.com
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http://www.robertringer.com/
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