June, 2016, Part 2, By The Numbers, Suicide Rates Up, Economic Trends Down, and More

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. This is the second post this month where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us. 

1) Yesterday, talked a lot about economic numbers and how anemic the Obama recovery has been as a result of his failed economic policies and strategies. Let’s continue that discussion today with an article by James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation, written on June 2, 2016, in response to the President bragging about his economic wisdom in a recent Indiana speech:

• First off, the President both took credit for saving the economy, as if no other President ever brought the country out of a recession, and blamed any of HIS shortcomings economically on long term trends that were in place before he took office, i.e. anything good that happened was because of me, anything bad that happened started way before I showed up and cannot be blamed on me: “… where we haven’t finished the job, where folks have good reason to feel anxious, is addressing some of the longer-term trends in the economy—that started long before I was elected—that make working families feel less secure. These are trends that have been happening for decades now and that we’ve got to do more to reverse.”
• But this argument does not hold up to scrutiny and the real world numbers: Congressional Budget Office analyses found that household incomes of the middle quintile of U.S. households grew by 33% between 1979 and 2007, just before the recession, and incomes in the bottom quintile grew even faster, about 50%.
• All of which made Americans happy since in 2007, Gallup polling then found that 43% of Americans found the state of economy to be excellent or good while only 16% found it to be poor. So much for the economy stinking before Obama showed up.
• Today, Gallup finds that more Americans think the economy is in poor shape than in excellent or good condition, a far cry from the reversed feelings in 2007.
• Anemic national economic growth has resulted in the labor force participation rate being 2 percentage points below the pre-recession levels despite being six or so years out of the recession.
• The average jobless American now takes an average six months to find a new job, far longer than Obama promised when he put forth his failed economic stimulus plan.

As a result of these numbers and the economic numbers we reviewed yesterday, it is so clear that the Obama recovery and economic expertise has been by far the weakest since World War II ended. And this horrid economic showing was attained despite spending over $800 billion on a failed economic stimulus program, record low energy costs for a long time, and trillions of dollars that the Fed pumped into the economy. 

2) More economic numbers that are less than robust:

• The Department of Commerce recently released its second iteration estimate for the first quarter GDP.
• The estimate was .8%, up slightly from the original estimate of .5% but still pretty horrid.
• This was the second slowest economic quarterly growth since the recession ended.
• Since Obama became President, the annual national economic growth has averaged a lowly 1.3%, less than half of the long term (1946 to 2007) national annual growth rate of over 3.5%, a number that includes both recession and non-recession periods.
• The 1.3% is the lowest Presidential economic growth trend since the Eisenhower administration.
• The Census Bureau estimates that inflation adjusted median household income has fallen from $55,313 in 2008, the year the recession started to $53,657, six years after the recession ended.
• Business investment in the first quarter of this year was down 6.2% over the first quarter of 2015, the most radical drop since the recession in 2009.
• Consumer spending in the first quarter of 2016 was down to 1.9% from 2.4% in the fourth quarter in 2015. 

The numbers are pretty clear: Obama’s economic policies have resulted in lowly economic growth and opportunities over the past six years of so-called recovery and now we can see that this anemic economic growth is even slowing down to a crawl. The numbers do not lie.

3) We have spoken about this topic a lot but it is worth visiting it again from a numbers perspective. According to Breitbart, Chicago continues to be a very violent place despite the tightest gun control laws in the country:

• Recently, 4 Chicago citizens were killed and 53 were wounded in only four days.
• In a recent 16 hour period, 20 Chicagoans were shot.
• A 12 year old was shot when a drive by shooter fired 15 shots at the boy and his friends.
• Police believe most of the shootings are drug and gang related.
• So far this year, almost 1,400 Chicago people have been shot and over 200 have been killed by gunfire.

These are the numbers that happen in the most gun controlled city in the country. 

4) Obama likes to claim that he single handedly created wonderful economic conditions in this country, that he helped bring the races together, etc. In his mind, he is truly a miracle worker. But over the past week or so we have shown that his economic revival has been anything but good, robust, and inspiring. His racist actions have, if anything, created more animosity between the races.

And his less than outstanding performance is starting to show up, at least indirectly, in the suicide numbers and rates across the country. According to an article from the most recent AARP magazine:

• Suicide rates of Americans are at 30 year highs.
• While suicide rates have been trending up since 1997, that rate of increase accelerated after 2006 as the country lived through the recession and the Obama Presidency.
• With the exception of Americans 75 and older, the suicide rate grew by a whopping 24% overall since 2006.
• The largest jump in the suicide rate was for Americans aged between 45 and 64, with the rate for men in that age group going up 43% and for women it was up an incredible 63%.
• According to the National Center For Health Statistics and other studies, there is a rising sense of hopelessness among middle aged Americans despite the rosy picture that Obama tries to paint.

Just another sign and set of numbers that prove we are being served by the worst set of Washington politicians ever to hold office, so much so that record numbers of Americans are killing themselves rather than face life going forward in this country.

5) How bad are the likely candidates for President, Trump and Clinton, viewed by a lot of the country? According to a recent Reuters/ipsos opinion poll, preventing Clinton from winning is the main reason why 47% of Trump voters are voting for Trump and preventing Trump from winning is the main reason why 46% of Clinton voters are voting for Clinton. 

This is clearly a prime example of the “queen of the pigs” theory. This is how far our electoral processes have degenerated, my candidate is not as bad as the other candidate. In almost half of the voters’ minds, they have to vote to avoid something rather than vote for something. Pathetic.

That will do it for today’s numbers. Half of American hating their candidate less than the other candidate, suicide numbers are rising as dissatisfaction with the country and life and the government rise, the Chicago dead and wounded numbers continue to escalate, and the Obamanomics tragedy marches on with more anemic economic results. More numbers tomorrow.

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