January, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 7: 83 Depressing Facts From The American Political Class (Facts 41 to 83)

I used to work for a boss who had a favorite saying: “Nothing is as devastating to an opinion than the right number.” Everybody has opinions and perceptions of reality and usually, those perceptions differ from person to person. However, reality never changes as does the proper and accurate numerical description of that reality. 

I keep that in mind when someone declares without hesitation what reality is. Usually, the people that are most sure of reality are either looking through the so-called rose tinted glasses to make their position in life and opinion seem better than it is or they are trying to convince others that things are much better than they are. I can usually burst either of their reality bubbles with the right number delivered in a calm, calculated voice.

This quote came to mind recently because of two articles I read. The first article from my local newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, proclaimed that the upcoming year of 2014 was going to be quite good, that trends in the country were looking up. As proof of their insight, they laid out five or so trends, with little or no numerical proof, that proved that good times were ahead for the country.

The second article proclaimed a similar upbeat trend, proposing that recent upticks, not surges, in hiring was a precursor to good times for the country in 2014. The writer and his style of writing of that article was an obvious attempt to portray President Obama’s economic policies in a good light, trying to show that he has executed a deft economic strategy to turn the country around.

However, he left out some key numbers, namely that there are about 23 million Americans who are unemployed or under employed, the number of Americans on food assistance are at an all time high, and that many of the newly created jobs were low paying or temporary jobs. Nothing is as devastating to an opinion than the right number.

In order to really devastate these false opinions and perceptions of reality, consider 83 numbers that have recently been put together by the Freedom Outpost website. We will cover the insanity of these numbers of the next two days as part of our monthly political class insanity habit. These 83 numbers have been created by the 500 or so members of Congress and the high ranking members of this Presidential administration. 

After reading them, you will be devastated, guaranteed. We have a lot of work to do in this country before it is too late and I doubt that the insanity the current political class in Washington has dropped on us and our families make them the right people to fix these 83 numbers. However, until we recognize and acknowledge these 83 facts, we will never be able to eliminate them. And that, would truly be devastating.

The following 83 points of insanity can also be reviewed at the following link:

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/12/america-serious-trouble-83-examples-2013-prove/#2sb1Qz31MHBTkkjB.99

The nice thing about this link is that they provide a backup link to every one of their depressing 83 numbers so that you can check for their truthfulness of their assertions yourself.

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The United States is in a massive amount of trouble, and it is time that we all started facing the truth. The following are 83 numbers from 2013 that are almost too crazy to believe…

#41 At this moment, there are 6 million Americans in the 16 to 24-year-old age group that are neither in school or working.

#42 The “inactivity rate” for men in their prime working years (25 to 54) has just hit a brand new all-time record high.

#43 It is hard to believe, but in America today one out of every ten jobs is now filled by a temp agency.

#44 Middle-wage jobs accounted for 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession, but they have accounted for only 22 percent of the jobs created since then.

#45 According to the Social Security Administration, 40 percent of all U.S. workers make less than $20,000 a year.

#46 Approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.

#47 After accounting for inflation, 40 percent of all U.S. workers are making less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.

#48 When Barack Obama took office, the average duration of unemployment in this country was 19.8 weeks. Today, it is 37.2 weeks.

#49 Investors pulled an astounding 72 billion dollars out of bond mutual funds in 2013. It was the worst year for bond funds ever.

#50 Small business is rapidly dying in America. At this point, only about 7 percent of all non-farm workers in the United States are self-employed. That is an all-time record low.

#51 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined.

#52 Once January 1st hits, it will officially be illegal to manufacture or import traditional incandescent light bulbs in the United States. It is being projected that millions of Americans will attempt to stock up on the old light bulbs before they are totally gone from store shelves.

#53 The Japanese government has estimated that approximately 300 tons of highly radioactive water is being released into the Pacific Ocean from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear facility every single day.

#54 Back in 1967, the U.S. military had more than 31,000 strategic nuclear warheads. That number is already being cut down to 1,550, and now Barack Obama wants to reduce it to only about 1,000.

#55 As you read this, 60 percent of all children in Detroit are living in poverty and there are approximately 78,000 abandoned homes in the city.

#56 Wal-Mart recently opened up two new stores in Washington D.C., and more than 23,000 people applied for just 600 positions. That means that only about 2.6 percent of the applicants were ultimately hired. In comparison, Harvard offers admission to 6.1 percent of their applicants.

#57 At this point, almost half of all public school students in America come from low income homes.

#58 Tragically, there are 1.2 million students that attend public schools in the United States that are homeless. That number has risen by 72 percent since the start of the last recession.

#59 According to a Gallup poll that was recently released, 20.0 percent of all Americans did not have enough money to buy food that they or their families needed at some point over the past year. That is just under the all-time record of 20.4 percent that was set back in November 2008.

#60 The number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 17 million in the year 2000 to more than 47 million today.

#61 Right now, one out of every five households in the United States is on food stamps.

#62 The U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas.

#63 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#64 According to one survey, approximately 75 percent of all American women do not have any interest in dating unemployed men.

#65 China exports 4 billion pounds of food to the United States every year.

#66 Overall, the United States has run a trade deficit of more than 8 trillion dollars with the rest of the world since 1975.

#67 The number of Americans on Social Security Disability now exceeds the entire population of Greece, and the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.

#68 It is being projected that the number of Americans on Social Security will rise from 57 million today to more than 100 million in 25 years.

#69 Back in 1970, the total amount of debt in the United States (government debt + business debt + consumer debt, etc.) was less than 2 trillion dollars. Today it is over 56 trillion dollars.

#70 Back on September 30th, 2012 our national debt was sitting at a total of 16.1 trillion dollars. Today, it is up to 17.2 trillion dollars.
#71 The U.S. government “rolled over” more than 7.5 trillion dollars of existing debt in fiscal 2013.

#72 If the U.S. national debt was reduced to a stack of one dollar bills it would circle the earth at the equator 45 times.

#73 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent. Today, it is up to 101 percent.

#74 The U.S. national debt is on pace to more than double during the eight years of the Obama administration. In other words, under Barack Obama the U.S. government will accumulate more debt than it did under all of the other presidents in U.S. history combined.

#75 The federal government is borrowing (stealing) roughly 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day.

#76 At this point, the U.S. already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.

#77 Japan now has a debt to GDP ratio of more than 211 percent.

#78 As of December 5th, 83 volcanic eruptions had been recorded around the planet so far this year. That is a new all-time record high.

#79 53 percent of all Americans do not have a 3 day supply of nonperishable food and water in their homes.

#80 Violent crime in the United States was up 15 percent last year.

#81 According to a very surprising survey that was recently conducted, 68 percent of all Americans believe that the country is currently on the wrong track.

#82 Back in 1972, 46 percent of all Americans believed that “most people can be trusted”. Today, only 32 percent of all Americans believe that “most people can be trusted”.

#83 According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 19 percent of all Americans trust the government. Back in 1958, 73 percent of all Americans trusted the government.

83 numbers, facts and reality checks that should devastate an opinion that things are getting better int his country. It is simply not true despite whatever false perception or deceptive pooltiical agenda one has. this Congress and this adminsitration have done nothing to improve the plight and lives of over 300 million Americans.

They have, however, done quite nice for themselves and other DC allies. That is why their little scam and con game needs to be devasted before the country's devastation is too far down the road to reverse.

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:

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:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Japan's Nuclear Plant Employees: Profile In Courage and Sacrifice, The American Political Class: Not So Much

On December 1, 2010, I wrote a post entitled: "Jill Costello: Profile In Courage and Leadership, The American Political Class: Not So Much." This has turned out to be the third most viewed posting in this entire blog. It profiled Jill Costello, a University of California college student and a member of that university's women's crew team. Unfortunately, Ms. Costello was diagnosed with cancer and died within a relatively short time after she received her diagnosis. However, in that short time the positive impact she had on her friends, family, teammates and others, from a courage and leadership perspective, was unbelievable in so many ways. The details of this outstanding person's character are included in the December 1, 2010 post or can be read about in detail in a Sports Illustrated article by Chris Ballard.

In that December post, after much soul searching, I compared Ms. Costellos' courage and leadership to the total lack of leadership and courage that seems to be constantly displayed by our political class. They hide behind their staffs and press releases, they take no chances that might impact a few voters during their next election campaign, and their behavior is so many ways is juvenile and non-productive, compared to what Ms. Costello did during her lifetime under very trying circumstances.

Today's post is inspired by a group of humans who, like Jill Costello, are displaying incredible courage, leadership, and sacrifice. These people have been named the "Nuclear Samurai." They are some of the workers of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan that was badly damaged by the earthquake and resultant tsunami. These people are gallantly working inside the badly damaged plant to try and bring the situation under control and save Japan and the world from what could be a catastrophic nuclear disaster if the nuclear power plant gets out of their control.

The following facts and observations about them are from the an article in a recent issue of The Week magazine:

• These workers sleep and eat inside the plant every day while in their protective suits, surviving on two meals a day of crackers and vegetable juice.
• They are working on 12 hour shifts to keep the nuclear material covered and cool while also trying to pump out radioactive water.
• They are working in the vicinity of broken nuclear reactors that are emitting radiation that is 100,000 times higher than normal radiation exposure.
• Nineteen of these wonderful workers have already been exposed to 100 millisieverts of radiation since the disaster several weeks ago. For comparison, in the United States, no nuclear power plant worker can be exposed to more than 50 millisieverts in a YEAR.
• More than 500 of these men have been circulating in and out of the installation and are the last hope from keeping a larger nuclear disaster from happening.
• Last week, two workers stood in a pool of radioactive water for two hours that ended up burning their skin through their protective suits.
• Fiona McIntosh of the London Sunday Mirror said: "I've never witnessed heroism like this."
• Joan Smith of the London Independent said: "Heroism is an overused word but it's on full display in Fukushima. The sacrifice of the nuclear samurai is a powerful rebuttal of the notion that human beings are motivated by nothing but self-interest."
• Andy Soltis of the New York Post said the reality, of which these heroes must be only too aware, is that many of them will "likely die from lethal doses of radiation."

Unbelievable courage and heroism, no doubt about it. I hesitate, much like I did when I wrote about Jill Costello, to write about these fine human beings and our political class in the same post. However, with no disrespect intended for these nuclear samurai, their positive behavior stands in stark contrast to what we are still seeing in Washington, D.C. and the amateurish budget talks and the kindergarten trash talking that is accompanying them.

The United States government has been around for well over two hundred years and this political class still cannot put together a decent, or an indecent, government budget, more than six months after the fiscal year began. For as much admiration I have when I  say "unbelievable" when referring to the Japanese workers, I have just as much disdain for the political class relative to the budget process:

1. The nuclear plant workers are willing to risk their lives for the better good while our political class won't even risk one courageous stand for a decent budget, lest it tick off a few voters.
2. The Japanese workers are called heroes while our political class would never be mistaken for heroes in any sense whatsoever, their approval ratings continue to be an embarrassment.
3. The courage, sacrifice and leadership of these workers is unmatched when it comes to doing the right thing as compared to our political class when doing the right thing, in their minds, is preserving their seat in office regardless of what damage it does to the country.

The prime example of this last point is another failed chance at leadership of President Obama. With the country teetering on the brink of a government shutdown, a shutdown that will impact the lives on just about every American, the President decided to leave Washington for Pennsylvania and New York within hours of a government shutdown to campaign for the Presidency in 2012.

Talk about a lack of leadership, his political career is more important than buckling down and leading the country to a final annual budget and staving off a lot of heartache, pain, and inconvenience of every American. I cannot see any of these 500 nuclear samurai taking off for a selfish, personal goal, they are sacrificing for the good of the country and the safety of their fellow citizens, not leaving the scene of the crisis like the President did this week and has done so many times in the past.

To the American political class in Washington, your lack of courage, sacrifice, and leadership, along with your juvenile behavior, is a disgrace and continues to be an embarrassment of monumental proportions. To the 500 workers at the Fukushim Daiichi plant, thank you and God bless you.



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.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendmen.com