September, 2014 by The Numbers, Part 3: A Final Summary of Bad, Bad Economic numbers Created By A Bad, Bad Polticial Class

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 final and third day and go “by the numbers” to see where America’s reality truly is today. Today we will just concentrate on the quite bad and depressing set of economic and job numbers that the Obama administration issued about a week and a half ago and which were summarized in Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog in an article written by David Almasi:

The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that only 145,000 jobs were created in August.

The number of Americans mired in part-time employment is 7.3 million which was down slightly by 200,000. 

While the traditional measure of the national unemployment rate did go down slightly to 6.1%, that was mostly due to Americans opting out of looking for a job altogether, a factor not figured into this rate. percent. 

A more accurate reading of unemployment and under employment, the U-6 unemployment rate, is still stuck at a whopping 12%, almost double the "official" unemployment rate. 

The unemployment rate, as measured in the traditional way and equivalent to the 6.1% stated above, for African-Americans remained steady at 11.4%.

The African-American teenage unemployment is still obscenely high, clocking in at 32.8%. 

The unemployment rate for the Hispanic population fell slightly to 7.5%, almost 23% above the national unemployment rate. 

The labor force participation rate for all Americans continued to drop, years and years after the recession ended, slightly down to 62.8%.

Every month for the last three years, at least 45 million Americans have been enrolled to receive Federal food assistance (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). 

In May 2014, the last month in which the data is known, more than 46 million people received food stamps.

According to recent Census Bureau data, more than a third of Americans are receiving some form of government assistance.

Research from Sentier Research estimates that the median U.S. household income is more than three percent lower now than it was when the recession was declared over in June 2009. 

Median household income is almost five percent lower than it was in December, 2007.

The latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office estimates the labor force participation rate will continue to drop as a direct result of Obama Care subsidies.

Recent polling estimates that 54% of Americans are disappointed in the performance of the Obama administration on economic matters and almost half, 49%, believe the economy is still in a recession.

Mind boggling bad economic numbers, especially when you consider the following realities:

• The Obama administration spent over $800 billion in a failed economic stimulus plan that was supposed to get the country back to a 5% unemployment rate years ago.
• This administration’s and Congress’s economic polices have failed despite record low interest rates for a record length of time.
• We have been living through a once in a life time domestic energy boom that should have also fueled substantial economic growth but which has not.

Such a pitiful set of economic numbers reinforces the need for at least two steps to be implemented from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government:”

1. Step 36 would require all politicians in Congress and the White House to take and pass a course on economic theory and policy before taking office. Such training might give them a fighting chance to develop and implement sound economic policies and strategies as opposed to the idiocy they have been doing over the past five or six years, idiocy that has gotten us the sour economic numbers reviewed above.
2. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians, "one and done," since reelecting the same tired and ineffective politicians over and over has not gotten us the economic growth and numbers that should be attainable by a country like the U.S. Ask yourself, how much worse could it get from an economic perspective if we dumped out of office all sitting politicians with a term limit process?

Sad, sad state of economic numbers in place today in this country. We will revisit this theme of “by the numbers” in the near future with the hope that the numbers get better. However, given the numbers we have discussed over the past three days, I would bet that the numbers will get much better in the near future.

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

November, 2012 Economic Trends, Statistics, and Expert Opinions, Part 2 - Doom And Gloom Prevail Again

This is a second of three posts we will do this week relative to the current economic and financial trends, statistics and expert opinions. Yesterday we learned again our dire our financial situation is in this country.

We are spending money faster than even the politicians expected to, adding considerably to our national debt, CEOs across the country are freaking out over the “fiscal cliff” by restricting their hiring and business expansion plans, an independent analysis by a branch of the Federal Reserve Board concludes that economic conditions are very bad, Americans filing for unemployment benefits continues to be a a very high weekly rate, etc.

But we could not get all of the economic distress into that single post:

1) According to the latest government labor statistics released last week, the unemployment rate rose last month from 7.8% to 7.9%. This was caused by 170,000 Americans losing their jobs in September, bringing the total number of unemployed Americans to a despicable 12.3 million people.

Now part of the reason why the unemployment rate went up is that more people signaled they were actively looking for a job. This could be a good sign as for as optimism. However, an additional statistics released last week, the percentage of Americans working or looking for work rose for a second straight month in October to 63.8%, just barely up from the 31 year low of 63.5% that was incurred the month before.

In addition, in another sign of the economy's persistent weakness, average hourly pay dipped a penny to $23.58. In the past year, average hourly pay for most workers rose only 1.15, the smallest annual gain on record since1965.

All in all, a pretty lousy jobs report…again this month.

2) A November 2, 2012 article in Moneynews talked about the opinion of Robert Shiller, considered the most insightful and knowledgeable expert about the U.S. housing industry. In an interview with CNBC, he predicted that it could take 50 years for the housing industry to get back to previous levels.

His opinion is in opposition to the latest government statistics. The Commerce Department recently reported that new-home sales jumped 5.7% in September from August to their highest level in more than two years. In addition, housing starts rose to their highest seasonally adjusted annual rate in the past four years Shiller’s own index of housing prices rose 2% in August over the same time in 2011. This was the biggest year over year gain since July, 2010.

But Shiller is not buying the growing optimism and that the housing industry is ready for a strong rebound anytime soon: "This may well be the bottom for housing for some years. But next week’s election, the Dec. 31 fiscal cliff and Europe’s debt crisis could throw housing for a loop.”

He also points out, probably correctly, that in the coming years home prices will be depressed by sales from retiring baby boomers moving to urban areas from the suburbs: "It can get big as it was again maybe in 50 years. This housing bubble was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, I imagine. Although, you know, the market might be more volatile, so the future is always unknown. My general idea is that we're not going into a nationwide boom and not many places will show booms in the next few years.”

Thus, not much hope from the foremost housing expert that housing will help jumpstart our bad economy.

3) In a November 1, 2012 Bloomberg News article, Bill Gross, who operates the world’s biggest mutual fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., asserted there is no evidence that investment is being spurred by the third phase of Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program.

Recall that the first two phases of quantitative easing printed $2.3 TRILLION worth of fake money and pumped that into the economy via bond purchases, with no positive results: “All of the money being created and freed up is elevating asset prices, but those prices are not causing corporations to invest in future production. Lower interest rates are being used to consume as opposed to invest.”

Why anyone thought that the third phase would do any good, when the first $2.3 TRILLION did not good, is beyond reason or logic. And Gross is not too optimistic that the Washington political class will do any better than the failed policies of the Fed when it comes to viable economic policies: “Fact is they’re [politicians] all the same -- bought and paid for with the same money. Pulling a Democratic or Republican lever will deliver the same results every four years.”

Great, one of the best investors ever sees gloom and doom regardless of who in the Federal government he is looking at.

4) And finally, let’s look underneath some of the labor and employment data released by the government last week besides the fact that first time unemployment claims continued at sky high levels and the unemployment rate increased to 7.9%:

• If the size of the willing labor force had stayed the same since January, 2009 the unemployment rate would not be 7.9% but 10.6%. 10.6% is the same rate of unemployment as the month that Obama took office, indicating not a lot of real improvement since he was sworn in.
• Remember, the $830 billion economic stimulus program was supposed to have reduced the unemployment rate to about 5.2% by now. The administration's economic efforts and resultant ignorance have left us over 4 million jobs short of this stated goal despite the $830 billion, almost $3 TRILLION in Fed quantitative easing, and the wreckage of numerous failed economic programs, e.g. Cash For Clunkers.
• Hourly earnings have risen only 1.6% so far this year, less than the rate of inflation.
• Unemployment rate for blacks rose to 14.3%.
• The teenager unemployment rate is still about 25%.
• Long term unemployed (27 weeks or more) was little changed at 5.0 million (40.6 percent of the unemployed).
• The better and truer barometer of the economy, the U-6 unemployment rate, which includes marginally attached workers (those who are not actively looking for work but have indicated they want a job and have looked for a job in the past 12 months) and people who are looking for full time work but settle on part time work for economic reasons, also saw little change, moving from 14.7% after September to 14.6% today.
• This U-6 unemployment measure translates into about 23 million Americans who are not working to their desired level of employment.
• When Obama became President, the U-6 rate was 14.2% and just six months ago it was 14.5%. Thus, based on this truer measure of employment, unemployment, and under employment, this administration is taking us in the wrong direction.

The experts are gloomy, the numbers are gloomy, unemployed Americans are gloomy the economy is gloomy. Have a great day!

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:

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

Latest Economic Trends, Statistics, and Opinions, October, 2012 - Part 1: 23 Million Unemployed/Underemployed Americans, Record High Food Stamp Applicants, and More Bad News

Every month this year we have been reviewing the latest economic and financial data, trends, and expert opinions regarding where poor economy is and where it is going. We will to that again over the next two days, starting with the latest unemployment data that was released last Friday. Tomorrow, we will review some other data along with the opinions of experts in the field of economics and finance.

On the surface, government reports last week looked encouraging, basically because it estimated that the unemployment rate had dropped down below 8.0% and was now at 7.8%. This was good news, especially for Obama’s reelection effort, since the country had suffered through 43 consecutive months where the official unemployment rate was over 8%.

To understand how bad this record is. Consider the following fact: from Harry Truman through the George W. Bush Presidencies, the total number of months since the Truman administration when U.S. unemployment rate was over 8% totaled ONLY 39 months. Thus, having finally gotten below 8% should be good news.

However, 7.8% is not really the good news one would think it is. First, there are many accusations flying around that the administration may have “cooked the books,” i.e. falsely adjusted the unemployment rate estimate to benefit Obama’s reelection campaign. The basis of this suspicion includes the following:

• For every week this year, the number of Americans filing for first time unemployment benefits has consistently been between 350,000 and 380,000 people per week. Since this should be a leading indicator of unemployment, the fact that this trend did not change throws some suspicion on the latest unemployment rate estimate.
• The number of Americans on the food stamp program is at an all time high, another indication that a lot of Americans are not finding jobs.
• There were no major corporate announcements of hiring expansion and surveys of small business owners indicate that they are not in the hiring mode so where did these jobs come from?
• The Obama administration has been caught in any number of lies during its tenure so it would not be that surprising if the numbers had indeed been falsely stated

But even if the sampling technique and analysis that resulted in this seemingly low unemployment rate estimate is legit, let’s see how bad things are when you get underneath this top line number. The following stats and analysis come from the Bankrupting America website and various Associated Press articles:

• Even if the 7.8% estimate is real, that same estimation process would show that there are 12.1 million Americans who are still unemployed, three years after the so-called recession ended and the recovery began, making this the weakest recovery ever.
• The 7.8% is an estimated rate of people who are currently employed and who are still actively looking for work. It does not count the number of Americans who have become so discouraged that they have literally given up looking for a job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a broader measure of total labor underutilization which estimates a more comprehensive unemployment rate called U-6.
• The U-6 unemployment rate is often referred to as the rate of “underemployment.” This measure includes the total unemployed, plus those who have given up looking for work, and those who are working a part-time job but want full-time work.
• This more comprehensive measure essentially looks at the percentage of the civilian labor force that would choose to have a full-time job if economic conditions were more positive. It gives a much fuller picture of what is going on in the labor and job market.
• If we use this better U-6 process of estimation, today there are 23 million Americans still looking for work, almost twice the number of unemployed and underemployed Americans that the traditional, restricted measure of unemployment provides.
• In January 2009, when Obama took office, that figure was 22 million. Thus, under this better description of unemployment, things have gotten worse, not better since he took office and the recession ended.
• Not unexpectedly, he U-6 unemployment rate has jumped from 14.2 to 14.7 percent during that period of so-called recovery.
• When we examine at the number of individuals employed, from January 2009 until today, there are 61,000 fewer individuals employed across the U.S.
• From a long term unemployment perspective, out of the 12.1 million individuals looking for work under the restricted definition of unemployment, 3.4 million Americans have been out of work for over a year and are still looking.
• For all unemployed Americans, the average amount of time spent from time of unemployment until being hired in a new position has nearly doubled since 2009, rising from 19.8 weeks to 39.8 weeks, despite the so-called recovery from the recession.
• Unemployed individuals experiencing many months of unemployment and no income can suffer from severe economic hardships and thus, it should not be a shock that a record number of Americans are receiving food stamps.
• As of the end of August 2012, nearly 47 million Americans were on food stamps. Additionally, recent surveys reported that nearly 1 in 6 Americans were living in poverty in 2011, the highest rate in two decades, despite the so-called recovery.
• The BLS reported that nonfarm payroll employment rose by 114,000 last month. At this rate, it would take almost 17 years to wipe out the underemployment of 23 million Americans, assuming that no currently employed Americans lost their jobs.
• A separate report from Reuters supported all of the above data but also reported that two thirds of those Americans who found a job month could only find a part time job, a finding that takes some additional shine off of the drop to 7.8%.
• Reuters also quoted former General Electric chairman Jack Welch who also accused the administration of adjusting the numbers for political purposes.

Yes, getting an unemployment measure down .3% is a good thing for America:

1. But the better measure of unemployment, the U-6 rate has not improved since January, 2009, the month this administration took over control.
2. The rate of job creation is not fast enough to get full employment down to a respectable level for well over ten years.
3. The number of Americans who the government still think deserve food stamp assistance is still at record high levels so an improving job market has not affected that economic measure of distress.
4. The economy and hiring picture has not gotten much better relative to the Federal Reserve Board who plans to print money via quantitative easing for an undetermined amount of time to help the economy.
5. It takes longer to find a job for an unemployed American since January, 2009 despite the recession ending years ago.
6. In total, there are fewer Americans officially employed than in January, 2009 even though the recession ended in 2009 and 114,000 jobs were created last month.
7. And regardless of what the administration claims, it also reports that more than 350,000 Americans are filing for first time unemployment benefits every WEEK. How this monthly rate of at least 1.4 million first time filers in conjunction with a monthly job creation rate of 114,000 can actually reduce the unemployment rate stretches the limits of believability, integrity, and credibility.

Yes, any improvements in unemployment is good news, no matter how small. But until the Washington political class and this Presidential administration understand that they need to reduce the tax burden and streamline the tax code, reduce government spending short term and the overall national debt long term, remove the uncertainty in the minds of businesses from the so-called fiscal cliff perspective, reduce the tons of unneeded regulations, repeal the dozens of taxes and thousands of regulations of Obama Care, and just get out of the way, small improvements is all we can expect.

Tomorrow we will cover some other economic trends and stats along with expert opinions. Unfortunately, the picture they paint will not be any different to the underlying crisis we have outlined above.

We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of our times.

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 freedomfor 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.repealamendment