January, 2016, Part 4, By The Numbers: Muslims Do Most of the Suicide Bombings, Chicago is the Wild West, and More

This is the next post this month in our continuing theme of “by the numbers.” We do this theme occasionally where we look at the reality of the numbers in the world and not the lies, deceptions, and spin of the American political class. I used to work for a boss whose favorite quote was: “There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the correct number.” By looking at the statistics, trends, and numbers in our world we can cut through the politicians’ smoke screen to truly understand what is going on and hopefully, remedy the issues of the day.

And there will be a lot of smoke to cut through in the next few posts. Always believe the numbers before you believe our politicians, numbers do not lie but politicians do.

1) In his recent state of the union message, Obama tried to convince the country, and probably himself, that he did a great job managing the economy over the past seven years. However, as we have pointed out many, many times in this blog, that delusion could not be further from the truth:

• The number of American receiving Federal food assistance is about 50% higher than at the beginning of the recession despite us having seen the end of the recession years ago.
• The economy’s annual growth rate under Obama has not ever come close to the historical average annual growth rate of just over 3%. Obama’s economy has never grown any where close to 3%, never mind exceeding it.
• There are about 14 million unemployed or underemployed Americans who cannot find full time work even though they desire it.
• The labor participation rate is at low levels not seen since the stagflation days of the Carter administration.
• By the time he leaves office, Obama would have added about the same amount of debt to our national debt than ALL previous Presidents COMBINED, leaving the country with a national debt burden of over $20 TRILLION.

And he accomplished these pathetic results despite spending over $800 billion on a (failed) economic stimulus plan, enjoying record low energy costs, and having the Fed pump trillions of paper dollars into the economy.

And the latest economic numbers from the Federal government do not show much of any kind of improvement:

• The number of adults Americans not participating in the work force exceeded an amazing 94 million people for the fifth month in a row.
• The labor force participation rate improved by 0.1% in the month of December vs. November but still remained at a low 62.6%, continuing the trend of low participation levels not seen since the Carter administration in the 1970s.
• While the official U3 unemployment rate stayed unchanged at 5%, we have previously discussed how this is now a bogus number, given how low the labor participation rate is. The U6 rate is a much better gauge of true unemployment and that was at a depressing 9.9%, almost double the now defunct but still reported U3 rate.
• While the economy added about 500,000 jobs in the past two months, a run rate of about 3 million annually, the annual growth in the population adds about 1.84 million adults to the population every year. Thus, over 60% of the job growth under the Obama administration this past year would theoretically be taken up by normal population growth, leaving only about 1.2 million new jobs to be used to hit against the 14 million people discussed above. 
• At this rate, assuming nobody else lost their jobs or got downgraded to part time, it would take a whopping 14 years for the Obama economy growth rate to get everyone a full time job who wanted one.

The numbers do not lie, economic times in this country are not good for many, many Americans. We had previously pointed out this past week several sources of data that showed the majority of Americans either have less than a $1,000 in savings or have no savings. Thus, either Obama is lying to protect his ego or he is delusional since the numbers show the economy he has had oversight of is not in good shape at all.

2) Although the numbers are not good for the entire economy, it is especially difficult for American millennials (aged 35 and younger), according the a recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers: 

• 40% have used a payday loan, pawnshop, or other unconventional financing option to cover expenses, options that are usually more expensive than conventional options.
• Only 36% have put money away in a 401k account to save for retirement.
• 20% of those had done withdrawals from their retirement accounts, turning their retirement accounts into savings account, savings accounts that come with a stiff tax penalty for withdrawals.

Lay heavy student debt on top of this reality, and we see that the Washington political class has really not made it easy for our kids to have high potential for attaining the American dream.

3) Given the total mismanagement of the economy over the recent years by the President and Congress, the administration’s failed foreign policy and anti-terrorism efforts, and the broken down Federal government operations, it should not be a surprise that Gallup recently found that an amazing 69% of Americans think that big government is the biggest threat to the United States. The other choices were big business and big labor but they were no match for big government.

Think about that number. Almost seven out of ten Americans fear that their biggest problem and threat is the very government that is supposed to protect their lives, their families, and their freedoms. And this fear exists across the political spectrum with 88% of Republicans, 67% of Independents, and 53% of Democrats holding this view. This is especially interesting since we have been living under a Democrat in the White House for seven years and even fellow Democrats think that big government is the biggest threat.

For a historical perspective, this is the second highest level of mistrust of big government in the fifty years that Gallup has been doing the study, with the highest level coming just two years ago in 2013 at 72%. The mistrust of big government during the Obama years averaged out at 64% which is about 15% higher than the average during Bush’s term in office, 56%, but close to the average mistrust level of the Clinton administration of 65%.

Obviously, these results are compatible with other recent poll data that we have discussed, data that found 75% of Americans believe that corruption is widespread throughout the government in this country. This is up from 67% in 2007. Thus, during the Obama administration the corruption perception has gone up 8 percentage points in just eight years.

4) It is no secret that this President seems to have a soft spot for everything Islamic, going so far to refuse to state that radical Islam even exists. This delusions could fill any number of posts but let’s look at a few numbers to prove that radical Islam is a major terrorism problem despite what Obama wants us to believe.

A new research study by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University found that 452 suicide attacks occurred in 2015. Of the 452 suicide attacks 450 were done by Muslims. 450. One of the remaining two attacks was carried out by the Kurdish underground. The other was perpetrated by a woman supporter of a leftist group in Turkey. And according to the study that latter attack might have been Islamic based also. 

As outrageous these numbers are, both the total number and the fact that almost all of them were done by Muslims, consider the following reality: have you ever heard of a Christian suicide bomber or a Jewish or Hindu suicide bomber? Given that setting, maybe the President ought to reconsider the true danger that radical Islam is to the country and the world, the numbers are pretty convincing. 

5) As we have discussed many times in this blog, Chicago has the strictest gun control laws in the country but somehow manages to have some of the highest crime and homicide rates in the world. Despite this reality, Obama and other liberals insist that gun control laws across the country need to be toughened and more like Chicago’s.

From a logic perspective and numbers perspective, why would we want the rest of the country to look like Chicago, especially when you look at what happened in the first few days of 2016 in Chicago, toughest gun control city in the country:

• In the first 10 days of 2016, 101 citizens of Chicago have been shot and 19 have been killed.
• At this rate over 700 Chicago citizens will be killed in 2016 and over 3,500 will be wounded.
• According to the Chicago Tribune, in the first ten days of 2015, 31 had been wounded and 9 had been killed, obviously much lower rate of violence than in 2016.
• One of the shooting incidents occurred within blocks of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home.

If the mayor cannot live in a safe neighborhood and the murder and wounded rate is going up dramatically DESPITE the strong gun control laws, why would anyone want the rest of the country to look like Chicago? Insanity.

So what did the numbers tell us today:

1. The economy still stinks.
2. The economy really stinks for young Americans.
3. We currently fear and do not trust our government.
4. Muslims execute a lot of suicide bombings, in fact, committing almost all of them, despite the President’s apparent blind spot to this reality and numbers.
5. Chicago is going wild in the face of the strongest gun laws in the country.

Those are numbers for today. Remember until the next time we review the numbers, whenever the choice is between a politician’s word and the numbers, trust the numbers.

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