March, 2017, Part 3, By The Numbers: Trump Approval Over 50%, Cartel Farmers Invade Texas 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 third and final 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. 

This latest set of by the numbers will focus on what Americans think, feel, and want done in Washington and elsewhere within the political class. We will show that many times what politicians are doing and what the mainstream media is reporting and harping on could not be further away from what Americans want done. Our main set of numbers will come from reputable poll taking organizations whose reputations and future rely on conducting and reporting on opinions and trends in an unbiased manner, something that most mainstream media outlets no longer feel they need to do.

1) We have often discussed that the “war on drugs”conducted by the Federal government over the past four decades has been an absolute failure. All it has done is waste trillions of dollars and create very powerful, violent, and wealthy Mexican drug cartels. A recent set of numbers show how poorly the war on drugs is going:

• Law enforcement officials have announced that they have located 15 drug cartel “marijuana plantations” containing 77,000 marijuana plants.
• The amazing thing about these marijuana plantations is that they were not discovered in a far away land, they were found in the backwoods of Texas, across nine counties.
• Yes, a Mexican drug cartel, thought to be the Los Zetas, have had enough nerve and wherewithal to actually export part of their marijuana production physically into the United States.
• The estimated value of these thousands of marijuana plants is about $101.6 million according to reporting by the San Antonio Express News since it is estimated that these plants would eventually produce almost 170,000 pounds of marijuana, about 85 tons worth of grass.

Trillions of dollars spent and the Feds cannot even stop the cartels from moving their marijuana production into the United States proper. And these locations are what the Feds have found, who knows how many other cartel marijuana plantations are still operating that law enforcement efforts have not found. Depressing numbers, a complete failure of a major Federal program.

2) We have shown many times how awful the Obama recovery and economic policies and strategies were:

• Worst economic recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.
• Annual overall national economic growth that never exceeded 3% and never once got even close to the long term annual growth average.
• Job creation that was worst than just about any other economic recovery and the jobs that were created were mostly part time, contract, and low paying positions in the services industries.
• Household income and wages that were stagnant for almost the entire length of the Obama recovery until a recent small uptick.
• Millions of Americans that want full time jobs and can only find temporary jobs or have dropped out of the labor workforce altogether.
• The labor participation rate is at levels not seen since the stagflation years of the Carter administration with about 94 million American adults not in the workforce.

But now we find out how bad the economy is relative to the middle class that has taken a beating over the past eight years relative to good paying jobs. The Affluent Christian Investor website recently put together a fascinating analysis and set of numbers that shows how the end of the Obama administration left the Trump administration with one of the worst recent housing affordability ratio ever:

• The analysis first took the median American housing price for a typical single family home in the first year of each of the past nine U.S. Presidents and adjusted those housing prices for inflation.
• The next step in the analysis was to take the median annual family income in those same initial years of each Presidential administration and adjust those income levels for inflation.
• The analysis than graphed the difference between these two inflation adjusted numbers for each initial year of each Presidential term.
• For just about every Presidency, the difference was pretty constant between $100,000 and $120,000.
• With the exception of the second term of the George W. Bush Presidency, at the height of the housing boom, the Obama administration had the highest difference between median house value and median family income levels.
• Another way to view the numbers is to create a ratio between the adjusted median housing values and median family incomes.
• When these ratios are calculated, they all fall between 2.6 and 2.8 with the exception of the second Bush and second Obama terms whose ratios are well above 3.0.

These two number analyses indicate that the average/middle class family in America today is going to have a very difficult time purchasing a home and attaining the American Dream since the difference between median housing value and median family income is about 55% higher than the historical average and the ratio of house value is seriously out of line with historical affordability levels. 

At least the economy was booming, primarily due to the housing boom, under Bush which explain those results and numbers. Under Obama, the economy never boomed but the American dream of owning a home still has taken a serious hit as the American middle class gets shredded by the Washington political class and their inept economic abilities.

3) It is no mystery that the current political class in this country has no idea on howto make fiscally and economically sound decisions. The reality that they managed to run up a $20 TRILLION national debt without resolving an even single major issue facing Americans is more than enough to prove their idiocy when it comes to managing money, namely our tax money.

Terence P. Jeffrey, writing for the CNS News website on March 10, 2017, provides the latest proof of this concept:

• The Federal government has collected $611,318,000,000 in individual income taxes in the first five months of this fiscal year.
• This sets a record for the first five months of any previous fiscal year.
• And yet despite this record of income tax collection, more taxes collected by any government in the history of mankind, the Federal bureaucracy and Washington political class somehow still managed to run a whopping deficit of $348,984,000,000.
• In other words, the Washington politicians spent 28% more than they collected in total revenue.
• Ten years ago, before the recklessly overspending Obama administration took over, the Federal government five month spending level was just over $500,000,000,000 which means that Federal spending has gone up by 20% in just ten years.

As always, the numbers show us again that we do not have an under taxation problem in this country, we have a government overspending problem in this country. How you can collect a world record and humanity record in income taxes and still not have enough money to cover your expenses still boggles the mind.

4) One last set of numbers for this month. Liberals and Democrats would still have you believe that Donald Trump’s election was some kind of cosmic fluke that never should have happened. That Americans and America are all disgusted with his antics and actions in office and that he is the worst President ever. But is that really what America thinks? Apparently not, according to a recent Rasmussen poll:

• That poll showed that 53% of U.S likely voters approve of the job Trump is doing so far.
• 47% disapprove of the job he is doing.
• 37% strongly approve of the job he is doing while 36% strongly disapprove of the job he is doing resulting in what Rasmussen calls a Presidential Approval Index of +1%.

So yes, Trump is not universally loved by all Americans. But no President ever is. His 53% approval rating in this poll is comparable to the approval ratings Obama exited with so this is not a cosmic disaster as liberals and Democrats really want to believe and want you to believe. 

If you look at Trump’s other numbers, the very early trend is good: the stock market is way up, illegal entry attempts into the country are way down, job creation numbers from last month were much higher than expected. 

Bottom line on this month’s “by the numbers” review: always believe the numbers, never believe a politician of mainstream news report.

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