July, 2018, Part 7, Political Class: Economic Ignorance In NYC, Rats Gone Wild In Chicago, and The Non-Threat From Russia

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) Sometimes you cannot believe what comes out of a politician’s mouth, it is that inane. Such is what happened recently to a co-called”rising star” of the Democratic party, a young lady from NYC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez recently had a huge upset in a Democratic primary, beating a long time Congressman from that district.

This got a lot of liberals and Democrats all excited: a young woman, Hispanic, camera friendly, a millennial, all of the Democratic hot buttons pushed. She was dubbed by some as the future of the Democratic party which seemed a little premature since her only accomplishment was to win one primary.

It got really premature when she opened her mouth during a friendly interview that she granted. Keep in mind as you see what she said, that she supposedly has a degree in economics, which seems really hard to believe based on her understanding, or non-understanding, of a simple economic calculation, the unemployment rate:

• The host lobbed a softball question to her, citing the reality that the nation’s unemployment rate is very low, record setting lows in some places.
• The host then made the correct assertion that this was good news for working Americans.
• At which point Ms. Ocasio-Cortez made a complete fool of herself and her economics degree: “Well, I think the numbers you just talked about is part of the problem, right? We look at these figures and we say, ‘Oh, unemployment is low, everything is fine,’ right? Well, unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their kids.”
• She somehow thinks that if a person has two jobs, that helps drive down the unemployment rate which, of course is nonsense. 
• The unemployment rate is simply the number of people who are without a job and who are looking for a job divided by divided by the the size of the workforce, it has NOTHING to do with whether or not someone has two or three or more jobs.
• This from a supposedly college graduate with a degree in economics who cannot understand a simple high school economics class principle. Makes you wonder how bad her university's economic program is.

But her ignorance and/or lying gets worse:

• She says “everyone has two jobs” which of course is more nonsense.
• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer than five percent of the U.S. labor force currently has two jobs, which means that more than 95% of American workers only have one job, hardly close to her assertion that ”everyone has two jobs.”
• What’s more, the percentage of Americans holding down two jobs has been steadily trending downwards over the past two decades.
• As far as “barely feeding their kids,” Michelle Malkin puts that nonsense to rest also: “As for starving children, government statistics show that hunger has dropped to its lowest levels in a decade as unemployment and food inflation have declined. Federal food stamp usage has also plunged to historic lows.”

Is she a liar, pushing her point of view on an unsuspecting public or is she really that ignorant of the realities of our times regarding how to calculate a simple, very basic economic statistic and does not know the realities of declining hunger levels and multiple job holders in the country? In either case, a liar or ignorant, hardly the future any political party should want for their future.

As a final note, Ms. Malkin does a better job of explaining this nonsense coming from Ms. Ocasio-Cortez than me: “The unemployment rate, which stands at a historically low 4 percent, is calculated by extrapolating and dividing the number of people out of work by the total number of individuals in the American workforce.

If you have one job, two jobs, three jobs or more, you don’t count as unemployed. Whether you are working 40 hours or 80 hours or 120 hours a week, if you’re working, that has no effect on the unemployment rate, either. The number of workers moonlighting and the number of hours they moonlight have zero, zip and nada effect on the unemployment rate.

Ocasio-Cortez’s claim that “everyone has two jobs” is more fake-o-nomics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of Americans holding down multiple jobs is less than 5 percent and has been declining for nearly 30 years. Pew Research adds that both “in terms of raw numbers and as a share of all employed people, fewer Americans are working more than one job than in the mid-1990s.”

2) We have recently discussed the reality that San Francisco has a human feces problem in its city, getting thousands of complaints a week of human feces showing up on the city streets because of the high number of homeless people in the city. Pretty disgusting stuff, but Chicago is not far behind San Francisco in disgusting health situations, as reported by Angie Leventis Lourgos in a recent article from the Chicago Tribune:

• A recent study by an organization called RentHop rated Chicago as the “rat capital” of the country.
• This dubious award went to Chicago based on the number of rat complaints registered in 2017 in four major U.S. cities.
• Chicago had over 50,000 rat complaints filed, Boston had almost 2,500, New York had just over 19,000 and D.C. had just over 5,000 rat complaints.
• Thus, the “contest” was not even close with Chicago have twenty times more complaints than Boston, ten times more than D.C. and two and half more than NYC.
• Even when adjusted for population size, Chicago is still the clear “winner.”
• Now to be fair, the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation said it actually received only 42,670 requests for rat complaints from residents in 2017 in Chicago.
• However, I doubt that made Chicago residents feel any better since the number is still huge and more than double the nearest competitor, New York City.
• Despite what the city says, the article quotes a Chicago veterinarian, Dr. Dylan Frederickson, who claims he has lived in other cities like Minneapolis and Madison, but has never experienced such a dense rat population before: “I’ve never seen anything like the rat infestation that we have in Chicago.” 
• He claims that he has had to treat pet dogs for leptospirosis which is a rat caused disease.

We mention this disgusting situation in Chicago to prove a point we have made often. Given that the city’s rat population is exploding, the south side of Chicago is a murderous place to be any day of the year with hundreds of innocent citizens gunned down in the streets every year, the city school system stinks, and the city is going bankrupt, just what do the local city politicians bring to the table as far as serving their constituents? It does not appear like they bring much except for high taxes.

3) We have often argued that today’s American politicians are more concerned about their careers and self enrichment than being in touch with Americans’ worries, issues, and concerns. This self centered approach to life and politics often has the political class totally out of step with what Americans what to see get done and resolved.

The following is just another example in a long line of examples of being out of touch. If you were to believe the mainstream media, liberals and Democrats, you would think that our relationship with Russia was the biggest crisis in the history of the Republic. They are actually out of control trying to find a way to prove that Russia is the ultimate enemy, in cahoots with Trump.

But is that the reality out in the country, away from D.C.? Are Americans also viewing Russia as the top issue in their lives? According to Gallup, not quite:

• Gallup recently asked Americans what was the most important problem facing America today.
• Not unexpectedly, economic issues were very important to Americans.
• But Gallup also listed out in rank order important issues in Americans’ mind that did not include economic issues.
• The top two issues, by far, in Americans’ lives are Immigration/Illegal Aliens (22%) and Dissatisfaction With Government/Poor Leadership (19%).
• No other non-economic issues garnered double digit results, Race Relations/Racism (7%) and Unifying the Country and Lack of Respect for Each Other, both at only 6%, coming in next.

And where did big, bad Russia come in relative Americans’ fears? The concern about Russia finished at less than one half of one percent, with 26 other issues ranked as more important than Russia. And yet, if you listen to the media, Democrats, and liberals it is by far the biggest threat to our country. So out of touch with the reality in America today.

That will do it for today’s and this month’s political class insanity. Washington still out of touch with Americans, rats going crazy in Chicago, and a totally ignorant and/or lying New York City politician. More insanity next month.

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