March, 2018, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Reducing our Economic and Personal Freedom and Wasting our Time and Tax Dollars

It is the beginning of 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) As Americans, we like to think that we live in a free country. We know that this is usually a false assumption, given how large and intrusive all level of governments have become in this country especially at the Federal level. We have often made the assertion that personal freedom is tightly tied to economic freedom. If we were allowed to keep more and more of our hard earned wealth, we could:

• Expand our kids’ education options.
• We could start a business that was more in line with our life’s desires and preferences.
• We could contribute more to charitable efforts that we have special feelings for.
• We could spend more money on products and services that satisfy our physical, mental, and emotional needs and wants.

Thus, the more we enjoy economic freedom the more personal freedom will come our way.

Every year the Heritage Foundation does an extensive analysis and develops a single index number that ranks and orders every country according to its economic freedom. Their process combines measurements along numerous dimensions including regulatory burden, taxation levels, property rights, etc.

At one time the United States was ranked as one of the top nations in the world when it came to economic freedom. This was not surprising since living in such a free society and nation helped produce the highest level of wealth for our citizens in the history of the world.

Unfortunately, over time that high ranking has taken a beating as our economic freedom has ebbed which has in turn depressed our personal freedoms:

• While the U.S. was once one of the freest countries in the world from an economic perspective, it now ranks as only the 18th freest economic country in the latest analysis.
• Our index has slipped from an index value of about 81 back in 2007-2009 time period, since then, i.e. during the Obama administration, our freedom index as slipped about 7% to 75.7.
• During that time the world’s total economic freedom index value has risen slightly from 59.5 to 61.1, the opposite trend of what our economic freedom index has been.
• If the U.S. had just maintained its index level of 81 or so it would be ranked about the 4th or 5th most free country in the world today, a level that would have vastly improved our economic and personal freedom.
• We are less free from the index’s perspective than two former parts of the Soviet Union, Georgia and Estonia.
• We are less free from the index’s perspective than two Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Denmark, two countries that we usually associate with socialist countries, i.e. countries with suppressive economies and governments.

In other words, the Washington political class in general and the Obama Presidency specifically have repressed both our economic freedom and personal freedom over the past eight years or so, resulting in lower standards of living and freedom for us all.

2) It is not only the Federal government that does insane things and places restrictions on our freedoms and violates common sense. Often it is more local levels of government and politicians that just do stupid things, wasting our time, freedom, and wealth in the process. Consider some recent examples from Reason magazine:

• In 2017 in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, a government probation officer ripped a pair of pants chasing a perp. He asked his department to pay to replace those pants that were damaged while he was performing his government job, a cost to the county of about $60. When the county refused to pony up the $60, he took his case to court where a judge ordered the county to pay the $60 but only after the county government spent and wasted $4,285 of taxpayer wealth fighting the issue.
• In theory, government is supposed to help its citizens. But apparently that is not the case with government and politicians in the city of Malibu, California. There town officials are pressuring a local United Methodist church to stop its twice weekly free meal program for homeless people since it thinks that such a program will attract more homeless Americans to the city. Guess it is better to let the local homeless go hungry than to alleviate at least some of the despair in their lives.
• Crime has gotten so bad in some Philadelphia neighborhoods that local store owners have been putting up bullet proof glass between their cashiers and customers to protect their employees from criminal violence. Rather than address the underlying causes of the criminal violence in the city, Councilwoman Cindy Bass is ticked off at the business owners who are just protecting themselves and their employees,claiming that the glass is an insult to the local residents. She is so upset she is sponsoring a law that would prohibit store owners from protecting their assets via bulletproof glass while not addressing the root causes of the bulletproof glass. In her mind it is better to place local residents in danger of violence in their jobs than possibly hurt a local resident’s feelings.
• We have often written about how badly the Veterans Administration serves veterans. There have been numerous confirmed instances where the long waiting lines and poor medical support of our veterans probably contributed to their early deaths. Well, apparently the VA, according to USA Today, has repeatedly hired healthcare workers who have lost malpractice claims, indicating that possibly many doctors within the VA would not be allowed to practice medicine anywhere else as a result of incompetence but are welcomed at the VA. This practice that not only endangers veterans’ health but is also a violation of existing Federal law.
• Americans spent a lot of taxpayer money to help Puerto Rico get back on its feet after being devastated by a hurricane. But apparently the local political class and government bureaucracy is so corrupt on the island that armed Federal agents found it necessary to raid a local warehouse. There they found taxpayer funded materials and equipment that was meant to restore power throughout the island but instead was being hoarded by the local Puerto Rico Electric Power authority.
• Sometimes government gets so big and so incompetent that it cannot get out of its own way. A bicycle owner in Clearwater, Florida was cited and fined for installing an illegal bike rack outside of his bicycle shop. The sad thing is that the very government that cited him for this violation was the actual entity that had installed the bike rack to begin with, the local store owner had nothing to do with it’s installation.
• Up in Vermont, the Green Mountain Care Board, which I am assuming is some type of government entity, ordered the Copley Hospital’s orthopedic division to stop doing so many surgeries since it does too many operations and generates too much revenue. Apparently there was no issue with the quality of the operations or the necessity of the operations, it is just that some government agency arbitrarily decided that a private business was too successful and in this case, relieving the pain and agony of too many patients, and had to stop the two grievous acts of helping people in need and making money in the process. Horrors.

Restricting our economic freedom and personal freedom, wasting our taxpayer dollars, and doing just stupid stuff to the people it is supposed to serve. Yep, just another day of political class ineptness and shenanigans. More to follow.

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.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

July, 2017, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Stupid in L.A., Poorer In Europe, and Busted Everywhere

As we do every month, we review the latest idiocy, lunacy, ineptness, and general insanity from the American political class. The members of the political never cease to amaze us with their greed, idiocy, gumption, and criminal activities. And just when we think there is no new way to disappoint us and tick us off, they manage to find a way to do it, wasting our tax dollars and destroying our freedoms in the process.

The political class has been very busy this month so let’s get right to it:

1) One of the biggest pieces of political class insanity that has been going for decades is the reality that the Washington political class and the government operations it oversees is extremely inefficient and crime infested. A little while ago we reported on a government inspector general report that found that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security basically lost at least $144 billion a year in taxpayer wealth due to fraud and inefficient operations. The wasted wealth gets higher if you include government welfare, food stamp, and other horribly run government operations.

All of this history is bad news. But there is some good news recently, as reported on the Dennis Micheal Lynch website by reporter Anneta Griffee on July 13, 2017:

• Recently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that a massive set of arrests had been by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force that helped break up a ring of Medicare fraudsters.
• The fraud involved $1.3 billion in criminal Medicare and Medicaid billings.
• It is the largest bust in the history of the Justice Department and it involved arresting 412 people across the country including 114 doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel.
• In addition, 295 health care providers can longer participate in any Federal health program.
• The arrest operation involved 1,000 Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers and 350 agents from the office of the inspector general.
• The press release also said that, “Over 120 defendants, including doctors, were charged for their roles in prescribing and distributing opioids and other dangerous narcotics.” 
• Criminal charges included filing fraudulent billing schemes including Medicare, Medicaid and the military’s TRICARE program for medically unnecessary and false drug prescriptions which involved the illegal distribution of opioids.
• According to the Justice Department press release, the schemes involved such elaborate setups a, “One fake rehab facility for drug addicts in Palm Beach is alleged to have recruited addicts with gift cards, visits to strip clubs, and even drugs-enabling the company to bill for over $58 million in false treatments and tests.” and “Another illegal clinic in Houston allegedly gave out prescriptions for cash. Just one doctor at this clinic allegedly gave out 12,000 opioid prescriptions for over 2 million illegal painkiller doses. These defendants have been charged and they will face justice.”

This is obviously great news for the American taxpayer who is the real victim in this criminal activity. But let’s be clear this is one tiny, tiny step. $1.3 billion is less than 1% of the annual fraud we documented above, $144 billion. It is doubtful the entire $1.3 billion will ever be recovered and how much additional taxpayer money had to be spent on the task force and law enforcement to bring this criminals to justice, for less than 1% of the fraud. 

The numbers and waste is mind boggling even in the face of the biggest bust EVER in the history of the Justice Department. The numbers are insane.

2) A lot of people in this country think it would be great if we changed our current economic system to those that are in Sweden, Denmark, Germany or other more socialistic countries around the world. We have already shown how stupid an idea that is relative to Denmark in the following post:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/07/july-2017-part-4-political-class.html

But what about Sweden, and Germany, countries that liberals and Democrats like to point out are virtual heavens on earth from an economic perspective? Ryan McMaken writing for the Mises.org website on October 26, 2015, went through an analysis that should sober up even the most socialistic Democrat or liberal:

• According to the analysis, if Sweden and Germany were part of the United States, their citizens would rank among the lowest states from a wealth perspective.
• His analysis was more sophisticated than just dividing a country or state’s GDP by the number of citizens since that ratio can be skewed if a state or country has a lot of really, really rich people.
• Instead, this analysis “takes into account taxes, and include social benefits (e.g., "welfare" and state-subsidized health care) as income. Purchasing power is adjusted to take differences in the cost of living in different countries into account.”
• Thus, in this better and more accurate analysis approach it turns out that Sweden would be poorer than all but 12 United States states with a median income of just $27,167.
• States such as Colorado ($35,830), Massachusetts ($37,626), Virginia ($39,291), Washington ($36,343), and Utah ($36,036) have incomes that are over 30% higher than in Sweden.
• German does even worse, having a median income that is higher than just 9 U.SA. states. 
• In fact, with the exception of just Luxembourg ($38,502), Norway ($35,528), and Switzerland ($35,083), all other countries shown would fail to rank as high-income states were they to become part of the United States with most of them being far, worse than Mississippi, the poorest U.S. state.
• According to the article, “Mississippi has a higher median income ($23,017) than 18 countries measured here. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom all have median income levels below $23,000 and are thus below every single US state. Not surprisingly, the poorest OECD members (Chile, Mexico, and Turkey) have median incomes far below Mississippi.”
• Even the richer countries in the study only rank as middling U.S. states from a median income perspective, Australia ($29,875), Austria ($28,735), and Canada (28,288). 
• The analysis was then taken a step further and the cost of living was factored in since a median income in low cost MIssissippi might be okay vs. a higher median income in New York which has a much higher cost of living.
• When this more sophisticated layer is added on, Sweden ranks higher than only six states while German ranks higher than no state.

The analysis goes on and on and can be viewed at:

https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states

The point to be made here is that as liberals and Democrats continue to try to push us towards a European socialistic economic system, the numbers above prove that this is a sure fire way to make every American poorer. The overreaching government intrusions into our lives not only robs us of our freedom and privacy but deprives us of economic opportunities to beas well off financially as we can be. The numbers do it lie even if politicians do. To try and be more like Sweden, Germany, or just about any other country in the world is economic suicide over time.

3) One last piece of disgusting political class insanity for today. California as we have discussed many times is going down the drain from a financial, job creation, economic, and poverty perspective. Their government liabilities, both funded and unfunded are astronomical. The state and its cities have more citizens living in poverty than any other state in the union. 40% of Los Angeles residents are so poor that they qualify for Medicaid. The LA schools massively under educate their kids. Businesses, companies, and residents are leaving the state in record numbers. State politicians have done a great job destroying what they like to call the sixth largest economy in the world.

But apparently their major screwups did not get to the local politicians running the city Los Angeles these days:

• An L.A. city commission recently voted to give members of the city’s board of education a massive pay raise.
• Board members with no outside income sources will see their board pay go from $45,637 a year to a cool $125,000 a year.
• Those get income from other sources will see their pay go up from $26,437 to almost double, $50,000 a year.
• They are getting these raises even the San Francisco Gate recently found in their analysis that the L.A. school system ranks in the lowest ten school districts in the COUNTRY.
• Upwards of half of L.A. senior high school students are not educated enough to graduate.
• The school district faces an operating expense deficit of over $400 million in the 2019-2020 school year as enrollment continues to drop as parents take their kids out of the L.A. public schools and into charter schools, private schools, or move out of the state altogether, all of which results in fewer tax dollars for the city’s public school kids.

And yet despite these massive failures, some politically connected commission people decided to vastly enrich school board members for their massive failure in serving mostly poorer kids in the L.A. school district. And the politicians running the city government let them get away with this robbery. Unbelievable insanity.

That will do it for today’s insanity: paying more for abysmal performance, wanting to be like poorer countries makes no sense, and Medicare fraud takes a minor but well deserved hit. More insanity to follow.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

July, 2017, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Fiscal Mismanagement Around The World

As we do every month, we review the latest idiocy, lunacy, ineptness, and general insanity from the American political class. The members of the political never cease to amaze us with their greed, idiocy, gumption, and criminal activities. And just when we think there is no new way to disappoint us and tick us off, they manage to find a way to do it, wasting our tax dollars and destroying our freedoms in the process.

The political class has been very busy this month so let’s get right to it:

1) We are going to talk a lot today about how politicians both in this country and around the world are lousy economists and horrible money managers. We have talked recently about how screwed up the state of Illinois is when it comes to fiscal insolvency of its state government’s finances. It has not had a workable budget in three years, it has untold billions and billions of dollars in unfunded future liabilities, it currently has unpaid bills totalling about $15 billion, and its bond rating is about to sink to junk bond level.

But Illinois is not alone. Many liberals and Democrats in this country want us to assume the economic model of Denmark where the fallacy is everyone is healthy and happy and the government efficiently and effectively takes care of everyone’s needs. 

A recent article from the American Journal Review talked about the reality of life in Denmark, based on the experience of a Danish school teacher:

• The school teacher claims to be a school teacher in Denmark who earns about $61,000 a year.
• She does admit that there is free education for anyone who wants it and they do not have to pay for medical costs.
• But this “free stuff” is not really free since the minimum income tax in Denmark is a whopping 40%.
• Anyone earning over $80,000 a year pays an income tax rate of 68%.
• The national sales tax is 25%, somehow buying a car is taxed at 180%, and gas is taxed so high that it costs $10 a gallon, with the last two taxes precluding just about anyone in Denmark from owning their own car.
• All of these taxes add up so that about 80% of every Danish citizen’s earnings is paid out in taxes.
• The Danes average the highest amount of individual debt in the world.
• The suicide rate in Denmark is 20.8 per 100,000 residents, one of the highest in the world and almost double the suicide rate in the U.S.
• 11% of Danish adults are using anti-depressants, hardly a good sign for a happy population.

As liberals and Democrats never understand, there is no free ride, no free lunch nor free anything in life. There is always a cost and in Denmark the cost is lost freedom, lost incentive, and lost hope, with just about your whole life controlled by what is usually inept and greedy politicians. 

Overtaxing people has NEVER been a way to improve society or the lives of those that live in that society, just ask the Danes and those that live in Illinois, the home of some of the highest taxes, that are about to go even higher, in the country.



2) Let’s stay with high taxes and intrusive government and review a recent report from the fact checking organization, Politifact. It has been my experience that while Politifact claims to be non-partisan, in my opinion it definitely leans left and liberal. Thus, when it comes out and is critical of anything liberal you know it is really bad.

No one would argue that California has been dominated by the Democrats for decades so anything that goes right or wrong in that state is the result of Democrats having overwhelming control of the state government. California also has some of the highest tax rates in the country so that under taxation is not an excuse for anything that goes wrong in the state.

But finally a California politician has stated what is probably taboo among the state’s politicians, that California has the highest poverty rate in the country despite some of the highest taxes in the country: State Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes recently called poverty California’s No. 1 priority during a recent meeting of legislative types: "If you look at the official poverty measure in California, we’re about average with the rest of the country. But if you use the supplemental poverty measure, we are in the lead. We have the highest poverty rate in the nation -- higher than New Mexico, higher than any of the southern states, Louisiana, Alabama, higher than Idaho."

Politifact decided to fact check this assertion and their verdict: Mayes is right and he used the most accurate measure of poverty, the Supplemental Poverty Measure, a measure that not only looks at income levels and such but also considers the cost of living in the state.

But this should not surprise us. We recently reported on how 40% of Los Angeles residents are on Medicaid, indicating at least 40% of LA citizens have extremely low income levels, low enough to qualify for Medicaid under their low income thresholds.

Thus, a state government and state political class that has taxed its citizens at some of the highest rates in the country for decades and have racked up over $100 billion in unfunded liabilities, still has not been able to not be the most poverty stricken state in the union. 

Okay, two stories and two stories that show how higher and higher taxation results in worsening impacts on the citizens that have to pay those higher and higher taxes.

3) Okay, still not done on how badly politicians handle our financial matters and economies: Illinois almost at junk bond status, Denmark crushing incentive and stealing 80% of everyone’s income, and California driving its citizens into poverty.

Let’s turn our attention to my original home state, New Jersey. In a recent blog post we showed how New Jersey’s bond rating is the second worst in the country, with only Illinois having a worst bond rating. New Jersey also has some of the highest property tax, income tax, and sales tax rates in the country.

Consider my history of property tax. Back in 2005, just before I sold my middle class home in New Jersey, I was paying about about $4.00 in property tax per square foot of house (Lord knows what that tax rate is 12 years later). I moved to Florida into a middle class house and have yet to pay over $2.00 in property tax per square foot of house. In Florida I also pay no sales tax vs. the 7% in New Jersey.

And yet, New Jersey has the second worst bond rating in the country, has billions in unfunded pension liabilities, and still has some of the highest taxes in the country.

Consider that what the next governor will be faced with according to an article from the NJ 101.5 website by Michael Symons on July 9, 2017:

• A non-profit group has analyzed the state’s financial situation and has come up with some recommendations for the next NJ governor.
• Just to get close to being fiscally sane the state government may have to both reduce health benefits for retired public workers by $1.4 billion a year and raise taxes by $5 billion in taxes.
• The group was honest in their analysis and correctly predicted that given how badly the state politicians had screwed up the state’s financial situation, everyone in the state was going to feel the pain of the cuts in spending and increased taxes.
• But not taking these painful steps now would make the future realities even harder for the state citizens to swallow.
• The group’s tax change recommendations include increasing income taxes to boost revenues by 10 percent, undoing a law exempting more retirement income from taxes, raising the sales tax to 8 percent and expanding it to more services, reinstating the estate tax, taxing legalized marijuana and more.
• As an example of how bad the retirees benefit financial situation is that while the state will put $2.5 billion in the fund for the benefits this year, in reality experts say that $5 billion should be put away, a shortfall that will make the current dire situation even worse and still short fund education, Medicaid, and other state government costs.

So the story is the same, the more politicians and governments spend the worse their government becomes from a fiscal and quality perspective, be it in Denmark, California, Illinois, and New Jersey. And these states and governments end up in a vicious cycle, taxing more and more and more to fulfill the ever increasing size of government. The higher taxes drive away citizens and businesses who value their wealth and freedom which further reduces the tax base which reduces tax revenue which causes politicians to raise tax rates, and the death spiral continues.

More insanity to follow.

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.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

June, 2017, Part 1, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and A Believer In Science: Obama Still Peddling Non-Facts, Spring Snows In Colorado, and More

Every month we have enough material to return to a continuing theme in this blog, namely that “I am a global warming doubter AND a believer in science.” This became of interest because of people like Al Gore who fanatically and verbosely claimed that you had to be an idiot to not believe in manmade global warming. It has been my life belief that anyone that is that loud and that obnoxious is hiding something, that rather than argue facts and reality it is better to beat down and insult anyone who disagrees

As we have dove into the whole issue of manmade global warming, or its new rebranded title of climate change, we found that Al Gore and people like him were guilty of a number of things:

• Ignoring science and realities that did not support their opinions and positions.
• Rather than have an adult conversation about climate, these types of advocates like Gore sank to the level of insulting those who dared look at ALL science by calling them a variety of names including racists, homophobes, terrorists, flat earth believers, and other slanderous names.
• Continuing to insist that politicians step up their intrusions into our lives with higher taxes, more regulations, and more control of our freedoms and standards of living based on a shaky theory at best.
• To see the past posts and the multitude of evidence that we have compiled that showed it is perfectly okay to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, enter the phrase "global warming doubter” in the search box above or go through the monthly historical posts listed on the right side of this page.

Thus, let’s see the latest facts and science that prove you can be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, regardless of what Al Gore proclaims.

1)For years and years people like Al Gore yelled and ranted that mankind was causing severe global warming that would burn up the planet and lead to all kinds of problems. When all of those predictions were wrong in so many ways, the global warming clan rebranded their effort to “climate change,” an even more amorphous term that allowed them to claim that anything that happened in the weather and climate was caused by man. It also released them from any kind of verification and measurement of their claims since everything was caused by manmade climate change.

Changing the brand to climate change was probably a good thing for them, given what happened in Colorado in late April. According to Valerie Richardson, writing for the Washington Times on April 29, 2017, at least one of the so-called “People’s Climate March” that was scheduled in Colorado on a recent Saturday had to be cancelled because of a major snowstorm.

Kind of ironic that over a month into spring that a climate change rally had to be shut down because of COLD weather and too much snow. Imagine how embarrassing it would have been in global warming was still the rage, kind of tough to justify global warming when a heavy snowstorm hits just prior to May.

And this was not just a bunch of snow flurries. Over a foot of snow fell in some places in Colorado and at the march in Denver, that was not cancelled because of snow, at least one substantial snowman was witnessed at the rally.

Again, thank the lord that global warming went away and became climate change or else it would have been embarrassing.

2) Global warming/climate change types like to claim that the “science is settled,” that just about every scientist in the world believes that mankind is causing catastrophic global warming and climate change impacts on the Earth. We have shown many, many times how this myth, “the science is settled,” is incredibly biased and wrong.

But the best way to prove a scientific theory wrong is with actual data. Consider a recent article in the UK Telegraph that reviewed the work of real scientists in Denmark relative to the Earth and climate change:

• Joseph Curl, writing for the Daily Wire website on May 8, 2017, reviewed the results of work done by the the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) which was written up in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper.
• The DMI found that the Earth had not warmed up in the past 19 years, killing any and all global warming forecast models that predicted the Earth would be much warmer today than it was 20 years ago.
• The DMI findings included the reality that December temperatures in the Arctic have been steadily less than minus 20 degrees C.
• The Arctic ice pack has returned to where it was 13 years ago.
• The Arctic ice pack is much thicker than it was as measured back in 2008.
• The Greenland ice cap got larger last winter than at any time in years.
• And although temps were very high in some places in 2016, giving the hold out global warming advocates hope, higher temps that were caused by the presence of a very strong El Nino, satellite images show that as the El Nino has dissipated, global temps have dropped more than .6 degrees C, the same thing that happened 17 years ago when a similar El Nino Had made 1998 the so-called “the hottest year on record.”
• The article cites other research which found that “a natural cooling cycle that occurs every 230 years began in 2014 and will send temperatures plummeting even further by 2019.” and that “Scientists are also expecting a “huge reduction” in solar activity for 33 years between 2020 and 2053 that will cause thermometers to crash.”
• This other research shows that climate is severely affected by activity on the sun and given that the sun activity is entering a quiet period, we can expect a cooling trend on Earth if past history repeats itself.

So, pick your scientists, the ones in Denmark doing real measurements of reality or Al Gore types who are still frantically trying to prove that mankind is causing all kinds of havoc despite the history of failed climate and global warming predictions.

Keep in mind that if the sun is quieting down and that causes a sudden drop in temps, agriculture output will also drop dramatically, causing all kinds of food supply problems. So this is not an academic exercise, getting it wrong will have implications that extend to life itself. Which is why global warming doubters like myself would like to see a mature, adult conversation that includes ALL of the available climate research and datas, not just the subset of data that global warming/climate change advocates tend to use.

3) Julie Kelly, writing for the National Review on May 29, 2017, reported on Obama’s speech at a recent symposium entitled, “The Global Food Innovation Summit.” Rather than focus on food, he focused on climate change and the same old myths that he peddled when President:

• He blamed climate change for “wildfire seasons that are longer and more dangerous,” ignoring the reality that we have often reported on, using real government data, that the number and extent of wildfires has been declining in the U.S. over time.
• He continued to blamed the wave of immigrants flooding into Europe and climate change as much as the war in Syria, a connection that he continues to not be able or willing to prove.
• He claimed that some states were “seeing floods on sunny days,” an assertion that makes no sense or was proved by any data he provided.
• He claimed that food prices were spiking but government statistics show that food prices in the U.S. have risen slowly and at about the same rate of overall inflation over the past 20 years and some of the increase in prices can be attributed to the Federal government causing a lot of farmland to be converted over to ethanol production vs. food production.
• He blamed climate for being a significant contributor to the political unrest in North Korea and Venezuela which could not be any further from the truth, food shortages in those countries are due mostly to despotic leaders.
• But then he claimed that, “Food production is the second-leading driver of GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions . . . and if we don’t change course, the World Bank predicts that by 2050, agriculture and land use change may account for as much as 70 percent of global GHG emissions.”
• Which reveals an extreme contradiction in his own reasoning and reality since as the author points out, “In short, we aren’t making enough food because of climate change . . . but making all this food is causing climate change.”
• He also had to drop in the favorite lie of climate change advocates, “Ninety-nine percent of scientists who study climate change carefully . . . will tell you that it is indisputable that the planet is getting warmer and the only real controversy is how much warmer will it get,” making this quote despite the reality that for the past 20 years or so the planet has NOT gotten any warmer and let’s remember that the 99% number he quotes is wrong based on the source of such nonsense (the source claims 97%) and the source’s research, as we have often pointed out, is totally bogus and invalid from a statistical point of view.

As he did when he was President, Obama throws out “facts” that are easily proven to be wrong or outright lies, never providing any real basis for his opinions. As the narcissist he is, he just expects the masses to bow down to his wisdom whenever he pontificates, even if he contradicts himself as he did at this gathering. Or as Ms. Kelly points out, “Instead, Obama’s comments were yet another example of the kind of meandering, vague, and contradictory collection of hypothetical scenarios that the climate tribe loves to peddle.”

That will do it for today: an ex-President still not proving he understands reality or providing sound data that supports his vague assertions, scientists in Denmark that prove it is okay to be a global warming doubter, and cold and heavy snow in Colorado in the spring, not what global warming models ever predicted. More to follow.

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April, 2016, Part 3, By The Numbers: Obama's Expensive Vacations, Hillary's Lies About Guns, Bernie's Lies About Denmark, 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. 

1) As Americans file their income taxes this week, consider what a good chunk of those taxes are being used for. According to dogged Freedom of Information Act action by the Judicial Watch organization, they have finally gotten some of the missing information they had been requesting for a long time from the Federal government, namely how much did the 2013-2014 Obama family Hawaiian Christmas vacation cost the American taxpayer. According to Judicial Watch: “This week we received expense records from the Department of Homeland Security revealing that Secret Service expenses for the Obama family vacation to Honolulu during December 2013-January 2014 cost taxpayers at least $316,698.03. These new expense records bring the total for the Hawaii Christmas vacation trip to $8,098,060.33.”

Yes, over $8 million for ONE Obama vacation. How did you do with your bottom line tax bill this year? I bet you are not taking an $8 million vacation anytime soon.

2) Any rational human being wishes there were no nuclear weapons in the world. However, if there are going to be nuclear weapons, it is best that the U.S. have a large enough nuclear arsenal to deter any other nuclear weapons possessor from doing anything with theirs. Given all of this, consider the following nuclear weapons numbers that are occurring today, as reported by Stan Gertz of the Washington Free Beacon:

• The State Department recently announced that while Russia was adding 153 nuclear warheads to its nuclear arsenal in the past year, the U.S. was cutting its arsenal by 57 warheads.
• In addition, the Defense Department recently stated that Russia is doubling the number of strategic nuclear warheads it has and is still over the 1,550 warhead limit that was established by the START treaty in 2010.
• Many of Russia’s new nuclear weapons are modern, multiple-warhead road mobile missiles and submarine launched ballistic missiles.
• By treaty, both the U.S.and Russia are supposed to get their arsenal down to no more than 1,550 warheads by February, 2018.
• Russia now has 198 MORE nuclear warheads than when it signed off on the latest START nuclear reduction treaty, i.e., they are going in the wrong direction.
• Experts in this field are expecting Russia to not fulfill its promise to get down to 1,550 nuclear warheads by 2018, with Russian government press reports already estimating that country’s long term warhead levels to be around 2,100, 40% higher than the what the treaty allows, and a U.S. think tank believes the results will be even worse, with deployed Russian nuclear warheads topping out at around 2,500 by 2015, a whopping 67% higher than allowed by the treaty.

Given the total lack of respect that Putin seems to have for Obama and the ratcheting up of the number of Russian nuclear warhead totals, the numbers would tend to support the hypothesis that the START treaty’s targets are pretty worthless at this point in time and going forward.

3) Hillary Clinton recently renewed her hatred for the Second Amendment by calling American gun owners terrorists. I will not go into an in-depth discussion of how wrong she is about the Second Amendment and how it keeps Americans safer from all types of dangers in life, but I would like to do point out to her that gun owners in this country do not burn others alive like real terrorists do, they do not behead people like real terrorists do, they do not enslave women and young girls like real terrorists do, they do not throw gay men and women off high buildings like real terrorists do, they do not commit suicide bombings amongst innocent people like real terrorists do. 

But this post is about the numbers, let’s leave the above reasons of her idiocy on the Second Amendment and look at the numbers in the following two charts from the Heritage Foundation, numbers which prove that increasing gun ownership is strongly correlated with decreasing violent crime (double click on the graphs for a larger view):


No matter how hard Clinton and her types try, the numbers in these charts prove that you cannot say that increasing gun ownership increases violent crime, the numbers do not lie. 4) Bernie Sanders wants the U.S. to be more like countries like Denmark. The illusion and myth is that these countries have people that get a lot of free stuff and could not be more happy. The fact that these citizens in countries like Denmark pay very, very high income taxes (at least 40%), that there is a value added/sales tax of 25% on EVERY item purchased, and that the cost of gasoline and cars are much, much higher than in the U.S. seems to get lost on people like Bernie. Still, Bernie and his types want to claim that people living in Denmark have a better economic deal.Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute has put together a set of numbers to test Bernie’s theory. He compared the cost of living in every U.S. state with a whole range of countries including those like Denmark. He put together a method to compare a nation’s GDP per person across the world and states based on publicly available data including the World Bank (double click on table for larger view):



A couple of obvious conclusions jump out:

• If we were like Denmark, our economic worth per citizen would be about 20%, $44,916 vs. $54,629, less than it is today and would make our average economic worth comparable to New Mexico.
• New Mexico GDP per person is about 40% less than the high levels of income in North Dakota and Alaska.
• This would make us worse off than 38 states in this country.

Not quite the economic dream world people like Bernie lead us to believe.5) Let’s continue with another set of numbers that follow up with previous point, namely that life is pretty good, economically in this country. These numbers come from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. They show the “average individual consumption” for countries across the world.  The numbers are indexed with the average country having a value of 100. An index value greater than 100 means that the country’s economic well being is better than the world’s average. An index value less than 100 means that the country’s economic well being is worse than the world’s average:

The numbers show the following realities:

• The wealth position of those living in the United States is 47% better than the world average.
• The wealth position of those living in the United States is about 40% better than those living in Bernie’s Denmark.
• The wealth position of those living in the United States is about 20% better than the second and third most prosperous countries, Luxembourg and Norway.

Bottom line from the two sets of numbers: life is pretty good in the United States from an economic numbers perspective ...despite those like Bernie, the numbers do not lie.That will do it for this month’s numbers review. As usual, the numbers are not good despite what our politicians try to tell us. What did today’s numbers tell us:

• The Obama’s like to spend our tax money on very expensive family vacations.
• Russia is getting stronger and stronger from a nuclear weapons perspective.
• Hillary Clinton lied about gun owners being terrorists and causing violent crime to increase.
• Economically speaking, life in the U.S. is much better than anywhere else in the world. 

The numbers do not lie.