Showing posts with label unemplpoyment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemplpoyment. Show all posts

Saturday, May 4, 2024

May, 2024, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: More Congressional Corruption, Illegal Immigrants Get Better Health Care Support Than Americans, and Biden's Failed Economic Policies

 Every month we devote posts to just general political class insanity that is running rampant through the country. The members of the American political class continue to show that they are incapable of efficiently operating any level of government in this country. 


Even their best efforts are almost always ineffective at resolving any problem facing Americans. They spend a great amount of time not trying to improve the lives of their citizens but continually ensuring their reelection and enriching themselves, their families, and their friends in the process, all at taxpayer expense.


1)As we have stated often in this blog, one would hope that the leaders in this country would represent honor, integrity, and be free of corruption. Obviously. with the American political class, that hope is almost always dashed, given the bad behavior and rampant greed and corruption of our politicians.


This was recently found to be true again:


  • According to NBC News, a Texas Congressman,  Henry Cueller and his wife, have been indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for a bunch of alleged felonies.

  • The indictment  comes almost two years after an investigation resulted in his Congressional office and campaign offices being raided by the Feds.

  • They were looking into potentially illegal  activities by the Congressman and his connections to U.S. businessmen who had strong ties to the government of Azerbaijan.

  • He and his wife have been charged with taking bribes from that country’s government totaling $600,000.

  • The bribes were allegedly in exchange for official acts of our government from Cueller who just happened to be the co-chair person of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus.

  • The charges are not minor or small in number, they are felonies and in total they could lead to dozens and dozens of years in prison if proven true.

  • The Congressman, not  unexpectedly, has said he is innocent  of all charges.

  • This follows on the heels of New Jersey Senator,  Bob Menendez, getting  indicted last September for taking bribes and cash (and gold bars) from people associated with the country of Turkey, allegedly in return for favorable treatment by the Senator.


The corruption is wide and deep, Congressional people taking advantage of their  position to enrich themselves while giving short attention to the needs of the American citizens they serve.


And the corruption of these two members of Congress, if true, gets an overlay of hypocrisy since other, more  powerful members of the Washington political class such as Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, go unscathed despite their insider trading, favors from foreign sources,  and other corruption they engage in, corruption that reaches into the tens of millions of dollars.


2)We have often made the case that while some American politicians are quick to take American taxpayer money to feed, clothe, shelter,  and give medical care to millions and millions of the illegal immigrants Biden’s border’s policy have allowed to flood into the country, millions of Americans and their dire needs go unattended:


  • Right now about 600,000 American  citizens, including veterans and kids, are homeless.

  • Right now about 17 million Americans are having problems feeding themselves and their families, given how Biden’s economic policies have resulted in skyrocketing food costs.

  • Right now, millions of Americans are in need of drug addiction help and over 100,000 of them are likely to die this year without this addiction help.

  • Over 20 million Americans are without health insurance because Obama Care never reduced the cost of healthcare in this country as promised and thus, are likely not getting the medical care they need but cannot afford.


And to this insult to struggling Americans, Biden has just added another insult to them and the American taxpayer:


  • Recently, Biden recently issued the following declaration and insult to taxpayers: "Today, my Administration is expanding affordable, quality health care coverage to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients."

  • Yes, Biden will be allocating hard earned American worker taxes to not help other Americans’ health care needs but will use it to provide health care services to illegal immigrants.

  • Senator J.D.  Vance of Ohio kind of summed up this disgrace when he stated that spending Americans’ “hard earned money” to  cover healthcare costs of  illegal  immigrants.

  • Furthermore: "There's an unprecedented crisis at our southern border, we've got major conflicts around the world, and families all across Ohio are getting crushed by inflation. Joe Biden's response to all this is to give your hard-earned money away to illegal immigrants in the form of taxpayer-funded healthcare. This is a slap in the face to every hardworking American who plays by the rules, and it would never happen if Donald Trump were president."


It constantly amazes that American politicians would rather help those that came into this country illegally than the  millions and  millions of American citizens that are facing life struggles everyday. Disgusting priorities.


3)Joe Biden is always bragging about what a great job he has done managing the economy. But that of course is a fallacy, given the inflation and other negative impacts his economic policies have had on the economy and household pocketbooks. Early in his administration, inflation hit a 40 year high and has stayed more than  50% higher than what is generally accepted as regular.


And the latest economy news is a continuing story of woe:


  • Only 175,000 non-farm jobs were created last month, 68,000 less than economists expected to show up.

  • As a result, the unemployment rate rose to 3.9%.

  • The 175,000 created jobs were over 125,000 less than what were estimated to have been formed in the preceding month.

  • Furthermore, the quarterly annual GDP estimate was a meager 1.6%, down  from 3.4% in the 4th quarter of 2023 and 5.0% in the third quarter of 2023.

  • The annualized inflation rate estimate in March was 3.5%, up from 3.2% from the previous month.

  • The 3.5% is 75% higher than what is desired, that magical  2.0%.

  • Economic productivity gains are also  lagging.


High inflation, higher unemployment, lower economic growth, tough to believe anyone thinks that the country is on a positive trend. And the biggest economic number of all, the Federal government’s national debt, has broken through the $34,500,000,000,000 mark, a staggering level of debt that does nothing to fix inflation, unemployment, and economic growth.


Seems  Biden could not do a worse job economically if he tried.


That will  do it for today’s insanity: Biden’s failed economic programs, Biden treats illegal immigrants better than needy Americans (again!), and more corruption in Washington.


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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:


https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom



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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:

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

October, 2015, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Mismanaging the Economy At Epically Bad Levels

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity post we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history

Today and tomorrow we will focus on economic insanity and incompetence from the American political class. Keep in mind the following realities when reading about the economic insanity and low performance generated by our Washington politicians:

  • This Presidential administration spent a whopping $800 billion in a so-called economic stimulus package.
  • This Presidential administration had the benefit of an energy revolution that significantly reduced the energy costs of businesses and households, freeing up money to be spent throughout the economy.
  • This Presidential administration had the benefit of the Federal Reserve Board printing trillions and trillions of dollars and putting them in play to jumpstart the economy.

Despite these tailwinds of almost a trillion dollars in Federal government stimulus spending, a once in a generation energy revolution, and trillions of dollars of Fed money stimulus, the Washington political class in general and this administration in particular produced a record anemic economic recovery. It is a recovery so weak that annual GDP growth never attained its long term average and in fact never broke 3%, household income and wage growth has stagnated, and so many people got discouraged by the horrible job market that the workforce participation rate is at a 40 year low.

That is insanely poor economic planning, strategy, and knowledge. And as a result, we are stuck with the following economic insanity:

1) Although Barack Obama is the first African-American President, someone who supposed would provide hope and change to the African-American community, that promise is not working out so well, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Bureau announced that unemployment among African-American teenagers is more than six times higher than the national unemployment average, 31.5% vs. 5.1%.

This is also about double the unemployment rate for all teenagers, 31.5% vs. 16.3%. Given that that the 16.3% includes the 31.5% number, the unemployment rate for non-African-American teenagers is substantially less than 16.3%. 

And it is not just African-American teenagers that are suffering in this job deficient economy. The total African-American unemployment rate is 9.5%, just under double the national unemployment rate of 5.1%. Conclusions: black President or white President, no one in Washington has found a way to fix the job problem for most of America but especially for African-Americans. General economic incompetence from the American political class knows no skin color.

2) Additional data from the latest report from the BLS revealed that:

  • The economy added only 142,000 jobs last month, a rate not even enough to cover the growth in population.
  • The labor force participation rate hit its lowest level since 1977 with a record 94.6 million American adults NOT working.
Tough to believe that an economy can be managed so poorly when there was the help of an energy revolution. a massive economic stimulus program, and trillions of Fed paper dollars circulated. Pathetic.
3) Bloomberg recently reviewed the latest economic results and summed up their findings via an accurate quote from Thomas Simons, a money-market economist at Jefferies LLC in New York: "When you look through all the details of the data, there just isn't anything good to hang your hat on. It's been years since we've seen such an unambiguously bad report.":

  • Job creation was less than expected, or needed, at 142,000.
  • Previous job creation estimates from July and August were downward revised.
  • Average hourly earnings fell a penny on average.
  • Factory payrolls unexpectedly fell by 9,000 jobs:



  • The number of full-time employees dropped in September.
  • The labor force participation rate decreased to its lowest level since October 1977. 

4) Part of the problem with the anemic job creation numbers in September was that corporations had 59,000 in job reductions in September with a whopping 50% of those cuts coming just from Hewlett Packard. This 59,000 number was a 43% increase over the August results and 93% higher than the September, 2014 layoffs.


However, worse than the September results is the reality that for the entire third quarter there were almost 206,000 announced layoffs, this is the highest level since the third quarter of 2009. On a year to date basis, U.S. employers have already announced almost half a million layoffs for 2015 vs. only 363,000 for the same period last year.

5) Another recent Bloomberg article added some additional insights on how poorly the economy is doing:
  • A survey of 96 economists estimated that job creation would be 201,000 vs. the actual number of 142,000, indicating that the economy is softer than even what the experts expected.
  • Previous two months job creation estimates were reduced by a total of 59,000.
  • The good news is that retailers increased payrolls by 23,700 and employment in leisure and hospitality rose 35,000. The bad news is that these positions are usually lower paying jobs.
  • Average hourly earnings for the 12 months ending in September were up 2.2%, barely keeping up with inflation.
  • The underemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who would rather have a full-time position and people who want to work but have given up looking, dropped to a still whopping 10%, the lowest since May 2008, from 10.3%.
That’s enough economic policy insanity for today, more to follow tomorrow. But all of this depressing news does prove that we are being served by the worst set of politicians ever in this country today. Despite an $800 billion economic stimulus program, dropping energy costs, and a Federal Reserve printing press inserting trillions of dollars into the economy, the Washington political class cannot manage wage growth, robust hiring, and not even average economic growth. Pathetic.


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