September, 2019, The Horrors and Destruction of The Trump Administration: Lower Unemployment, Higher Approval Ratings, Fewer on Food Stamps and More

Before we start today’s discussion, let’s review my voting history: 

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life.
• Thus, I did not vote for Trump. 
• I have rarely voted for a Republican for national office in my life. 

Over two years ago, many liberals, Democrats, and millennials were besides themselves with grief and fear because their pre-ordained queen, Hillary Clinton, was not elected President. Instead, Donald Trump was elected, an individual that these same people despised, hated, and feared, an individual they felt would endanger and possibly destroy the country and our democracy. For the past two years they have fretted, worried and lashed out at anything or anyone that even remotely smelled of Donald Trump.

Over the past two and a half years, I thought, that as someone who did not vote for him, it would be a good idea to review the horror, trauma, and terrible things that Trump has subjected the country to in just two year’s time. This is obviously a very sarcastic comment when you take an unbiased look at what has happened during the Trump Presidency.

The many previous posts we did on this topic identified over hundreds of good things that have happened to America and Americans since Trump became President. To review these hundreds of positive impacts his Presidency has brought about, just type in “horrors and destruction” in the search box above or page through the previous months’ posts from the calendar list on the right side of this screen.

It is has been a little while since we reviewed the latest positive developments from Trump so it is time to review what has been going on lately:

- The latest poll results of Rasmussen Reports, a very reputable and independent polling organization, found that 50% of likely voters approve of Trump’s job.

- While 49% disapprove of Trump’s job performance, Trump’s current results are better than Obama’s at the same time in each Presidential term since Obama’s job approval rating was 46% while his disapproval rate was 53%, four points worse than Trump’s disapproval rating.

- Average household income is up 13% over the past four years, from $56,000 to $63,000, most of which I bet has come in the last two years, the beginning of Trump’s term, since household income was stagnant for the vast majority of Obama’s terms in office.

- Since Trump took office, the economy has improved so much that 6.3 million Americans have gotten off of the SNAP food stamp program.

- In a recent month, the U.S. became the largest oil exporter in the world, a concept that was once thought impossible, and a result that enables the U.S. to avoid more drastic downturns in oil availability and the related economic distress while providing the beginning of some air cover to disengage from the disaster that is the Middle East.

- The Trump administration is gearing up efforts to possibly and finally address the homelessness crisis in major western cities such as Los Angeles, having held talks with local organizations to fix what local Democrats could not fix over the years.

- The U.S Department of Labor recently reported that U.S. payrolls grew for the month of July by 164,000 new jobs, setting a new record for consecutive months of job growth.

- Overall unemployment remains at a decades low 3.7%, something else that was once thought to be impossible.

- Average wages were up 3.2% vs. last year at this time.

- The U.S. labor force is also at an all time high at 163.4 million Americans employed.

- Trump donated his second quarter Presidential salary to the Surgeon General organization to fund a public health advisory.

- The niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Alveda King recently pushed back against those who are labeling President Trump as a racist and a white supremacist: "President Trump is not a racist. I've had the experience of going head to head with genuine racists...President Trump has said 'we all bleed the same,' he's very clear on that and he has done so much for all Americans including African-Americans.”

For those of you that have hated on Trump since day one, and given your obvious gross error in judgment relative to Trump, let me ask that you do us all a favor by implementing the following changes in your behavior and attitude:

• Chill out, tamp down your TDS affliction. No matter how much you hate Trump on a sexist, personal basis, get over it. He is the legally and duly elected President, he will be around for a while so refocus your hatred on more constructive issues and matters. You will live a lot longer if you take your hatred out of your heart and soul and devote it to something positive.
• I would really appreciate it if some of you would apologize to the Trump voters you have disrespected in some of the grossest terms possible over the past year. You have called millions of voters racists, ignorant, stupid, Nazis, KKK members, and other horrible names simply because you disagreed with their voting choice. No American should be called such disgusting names simply because they exercised their Constitutional rights to the best of their abilities. Plus, slandering over 60 million Americans is no way to unite the country and get it focused on the real issues facing us all.
• More personally, I would like, no I am demanding, an apology from some of you for your slanderous and disgusting name calling because in doing so, you insulted and disrespected my sister, my family members, my friends, and my co-workers who simply voted their conscience. I will defend their right to vote anyway they wanted and will no put up with your childish and vicious venom and bile directed at them, very important people in my life.
• And finally, I challenge you to read the following blog post, a post that shows quite clearly that it was hateful people like some of you and your silence during the Obama years that actually caused Trump to be elected. Thus, the people you hate for voting for Trump are actually looking back at you in the mirror:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-american-liberals-and-washington.html

If you were silent in the dozens of instances listed in these posts then you were responsible for the very thing you hate: a Trump Presidency. Or put another way, a so far successful and productive Trump Presidency. Hundreds of accomplishments in a little more than two year and a half years is not too shabby despite many of you wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

The Horrors And Destruction That Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 16

Before we start today’s discussion, let’s review my voting history: 

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life. 
• Thus, I did not vote for Trump. 
• I have rarely voted for a Republican for national office in my life. 

About 21 months ago, many liberals, Democrats, and millennials were besides themselves with grief and fear because their pre-ordained queen, Hillary Clinton, was not elected President. Instead, Donald Trump was elected, an individual that these same people despised, hated, and feared, an individual they felt would endanger and possibly destroy the country and our democracy. For the past year and a half they fretted, worried and lashed out at anything or anyone that even remotely smelled of Donald Trump.

Given that Trump has been in office for over 21 months or so, I thought, that as someone who did not vote for him, it would be a good idea to review the horror, trauma, and terrible things that Trump has subjected the country to in just eighteen month’s time. This is obviously a very sarcastic comment when you take an unbiased look at what has happened during the Trump Presidency. The many previous posts we did on this topic identified over 190 good things that have happened to America and Americans since Trump became President can found by entering the phrase “the horrors and destruction” in the search box above.

Since the last “horrors and destruction” post an additional ten accomplishments and good tidings have occurred as a result of this Presidency:

- The New York Times actually gave Trump positive recognition for actually getting NATO allies to shoulder a bigger, fairer share of NATO’s defense costs, yes the New York Times!

- Trump’s White House staff is significantly smaller than Obama’s which could save the American taxpayer upwards of $20 million by the end of Trump’s four years as President, with Trump’s staff consisting of 374 staffers while Obama had 469 at the same time into his Presidency.

- The U.S. economy grew at a wonderful 3.5% rate in the third quarter of 2018, which, when combined with the stronger 4.2% growth in the second quarter, resulted in the strongest consecutive quarters of growth since 2014.

- The economy is on a growth rate to record the largest annual economic growth rate since 2005.

- In 2017, Trump’s first year in office, median household income rose to the highest level ever recorded.

- The number of murders in the U.S. declined by .7% in 2017, reversing a rising trend over the previous two years.

- The unemployment rate is at a 50 year low, falling from 4.8% when his term began to a current 3.7% rate.

- Corporate profits are at an all time high.

- The number of people on food stamps is at the lowest level since November, 2009, a reduction of 3.8 million people since Trump’s term began.

- The percentage of African Americans and Hispanic Americans in the country living in poverty are at the lowest levels ever since the Census Bureau began keeping track in the mid 1960s.

For those of you that have hated on Trump since day one, and given your obvious gross error in judgment relative to Trump, let me ask that you to do us all a favor by implementing the following changes in your behavior and attitude:

• Chill out, tamp down your TDS affliction. No matter how much you hate Trump on a sexist, personal basis, get over it. He is the legally and duly elected President, he will be around for a while so refocus your hatred on more constructive issues and matters. You will live a lot longer if you take your hatred out of your heart and soul and devote it to something positive.
• I would really appreciate it if some of you would apologize to the Trump voters you have disrespected in some of the grossest terms possible over the past year. You have called millions of voters racists, ignorant, stupid, Nazis, KKK members, and other horrible names simply because you disagreed with their voting choice. No American should be called such disgusting names simply because they exercised their Constitutional rights to the best of their abilities. Plus, slandering over 60 million Americans is no way to unite the country and get it focused on the real issues facing us all.
• More personally, I would like, no I am demanding, an apology from some of you for your slanderous and disgusting name calling because in doing so, you insulted and disrespected my sister, my family members, my friends, and my co-workers who simply voted their conscience. I will defend their right to vote anyway they wanted and will no put up with your childish and vicious venom and bile directed at them, very important people in my life.
• And finally, I challenge you to read the following blog post, a post that shows quite clearly that it was hateful people like some of you and your silence during the Obama years that actually caused Trump to be elected. Thus, the people you hate for voting for Trump are actually looking back at you in the mirror:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-american-liberals-and-washington.html

• If you were silent in the dozens of instances listed in this post then you were responsible for the very thing you hate: a Trump Presidency. Or put another way, a so far successful and productive Trump Presidency. Over 200 accomplishments in a little less than two years is not too shabby despite many of you wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

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, 2018, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Pelosi Still Out Of Touch, $130 Pens, $17 Million Fruitless INvestigations and Busting Lemonade Stands.

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) Government wasteful spending continues to amaze and disgust:

• An aide to the head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, spent $1,560 to buy 12 fountain pens.
• They must be great pens since the average cost comes out to about $130 per pen.
• Each pen bears the EPA seal and Pruitt’s signature and apparently is used as gifts to important people around the world: EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said the pens were similar to purchases made by Pruitt's predecessors "for the purpose of serving as gifts to the Administrator's foreign counterparts and dignitaries upon his meeting with them."
• The EPA under Obama made a similar purchase but for almost twice the amount, $2,952, from the the same vendor with the purchase to be used for "non-monetary awards for Administrator."

Look, $2,952 or $1,560 is not going to balance the Federal budget. But this type of behavior is more a symptom of a bigger problem, a lack of respect for taxpayer dollars, a lack of respect that extends way beyond a couple of overpriced pens.

2) Okay, let’s talk about some real wasting of big taxpayer dollars. Robert Mueller has been chasing ghosts now for well over a year in his investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Why he is not looking into the Clinton’s relationship with the Russians, a relationship that we already know resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing from Russian interests into the Clinton bank accounts, is a story for another day. 

Back to Mueller and a recent article on the Freedom Outpost website by David Greenfield:

• Mueller has already spent almost $17 million in his hunt for Russian influences in the 2016 Presidential campaign.
• He has basically come up with nothing for his efforts and the $17 million.
• According to a USDA study back a number of years ago, the full cost to produce a school lunch was on average, $2.91.
• Assuming that inflation raised that cost since the USDA study was done, you could conservatively estimate that the Mueller investigation cost, if it had been repurposed to feed some hungry kids in the country, could easily have fed about 5 million kids.

Talk about bad priorities, an expensive, useless, and hollow investigation vs. feeding millions of U.S. kids.

3) Politicians not only waste our tax dollars in Washington but they do a pretty good job of wasting our tax dollars locally also. Consider another recent article from the Freedom Outpost website by Matt Agorist:

• According to the article: Jennifer Knowles, mother of three boys, wanted to instill a bit of entrepreneurial spirit in her sons over the Memorial Day weekend. So, Knowles and her husband decided they would have her four and six-year-old sons run a lemonade stand. “We have never had a lemonade stand and the boys thought Memorial Day weekend is going to be great weather, so why not have a lemonade stand across the street in the park,” Knowles said.
• Besides giving their kids a lesson in business and being an entrepreneur, she wanted to teach them to be generous to those less fortunate than themselves and so the kids were going to donate the lemonade stand profits to a local charity.
• The charity thy chose was going to support a child in Indonesia with food and clean water.
• So they set up their stand in a Denver area park and did good business for a while and received great compliments from those passing by on their efforts and the purpose of their profits.
• Which is when the local government, via local police officers, crushed the effort: “The police officers came over and they said that because my boys and I did not have permits for a lemonade stand they shut us down and we had to stop immediately,” she said. “My boys were crushed. They were devastated. And I can’t believe that happened. I remember as a child I always had lemonade stands and never had to worry about being shut down by the police officers. I mean that’s unheard of.”
• Apparently someone complained about the kids and the police officers when then required to do their jobs, crushing the hopes and scaring two young kids doing the right thing.
• While these kids got away with just a warning, the article points out that other kids operating other lemonade stands as young as five years old have received police citations.

Obviously, this problem could have been avoided if the local politicians had done their job and not wasted time on passing such stupid ordinances. I am assuming that the local government and the politicians that operate it have better things to do, from fixing schools to fixing potholes to who knows what else, anything has to be more important than banning kids’ lemonade stands. 

4) Let’s finish off today’s political class insanity with that inane quote machine Nancy Pelosi, the biggest contributor to political class insanity this blog has ever known. Before we get to her latest idiocy, let’s review some realities:

• The nation’s unemployment rate is at 3.8%, almost record lows.
• The unemployment rate for African Americans, Hispanics, women, and people without a high school education is at or near record lows.
• Wages are trending upwards.
• Over 140 million American tax filers will see lower tax rates in 2018.
• Companies are investing in jobs, training, and machinery.
• There are now more job openings in the country than unemployed adults who are looking for a job.
• Gas prices, which recently spiked, have come down quickly in the past week or so.
• The stock market continues to hold at record high levels.
• Consumer confidence surveys show high confidence in the economy.
• Inflation continues to run at low levels.

We could go on but you get the idea: Trump has the country in an economic sweet spot with low unemployment, low inflation, and rising wages.

But the end of the world is near according to Nancy Pelosi: “May’s jobs report shows that strong employment numbers mean little to the families hit with soaring new costs under the Republicans’ watch.” Again, what color is the sky your world, Ms. Pelosi? What soaring new costs? She goes on to discuss how drug company executives are making millions of dollars and somehow that is more important than jobs, wages increases, lower gas prices, low inflation, etc, Insane.

That will get us started with this month’s insanity: Pelosi still so out of touch, and politicians wasting money from local lemonade stands to Washington. 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

September, 2016, Part 9, Political Class Insanity: Defeat In Afghanistan, Food Stamp Fraud In New York, Chicago Violence, and More

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.

The current monthly record for the number of days needed to cover one month's worth of insanity is ten. We almost equaled that record last month when we needed nine days to cover one month’s worth of political class insanity. There is a very good chance that the ten day record could fall this month since as we get closer and closer to the election, the volume of ineptness grows almost exponentially. 

But today and for all of the posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson.Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy." 

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

Let’s continue on with this month’s political class insanity, Day 9 for September, 2016:

1) It seems every month, we find we need to talk about the runaway violence that is happening in Chicago. Every week there are dozens and dozens of shootings which always ends up in some number of deaths as a result of those shootings. Last week we covered the shooting results from a single weekend in August. As drug cartels and other criminals take over the city’s streets, civilians are often left defenseless since Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. It seems politicians never understand that criminals are not going to heed gun control laws, that is why they are criminals.

Well, this month we are going to cover two weekends of Chicago gun violence and the deadly results. MRCTV, in an article written by Brittany Hughes, highlighted what happened in the city over the Labor Day weekend and the carnage was not good:

• 65 people were shot and 20% or 13 died as a result of Chicago gun violence over the holiday weekend.
• Victims included Crystal Myer who was nine months pregnant.
• Allen Smith, a retired pastor, was killed outside of a nursing home.
• According to the Chicago Tribune, this was the deadliest Chicago holiday weekend of the year, by far.
• Police attributed much of the violence to gang activities.
• The 90 murders in Chicago in August was the highest monthly number since 1996.

Out of control gun and other violence despite having the toughest gun control laws in the country. And the political class both in the city, state , and Washington have no idea, or no desire or will, to do anything about it. If one of the basic, primary functions of government is to protect its citizens, than that function is failing very badly in Chicago with no help or end insight.

2) The United States has been fighting a war in Afghanistan since 2001, immediately after the 9-11 attacks. Thousands and thousands of American troops have died or been wounded and the American taxpayer has easily spent hundreds of billions of dollars, often wastefully, in the country. In fact, more money has been spent and more lives lost and ruined by wounds since Obama took over than during the Bush regime and despite the fact that Obama promised to have us out of the country by 2014.

One would have hoped that for this pain, dying, and suffering, human and financial, that we would have something to show for our efforts. But again, hope is never the right word to use when describing any endeavor run by the American political class.

Because according to Jack Davis, writing for the Western Journalism website on August 24, 2016, The American University Of Afghanistan, located in the capital city of Kabul in Afghanistan, recently came under heavy attack by Taliban militants last week. Early reports from CNN reported that at least a security guard had been killed and 21 students wounded. The attack started with a car bomb explosion and then a breach of the security walls of the university.

After fifteen years of taxpayer spending and military efforts have left thousands of our soldiers dead and wounded, our major enemy in the country, the Taliban, can still waltz into the center of the capital of the country and rain havoc and violence down on students? Seems like an insane waste of military, financial, and human resources, courtesy of the American political class.

3) Last week we discussed the arrests of over a dozen individuals in the Baltimore area that had defrauded the Federal government and the American taxpayer via the Federal food stamp/food assistance program. Fourteen people were arrested and accused of stealing at least $16 million from the food assistance program. $16 million from one gang in one city, which gives you an idea of how bad this problem likely is nationwide.

Recently, another food stamp scam was uncovered in northern New York. An illegal immigrant was arrested for using his owned grocery store to change food assistance credits into cash and then using the cash to restock his store. The charges were serious enough for a $2 million bail to be assigned to him so this is not considered by the judge to be some kind of petty theft.

But what is interesting is how his family reacted to his arrest and bail, basically saying that America should go f*&% off and giving local news people the finger after the bail hearing. Yes, illegal immigrant breaks the law, steals from the American taxpayer and America should go f*&% itself. It is an insane world we live in, as witnessed by the following videotape report on the crime:

http://www.americanjournalreview.com/watch-islamic-wife-refugee-store-owner-busted-food-stamp-fraud-yells-fk-america-tv/#

4) Wages and household incomes for the American middle class and poor have basically been flat and stagnant for the entire run of the Obama administration. But one entity within the country has seen its income grow steadily in the face of the rest of us getting by with less. And that entity is the Federal government:

• The Congressional Budget office (CBO) recently reported that the Federal government took in a record high haul in tax receipts through July, 2016, a whopping $2.679 TRILLION.
• And yet despite stealing a record number of dollars from Americans in 2016, the Federal government will likely run a budget deficit of $600 billion, an increase of $56 billion from the last CBO estimate for 2016 and increase of $161 billion from the 2015 full year budget deficit.
• Even more distressing, despite receiving a record amount of tax receipts, the New York Analysis of Policy and Government organizations points out, based on the analysis it has done, that the Federal government is still underfunding important functions like national security, infrastructure improvement, hardening the national electrical grill, and other problem areas.
• And the shortfalls in these areas are in addition to the impending financial collapse of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Like an addict, no matter how much the political class takes in from taxes on hardworking Americans, the more they need without getting anything constructive done. As we recommended in our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” we need to make government smaller and smaller, stripping it down to basic government functions in order to give the government a chance of doing something, anything, effective and efficient. Because right now, government and the politicians and bureaucrats that operate it are trying to do everything and getting nothing done efficiently and effectively.

More insanity tomorrow, when we will tie the monthly record for most posts under the theme. “Political Class Insanity.”

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

November, 2015, Part 4, By The Numbers: The Economy Stinks and These Federal Reserve Charts Prove It (Continued)

This is the fourth post among a few days worth of discussion 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.

The numbers we will look at this week will often have a common thread running almost through all of them: the views, positions, and opinions of the majority of Americans are often the exact opposite of the views and related actions that our politicians own. Since we are supposed to be living in a representative government system one would hope that the laws, rules, and government functions that our politicians oversee reflect the thinking, hopes, and views of the American citizenry.

As the numbers will usually show, that is nowhere close to reality, which I think reflects two underlying negative trends:

1. American politicians vote and act for their own personal interests first, Americans’ interests and well being being of secondary consideration. If a politician’s actions can get them more votes or more campaign cash for their perpetual reelection campaigns, than that is their priority, usually not the priorities of their constituents.
2. Second, I personally believe that today’s American politicians take care of their special interest friends and financiers first and foremost, and the interests of those special interest friends (e.g.unions, corporations, lobbyists, etc.) are usually not in alignment with what the majority of Americans have as their priorities.

Keep these two possibilities in mind as we go “by the numbers” for this week and try to show the major disconnect between what Americans want and what politicians are doing:

Yesterday, we reviewed the latest monthly economic statistics from the Federal government. Although there were a few glimmers of economic hope, for the most part those glimmers are still being overwhelmed by the overall economic situation:

• The labor participation rate is still bouncing around at the same low levels not seen for the past four decades. 
• Almost 14 million Americans are either unemployed or are working at part time jobs even though they would prefer full time jobs. 
• Minority unemployment rates are still much higher than the total national unemployment rate. 
• Over 45 million Americans are still receiving Federal food assistance every month.

These are the short term economic results and numbers. They are not good. But the Daily Caller recently published some long term trend data from the Federal Reserve Board and guess what: the long term economic results and numbers are just as bad. 

Yesterday, we looked at five of the nine long term trend charts that the Federal Reserve recently published. Today, we will look at the final four charts but the results, numbers, and conclusions are still the same: Washington politicians probably could not have screwed things up worse if they had tried to.

6) As we discussed yesterday, and many times previoulsy, the number of people and the amount of taxpayer wealth spent on food assistance every month, while down slightly, is still more than double higher than what it was prior to the recession and six years AFTER the recession ended (click on chart for a larger view):

7) Student debt is rapidly approaching a whopping $1 TRILLION, is about nine times higher than what it was prior to the recession and has skyrocketed since the recession ended. And since a lot of this debt is guaranteed and backed by the Federal government, there is a good chance that American taxpayers are going to get caught with this bad debt and investment at some point in time.

8) Twenty five years ago, the Democrats in Congress and the White House decided it was worth risking trillions of dollars via taxpayer backed loans to credit risky home owners in order to increase the homeownership level of American families. Twenty five years later, and hundreds of billions of dollars spent to bail out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other financial institutions, the home ownership rates for American families is actually lower than where it was back then. As with the other Fed measurements, the rate of homeownership decline has accelerated AFTER the recession ended.

9) And finally, this last Fed chart shows that not only have wages stagnated during the Obama years but American median family income is less than it was was in 1998. While bouncing back somewhat since the recession ended, the median is still below where it was prior to the recession and lately its improvement trend has been flattening out.



That will do it for today. But the results and conclusions from the nine Federal Reserve charts we have reviewed over the past two days charts definitely prove three things: the Obama administration, the current Congressional members, and Federal bureaucrats have saddled us with tremendous amounts of debt, stagnant wages, and tepid job creation. Seems you could not do a worse job managing the economy if you were trying.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

Obama Epic Fail Series, Part 2B - Economics

We are going to take a few days and discuss the track record of the Obama Presidency across several perspectives. The impetus for this discussion and review was the fact that when the world leaders and millions of French men and women rallied in France to protest and take a stand against global Islamic terrorism, this President embarrassed himself and the United States by NOT attending the gathering of world leaders in Paris. In our opinion, this was an epic fail and a missed historical opportunity.

Not only did he not attend, no high ranking member of his administration bothered to make the trip either. While world leaders of over 40 countries attended and high ranking officials of other countries made the trip, the highest ranking U.S. person was just the current French ambassador.

This snub of the French is a tremendous, and possibly historic, missed opportunity. This could have been a defining moment in the Obama Presidency where he rallied the rest of the world in its fight against global terrorism. The whole world was watching but apparently the President was back in the White House, rumored to be watching NFL football games instead of leading in Paris.

If Obama was a true leader, he could have used the commonality of the fight against terrorism to also work on other global issues. The leaders of Israel and the PLO were at the rally with a common, shared goal of fighting terrorism. What a great time in might have been of using that common objective to move onto other problem resolution opportunities.

The Russian Foreign Minister was also at the Paris rally. Why not use the common goal of fighting terrorism to talk about the Ukraine and other troubling Russian and U.S. issues? But the President missed this historic window of leveraging this common objective across most of the world.

But missed opportunities seems to be the theme of this President. Whenever an opportunity to be bold, productive, eic, and a leader arose, this President, and the administration he has put in place, has usually failed and failed miserably. Bad economic policies, divisive race politics, a failing health care reform law, a clumsy foreign affairs management history, bad management processes as a Federal government bureaucracy teeters on the edge of total incompetence, etc., this administration has not been able to get out of its own way to attain any problem resolution at all.

Given that we are comfortable calling his absence in Paris an epic fail, we are going to take a few days and see if there are other epic fails that this administration has attained. We will discuss the policies track records of this Presidency over the next few days according to the following general topics and see if the failure as epic as his absence in Paris has been repeated in other areas of governance:

• Transparency and integrity
• Economic policy
• Foreign policy
• Healthcare policy
• Government management policy

Economic Policy

I am not denying that Obama came into a difficult economic situation when he came into office. The country was in the midst of the Great Recession. Banks were failing, unemployment was sky high, and economic growth was lousy.

However, he was not the first President that inherited a tough economy. Reagan took office after the disastrous Jimmy Carter Presidency. During that Presidency, a new economic term was coined, stagflation. Previous economic theory stated that you could not have high inflation and high unemployment at the same time. However, Carter mangled the economy so much that we had high inflation, high unemployment, sky high interest rates, and anemic economic growth all at the same time.

But what did Reagan’s economic policies and strategies produce:

• Seven consecutive years of economic growth that never fell below 3.5% a year.
• In four of the seven years, economic growth was above 4.0%.
• One year economic growth was over 7%.

All this robust economic growth came from a place of stagflation. Thus, the argument to protect Obama’s economic performance because of the Great Recession is an empty one compared to what Reagan accomplished.

Even Clinton’s Presidency recovered nicely from a recession, averaging 4% growth coming out of a recession. And both Reagan and Clinton did not have the economic tailwinds that Obama enjoyed:

1. Spending over $800 billion on an economic stimulus program that failed miserably.
2. Adding over $7 trillion of government deficit spending to the economy and the national debt.
3. Benefiting from over $3 trillion of Federal Reserve printed money that was added to the economy.
4. An energy revolution that caused energy prices to drop substantially and created loads of high paying energy industry jobs.

So given this historical background, let’s see how badly the Obama Presidency has come up short and decide if this is also an epic fail.

First, the good news:

• The traditional unemployment rate has been slowly decreasing over the past few years.
• The weekly filing of first time unemployment benefits has been slowly decreasing over the past few years.
• Inflation has been under control during the entire run of the Obama Presidency.

Now the bad news:

• According to an Obama promise, if his economic stimulus program was enacted, unemployment would not go higher than 8% and the unemployment rate would shortly drop back down to 5%. His stimulus program was passed and unemployment soared past 8% and the unemployment rate has yet to drop to the promised 5%.
• But the traditional unemployment rate measure, the so-called U-3 unemployment rate, is now a somewhat deceptive measure since this measure does not take into account the part time workers that want full time work and the workers that want a full time job but have become too discouraged to look for one in the past four weeks. These populations of workers have been increasing in these tough economic times but this trend is not captured by the U-3 measurement.
• The truer measure is the U-6 unemployment measure which takes into account these types of workers. The latest monthly measure of the U-6 unemployment rate is 11.2% vs. the U-3 rate of 5.6%. Thus, the more realistic unemployment rate is twice what the government claims is the unemployment rate.
• This 11.2% is equivalent to about 10 million Americans not being able to reach their full employment desires, either because they are stuck with part time work only or cannot find a job at all.
• This U-6 rate has not been this high since 1994, over twenty years ago, certainly not an economic record to be proud about.
• The economy has been so anemic that ever higher college graduates are having to live back home with their families after graduation due to anemic job growth:

• At the end of the recession in 2009, median U.S. household income was estimated by the government to be $54059. However, since the recession ended, median household income has decreased, not increased, during the recovery, bottomed out at just under $52,000, when adjusted for inflation, according to the Federal Reserve Board, a decrease of about 4%.
• While household income has decreased after the recession ended, wage and salary growth has been flat and anemic, averaging only about 1.5% during the so-called recovery, probably less than the rate of inflation:

• While the economy has been in recovery for years. most, if not all of that recovery was in Texas, a low tax, business friendly state:

Is the economy improving? Yes. Is unemployment down? Yes. Is inflation under control? Yes. Did Obama inherit a difficult economic situation? Yes. These are all true statements.

However, despite record deficit spending, hundreds of billions of dollars spent on an economic  stimulus plan, trillions of dollars of aid from the Federal Reserve Board, and an energy revolution, this recovery has been anemic, weak, delayed, and geographically focused with household income and wage/salary growth behaving as if the recession never ended.

The 70% or so increase in national debt as a result of Obama’s economic plans will place tremendous financial pressure on American families for generations to come. Young Americans have not seen the economic opportunities that previous generations have enjoyed despite being five years out of the recession.

And most Americans agree with this assessment. According to a recent Economist/YouGov poll:

• While Americans in general believe the economy is getting better. they do not think, on average, that their personal financial situation is getting better.
• Americans are far more likely to believe that unemployment and the economy are improving because of themselves and American businesses, not Obama and Congress.
• According to the poll, only one in four think they are better off than when Obama first came into office, with one in three saying they are worse off.
• 52% of those polled do not even believe the government’s unemployment numbers, saying unemployment is worse than what the government admits to.

When the majority of Americans do not believe or trust your basic economic numbers, think they are worse off than before you came into office despite being five years removed from the recession, and do not give you credit even for the weak, delayed, and expensive economic recovery, that can be classified as nothing else than an epic fail.

A long but necessary post to cut through the hype of economic spinning from this administration. Stay tuned over the next few days as we investigate whether there are other epic fails from this administration in other areas of governance.

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