The claim of "economic recovery" vs the printed reality

I am going to delay my valuation of Cruz and his conservatism because I’m so sick and tired of the Obama administration and the liberal’s lies about the US economy being so wonderful. I’m going to list several factors that affect our economy and I will do it by comparing the years 2007 and 2015. So that you know I did not just make this stuff up I got my information from three federal government sites: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The population of the United States in 2007 was 302 million. The US population in 2015 was 320 million. That is an increase of 18 million.

The number of US jobs available in 2007 was 4.7 million. The number of US jobs available in 2015 was 5.5 million. That is an increase of 800,000.

The population has increased by 6% and jobs have increased by only 1.8%. Along with that pathetic increase in job numbers the jobs that are available pay less than middle-class wages.

The working age population (15-64) in 2007 was under 97 million. Working age population in 2015 was 204 million.

In 2007 the number of employed in the population was 63%. In 2015 less than 59% of the population is employed.

The number of the working population out of work for a year or longer in 2007 was 10%. The number of the working population out of work for a year or longer in 2015 was 30%.

The “official” number of unemployed in 2015 was about 13 million. If you add the number of working age unemployed in 2015 of 88 million to the 13 million you get 101 million working age people out of work in 2015. If you compare that to the working age population of 204 million in 2015 the unemployment rate was actually very near 50%. See how easy it is to manipulate employment numbers. The Obama administration has been doing that for many years.

The labor force participation rate in 2007 was 66% and in 2015 it was 63%. The labor participation rate is the number of the working age population that is actively seeking employment based on the number of people receiving unemployment checks. The unemployment rate in 2007 was 4.6% and was based on legitimate numbers. The Obama administrations unemployment rate for 2015 at 5.3% was based on manipulated numbers. I present a simple explanation of all this in my book Freedom Permits.

Median family income in 2007 was $57,000. The median family income in 2015 was $54,000.

Percent of population that owned a home in 2007 was 68%. Home ownership in 2015 was 64%.

The number of the US population living in poverty in 2007 was about 37 million or 12.5%. In 2015 poverty encompassed 47 million people or 14.8% of the population. I also discuss this in my book in more detail.

The number of Americans on food stamps in 2007 was 25 million. In 2015 47 million Americans were receiving food stamps.

The cost to taxpayers for the food stamp program in 2007 was $30 billion. The same program costs in 2015 was $70 billion.

The amount of printed money available in 2007 was $800 billion. The amount of money in print in 2015 was $4 trillion. Unless my math fails me, that is an increase of 5,000 times. I can’t even imagine the amount of financial carnage that will take place when that inflationary bubble pops!

Taxpayer backed student loans in 2007 was $100 billion due mostly to Pell-type  grants. Taxpayer backed student loans in 2015 was $950 billion because Obama now pays off student loans with taxpayer cash. Both college held loans and personal banking loans are eligible for taxpayer payouts.

The federal debt (taxpayer) in 2007 was $9 trillion. The federal debt (taxpayer) in 2015 was $19 trillion. That computes out to $59,375 in debt for every man, woman and child in the United States. I’m glad I won’t be around when that payment comes due.

“But gas prices are the same now as they were in 2007.” That is a fact but they have fallen from a high of over $4 a gallon in spite of Obama’s energy policies. He fought energy development at every level but was not able to stifle private oil production in the Dakotas and Texas. That private oil production is what brought the prices down.

“But the stock market is at record levels.” The reason stock prices have remained high has been because the Federal Reserve has been propping up the market for the last several years. Here’s how it works: the Fed keeps interest rates low and that allows companies to borrow cheap money; the Fed has to print money in order to make the dollars available (that is why we now have $4 trillion in circulation); the companies then use the cheap money to repurchase their own stocks; the repurchase is treated as a new purchase of the stock and  those buybacks keep the bull market going and that’s what has artificially inflated stock prices; the repurchase of their own stocks also allows the company’s to keep their profits in house. If the $4 trillion inflation bubble bursts and the artificially inflated stock prices crash at the same time (they will because they are so intertwined) the world economy will be in shambles overnight.

It is hard to express my anger over such blatant lies from our national leaders. If I were a college student I would ask for a “safe space” to hide from such irresponsible and destructive leadership. But because I’m well beyond the age that allows me to ignore reality, my only recourse is to point out the discrepancies between that reality and what we are being told by our federal leadership. What is amazing are the stark differences between what we are being told by the bureaucrats and what is in printed form in their own .gov websites and publications. I couldn’t be a politician because I don’t think I could maintain the straight face while lying. At any rate, I can't see anything in the above statistics that supports the liberal phantom economic recovery.

God Bless America!!!