Numbers that matter...

 

 

"We are doing great! We are, right?"

I don't believe I am about to say this. I am thinking Dr. Gruber might have been right about one thing. Many American voters are not too bright. They are either ignorant, stupid or apathetic. Every day we are barraged with a ton of information coming in from all forms of media. Much of that information comes in the form of numbers, lots and lots of numbers. The truth of the matter is simply this - many of those numbers don't matter a wit.

ObamaCare - Some high level Democrats are starting to put miles of distance between themselves and this ticking time bomb. It seems the NUMBERS that were used to sell this thing are starting not to add up. Yes indeed! There were many of us "nay sayers" who have said that since the "get-go". Today, MNSure announced they were going to miss a key sign-up figure by a full 1/3! This was necessary to keep this house of cards from falling down. Now MNSure is starting the shell game to keep the ship floating. Keep your eye on the real numbers that will be released in early 2015. It will not be a good way to start the new year.

Debt - One of my very wise high school chums continues to advise me to look at the real number in our debt. And that number is not $18T. Oh, that number is scary enough mind you. However, the real time bomb remains the subject which is more taboo than sex - our entitlements. If you add our Social Security liability, prescription drug liability, and Medicare liability together, you come up with a whopping $115T. And that number grows daily. Then if you take every asset this country has and add them all up, you come with $113T. More debt than assets? Sounds like Greece to me.

Unemployment - This is one of my favorite subjects. We continue to worship the totally worthless U3 indicator like it really means something. It means absolutely nothing. What does matter is our workforce participation number and the U6 employment indicator. Those two numbers tell quite a different (and more accurate) story than the U3 number does. In addition, many times the jobs created compared to the jobs lost are comparing apples to oranges. Try taking a day off sometime in the middle of the week and notice all the young and middle age people just hanging around, not working. The economy is not yet fixed folks - not by a long shot.

Wall Street - The location in Manhattan everyone loves to hate has been cranking out BS numbers for most of this President's term. It is amazing what free money will do for you. The stock market is the only thing I have seen which is more precarious than ObamaCare. It is nothing but phony baloney. Not only has the Fed hurt the market, it also is killing our debt. How so? Once we get a Fed Chairman with stones who will allow the interest rates to true up, the cost of financing our national debt will be a back breaker. The debt issues, in and of themselves, should break the back of the market. But they do not, and the market continues to set record highs as we slide towards the abyss.

To prove Dr. Gruber wrong about us, we need to demand real numbers. We need to vet any and all number which is presented to us. We need to demand from our elected representatives we get real solutions to these problems, not smoke and mirrors. My New Year's resolution to myself is to be even more vigilant. To hold people in Washington even more accountable. Real numbers do matter - really.