Fun With Numbers!

[RoyalOrleans]

Knowing that the nation's schools are doing so poorly teaching basic math skills to our children; and assuming that parents, being the ultra-responsible lot that you are, will try to fill in the gaps with some home schooling --- I thought it might be useful to present you with some numbers you might want to use in your remedial education efforts. The added bonus here is that you can also use these numbers to reinforce in your children that President Barack Obama really is, as has been written, "sort of" a God and is clearly succeeding in his quest to lead America to a golden new economic age.

 

30,383 That's the number of jobs the Obama Administration claimed to have "saved or created" in a statement last Thursday. The trouble is, there is no clearly defined way to determine jobs "saved or created." You can pretty much choose any number and run with it. The New York Post tells us that the tab comes out to $71,500 per saved-or-created job. Ask you child what they think might happen if small businesses had this money through tax cuts to use to expand and grow their businesses.

 

48,000,000 Since we're speaking of jobs, that's the approximate number of people employed by America's small businesses - specifically the ones that employ between 1 and 49 people. Medium-sized businesses employing 50 to 499 workers count for another 42,000,000 jobs. What about large businesses that employ over 500 people? Try 17,000,000. Surprising, isn't it? Now while you're working through these numbers with your kids be sure to tell them that the vast majority of these small and medium-sized businesses report their business income on their owner's personal tax return. These business owners, then, will be the ones hit when Barack Obama gets his tax increases on people earning over $250,000 a year. They employ most of our workers, and they're going to take the tax hit. Ask your child how they think this is going to work out! If you work for one of these small businesses you may want to give that some thought yourself.

 

$2,300,000 That's the amount of borrowed stimulus money that was sent to beauty schools in the Tampa, Florida area to train hairdressers, masseuses and nail technicians. People who are already licensed to do hair, nails and give massages in the Tampa area are looking for work. There will be no jobs waiting for the students who use this money to get their "beauty" licenses. The Florida Cosmetology Association says only 1% to 2% of beauty school grads will be working in that field five years after graduation. Use these numbers to try to convince your child that there are better things for them to train for than cutting hair, polishing nails and giving massages in Tampa.

 

61.4% Percentages are fun! It's bonus time when you can use percentages to teach your children about the perils of debt. At the end of 1999, as we were moving into the last year of the Clinton Administration, the amount of money our government owed was 61.4% of our GDP; the total value of all goods and services produced in this country during that year. By the time George Bush was through that figure had gone up by 8.8 percentage points to 70.2%. Not good. But ... by the time Barack Obama gets his first year all wrapped up that figure will have risen another 20.2 percentage points to 90.4%! We're on a roll! And here's your final fun percentage figure: In 2011 that figure will reach the magic 100%. At that point we owe more than the total value of our economy. That has to be the definition of something! Bankruptcy? Oh ... and we're not even talking unfunded liabilities here.

 

Finally ...

 

9% That's an unemployment figure. That's how high Barack Obama said our unemployment figure would go if we did not quickly pass his super-effective stimulus plan earlier this year.

 

7.9% That's how high Obama said unemployment would rise if we would just give him over $750 billion dollars to stimulate our economy. We did; and ....

 

9.8% That's our latest unemployment figure. Looks like the stimulus worked! The figure includes hairdressers, nail techs and massage therapists - in case you're wondering.

 

#1 As in Rule No. 1. Elections have consequences.

[timesjoke]

Numbers that will never be seen in a public school classroom and over 95% of the Nations locations for higher learning, lol.

[Ahhlee]

I guess I won't be attempting to transfer my cosmetology license to the Tampa area.

 

Gee, that's heartbreaking.

 

Ehhh, fuk it all. We're screwed anyway. I'm going to get a jump start in the meth whore industry.

 

Good yet scary post, RO.

[RegisteredAndEducated]

Very good post. Preaching to the choir, but good none the less.

[snafu]

I think I'll pass that out around the break room for some training matieral for our working parents.

[RoyalOrleans]

If I didn't preach to the choir sometimes, I'd have to talk to myself.

 

That is, if you take my meaning.

[timesjoke]

I feel your pain brother, those who do not agree with us on some of this stuff won't stand still long enough to hear us out. The Liberals have pretty much won the war on ignoring anyone who does not agree with them. I love the recent issue with Obama wanting everyone to not consider Fox a new source. They named two opinion shows as the reason Fox can't be considered a new show and yet they ignore that all the other stations have opinion shows as well so if just having an opinion show is grounds to not be considered a new station, then nobody can be considered a new station.

 

 

Where was this possition when all the opinion shows on the other netwoprs were critical of Bush? Did Bush refuse all interviews with Networks who said something negative about him? He may have reduced them sure, but he never had this kind of temper tantrum and tried to start a movement to deny them their status as a news group.

[RoyalOrleans]

They named two opinion shows as the reason Fox can't be considered a new show and yet they ignore that all the other stations have opinion shows as well so if just having an opinion show is grounds to not be considered a new station, then nobody can be considered a new station.

 

Fox News is constantly the butt of the liberal biased secular media's jokes, quips, anecdotes, accusations, and rebukes because Fox News is effective. The left is so accustomed to controlling the media they just can't stand it when someone strays off the reservation.. and does it with such devastating effectiveness. Remember, Fox News has ratings way and above those of CNN. It's no wonder the left is upset.

 

People who dog out Fox News cite examples like Hannity and O'Reilly and Beck which are opinion shows! The other eighteen some odd hours is news coverage and reporting, but these moonbats on the ignorant fringe don't see it that way. Turning to opinion shows for the current news is like turning to Leno, Conan, Letterman, et. al. for the news.

 

Fox News won't allow themselves to be put in the same group as CNN, NBC, ABC, etc, and will continue to have ratings until Free Speech is revoked.

[timesjoke]

Well you said it best in that Fox has them all smashed in the ratings so what does that say about how "the people" view the issue?

 

To a certain degree all this is helping Fox because as the saying goes, any attention is good attention when your looking for viewers. I remember seeing a story where even the non news segments of Fox have seen some increased viewership because of this so I guess it is a win/win for Fow while Obama is looking like a spoint brat having a temper tantrum.

 

 

He was proud to show how he was nothing like Bush and that would include the fact that he has no backbone when dealing with those who do not worship him. Bush faced ten times the dissagreement to his policies than this and he never cried like this.

[hugo]

Analysis: Social Security and Medicare Are Unsustainable

Budget & Tax News > June 2005

Social Security

Social Security > Reform: Need For

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In 2011, the first group of baby boomers in the United States will reach the age of 65. When the last of that generation retires in 2032, 77 million of them will have ceased working and paying taxes and will have at least begun receiving taxpayer-funded health care and pension benefits.

 

A similar trend is occurring throughout the developed world. In Japan, Europe, and North America, the number of retirees will double over the next 25 years while the number of taxpayers will grow only 10 percent. The economic consequences of these changes are dire: higher taxes, slower growth, and lower living standards.

 

 

Cash Flow Deficits Begin

 

In a pay-as-you-go system such as Social Security, what matters most is cash flow. And the cash flow drain that elderly entitlement programs portend is not a problem of the distant future, as some argue. The problem has already begun.

 

For several decades, Social Security and Medicare have been receiving more in payroll taxes than they have been paying out in benefits. The declining U.S. population growth rate, however, is beginning to take its toll. Last year, the two programs combined spent more than they took in, requiring a general revenue subsidy of about $45 billion. The magnitude of the deficits in these two programs will soar in the years to come.

 

For those who believe Social Security and Medicare are in sound financial shape for decades to come, Figure 1 presents a sobering picture. In 2010, the federal government will need $127 billion in additional funds to pay promised benefits. Five years later, the size of the annual deficit will double. Five years after that, it will double again. In just 15 years, the federal government will have to raise taxes, reduce other spending, or borrow $761 billion to keep its promises to America?s senior citizens.

 

 

As the years pass, the size of the deficits will continue to grow. Without changes in worker payroll tax rates or senior citizen benefits, the shortfall in Social Security and Medicare revenues compared to promised benefits will top more than $2 trillion in 2030, $4 trillion in 2040, and $7 trillion in 2050.

 

 

Huge Deficits Projected

 

These deficit numbers include projected inflation. Yet even in 2004 dollars, the numbers are staggering. Valued in today?s dollars, the annual Social Security deficit will top $50 billion in 2020, $250 billion in 2030, and $400 billion in 2050. Adding Medicare?s deficits, the federal government will need more than $500 billion in 2020, $1 trillion in 2030, and $2 trillion in 2050 to fund elderly entitlement programs alone.

 

Note that these estimates, which come from the latest Social Security Trustees report, do not include the growing burden of senior health care costs under Medicaid.

 

The combined budget shortfalls for Social Security and Medicare are so large it is difficult to comprehend what the numbers mean. Figure 2 presents the projected deficits as a percentage of federal income tax revenues. It shows that combined Social Security and Medicare deficits will equal more than 28 percent of federal income taxes by 2020.

 

 

Roughly, this means that in just 15 years, if the federal government is to keep its promises to seniors, it will have to stop doing more than one-fourth of everything it does today. Alternatively, it will have to raise income taxes by one-fourth or borrow an equivalent sum of money.

 

By 2030, about the midpoint of the baby boomer retirement years, federal guarantees to Social Security and Medicare will eat up one in every two income tax dollars. By 2050, they will take three in every four.

 

 

IOUs Can?t Pay Benefits

 

What about the Trust Funds? The Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds serve an accounting function, not an economic one. They work like this: When payroll tax revenues exceed expenses, the U.S. Treasury issues special bonds to keep track of the surplus.

 

Unlike other Treasury securities, however, these bonds are not sold in the marketplace. They are created on paper and placed in filing cabinets in Parkersburg, West Virginia, while the actual surplus payroll tax dollars are spent on other things. When tax revenues fall short of expenses, the process is reversed: the bonds are taken out of the filing cabinets and retired.

 

The Social Security Trust Fund currently holds about $1.6 trillion of these non-negotiable bonds. But these bonds cannot pay benefits. Although they are treated as assets of the trust fund, they are also liabilities of the Treasury. Summing over both these agencies of government, assets plus liabilities net out to zero.

 

If the federal government had purchased assets with the Social Security surpluses, the Trust Funds would today represent real economic value. Instead, the funds were spent in other ways, and the government essentially wrote IOUs to itself.

 

If a fire were to destroy the filing cabinets in Parkersburg, this would in no way diminish the capacity of the federal government to pay benefits. Alternatively, if a stroke of the president?s pen were to double or triple the number of bonds in those filing cabinets, that would in no way increase our ability to pay benefits. If we could create value by writing IOUs to ourselves, Social Security would have no financial problems. Unfortunately, there is no free lunch.

 

 

Social Security, Medicare Linked

 

Both Social Security and Medicare are pay-as-you-go programs, and costs of both will be drastically increased by the aging of the population. Currently, Social Security surpluses are covering deficits in Medicare. After 2018, however, both programs will be running deficits. Any change that helps one program will automatically help the other.

 

The federal deficit this year is projected to be the largest in U.S. history, and President George W. Bush has pledged to cut it by half. Even if he is successful, the United States will face large (and rising) deficits in coming years due to our elderly entitlement programs.

[RoyalOrleans]

[attach=full]2592[/attach]

 

Most Americans believe that there is something out there called a Social Security trust fund. They believe that when the government collects its Social Security taxes every year, it takes the money left over after paying all benefits and puts that money aside for future retirees. Americans actually believe this --- but they're wrong. The Social Security trust fund exists in name only. There is no money there. Not one single dollar. It's all gone. Decades ago, when Democrats were running the congressional show, someone came up with the bright idea of taking all of the Social Security taxes that were left over after benefits were paid and use that money to fund some other federal vote-buying social programs. The idea was simple. The free-spending congress would just give an IOU to the Social Security administration for the money that was pilfered and spent. Those IOUs now sit in a grey filing cabinet in some federal office in West Virginia. There's your precious Social Security trust fund. Paper. IOUs from a government that doesn't have the money to pay them.

 

So how is it that Grandma gets her check every month? Social Security is what they call a Ponzi Scheme. If you or I set one of these up, we would be carted off to jail...which happens from time to time, by the way. In a Ponzi Scheme, earlier investors are paid off with later ones, but there's no actual money being invested. Sort of like paying your Visa with your MasterCard....for 40 years.

 

So right now, some schlep is working at your local burger joint to pay for some retiree's check. What is going to happen over time, is the amount paid out will be greater than the amount coming in...and the payout scheme will collapse, since there won't be enough to pay.

 

In just about 11 years, in 2017, we won't be collecting enough in Social Security taxes to pay the benefits that will be due to baby boom retirees. In other words, It will be time to head to that filing cabinet in West Virginia, take some of the IOUs out, and present them to the U.S. Treasury for redemption. But how do you pay off those IOUs when you're already spending every single penny you make? Well ... there's only a few possibilities. You borrow the money and go deeper in debt; you raise taxes on the already tax-oppressed Americans to get the needed funds, or you simply default on the IOU. You could, of course, cut spending in other areas to come up with the money --- but remember who we're talking about here. Even for a congress that has doubled federal spending over the past decade or so, cutting spending even by one single dollar is simply not an option.

 

Privatization? Yeah ... that would have been a partial solution. It would have delayed the financial collapse of Social Security, but private retirement accounts don't serve the purposes of politicians --- especially Democrats. How, after all, can Democrats threaten you with the loss of a retirement account that you own in order to frighten you into voting for Democrats? In every single congressional election since 1960 Democrats have warned voters that if they vote for Republicans the evil Republicans will either reduce or take away their Social Security benefits. And in every single congressional election since 1960 that argument has worked as thousands of frightened and uninformed wizened citizens rush to the polls to reelect their Democrat protectors.

 

Another problem with the idea of privatization is that Americans only have a very superficial love of freedom. The less freedom demands personal responsibility the more people love it. The more freedom demands self-discipline the less freedom is revered. Personal accounts -- private accounts -- would mean that people would actually have to be responsible for investing their funds and, to some extent, managing those investments. That's just a bit too much freedom for many.

 

So -- the crisis looms. Politics rule.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

 

Dr. Adrian Pierce Rogers (September 12, 1931 - November 15, 2005) of Love Worth Finding Ministries, Pastor Emeritus of Bellevue Baptist Church.

[timesjoke]

White House Loses Bid to Exclude Fox News From Pay Czar Interview - Political News - FOXNews.com

 

 

The Obama administration on Thursday failed in its attempt to manipulate other news networks into isolating and excluding Fox News, as Republicans on Capitol Hill stepped up their criticism of the hardball tactics employed by the White House.

 

The Obama administration on Thursday tried to make "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg available for interviews to every member of the White House pool except Fox News. The pool is the five-network rotation that for decades has shared the costs and duties of daily coverage of the presidency.

 

But the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks consulted and decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included.

 

The administration relented, making Feinberg available for all five pool members and Bloomberg TV.

 

The pushback came after White House senior adviser David Axelrod told ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday that Fox News is not a real news organization and other news networks "ought not to treat them that way."

 

Media analysts cheered the decision to boycott the Feinberg interview unless Fox News was included, saying the administration's gambit was taking its feud with Fox News too far. President Obama has already declined to go on "Fox News Sunday," even while appearing on the other Sunday shows.

 

"I'm really cheered by the other members saying "No, if Fox can't be part of it, we won't be part of it,'" said Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, calling the move to limit Feinberg's availability "outrageous."

 

"What it's really about to me is the Executive Branch of the government trying to tell the press how it should behave. I mean, this democracy -- we know this -- only works with a free and unfettered press to provide information," he said.

 

Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. said the administration was potentially in violation of the Constitution with its attempt to restrict access to the "eyes and ears" of the country.

 

"What was averted was a very serious constitutional violation by the White House," Johnson said. "There cannot be selective and arbitrary access to the White House based on some subjective determination."

[hugo]

White House Loses Bid to Exclude Fox News From Pay Czar Interview - Political News - FOXNews.com

 

 

But the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks consulted and decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included.

 

"

 

I've got a little more respect now for the press the other four networks in particular.

[hugo]

Back on topic:

 

The worst of the big three deficits is the healthcare entitlement programs it requires a huge shift back to making the individual responsible for his own health. Sadly, we ain't moving in that direction.

[ImWithStupid]

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

[hugo]

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

 

Great link. Look at the medicare and prescription drug liability and remember much of that is the fault of GW Bush.

[ImWithStupid]

It's not going to get any better with the accounting tricks Washington is trying to use to BS the sheeple...

 

Baucus's Accounting Trick

 

By Philip Klein on 10.19.09 @ 1:33PM

 

I've been documenting the various tricks Democrats have been employing to argue that their health care legislation would cost less than $900 billion over 10 years and not add to deficits. Their tactics include promising cuts to government programs that future lawmakers are unlikely to actually enact and moving $247 billion of spending on Medicare doctors' payments to a separate bill while claiming that it has nothing to do with health care (even the Washington Post editorialized that this was "nonsensical"). But another way that Chairman Max Baucus was able to keep the cost of the Senate Finance Committee legislation down (as measured by the Congressional Budget Office) was just a simple gimmick.

 

Given that the CBO only puts a price tag on the first 10 years of a piece of legislation, Democrats realized that they could simply delay the enactment of the major spending provisions of the bill by four years, thus creating the illusion of a bill that costs $829 billion over 10 years. But in actuality, the bill is projected to cost just $14 billion in the first four years, and $70 billion through its fifth year. You can see this in the below table breaking down the CBO spending projections:

 

[attach=full]2593[/attach]

 

I demonstrate this graphically below. The red shaded area to the left of the line represents all of the spending in the first half of the 10 year period the CBO evaluated, and everything to the right of the line represents spending in the second half of that 10 year period. About 98 percent of the spending comes in the last six years, and 92 percent comes in final five year period. Thus, the true 10-year cost of the Baucus bill is well above $1 trillion, and according to estimates cited by Republicans, it's actually $1.8 trillion.

The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Baucus's Accounting Trick

 

[attach=full]2594[/attach]

[hugo]

We really need a couple liberals around here.

[snafu]

We really need a couple liberals around here.

 

I hear ya. That's what I've been saying for a while.

[snafu]

That's the problem though. They can't refute the facts.

[Old Salt]

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. ~ Mark Twain

[timesjoke]

That's the problem though. They can't refute the facts.

 

Your just a racist, admit it, lol.

 

 

The problem with being Liberal is it reqires a person to detach from reality to even start to believe that you can make life "fair". The notion requires mental illness or something.

 

 

Look to Bender for a great example, a guy who I have said over and over again seems to be very smart, self motivated, and is responsible in his own life. Everything he has and has accomplished is by his own hard work.........but he also believes in free handouts and social engineering to make life "fair".

 

Go figure, but we also saw him completely ignore every hard fact ever shown him and one of his last points before leaving was to parrot the claim that anyone who finds fault in Obama's actions are motivated by racist beliefs.

 

 

I have never found a single Liberal who could truly justify their actions, that is why they have to resort to name calling and ignoring the facts.

 

 

The video of Milton Friedman on Donahue we have seen here is the classis view of how a pure liberal is speachless against the hard fact of how much better capitalist ideas have provided for the masses than their Robin Hood ideas.