The human capacity for self-delusion truly is remarkable. Most people out there end up believing exactly what they want to believe even when the truth is staring them right in the face. Take the U.S. economy for example. Barack Obama wants to believe that his policies have worked and that the U.S. economy is improving. So that is what he is telling the American people. The mainstream media wants to believe that Barack Obama is a good president and that his policies make sense and so they are reporting that we are experiencing an economic recovery. A very large segment of the U.S. population still fully supports Barack Obama and they want to believe that the economy is getting better so they are buying the propaganda that the mainstream media is feeding them. But is the U.S. economy really improving? The truth is that it is not. The rate of employment among working age Americans is exactly where it was two years ago and household incomes have actually gone down while Obama has been president. Home ownership levels and home prices continue to decline. Meanwhile, food and gasoline continue to become even more expensive. The percentage of Americans that are dependent on the government is at an all-time record high and the U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars under Obama. We simply have not seen the type of economic recovery that we have seen after every other economic recession since World War II.
The horrible statistics about the U.S. economy that you are about to read are not talked about much by the mainstream media. They would rather be "positive" and "upbeat" about the direction that things are headed.
But lying to the American people is not going to help them. If you are speeding in a car toward a 500 foot cliff, you don't need someone to cheer you on. Instead, you need someone to slam on the brakes.
The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than it was four or five years ago.
We have never come close to recovering from the last recession and another one will be here soon.
The following are 25 horrible statistics about the U.S. economy that Barack Obama does not want you to know....
#1 The percentage of Americans that own homes is dropping rapidly. According to Gallup, the current level of homeownership in the United States is the lowest that Gallup has ever measured.
#2 Home prices in the U.S. continue to fall like a rock as well. They have declined for six months in a row and are now down a total of 35 percent from the peak of the housing bubble. The last time that home prices in the United States were this low was back in 2002.
#3 Last year, an astounding 53 percent of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.
#4 Back in 2007, about 10 percent of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for 52 weeks or longer. Today, that number is above 30 percent.
#5 When Barack Obama first became president, the number of "long-term unemployed workers" in the United States was 2.6 million. Today, it is 5.3 million.
#6 The average duration of unemployment in the United States is about three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.
#7 Despite what the mainstream media would have us to believe, the truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed is not increasing. Back in March 2010, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In March 2011, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In March 2012, 58.5 percent of all working age Americans were employed. So how can Barack Obama and the mainstream media claim that the employment situation in the United States is getting better? The employment rate is still essentially exactly where it was when the last recession supposedly ended.
#8 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.
#9 In 1962, 28 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs. In 2011, only 9 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.
#10 In some areas of Detroit, Michigan you can buy a three bedroom home for just $500.
#11 According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time at this point.
#12 Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the price of gasoline has risen by more than 100 percent.
#13 The student loan debt bubble continues to expand at a very frightening pace. Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.
#14 Incredibly, one out of every four jobs in the United States pays $10 an hour or less at this point.
#15 Household incomes all over the United States continue to fall. After adjusting for inflation, median household income in America has declined by 7.8 percent since December 2007.
#16 Over the past several decades, government dependence has risen to unprecedented heights in the United States. The following is how I described the explosive growth of social welfare benefits in one recent article....
Back in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and wages. In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and wages. Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35 percent of all salaries and wages.
#17 In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, more than 46 million Americans are on food stamps.
#18 Right now, more than 25 percent of all American children are on food stamps.
#19 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, today 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives some form of benefits from the federal government.
#20 Over the next 75 years, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars. That comes to $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.
#21 During the first quarter of 2012, U.S. public debt rose by 359.1 billion dollars. U.S. GDP only rose by 142.4 billion dollars.
#22 At this point, the U.S. national debt is rising by more than 2 million dollars every single minute.
#23 The U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars since the day that Barack Obama first took office. In a little more than 3 years Obama has added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents combined.
#24 The Federal Reserve bought up approximately 61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during 2011.
#25 The Federal Reserve continues to systematically destroy the value of the U.S. dollar. Since 1970, the U.S. dollar has lost more than 83 percent of its value.