You may have heard that already. If you listened to speakers at the Democratic National Convention, you couldn’t miss it. America is the greatest country in the world. Over and over we heard that America is already the greatest country in the world, and we don’t need Donald Trump to Make America Great Again.
But we really do. Zero Hedge has some disturbing numbers pulled from David Stockman’s soon to be released book “Trumped! A Nation On The Brink… And How To Bring It Back“.
Because the main street economy is failing, the nation’s entitlement rolls have exploded. About 110 million citizens now receive some form of means tested benefits. When social security is included, more than 160 million citizens get checks from Washington.
The total cost is now $3 trillion per year and rising rapidly. America’s entitlements sector, in fact, is the sixth biggest economy in the world.
And there’s more.
Yet even as the current business cycle is rolling over, the 77.1 million persons employed full-time from that pool is still 1.2 million below its turn of the century level!
That’s right. Only 61% of the prime working age population has full-time jobs. That compares to65% as recently as the year 2000.
So it might be wondered. How is it possible that real consumption expenditures rose by a whopping $3.1 trillion or 38% during the same 16-year period that the number of full-time prime age workers was actually dropping?
Still more.
[I]n crowing about all the part-time and “born again” jobs it has purportedly created, the Obama White House has never remotely acknowledged that its vaunted “recovery” has been largely built on transfer payments and debt.
…
[I]n May 2016 total transfer payments amounted to fully one-third of all the wage and salaries disbursed to the entire work force of the United States.
At this rate it won’t be long before working taxpayers are outnumbered by people getting checks from Washington. Not to worry. Hillary says it’s all good. Though it seems odd that the best darn change-maker that devoted husband Bill has ever known is trying to get elected as Obama’s third term. Which is it?
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