People love statistics and they love to throw them around. The media loves to twist them and satisfy their sorted needs and exploit their viewers for better ratings. Then there are individuals who do the same thing because of "oneupsmanship" and why one is better than another or one place is safer than another.

So today here are my statistics that I would like to throw around as the media and people have been emailing me and constantly reminding me of the number of people murdered in Mexico because of the drug war.

U.S. murder statistics for "the last four years": 64,000


Mexico's murder statistics for "the last four years": 27,000


Read them as you wish and make all the justifications you would like. Numbers are numbers and please don't remind me of the larger population in the U.S. which would statistically drop the percent per capita in the U.S. Why?


A dead person is a dead person.

The same holds true for the poverty rate in each country:

Mexico 37,000,000

United States 37,000,000

Any kid that has to go to bed hungry is a criminal statistic and per capita doesn't mean squat.