Sometimes it isn't necessary to quote facts and figures about government debt, unemployment and the trade deficit in order to convey how badly America is decaying. The truth is that millions of Americans can watch America rotting right in front of their eyes by stepping out on their front porches. Record numbers of homes have been foreclosed on and in some of the most run down cities as many as a third of all houses have been abandoned. Unemployment remains at depressingly high levels and the number of Americans on food stamps continues to set new records month after month. Due to severe budget cuts, class sizes are exploding and school programs are being eliminated. In some areas of the U.S. schools are even going to four day weeks. With little to no funding available, bridges are crumbling and street lights are being turned off in many communities. In some areas, asphalt roads are actually being ground up and turned back into gravel roads because they are less expensive to maintain. There aren't even as many police available to patrol America's decaying cities because budget problems have forced local communities across the U.S. to lay off tens of thousands of officers.
Once upon a time, the American people worked feverishly to construct beautiful, shining communities from coast to coast. But now we get to watch those communities literally crumble and decay in slow motion. Nothing lasts forever, but for those of us who truly love America it is an incredibly sad thing to witness what is now happening to the great nation that our forefathers built.
The following are 18 signs that America is rotting right in front of our eyes....
1 - Due to extreme budget cuts, school systems across the United States are requiring their students to bring more supplies with them than ever this year. In Moody, Alabama elementary school students are being told to bring paper towels, garbage bags and liquid soap with them to school. At Pauoa Elementary School in Honolulu, Hawaii all students are being required to show up with a four-pack of toilet paper.
2 - According to the American Association of School Administrators, 48 percent of all U.S. school districts are reporting budget cuts of 10 percent or less for the upcoming school year, and 30 percent of all U.S. school districts are reporting cuts of 11 to 25 percent.
3 - In Chicago, drastic budget cuts could result in an average class size of 37 students.
4 - The governor of Hawaii has completely shut down that state's schools on Fridays - moving teachers and students to a four day week.
5 - According to the Federal Highway Administration, approximately a third of America's major roadways are already in substandard condition.
6 - All over the United States, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel because it is cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt road into gravel over the past year, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have now turned some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.
7 - According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, more than 25 percent of America's nearly 600,000 bridges need significant repairs or are burdened with more traffic than they were designed to carry.
8 - In a desperate attempt to save money, the city of Colorado Springs turned off a third of its streetlights and put its police helicopters up for auction.
9 - The state of Arizona has eliminated funding for full-day kindergarten and has shut down a number of state parks.
10 - Over the past year, approximately 100 of New York's state parks and historic sites have had to cut services and reduce hours.
11 - In Georgia, the county of Clayton recently eliminated its entire public bus system in order to save 8 million dollars.
12 - Elsewhere in Georgia, 30,000 people recently turned out to pick up only 13,000 applications for government-subsidized housing. A near-riot ensued and 62 people were left injured. The amazing thing is that all of this commotion was just to get on a waiting list. There are no aid vouchers even available at this time.
13- In the city of Philadelphia, rolling fire station "brown outs" recently cost a 12 year old autistic boy named Frank Marasco his life.
14- Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts says that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.
15- The sheriff's department in Ashtabula County, Ohio has been slashed from 112 to 49 deputies, and there is now just one vehicle remaining to patrol all 720 square miles of the county.
16 - Of 315 municipalities the New Jersey State Policemen's union recently canvassed, more than half indicated that they were planning to lay off police officers.
17 - Not that the criminals are doing that much better. Things have gotten so bad in Camden, New Jersey that not even the drug dealers are spending their money anymore.
18 - Almost everyone knows someone who has been severely impacted by this economic downturn. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey has found that 81 percent of American adults know someone who is out of work and looking for a job.
So can't the states just step up and start spending more money and fix these things?
Well, no. The truth is that the states are absolutely broke. Quite a few of the states are actually on the verge of default, and there is no getting around the fact that budget cuts that are much more severe are going to be required in the years ahead.
So can't the U.S. government step in and bail out the states?
Well, yes, but as we have detailed previously, the U.S. government is literally drowning in a sea of red ink. The U.S. government is already spending an amount of money equivalent to approximately 25.4 percent of GDP this year.
How much more money can the U.S. government possibly spend?
To get an idea of just how bad things are already, the IMF says that in order to fix the U.S. government budget deficit, taxes need to be doubled on every single U.S. citizen.
Are you ready to pay double the taxes?
No matter how you slice it, the U.S. is in a massive amount of financial trouble and the American people are starting to realize this fact. In fact, one new poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that the U.S. economy will get worse before it gets better.
But unfortunately things are not going to get "better" - at least in the long-term. The decay and the rot that have already set in are only going to get worse.
These problems did not appear overnight and they are not going to be solved overnight. Our leaders have been making very bad decisions for decades, and all of those bad decisions are starting to catch up with us.
But perhaps you disagree. Feel free to tell us what you think in the comments section below....
None of this can be fixed until the Federal Reserve banksters are eliminated, and Article 1 Section 8 restored back to the US Congress.
I’m kinda glad I live in new Zealand. I often joke with my employees that they have to bring their own toilet paper to work to save money. But then there will be toilet paper classism – the rich will have two ply while the poor will have that waxy paper they used to have at school when I was a kid. It scrapes but does not clean
And then you will get those that pair up based on their ply “I am a 4 ply guy babe – you, like, looking for a good time?”
Most of these problems – without denying the human misery that comes from/because of them – are from us overspending, over-entitling, and thinking the good (borrowed-money) times would roll forever. Bike paths and clock towers for everyone! More public school programs! Someone else will pay!
My kids go to a parochial school that has done very well on statewide academic competititons. No frills at all, parents are expected to volunteer to keep staff costs low, and tuition per child costs 25% (!!!) of the per-child cost of the surrounding public school systems.
It’s unfortunate that people whose fault it isn’t are being affected, but it’s not our leaders that did this. WE did it when we elected government after government on the basis of shiny promises and not asking hard questions like “who will pay for it now, and in twenty years”. We did this to ourselves, and we’re only going to fix it if we give up on the shiny stuff and the entitlements. You don’t HAVE to have many of the things in your school budget: the taxpayer shouldn’t be made to pay for cheerleading or sports uniforms or band instruments or swimming pools or ridiculous tenure+pension packages. THAT is the root of this problem, and states and towns are choosing the comparatively easy ways out first: sell assets (helicopters), grind up roads, bla bla but these are short-term band-aids and not structural fixes like zero-based budgeting, severely tightened belt on the entitlements, and mandatory spending/increase caps tied to some economic metric.
And, isn’t just wonderful that the first(sic)lady of the United Sates spends Six Million dollars a year on HER personal staff! What the Hell is going on?
Back in 1980′s I learned a very important lesson in college from a renegade History Professor which was denied tenure and told to find another job:
‘Whenever the government must make cuts they do it where it is openly visible to the public. This way you immediately see these cuts first hand and will gladly open up their wallets so no additional cuts will happen to these badly needed public services.’
This list fits this measure exactly. Same play book used for the past 200+ years!
This mess is partially because for the past 30 years Americans have been demanding more and more services from the government while demanding their taxes be cut at the same time. No politician, Republican or Democrat, has had the stones to stand up and tell people that whatever government programs they want to see funded, from Social Security to roads to the Iraq War to whatever else MUST be paid for through their taxes.
We are a nation of spolied little brats who want to have our cake and eat it too and scream bloody murder when we can’t.
It’s truly criminal that state and local governments don’t cut many of the ‘paper-pushing’ jobs from their ranks – those that do make-work or enforce specious regulations that do nothing but increase the cost of doing business, or are based on social engineering agendas. Coupling that with denying services to illegal immigrants would go a long way towards cutting gov’t. spending in a way that benefits the citizenry they purport to represent.
Cutting public education funding is a good thing – people have allowed their children to be used as indoctrinated pawns of the teacher’s unions for far too long. Cutting police funding, OTOH, means that the majority of officers still on the job will be forced into revenue-generating activities (traffic/parking tickets) instead of investigating crimes, though many of the ‘official’ comments by chiefs and unions are designed to help communities justify raising taxes to keep the living standards of public officials and employees from falling.
Welcome to The Greater Depression – deeper, longer, and far more dangerous than the first one.
I don’t disagree. These problems have been 30 years in the making and, since we are in a death spiral, I don’t see how they can be fixed. We have a generally corrupt and corporate-owned federal government. We have a Federal Reserve that does whatever it wants for the benefit of the financial system and not the benefit of the citizens. And we have severe problems at the state level where wild spending and more corruption is crippling us.
I see no one willing to do what it takes to fix anything. And doubling the taxes of a dying middle class can have two results: we die faster or we revolt. I’ve been wondering why I don’t hear more about fed-up homeless and unemployed people committing mayhem. I don’t know if the mainstream media is just not covering it or if people are too beaten down to do anything.
In fact, I never understood why there weren’t major riots when the Supreme Court picked Bush as president. Maybe if there were, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
It is sad, and very frustrating.
My question is, why can’t all the people who are looking for work be put to work repairing the infrastructure of our country?
I would be willing to be taxed a little more to help pay for this.
We could all learn what it is like to work with our hands (again) and get them dirty repairing bridges, roads, learning to repair and maintain our electric grid and water systems. We could learn to build high-speed rail and mass transport systems in our cities and towns.
We just have to do it.
Thank you.
demand the Government STOP LYING about what they are really trying to do … The Policies they are doing behind Closed Doors like Health care reflect so much of what is available on the web about Overpopulation and the elites worry about it and what they are proposing to do about it , we the people need to demand the truth and be allowed a place in this debate , not sacrifice our Liberties and Independence because other parts of the world don’t understand the finite principles of Earths carrying capacity , like how this chart shows that Education in a FREE Market Capitalist society seems to create a Understanding of the philosophy of sustainable population growth within the confinements of a finite resource like earth , as the fertility shows in developed capitalists societies in this chart , we the people should not have to give up our rights to Liberty under the tree of Freedom to Choose our way of life then just because Some elite seem to think thats the only way , this is what is going on and we need to demand truth !!!!!!
I mean look at those who are advising and have a Background of such drastic Population control policies and who are being approved in the courts to Implement such controlling policies , look at the restrictive way Policies are designed to take away access to resources and Ration their use , this is the truth , don’t let them deny it , its right before our eyes !!!!!
With the idea of saving and then Investing in the stock market , and some time back Dave said that the stock market was a guaranteed rise in value based off the past performance of the markets history , but the fact too that along with the rise in Stock market value based off the expansion of the durable goods sector a… Supply-side Fundamental , a value that equates the value a company stock is worth is based off the Consumption rate of a Goods or Service , and to say that this trend will continue , give all the worry inside Government about Overpopulation in the world , it would seem that this could have a dire consequence on how the value of Supply-side economics continues to raise the value of a consumer driven stock market when the signals we see are for Zero Population growth by the end of this Decade .
Google Overpopulation , Earths carrying capacity , Bill Gates Population Control youtube , population control , and see that there is a real issue here in terms of what this might do to the Idea of a Growing Supply-side Free market Fundamental , and the Investors in the world need to be aware of what Might happen and be Very Cautious about investing in a Wall Street thats not shielded from this type of Government Intervention . http://www.overpopulation.org/
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6A1FD147A45EF50D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqAGasF6Hfo&feature=player_embedded
This guy in this next link is advising President Obama
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20091211105819323
http://www.warsocialism.com/America.htm
http://dieoff.org/
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/armageddon-wars-overpopulation-vs-global-warming/?src=busln
all of this was planned 35 years ago , http://www.population-security.org/11CH3.html
There is a lot of debate going on in the shadows of
the public forum but it needs to take front and center stage .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSlB1nW4S54&feature=player_embedded
,
Ted Turner says there is a Problem and that this is causing Climate
Change , TOO Many people , and
Salon says its Not a Problem , so who is right ???
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/04/19/population_crash_ext2010
And then you have the CIA here saying Over
Population is a Problem , and this is the Government talking , so who do we Believe and is this the real Reason for Cap and Trade , health care that
reduces quality care by redistributing money from the older folks that need the
care to the Younger folks that by percentages will not need as much care , thus
reducing overall economic costs to health care ?? This seems like Eugenics in
nature , hummmm…..
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/621146/cia_predicts_the_future_2015_overpopulation/
Don’t take my word for it , do your own Google
searching on the topic of Overpopulation , earths carrying capacity , population
control , etc, etc, and earths finite resources like water
Are you guys paying attention to and Informing
your listeners to whats really going on in the world thats causing the lack of
trust and will to finance a growing economy by our banking sectors and the
reason why Government has had to step in and fill this loss of finance over the
past 3-4 years since this fear became topic one in the elite circles of finance
???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity
http://jayhanson.us/america.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/earth-carrying-capacity1.htm
http://dieoff.org/index.html
Wake up and realize Exactly what happens once we run out of water?
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/07/21/20100721climate-shift-to-hurt-water-supply.html#comments
,
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/run-out-of-water.htm
http://www.marketskeptics.com/2010/04/time-water-running-out-for-americas.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100505-fossil-water-radioactive-science-environment/
Is all this Conflict in what drives a Supply-side Durable Free Market value Fundamental make the Risk of Investing in the Wall Street Futures markets worth taking the risk ??? The past 10 Years so far says NO , because you have Made zero return on your investment if you have been in the market starting 12 years ago , and considering the nature of Earths Finite Element , if the markets growth was from a reflection in consumption growth of world Population expansion say from a little less than 2 billion 100 years ago to 7 Billion today , can the market continue to grow if the World Elite zero out Population Growth going forward into the Future ?????
I think that when San Diego has to take down the street sweeping signs because so many people are broke that they MAKE SURE they move their cars off the street every week, that they cannot pay for the machine, upkeep, gas and the operator with the collected tickets…
That’s another sign.. Not that I’m saying they should have ever instituted that program in the first place, which was never about clean streets, only about giving and collecting tickets…$40 a pop!! $80 if you pay after thirty days.
New web bot report is out – will scare the crap out of you for only ten dollars…I am just a reader, not a “Schill”…I paid for mine as soon as it came out (Sunday).
http://Www.halfpasthuman.com
Good luck everybody.
Rome was just like the USer once upon a time. I believe US has overused them self to so much indulgence. Too bad.
Rome was just like the USer once upon a time. I believe US has overused them self to so much indulgence. Too bad.
I can’t argue with reason…. good job breaking it down!
I still can’t figure out why the public can’t see the two parties are owned and controlled by the same bunch at the top.
The leaders change, but the path remains the same.
I guess American Surviving Dancing Idols is more important than any of this.
So when does reality and wall street get to meet ? Hi, I’m Reality…Um Were screwed…Hi, I’m Wall Street…Um, Were the ones doing the screwing…
“Our leaders have been making very bad decisions for decades”
They aren’t leaders…I think that’s one of the things Ayn Rand got right in “Atlas Shrugged” when she called them what they are…they’re looters…
When you step back and survey the nation’s economic landscape, the destruction is truly staggering.
Much of it has been brought about by mass job losses created by Global Labor Arbitrage–foreign outsourcing, H-1B and L-1 visas, and mass immigration (legal and illegal).
To fix this problem, we need to enact a zero-dollar trade deficit policy by using import credits or tariffs. That would help end foreign outsourcing and provide new tax revenue. Then we need to completely eliminate the H-1B and L-1 visa programs. Then we need to end illegal immigration and expel all of the illegals. Then we need to reduce legal immigration back to pre-1965 levels.
After that, our government should raise taxes on the super-rich and multi-millionaires, especially bankers and CEOs.
The real rot is within the Administration and Congress who don’t seem to care about this country but only about getting reelected by giving handouts to every group they think they can buy a vote from.
We need to cut spending at least 30% immediately for all programs…,starting with Congress and the Fed government…. Their salaries need to immediately be slashed by 50% with no health care being provided and no pension for elected officials…let them buy their own like we Americans have to do
There was an article on the Telegraph about Bill Gates and other billionaires giving away half of their wealth to charity. This may sound nice but as one other person commented:
“It may be naive of me, but I can’t help wondering if everybody – not just in the USA, but around the world – would not have been better off if these people had paid their employees better and made their products cheaper across the board; if they’d ‘given’ themselves less money, and if they hadn’t manipulated the financial markets to increase their own profits.
Another point which puzzles me is this: if charity is being despised as something which divides recipient into the deserving and not deserving, and if we therefore instituted the welfare state to treat people equally – how come we applaud this supra-national charity, which can dispense amounts of money that is beyond the total budget of some states? Are we to believe these billionaires will not attach strings to their generosity?
Makes you think doesn’t it?
The solution is really quite simple:
1)The US spends about a trillion a year on defense. This acts as a massive drag on the economy. Why not slash spending to half that amout.
2)The US legal system is highly parasitic in nature. This costs the average family about
several thousand dollars a year. Small/medium
businesses pay about $100 billion a year to fight frivolous lawsuits and enrich lawyers.
No wonder businesses are fleeing the US and being set up in Asia where the people there have a work culture. Why not change the law like in Europe where the loser pays the court costs of the winner. This will massively reduce litigation.
The states and cities spent every cent that came in and more. Roll back school staffing to the same number of teachers and administrators per student as 20 years ago. Put public employees on a fixed contribution retiremnent plan. Outsource overpriced city services. Reduce city, state and federal staffing to the same number of employees per citizen as 20 years ago. Potential cost reductions are as endless as goverment waste. We need real spending reform to not burden our children and bankrupt our nation with our wild spending.
But how else to bring about a progressive America. After all, without the well-timed 2008 Meltdown, Barack would not have become POTUS. For those of you that want to help us, see
“The Manchurian President” for a nice overview of the leading progressives and some of the programs we are working on.
There is not enough money and credit to keep the economy running.
The collapsing credit bubble popped the housing bubble, leading to recession, and perhaps, economic depression.
Three possible solutions are:
(1)the federal government issue debt-free money directly and/or
(2)communities create alternate or community complementary currencies and/or
(3)states create state owned banks, similar to the Bank of North Dakota.
For example, a state owned bank in Michigan could provide credit to the state itself for infrastructure projects, help provide the capital for local banks, so they could in turn provide low interest loans to home owners, small and medium sized businesses, and students. In addition, a state owned bank could be used to help fund state expenses during tough times by providing loans. A major advantage of a state owned bank is that the state could borrow money from the bank at zero interest, for projects, saving between 30% and 50% of the cost of the project, since there would be no interest burden when repaying the loan. For Michigan, California, Florida, and other states looking to solve their economic problems, the state owned bank model, and the Bank of North Dakota in particular, should be studied in depth, as such a bank could provide the credit needed within that state economy during depressions and other tough economic times.
Offer a competitor to public education. Offer parents $1,000 per year for every home schooled child to help defray expenses. Offer parents a $5,000 voucher per student to offset private school education costs. These efforts will reducre public school attendance which should (probably won’t) reduce cost and improve the overall education level as students attend better schools or home school.
Legalize and tax drugs. Reduce prison population. Reduce enforcement and court costs.
Tax imports until we achieve balanced trade. Try a 6% tariff. This will add American jobs with the attendant increase in income tax revenue and less unemployment insurance and welfare outgo. TAX EVERY IMPORT EQUALLY. or congress will sell low tarrifs to favorites.
If a country retaliates with 6% tarriffs so be it. That’s fair. If a country retaliates with a higher tarriff like 12% match that tariff for imports from that country.
I pity any American too naive to realize that decadence has ruined this country. In reality, the blame falls upon those most greedy.
We all know our elected masters engineered this whole charade with the illegals; thereby increasing their constituants profits from cheap labor.
We all know this entire illegitimate war was a ruse to harvest natural resources that never belonged to us and, additionally, to Americanize another country.
We all know the entire media is bought and paid for. Day after day, the talking heads all regurgitate the same retoric and skillfully craft talking points that are meant to polarize and cause more in-fighting. In truth, the country is becoming more radicalized than ever while the elitists all know its an illusion to divide and conquer the people.
We all know the common man is the one who pays for the “nobilities” deception. The middle class is on the verge of extinction, inflation is causing the price of goods to skyrocket and pay remains stagnant.
In summation, there is no changing America my friends. Like any other world power throughout history there is a climb, a peak, a decline, then a disapperance. Lets just hope Lady Liberty can bow out gracefully and not cause a World War, whilst in her death throws, to spite our successor.
NONE of the federal or state economic problems can be fixed. We are all in one T.P. category…stranded with no roll. Structural fixes like zero-based budgeting ARE NOT GOING TO WORK…there is NO FED or STATE MONEY…hence zero budget. 100% taxation won’t pay the debt this country owes. The gig is up. Demanding the government STOP LYING is like asking them to hold their breath for about an hour. They can’t do it. Essentially, the economic world has stopped spinning. We are witnessing the death phase of whole countries. Each one of us had better take a long, hard look at how to fend for ourselves and help our neighbors. We are jumping from Truman’s Show to Katrina World.
In the case of the “union” teachers, perhaps if they didn’t keep paying deadbeats to sit in rubber rooms all day, collecting their full salary and benefits because they can’t be fired, there would be more money for the good teachers.
sharonsj, get off the Bush thing. Old, tired, and every single press analysis of the recount, plus various others, found Bush won FL. Lose it already, Bush neither caused these problems or did anything to fix them. The Bush mania just marks you as a total MoveOn obsess-oid.
As for Frank, our gov’t shouldn’t be run by billionaires but from there to taxing them extra just because they’re rich… who do you think bankrolls entrepreneurs and loans money? If you engage in that sort of classist nonsense, the rich will just take their money elsewhere. We already have some of the world’s highest taxes, and across Europe (high-tax land) nations are starting to lower taxes, or at least talk about it. When will we? What are they starting to figure out that we can’t? What you don’t get is that our problems weren’t caused by a few billionaires, they were caused by we the people committing gross incompetence and negligence in the voting booth, driven by greed for stuff paid for by “someone else” – which turns out to be all our kids.
Jason – most of Congress is lawyers. Go figure why we don’t get tort reform or a legal model like Europe. The U.S. has 85% of the world’s lawyers. Enough said.
Rotting is not the best words. Just think of all the homes in forcloser that is setting a round detroit. Looks like an A Bomb went off. An took out 80% of the city. All these homes no body lives in will have to be bull dozed. You would think if the inviromentalist lobbist would be all over this. All the trees making these homes now go to waste. I think the only green they know of is money. Ant way The gov will start owning lots of america again since the gov owns freddie an fannie mac. Whats next mc donalds?
Non stop wars, wars, wars. Bailouts, bailouts, bailouts. Foreign aid, foreign aid, foreign aid. The road to hell and poverty.
It won’t, and can’t, be fixed. Just get out while you can. There’s work abroad.
Susan, you’re exactly right. When Wall Street rediscovered leverage, the cheap-labor corporatists drove us full speed into the debt-saturation wall. Next stop- Depression-2.0 coming to a town near you August, 2011.
Actually, Hawaii has lifted the furlough Fridays this year, but, that doesn’t mean that we still don’t have money problems.
We need to simply heavily tax the rich and spread the wealth. There is way too much money in way too few hands.
If tax cuts for the rich worked so well why did we loose millions of jobs during the Bush years? Why are we not now doing great there is now no estate tax.
I agree with ship all illegals home-they only drive down wages . Also need to nail the people who employ them-prison and huge fines.
The reality is, as followers of Gerald Celente all know, that the USA is going down for a l-o-n-g time.
I mean a prolonged economic depression which could well run for decades (the first great depression in 1873 ran for 26 years).
The USD is tipped to collapse Jan 2011, the “too big to fail” will all go under by the end of 2011, meaning all consumer credit of every form disappears. ie no credit cards, no student loans, no mortgages, 2nd mortgages etc.
The obvious consequence is total economic collapse.
It’s not hard to see that this is real especially when you consider the subprime collapse is still racing along, with the prime real estate collapse, the student loan crisis, the commercial mortgage crisis all yet to come too. The Fed just continues to print Fiat money as that’s all they know how to do – the government has fixed NOTHING. All the economic woes before the GFC, the GFC itself, and all the crises we’re facing now simply won’t and can’t be fixed by printing tens of trillions of dollars of toilet paper with sweet FA asset backing.
The entire western world is on the very brink of a prolonged depression and it will make the 1930′s depression look like a picnic.
Get out of the USA while you can and before other countries shut the gates.
The one thing I can not get over, is every one is still calling politicians “Leaders”
THEY ARE NOT OUR LEADERS! They are nothing more than our representatives! (Public SERVANTS!)
And they are not doing a very good job of representing us. As soon as people figure this out, we will all be better off.
The situation of US in the economic and political strategic aspects reminds the situation of the last decades of the Roman Empire, as Gibbons describe
The roman empire was unable to sustain the huge military expenditure to secure its border, and that was made squeezing the available resources of the population
Similar to that happens to the USSR, where they use most of the resources for military purpose and the economy (and the people) was depleted and depressed
Now, in the USA, almost the only remaining industry is the military one, but this is not sustainable in the medium term, so that situation need to be addressed soon, it is really crazy that USA has a defense budget that is almost the 50% of all the whole world, and, at the same time its infrastructures are rotting, crazy fool…Eisenhower had reason
Unfortunately, things won’t get better. This is it.
If it wasn’t for oil depletion, we’d have a chance at economic recovery, but supply scarcities detailed in this document by those wacky doomers in the US Military (http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf) tell us that any nascent recovery will be crushed by oil price feedback.
Cheers!
Hello Americans, Your Nation has cut the taxes of the rich and of all. But if You want public services, they must be paid, from military over police down to the most important think, education. If You cut education, you will loose the future. There is no way for the us citizens, to accept, that taxes have to be raised to fulfil the government work. That means too, the taxes of the rich has to be raised. Perhaps you should remember the New Deal of Roosevelt. This is the way to go. Close the wage gaps down to the former gap (20-30 times of average annual income for the high potentials is enough) perhaps with taxes, give the middle class the possibility to earn money and to get a cheap healthcare insurance. If You, the Americans, don´t do that, your glorious country will follow the Rome Empire. The Chinese are waiting to get the opportunity to take over your role. As European and as pro Atlantic minded person, I don´t want that. So wake up America, make a new new deal and show the world, that America is really gods own country.
Michael from Germany
The premise here is very misleading. All governmental units are filthy rich The problem is they keep two sets of books, one is the budget for the political government, the other is the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the corporate government. Look at http://www.CAFR1.com
Governments take in twice as much under the CAFR as they do with the budget. Merge the budget and the CAFR and there is no need forf taxes, none at all.
Just look at the employment numbers of public vs private jobs. Most of the problems above are in places where their are more or very nearly more public employees than private employees. The private sector produces. The public sector consumes. We have more consumers than producers and we continue to tax the crap out of the producers to pay for the consumers. THAT is why we are falling apart.
So what’s wrong with the little red school house? A few generations ago kids from first grade through high school attended school in the same classroom. And they gave us one of the greatest generations every. Along with highly educated kids who could read and write and do their math. Today, our mega schools, with all their glitzy brick and mortar can’t claim that kind of success. I say bring on the little red school house. And home schooling. And stuff all those teachers with their pensions back into the bottle they came out of. Do we really need school administrators who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and retire to luxurious pension to educate our kids? Probably not. In fact, anyone reading this comment could give a kid all they need in terms of reading skills, writing skills, and math skills. So why are we paying so stinkin much for that service. Its not that hard of a task. It really, really, really isn’t. Education is overpriced. And we’re not getting even close to a fair return on the investment. Time to junk the old model of building schools and go back to the little red school house model. Personal responsibility. If you want an education, go find one.
got toast?
It’s not just the leaders who are to blame, but the paid judges, the ones who have gone along with corrupt laws and made corrupt rulings, and the corrupt police and corrupt police oversight commissions (which in ABQ, New Mexico includes the police head himself – nope, no conflict of interest there!). That is why Americans in general are unwilling to pay higher taxes: they’d rather see the country collapse then be under the same oppressive thumb of the rich atheists and liberals and their low iq thug enforcers. It would be better if the liberals and false Christians did a revolution, if you know what I mean, but sadly they are too self-centered and cowardly to do so, and are willing to be poverty stricken till their up against Hell, just like the Argentinians. – http://20questions.tk
It’s not just the government leaders who are to blame, but the paid judges, the ones who have gone along with corrupt laws and made corrupt rulings, and the corrupt police and corrupt police oversight commissions (which in ABQ, New Mexico includes the police head himself – nope, no conflict of interest there!). That is why Americans in general are unwilling to pay higher taxes: they’d rather see the country collapse then be under the same oppressive thumb of the rich atheists and liberals and their low iq thug enforcers. It would be better if the liberals and false Christians did a revolution, if you know what I mean, but sadly they are too self-centered and cowardly to do so, and are willing to be poverty stricken till their up against Hell, just like the Argentinians. You can also thank the leaders of liberal and Arminian churches, especially Assembly of God ones which blur the truth with money robbing lies (tithing scams) and make it especially hard to figure out true from false Christians and so make the entire Church look like hypocrites. That matters, because these theist leaders (and their underling teachers) spread moral decay by their hypocrisy, which contributes to every sin in the Book. – http://20questions.tk
YES…YES YES YES YES!!
BRING ON THE COLLAPSE!! THE SOONER THE BETTER, US AND EVERYTHING ELSE LIVING ON THIS PLANET.
I fully agree, let the ugly system to collapse. Can’t wait to for it to happen. Btw, I’m not some poor guy waiting for a revenge, I’m one of the managers in a large multinational corporation and I can’t wait to loose this job. Planning on becoming a veggie grower in the next 6 months.
Thank politicians. Thank Wall Street Banks. Thank credit and bank rating services. Thank Illegals. Thank cons and frauds, white and blue collar. And others. Government steals your money in taxes, and produces nothing. Nothing.
Entitlements are another big contributor to the U.S. meltdown. It’s free money for politicians. Stealing it from hard working people, then going on spending sprees for decades. This is the result.
Thanks for this post. I have been boning up on a lot of economics lately and it’s been frankly scary. I believe also we are in for very, very hard times and the Fed, DC and the Wall Street cabal are keeping the plates spinning until when I do not know but I give it six months from now when the Second Crash happens. I agree that it’s best if I want a future to move out of the USA. Where I do not know but I feel that the current situation is untenable. At best it’s a long depression. But I feel that it’s more like the end of what’s left of democracy and then a totalitarian situation with a corporate overlay. Call it what you want but it’s not freedom by any stretch. What also is bothering me is how the whole country is allowing this to happen myself included. We all write are comments ect. but the government, the Wall Street banksters continue on thier merry way looting and pillageing everything. What’s more is that most Americans have very little financial literacy(myself included). We just seem to believe whatever we are told by mainstream media. Otday someone told me the economy is getting better again…how can I answer that?
It was only recently that I learned of “naked short selling” which uses a loophole to create phantom stocks in order to then bring them up and short them. It is used by huge hedge funds(not all hedge funds), in order to “take down” companies in their sights. It is probably what gave the death blow to Lehman’s/ and some of the other’s. Profitable start-ups have been reduced to rubble because some manager wants millions over the possible return of long-term investment. This is allowed by the SEC. Crazy and also very dangerous to small/medium sized businesses.
I have to say I have felt very heavy lately like saying goodbye to a friend, it’s sad that we have let it get to this point. If anything we all need to pray that somehow America finds it’s way in this dark time.
Education is key. But the content of that education will make or break America. E.D. Hirsch in “Cultural Literacy” rightly claims a successful democracy is dependent upon a well-educated electorate. The alternative is the tyranny of the majority, which is what we’re currently experiencing.
Hand-outs are not the answer. Education, self-reliance, good old hard-working Americans pulling themselves up by their bootstraps — that’s what it will take to restore America and the middle class.
Otherwise, we are all chickens waiting for Mommy and Daddy Government to toss us some corn, instead of American eagles seeking our own sustenance by our own ingenuity and efforts. Chickens flutter — eagles fly.
Socialism is NOT the answer. Choosing, by our own free will, to help one another when we are down — that is the answer. It is WRONG to force free Americans to purchase anything. It is WRONG to tax us so much that our resources our so depleted we are unable to literally help our own neighbors. It violates the dignity of each human person to deprive him of the ability to help another. It does violence to his soul. Over time, he becomes a chicken, regardless of how hard he tries to soar like an eagle. Society, as a whole, becomes selfish and only able to look out for themselves. The overhaul tenor of morality and aspiring to higher ideals rapidly declines. And that’s where we are today.
More: http://www.newpoorzone.com — a family’s crash from middle class to the new poor. We’re fighting back!
I think that when you refer to “America”, you mean the United States of America.
Many other parts of America are in a transitional period, moving from destructive capitalism to a more people-oriented and hope-filled existence. Just look at Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Venezuela. Or look north at Canada, where the rot you describe has not set in.
Meanwhile the Industrial Military Congress and Complex have spent and sent all of our money overseas for war. War what is it good for? All of that money could have been spent on Americans for Education and Health Care but NO. Let us eat cake. When both the left and the right realize that they are screaming the same lines, when both sides realize that they are on the same exact side then the Revolution will begin. But for those who love Racism the Radical mouths of stupidity will just keep expanding over our air waves and the common sense that WE HAVE BEEN SOLD OUT just will never hit home. This is the Fall of the second Roman Empire.
Um, no. As much as you’d like to fuel your xenophobic hatred, illegal immigrants are not the problem – not the problem you think of, anyway. They are paid far less than American workers and get no benefits of any kind. Only their children do, because they’re citizens, and rightfully so.
The problem is that America has the “bigger dick” mentality, and thus spent way too much money on a war that never got anywhere. America was “in bed” with the same people it’s fighting against, so yes, America is partially to blame for 9/11. Our security should have been better back then instead of compensating by overspending on defense now.
Bush and his administration were big players in this recession. As much as some people hate hearing that, you must remember that they were all for the de-regulation of Wall Street. And what happened? Wild irresponsibility with horrendous financial consequences for the rest of us. He wasted money by supporting a prescription program and a war he never intended to pay for. He also supported programs like abstinence-only sex education, which has been proven by reliable research to be ineffective. Thus we have more teen parents, who then become poor mothers on welfare.
And, don’t forget that he made the tax cuts for the rich. Are they suffering now? No, the middle class is, while the rich are laughing all the way to the bank. They’re not experiencing a recession; we are.
Spreading the wealth is much needed in this country. Too few people have too much money – money that they don’t NEED. They just want it because they believe they’re entitled, and would rather be wealthy at the cost of hurting the rest of the US. Why should the middle class pay most of the taxes when the rich have more money to spare? It makes no logical sense. It’s just greed.
Insurance industries needed the discipline Obama signed into law. They rip people off, and they were the main reason my family became poor. The people they hurt the most is again, the middle class. Without a strong middle class, we don’t have a strong economy. And some say that our healthcare was fine? Bullshit.
On another note, we need to stop outsourcing jobs. Corporations, not government, do this. Blame them, and start demanding that they stop giving American jobs away to avoid paying a tax.
Most importantly, though, we need to stop demanding such a luxurious, wasteful lifestyle. It’s stupid, and it’s hurt us. You can blame people for this mess, but it amounts to nothing if we don’t start coming up with ideas to boost our economy. We need to stop talking and start doing.
“To get an idea of just how bad things are already, the IMF says that in order to fix the U.S. government budget deficit, taxes need to be doubled on every single U.S. citizen.
Are you ready to pay double the taxes?”
See how you throw out that line so casually. Raising taxes has now become a throw away laugh line.
We are paying the lowest taxes in the world and the lowest ever in this Country. I, for one, say “tax me!” and tax everyone else.
Zone,
If you actually knew anything about eagles you would understand that they are for the most part scavengers. I have watched them extensively and have observed their opportunistic feeding habits. While they will kill when needed their usual MO is scavaging or stealing food from others efforts. Sound familiar. So soar like an eagle! It’s the American way!
Wow, lots of doomers here.
Reminds me of some humor….
“…one path leads to despair and utter hopelessness.
The other to complete extinction.
Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly”
Woody Allen
Wake up People! Talk is cheap – “The world is on fire and you’re still talking.”
Join the Revolution! – We don’t have to live like this anymore.
Read “Common Sense 3.1” at revolution2.osixs.org
FIGHT THE CAUSE – NOT THE SYMPTOM