Our world is changing at a pace that is so staggering these days that it can be really hard to fully grasp the significance of what we are witnessing. Hopefully the collection of random facts below will help you to "connect the dots" just a little bit. On one level, the facts below may not seem related. However, what they all do have in common is that they show just how much the United States has fundamentally changed. Do you ever just sit back and wonder what in the world has happened to America? The truth is that the America that so many of us once loved so much has been shattered into a thousand pieces. The "land of the free and the home of the brave" has been transformed into a socialized Big Brother nanny state that is oozing with corruption and has accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world. The greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen is falling apart before our very eyes, and even when our politicians actually try to do something right (which is quite rare) the end result is still a bunch of garbage. For those who still love this land (and there are a lot of us) it is heartbreaking to watch America slowly die.
The following are 50 random facts that show just how dramatically America has changed....
#50) A new report released by the United Nations is publicly calling for the establishment of a world currency and none of the major news networks are even covering it.
#49) The state of California is so broke that Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered California State Controller John Chiang to reduce state worker pay for July to the federal minimum allowed by law -- $7.25 an hour for most state workers.
#48) A police officer in Oklahoma recently tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn't breathe because they considered her to be a "threat".
#47) In early 2009, U.S. net national savings as a percentage of GDP went negative for the first time since 1952, and it has continued its downward trend since then.
#46) Corexit 9500 is so incredibly toxic that the UK's Marine Management Organization has completely banned it, so if there was a major oil spill in the North Sea, BP would not be able to use it. And yet BP has dumped over a million gallons of dispersants such as Corexit 9500 into the Gulf of Mexico.
#45) For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
#44) It has come out that one employee used a Federal Emergency Management Agency credit card to buy $4,318 in "Happy Birthday" gift cards. Two other FEMA officials charged the cost of 360 golf umbrellas ($9,000) to the taxpayers.
#43) Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo received $389,000 from the U.S. government to pay 100 residents of Buffalo $45 each to record how much malt liquor they drink and how much pot they smoke each day.
#42) The average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen to an all-time high.
#41) The bottom 40 percent of all income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
#40) In the U.S., the average federal worker now earns about twice as much as the average worker in the private sector.
#39) Back in 1950 each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 workers. Today, each retiree's Social Security benefit is paid for by approximately 3.3 workers. By 2025 it is projected that there will be approximately two workers for each retiree.
#38) According to a U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.
#37) The federal government actually has the gall to ask for online donations that will supposedly go towards paying off the national debt.
#36) The Cactus Bug Project at the University Of Florida was allocated $325,394 in economic stimulus funds to study the mating decisions of cactus bugs.
#35) A dinner cruise company in Chicago got nearly $1 million in economic stimulus funds to combat terrorism.
#34) It is being reported that a 6-year-old girl from Ohio is on the "no fly" list maintained by U.S. Homeland Security.
#33) During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due in the United States increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.
#32) According to a new report, Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality and far less efficiency.
#31) Some experts are warning that the cost of bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could reach as high as $1 trillion.
#30) The FDA has announced that the offspring of cloned animals could be in our food supply right now and that there is nothing that they can do about it.
#29) In May, sales of new homes in the United States dropped to the lowest level ever recorded.
#28) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has ranged between 300 to 500 to one.
#27) Federal border officials recently said that Mexican drug cartels have not only set up shop on American soil, they are actually maintaining lookout bases in strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona.
#26) The U.S. government has declared some parts of Arizona off limits to U.S. citizens because of the threat of violence from Mexican drug smugglers.
#25) According to the credit card repayment calculator, if you owe $6000 on a credit card with a 20 percent interest rate and only pay the minimum payment each time, it will take you 54 years to pay off that credit card. During those 54 years you will pay $26,168 in interest rate charges in addition to the $6000 in principal that you are required to pay back.
#24) According to prepared testimony by Goldman Sachs Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs shorted roughly $615 million of the collateralized debt obligations and residential mortgage-backed securities the firm underwrote since late 2006.
#23) The six biggest banks in the United States now possess assets equivalent to 60 percent of America's gross national product.
#22) Four of the biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) had a "perfect quarter" with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.
#21) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 - a 32 percent increase over 2008.
#20) BP has hired private security contractors to keep the American people away from oil cleanup sites and nobody seems to care.
#19) Barack Obama is calling for a "civilian expeditionary force" to be sent to Afghanistan and Iraq to help overburdened military troops build infrastructure.
#18) On June 18th, two Christians decided that they would peacefully pass out copies of the gospel of John on a public sidewalk outside a public Arab festival in Dearborn, Michigan and within 3 minutes 8 policemen surrounded them and placed them under arrest.
#17) It is being reported that sales of foreclosed homes in Florida made up nearly 40 percent of all home purchases in the first part of this year.
#16) During a recent interview with Larry King, former first lady Laura Bush revealed to the world that she is actually in favor of legalized gay marriage and a woman's "right" to abortion.
#15) Scientists at Columbia University are warning that the dose of radiation from the new full body security scanners going into airports all over the United States could be up to 20 times higher than originally estimated.
#14) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.
#13) The FDIC's deposit insurance fund now has negative 20.7 billion dollars in it, which represents a slight improvement from the end of 2009.
#12) The judge that BP is pushing for to hear an estimated 200 lawsuits on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster gets tens of thousands of dollars a year in oil royalties and is paid travel expenses to industry conferences.
#11) In recent years the U.S. government has spent $2.6 million tax dollars to study the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes and $400,000 tax dollars to pay researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires, Argentina to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior when drunk.
#10) U.S. officials say that more than three billion dollars in cash (much of it aid money paid for by U.S. taxpayers) has been stolen by corrupt officials in Afghanistan and flown out of Kabul International Airport in recent years.
#9) According to a report by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the baggage check fees collected by U.S. airlines shot up 33% in the first quarter of 2010 to $769 million.
#8) Three California high school students are fighting for their right to show their American patriotism - even on a Mexican holiday - after they were forced to remove their American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.
#7) Right now, interest on the U.S. national debt and spending on entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 percent of GDP. By 2080, they are projected to eat up approximately 50 percent of GDP.
#6) The total of all government, corporate and consumer debt in the United States is now about 360 percent of GDP.
#5) A 6-year-old girl was recently handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.
#4) In Florida, students have been arrested by police for things as simple as bringing a plastic butter knife to school, throwing an eraser, and drawing a picture of a gun.
#3) School officials in one town in Massachusetts are refusing to allow students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
#2) According to one new study, approximately 21 percent of children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010.
#1) Since 1973, more than 50 million babies have been murdered in abortion facilities across the United States.
i stongly apoligize for my opinion i been fightin favoritism,drugs and corruption the past 6 yrs.i jumped the fence to go bring my kid back home.lik the man said,don’t listen to me. i’m just a father trying to be a father and a son
The guys passing out Christianity were really there to incite violence and that is why they were arrested. When the rate of abortions rise, guess what declines about 15 years after the fact? …. CRIME. When women are FORCED to bear children who they cannot adequately care for, the children end up lost, on the streets and eventually become involved in crime. Safe, legal abortions are the most humane and compassionate way to deal with unwanted pregnancies.
Unity? What unity does good have with evil? The International Socialist (Democrat Party) with the freedom-loving and hard-working? What truck does the illegal have with those that do not break the laws? What unity is there between those who choose to do the right with those who choose evil as a way of life? What unity between those of good character and those who use marijuana to get high and through their daily life, live to tell lies and rationalize everything they do? By age 45, 43% of U.S. women have committed murder by abortion. What price a baby’s blood? What unity between those that rationalize that by saying “it’s not human” or “it’s better off dead” as the National Socialists did of the Jews, Slavs and other “undesireables” in Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland from 1940 to 1945?
Those fifty facts are very upsetting and demoralizing. I sadly also agree that we are seeing the end times for the greatest country ever, caused by our own hand. I also must tell you that I will go out shooting. When the collapse starts, I will execute anyone I decide is trying to steal my supplies or challenge me. Stay far away from me.
America is finished as a world power and country. One can live on the backs of others for only so long before they shake the shackles off. South and Central America is showing the world how it’s done. Costa Rica, here i come.
From Danny on July 5th 7:45pm:
“86 y/o grandma tasered by police… Obviously they are going to make out the police to be as wicked and evil as possible, and they’re sure not going to say something like, ‘Yes, we deserved it. We were being rude, disrespectful, and uncooperative.’”
I’m perfectly stunned by your comment. You may want to experience a 50kilovolt taser shock so you understand what you say.
For my part, I will never accept that tasering and stepping on an old woman’s oxygen hose is justified for mere rudeness, disrespectfulness or uncooperativeness. I don’t care if she is loudly and obnoxiously waving a loaded shotgun – the moral and civilized response is to walk away and let her calm down absent another person being in immediate danger. Only in extraordinary and indeed outlandish circumstances could this ‘officer’s’ actions be proper. But you support turning the exception into the rule – justifying obscene force to keep the public ‘in line’, I suppose.
Local police in many states are slowly turning into a gestapo for no reason better than mere expediency. This is to be rebuked, not supported. This officer needs to be indicted and sent to prison if convicted; and you should re-think the proper role of police in civilized society.
The police are be defended by the public when they act with honor and courage in the line of duty. This is not one of those situations. Shame on you for confusing abuse of the helpless with courage or honor – it is not an easy mistake to make.
These facts are all disgusting. How have we gotten ourselves here? And, I know this is a blog, but the #1 item… aren’t we over this whole calling medical procedures murder? I’m not a big whack job who pickets or puts bumper stickers on my car, I don’t want to push anyone’s buttons. Just saying, in this day and age calling abortions murder is like calling a lobotomy a mental health plan. Keep and share your opinions by all means, but can we step it up to this century? Thank you.
hahaha all these good points until this dude brings up the abortion issue and we find out who he really is. it’s hard to take someone seriously when this is the #1 thing that makes you wonder what in the world has happened to america. i think that is the last thing on most people’s minds; douchebag.
An unborn child is only a tumor until the heart starts beating, you say???
Well, the heart starts beating at only 18-21 days after conception, so the woman getting an abortion IS KILLING A CHILD, not a tumor!!
Very few women know they are pregnant before the heart starts beating. Of course, a distinct human is created when 46 chromosomes emerge from the 23 male and 23 female. That is before implantation, before anyone can tell she is pregnant!
Let’s be accurate, please…..
You forgot, dumbass, to add anything about the massive cost of our military-industrial complex burdens our nation and drives us into debt….our military spending is almost equal to the rest of the world’s nations military spending COMBINED!
I live in Arizona despite all the hullabaloo we need comprehensive immigration reform. The border is trashed and today a friend of my related two instances of one break in a neighborhood committed by Mexicans. Also he was outside a Food City and some Mexican American youth ran out of the store with huge amounts of meat in their arms jumped in a car and ran away. My best friends inlaws were hit by an illegal immigrant with no insurance and his wife died soon after because of trauma. There were an elderly couple. Granted there are good people here, but we need to close the door. Also, another friend is a social worker and shakes his head that the illegals he works with are on health insurance and food subsidies.
I would travel to feed a family, but how many more poor people can we afford when Americans are out of work and sometimes cannot find a job because they don’t speak Spanish. The system is broken, so broken and we can’t take it anymore.
#1 is the #1 for a reason. After seeing the conservative estimate of 50mil innocent and defenseless babies slaughtered in their mothers wombs, #2-#50 don’t really seem that bad. Its ok though, because GOD himself will straighten this mess out, and you will REAP what you SOW.
Just make a wall around your US border…I love the people,but I don’t like being bullied….Evertime I fly in the US you make us feal like ****…So now I fly Over your problems and I invest in other countries….. But yes You have the bigger Guns…and we are all scared of you…I wish all the American people peace and hope your Government will stop being the Planet’s Cop.Hope your new President will make a diference, because The Bushes realy harmed your nice reputation…..James from Canada
Regarding #40, pay of federal workers verses private works, three years ago when I was a GS-14 supervising contractors in the Washington D.C. area, most of my contact employees made more than I did, one of them made 50% more than I did. In Northern Virginia, the contractors make far more than the US GOV employees do on average which, at that time, resulted in a flight of government workers into contract jobs. The down side is that contractors are easy to get rid of, so they may wish they hadn’t jumped ship as the US GOV can now dump the contracts to cut costs if they so choose…
HG Wells you know. If the rest of these ignorant fools only had more faith. Babies being called tumors, Masons trying to twist our Founding Fathers true Christian beliefs. They can’t deal with the fact that our Constitution was totally based on Christianity. Such disturbing facts from people only deceiving themselves. Read! Learn History! Go buy the book “Ten Tortured Words,” by Stephen Mansfield. The most accurate book on our Founding Fathers. Read about the apparition of Medjugorje. Go and vist there. You will believe after such an experience. You don’t have much more time to waste. Things will get worse.
kb, buddashoes, and the rest who want to allow Murder…
Tumors? Medical Procedures? uterine contents? Please. I think you can find many many ways to justify murder, but that does not mean it is not murder. The child has individually specific DNA from the moment of conception…in other words, it is a new unique life and therefore killing this child is, in fact, Murder. Medical Procedure? Are you kidding? It will not be long before the kids of the NEXT generation will be selling themselves on this term as a justification to euthanize the elderly. I can hear it now, “come on man get with the modern world, it is a MEDICAL PROCEDURE and you are no longer a human being after you cost more to keep alive and I need you dead before you spend all the money I will get when you die” Be careful how you choose to justify your barbaric practices. We decry the death of 3-6 million Jewish people and call it a holocaust and it was; but 50 million innocent children slaughtered in the name of “choice”? I hear points such as hunger, suffering, inhumane. I am impressed that one can be killed because they MIGHT be hungry one day, because they MIGHT suffer one day, because it is MORE humane to murder a child than it is to put the child up for adoption. I wish nothing for you but what you wish on the innocent murdered children. Prior to 1973 there was over 250,000 RECORDED adoptions every year. Now there are less than 15,000 and the line, bureaucracy, and monetary cost is daunting. If only there were more babies available to adopt…but alas, there should be no adoptions. Let’s just kill it. You people are sick and need my prayers.
Bush was a wolf (progressive) in sheeps clothing.
God and spirituality has been taken right out of our daily lives. It’s supposed to be the most important thing in our lives. That constant dialogue with God. Living as Jesus did. Acting with your highest thought of self. Every action in love.
Man gained “power” forgot about what is really the most important- God and your communion with him. I’m not implying being God fearing, but how do some people sleep at night. Or knowing what they’ve done, knowing they’re gonna meet their maker? or by not aknowleding God, then what, he doesn’t exist? God has been taken out of In God we trust. It’s become who ever has the most power, money and the furthest reaching hands is driving the bus now. Think about what motivates, truly motivates the actions taken by our fellow Americans. Money? Power? Greed? The attitude of you can never have enough of something. The scriptures quoted above, Beautiful! America does have some huge earmuffs on shouting lalalalala hoping God will just go away. It’s sad, really sad!
Go out and rekindle your relationship with God, its not like your life will get any worse. It can only get better and besides, he’s been waiting for you- patiently….
We have a right to choose What is right for our future and I’ll be damned if I let my child grow up poor on food stamps (use a condom people!!!). Stop having babies if you cant afford it. All you are doing is making slaves for the corporations. Stop making the tax payers pay ridiculous amounts of money. Start voting locally where it really counts and help fix this country! Down with the IRS! Viva La Revolution. Also to the writer ~ Bias much?
Now I know why there is a hell. For all of those idiot KEYSTONE COPS in Oklahoma (Okies from the stokies I guess) who have nothing better to do than go around tazering little old ladies in their beds!!!!
When there are more in the wagon, than are pushing it, you have a PROBLEM. As in massive civil rebellion.
Make that 51 facts… fact #51 a brain dead population that worries more about the next american idol then who they elect as president!! HOWS THE HOPE AND CHANGE WORKIN’ FOR YA !!!!!!!!!!!!!
thank ya t.e.c.
Sounds like somebody’s scared of the inevitable, in other words. Change happens whether or not you like it, boy. Better learn to adapt.
I am a big supporter of abortion… we need less mouths to feed if any of these issues are to be corrected…TY
The opening of this article rails against the increased socialization of our society, yet many of the 50 observations are the result of capitalism. Is the irony intentional, or can you guys not decide which side of the fence you want to sit on?
To systemscammer: Let me see two homosexuals placed on a lush island and left to survive, mate and reproduce. That would be 0 for 3. “Mate” implies the chance for increase.
if your shakin upunder your own roof/get married that way a bunch of dru///// cant help take that child out from under that free roof/god bless heather and crystal/2 loyal freinds
The insanity posted on this blog is mind blowing. The amount of ignorance the majority of the people are spewing is unfathomable. The country may have been founded on Christianity because Christianity was and is the dominant religion in the country but it is not and never was a Christian nation. We were founded as a Democratic nation where people have the right to choose what they do and do not believe in (and perhaps the Founding Fathers overestimated a lot of people being able to handle the ability to choose without being led around like sheeple). You don’t have to be a bible thumper to be a moral upright citizen and do what you believe is your heart is right, only a in ideologue blindly follows anything without questioning it. We’re a nation of philosophers and if people weren’t so fundamentally ignorant in respect and right of others to choose things for themselves because they, themselves, can’t handle the choice for themselves, we would actually be in a much better place than we all now. This doesn’t make the other people any more or less culpable because they themselves choose poorly. Abortion is not murder but to any moral person they should realize that it is not and should not be considered a form of birth control and should only be acceptable in the cases of rape, incest, and when the mother’s life is threatened by the pregnancy. You all need to take your hands off your ears and stop screaming your ideologies at the top of your lungs. Guess what? No one cares, and I sure as hell don’t. And I’m going to continue to make choices and do what I feel is right because I feel it is right, not because someone else told me it was right and not because I was too stupid to make my own choices for myself.
Disgusted American, I can sleep at night because of one very simple fact: I don’t believe in God. I am also for selective procreation and involuntary sterilization for most of the idiots out there. Too many stupid people, making more stupid people. Chris, more people like you need to be around, you said it much better than I could have. Before anyone asks, I do not have children or want them, I believe that there are too many here and too many being had. For crying out loud, instead of adding to the overpopulation problem that no one seems to want to acknowledge, here is an idea, ADOPT!
All you bible thumpers – what IF there is no God? Nobody to save you. Nobody to dispense justice. Maybe it is because you lay – back and think God will punish those evil doers, and nothing gets done.
Get off your asses and do something cause even if there is a God, He ain’t taking care of buisness. IT IS UP TO YOU TO ACT.
outo bee 51 thing ,the monetary influence of living wills,.last year my granfather died and had about 20,000 in the bank and had it wrote in his will that it be divided between all 4 living children so noone could say he left a child out,my aunt had moved in to help take care of him for about a year and my uncles had alway haelped geet the wood and coal in for years and helped build stuuf and when it came time to disperes the will she had already secured the money for herslf , th day before was told one uncle wanted some old spare windows which i for sure he had retaind , thy were broken and bragged by the aunt how hard they wre to break,a clip was removed from a rifle right bfore they came and there was no money when asked about with a law standing there
I object strenuously to your use of the word
murdered in “your” #1 item. It is a bias that renders all of your other “facts” questionable.
I’ll be amazed if you publish this.