You and I live in a totally different world than the ultra-rich and the international banking elite do. Many of them live in a world where they simply do not pay income taxes. Today, it is estimated that a third of all the wealth in the world is held in offshore banks. So why is so much of the wealth of the globe located in places such as Monaco, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Isle of Man? It isn’t because those are fun places to visit. It is to avoid taxes. The super wealthy and the international banking elite think that it is really funny that our paychecks are constantly being drained by federal taxes, state taxes and Social Security taxes while they literally pay nothing at all. These incredibly rich elitists make a ton of money doing business in wealthy western nations and then they transfer virtually all of their profits offshore where they don’t have to contribute any of it in taxes. It works out really great for them, but it sucks for the rest of us.
It is estimated that approximately $1.4 trillion is held in offshore banks in the Cayman Islands alone. According to an article in Forbes magazine, there is a total of approximately 15 trillion to 20 trillion dollars in offshore bank accounts, brokerage accounts and hedge fund portfolios.
A recent article in the Guardian stated that a third of all the wealth on the entire globe is held in offshore banks and that the vast majority of international banking transactions take place in these tax havens….
On a conservative estimate, a third of the world’s wealth is held offshore, with 80% of international banking transactions taking place there. More than half the capital in the world’s stock exchanges is “parked” offshore at some point.
All of the biggest banks in the world are involved in playing this game. All of them have big branches in these various tax havens. All of them work very hard to ensure that the tax burdens on their ultra-rich clients are as light as possible.
Nobody knows for sure how much money big governments around the globe are missing out on from all this tax avoidance, but everyone agrees the number is huge. It is at least in the hundreds of billions of dollars every single year.
It is a shadow banking system that most Americans don’t know anything about. Most Americans don’t have the resources to be able to set up shell companies in half a dozen different countries so that they can “filter” their profits. Most Americans don’t know a thing about complicated tax avoidance plans that tax lawyers use such as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich”. Most Americans would have no idea how to eventually have most of the money that they make end up in Bermuda so that it can avoid taxes.
No, most Americans just go to work every week and have their hard earned paychecks raped by an oppressive taxation system.
To the ultra-wealthy and the international banking system we are all just a bunch of suckers. In fact, a big portion of our taxes ends up going into their pockets to pay the interest on all of the government debt that they are holding.
When the global elite decide that they want to do some “social engineering” inside the big countries where they operate, they just set up tax-free “charitable trusts” that usually aren’t very “charity-oriented” at all. Rather, many of these “charitable trusts” push the various radical political and social agendas that many of these elitists love to promote.
Examples of this include The Rockefeller Foundation and The Ford Foundation. George Soros also loves to use entities like these to push his various agendas.
The wealthy know how to play the game. For most of the rest of us, the game kicks our behinds.
So for those who are constantly screaming “tax the rich”, the cold, hard truth of the matter is that those who are truly ultra-rich know how to escape just about any oppressive tax regime you may set up. They are light years ahead of the rest of us in knowing how to play the game.
What are you going to do?
Kick them out of the country?
Yeah, they will be really sad to spend even more time down in Bermuda or in the Cayman Islands.
Are you going to kick out any company that has any stock holders that have offshore bank accounts?
Well, you would have to kick out virtually every single major corporation in the United States.
This is just another example of how deeply flawed our system of income taxation really is.
Do you want to become a master of the tax code?
You might want to set aside some time for reading.
A lot of time.
The income tax code and its associated regulations contain well over 7 million words and are more than seven times longer than the Bible.
Meanwhile, the ultra-rich are just parking all of their money in Bermuda and the Caymans and are laughing at all the rest of us.
It would be hard to understate just how much influence and power all of this offshore money has. The ultra-wealthy and the elite international bankers own many of our largest corporations, they exert influence over central banks, they control big media outlets and they “contribute money” (bribes) to political campaigns.
The elite are always two steps ahead of any new laws that get passed. They are masters at moving money around. They will quickly find a half dozen ways around any new law that you could possibly dream up.
Most of us never even get to meet any of these incredibly wealthy individuals. They don’t attend the local church or go shopping down at the local shopping mall.
No, the global elite generally live in very exclusive gated estates or hang out at the most expensive private resorts. They don’t spend a lot of time mixing with the rabble.
It turns out that life is pretty good when you have a ton of money coming in and you pay next to nothing in taxes.
So the next time you get your paycheck and you see that a half a dozen things have been taken out of it, take a few moments to think of the global elite that don’t pay any taxes at all and see how that makes you feel.
Hopefully when enough Americans get mad enough and start demanding change, the current income tax system will be scrapped for good and something much more equitable will be put in place instead.
What we have done to future generations over the past 30 years is absolutely criminal. 30 years ago the U.S. national debt was a bit under one trillion dollars, and at that time it was considered a huge national crisis. Today, the national debt is 14 times larger and the years ahead look absolutely apocalyptic at this point. We have literally sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery. We have accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and our children and our grandchildren will be burdened with it for the rest of their lives. All of our politicians keep talking about how it is vitally important that we do something about all of this debt “soon”, but they just can’t seem to stop wildly spending our money. They keep telling us that now is not the time for deficit reduction because it would harm “the economic recovery”, but the “right time” for deficit reduction never seems to come along. The national debt statistics in this article are meant to shock you. Hopefully they will shock you enough to actually take action. Up to this point, the vast majority of Americans have been extremely apathetic about the horrific crime that we are committing against future generations.
How would you feel if you found out one day that your parents had run up a million dollars in debt that now you were obligated to pay off?
Would you be absolutely furious?
Of course you would be, and rightly so.
So how do you think future generations will feel about us?
We were once the wealthiest nation on the planet, but we have taken that great inheritance and we have squandered it.
Now we are handing our children and our grandchildren the largest debt the world has ever seen.
How in the world can we do that?
How can we consign our descendants to perpetual debt slavery and still feel good about ourselves?
The America that we have all been enjoying so much today is going to be wiped out by all of this debt.
We have literally stolen the future.
We just had to keep spending more and more and more and more.
The greed of this generation will be remembered for a very, very long time.
The truth is that both political parties are responsible. Both of them have voted over and over and over to keep running up these huge budget deficits.
If you have voted for big spending Democrats at any point over the past 30 years then you have contributed to the problem. If you have voted for big spending Republicans at any point over the past 30 years then you have contributed to the problem.
Now we have reached a point where a horrific financial meltdown is basically inevitable. We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and it is only a matter of time until it bursts.
The following are 17 national debt statistics which prove that we have sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery….
#2 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
#3 If the federal government began repaying the national debt at a rate of $10 million dollars a day it would take approximately 3,800 years to pay off the national debt.
#4 Today, the U.S. national debt is increasing by roughly 4 billion dollars every single day.
#5 The U.S. government is borrowing approximately 2.63 million more dollars every single minute.
#6 On September 30th, 1980 the U.S. national debt was 907 billion dollars. Just thirty years later, the U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger.
#7 According to a recent U.S. Treasury report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will reach 19.6 trillion dollars in 2015.
#8 It is being projected that the U.S. government will be paying 900 billion dollars just in interest on the national debt by the year 2019.
#9 A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.
#10 The U.S. Congress has raised the federal debt ceiling six times in just the past three years.
#12 The 111th Congress got us into so much new debt that it breaks down to $10,429.64 for each of the 308,745,538 people counted by the 2010 U.S. census.
#13 The U.S. government currently has to borrow approximately 41 cents of every single dollar that it spends.
#14 When you break down the debt that the U.S. government owes to China alone it comes to over $10,000 for every single American family.
#15 If you were alive when Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. Almost unbelievably, the U.S. government will accumulate well over a trillion dollars more debt in 2011.
#16 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.
#17 The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that U.S. government debt held by the public will reach a staggering 716 percent of GDP by the year 2080.
But the American people don’t want to hear that we have spent decades creating a horrific debt crisis that is not going to be easy to fix. They just want someone to “tweak” a few things and get us back to being the greatest economy on earth. Unfortunately, it is simply not that easy.
Just check out the chart posted below. Our debt is exploding at an almost exponential rate….
But what do you tell a nation that is completely addicted to debt?
On an individual level, it can be a lot of fun to wildly run up credit card debt, but at some point you have to stop and start paying down that debt.
Unfortunately, on a national level we can’t even get our politicians to slow down the rate at which our debt is increasing.
Sadly, the chart above does not tell the real story. It is based on fraudulent government accounting. If the government used GAAP accounting (like all public companies on Wall Street must), the numbers would look much worse.
John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics says that if the federal government would have used GAAP accounting standards to calculate the federal budget deficit for 2009, it would have been approximately 8.8 trillion dollars and that there is simply no way out of all this debt….
The government’s finances not only are out of control, but the actual deficit is not containable. Put into perspective, if the government were to raise taxes so as to seize 100% of all wages, salaries and corporate profits, it still would be showing an annual deficit using GAAP accounting on a consistent basis. In like manner, given current revenues, if it stopped spending every penny (including defense and homeland security) other than for Social Security and Medicare obligations, the government still would be showing an annual deficit. Further, the U.S. has no potential way to grow out of this shortfall.
The U.S. government is essentially bankrupt at this point. It is just a matter of playing out the hand.
The rest of the world is starting to realize this, and confidence in the U.S. dollar is beginning to significantly decline.
Things did not have to turn out this way, but Americans did not listen to the warnings and so now this is where we are at as a nation.
The next time you see a small child, look into the hopeful eyes of that child and just think about what we have done to the future of all of our children.
We have obliterated the financial future of this nation. Someone should be put into prison for all this. But instead the mainstream media treats prominent politicians from both political parties like rock stars.
The mainstream media continues to perpetuate the myth that the U.S. economy is on the road to a grand recovery and that eventually we can get a handle on all this debt and that somehow everything is going to be okay.
Well, everything is not going to be okay.
All that is on the horizon is great financial pain, and the sad thing is that it could have all been avoided.
But now the game is over and the day of reckoning is coming soon.
Doesn’t it seem like almost everything is becoming a crime in America now? Americans are being arrested and charged with crimes for doing things like leaving dog poop on the ground, opening up Christmas presents early, not recycling properly, farting in class and having brown lawns. But is it healthy for our society for the police to be involved in such silly things? Every single day the United States inches closer to becoming a totalitarian society. While there are some that would welcome this shift, the truth is that throughout history the societies that have experienced the greatest economic prosperity have all had at least a certain level of freedom. Business thrives when people feel free to live and work. When a government tightens the grip too much many people just start shutting down. Just look at places like North Korea. Even though the rest of the world is sending them huge amounts of food starvation is still quite common in that totalitarian regime. That is why it is so disturbing that it seems like almost everything has become a crime in America now. As we continue to criminalize relatively normal behavior our slide toward becoming a totalitarian state will only accelerate.
We are throwing anyone and everyone in prison these days. It is getting absolutely ridiculous. Today, the United States leads the world in the number of prisoners and in the percentage of the population in prison. The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but approximately 25% of the world’s incarcerated population.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of the end of 2009 a total of 7,225,800 people were either on probation, in prison or on parole in America.
That is a sign of a very, very sick society. Either we have a massive crime problem or the “control grid” that our leaders have erected for us is wildly out of control.
Or both.
But how in the world are we supposed to have a healthy economy if our entire nation is being turned into one gigantic prison?
Sadly, it is not just hardcore criminals that are being rounded up and abused by authorities these days. The following are 14 of the most ridiculous things that Americans are being arrested for….
#1 A Michigan man has been charged with a felony and could face up to 5 years in prison for reading his wife’s email.
#2 A 49-year-old Queens woman had bruises all over her body after she was handcuffed, arrested and brutally beaten by NYPD officers. So what was her offense? The officers thought that her little dog had left some poop that she didn’t clean up.
#4 In Milwaukee, one man was recently fined $500 for swearing on a public bus.
#5 Several years ago a 12-year-old boy in South Carolina was actually arrested by police for opening up a Christmas present early against his family’s wishes.
#6 In some areas of the country, it is now a crime to not recycle properly. For example, the city of Cleveland has announced plans to sort through trash cans to ensure that people are actually recycling according to city guidelines.
#7 A 12-year-old girl from Queens was arrested earlier this year and taken out of her school in handcuffs for writing “Lex was here. 2/1/10″ and “I love my friends Abby and Faith” on her desk.
#8 Back in 2008, a 13-year-old boy in Florida was actually arrested by police for farting in class.
#9 The feds recently raided an Amish farmer at 5 AM in the morning because they claimed that he was was engaged in the interstate sale of raw milk in violation of federal law.
#10 A few years ago a 10-year-old girl was arrested and charged with a felony for bringing a small steak knife to school. It turns out that all she wanted to do was to cut up her lunch so that she could eat it.
#11 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 Islamic festival in Dearborn, Michigan and within three minutes 8 policemen surrounded them and placed them under arrest.
#12 A U.S. District Court judge slapped a 5oo dollar fine on Massachusetts fisherman Robert J. Eldridge for untangling a giant whale from his nets and setting it free. So what was his crime? Well, according to the court, Eldridge was supposed to call state authorities and wait for them do it.
#13 Once upon a time, a food fight in the cafeteria may have gotten you a detention. Now it may get you locked up. About a year ago, 25 students between the ages of 11 and 15 at a school in Chicago were taken into custody by police for being involved in a huge food fight in the school cafeteria.
#14 A few years ago a 70 year old grandmother was actually put in handcuffs and hauled off to jail for having a brown lawn.
Why in the world would anyone approve of the police arresting ordinary Americans for such things?
It seems like ever since 9/11 the whole country has gotten “security fever”.
Suddenly we need to “get tough” on everyone.
Yes, crime is making a comeback, but once upon a time the police in this country were able to handle crime quite well and be courteous and helpful to ordinary citizens at the same time.
But today it seems like nearly every single encounter with police ends up being negative.
It does not have to be that way.
The rest of the world sees what is going on in this country and many of them are deciding that they simply do not want to spend their tourist dollars here anymore. That is not a good thing for our economy.
America used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
That is no longer true.
Now we get thrown to the floor, handcuffed, beaten and arrested for things that we did not even know were crimes.
If America continues to move in this direction it is going to ruin our economy, our reputation in the world and our national spirit.
Unfortunately, history has shown us that once a free nation starts to lose that freedom it is hard to reverse that slide. Perhaps we will be different. Perhaps the American people will stand up and demand that we restore the principles of liberty and freedom that this country was founded on.
Do you think that will happen? Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion….
As the middle class in America continues to be slowly wiped out, the number of working poor continues to increase. Today, nearly one out of every three families in the United States is considered to be “low income”. Millions of American families are finding that they can barely make it from month to month even with both parents working as hard as they possibly can. Blue collar American workers from coast to coast are having their wages decreased at a time when it seems like the cost of virtually every monthly bill is going up. Unfortunately, there is every indication that things are only going to get worse and that average American families are going to be financially squeezed even more in the months and years to come.
The Working Poor Families Project has just released their policy brief for the winter of 2010-11. What they have discovered is that the number of working poor in the United States is higher than they have ever seen it before and it continues to increase at a staggering pace. The following are some of the key findings for 2009 that were pulled right out of their report….
* There were more than 10 million low-income working families in the United States, an increase of nearly a quarter million from the previous year.
* Forty-five million people, including 22 million children, lived in low-income working families, an increase of 1.7 million people from 2008.
* Forty-three percent of working families with at least one minority parent were low income, nearly twice the proportion of white working families (22 percent).
* Income inequality continued to grow with the richest 20 percent of working families taking home 47 percent of all income and earning 10 times that of low-income working families.
* More than half of the U.S. labor force (55 percent) has “suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers” since the recession began in December 2007.
Unfortunately, things are not going to be getting any better for the working poor. In the new “one world economy” that our politicians keep insisting is so good for us, millions upon millions of American workers now find that they have to compete for work with laborers on the other side of the globe that are willing to work for slave labor wages. This is causing millions of jobs to leave the United States and it is forcing wages down.
Millions of Americans now find that they are making substantially less than they used to. If that has happened to you, perhaps you can take comfort in the fact that you are not alone. Or perhaps it is not that comforting. In any event, American workers are not just competing with each other anymore. Now there is the constant threat that all the jobs could just be sent overseas.
As wages are forced down, a record number of working Americans are finding themselves forced to turn to food stamps and to other government anti-poverty programs. Millions of Americans have been forced to take part-time jobs in order to supplement their incomes. Millions of others have been forced to take part-time jobs because that is all they can find.
This is all part of a long-term trend. The numbers don’t lie. About the only people doing well are those on Wall Street and the very rich. Nearly every other segment of the population is getting poorer.
The following are 10 statistics that I have shared previously, but I think that they do a really good job of highlighting the plight that the working poor in this country are now facing….
#1 In 2009, total wages, median wages, and average wages all declined in the United States.
#2 Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs. Meanwhile, our population is getting larger.
#3 As 2007 began, only 26 million Americans were on food stamps, but now 42 million Americans are on food stamps and that number keeps rising every single month.
#6 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
#7 The number of Americans working part-time jobs “for economic reasons” is now the highest it has been in at least five decades.
#8 Ten years ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult. In 2010, the United States has fallen to seventh.
#9 In 1976, the top 1 percent of earners in the United States took in 8.9 percent of all income. By 2007, that number had risen to 23.5 percent.
#10 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010.
The United States is becoming poorer as a nation even as the boys up on Wall Street are busy grabbing a bigger share for themselves.
We are rapidly becoming a nation that will have a very small privileged class of ultra-wealthy and a very large class of “workers” that is just barely trying to survive.
So is the answer even more government handouts and even more government social programs?
Of course not.
What middle class Americans need are middle class jobs.
Globalism has permanently changed the game. The middle class way of life that so many millions of Americans have been enjoying for so many decades is disappearing.
Just because things were a certain way yesterday does not mean that things are going to be the same way tomorrow. The long-term economic trends that this column keeps talking about day after day after day are taking us all to a very dark economic place.
But instead of facing reality, our federal government, our state governments and our local governments just keep borrowing massive amounts of dollars to try to paper over all of our problems.
It is not going to work. Unless something is done to fix our structural economic problems, the economic decay is just going to get worse and all of this debt is eventually going to collapse our entire financial system.
If you are a member of the working poor I wish I had better news for you. Things are not going to be getting better, and unfortunately millions more Americans will probably be joining you soon.
If you and your family are blessed and prosperous this holiday season, you should consider yourself to be very fortunate, because there are tens of millions of other Americans that are desperately hanging on by their fingernails. The Christmas stories that you are going to read below aren’t going to give you any warm fuzzies. They aren’t about “Santa Claus” sliding down the chimney to leave huge piles of presents around the tree. Rather, they are representative of what so many American families are feeling this holiday season – horrible, suffocating, soul-crushing despair. As you and your family gather around the holiday tree on December 25th, millions of other Americans will be facing a Christmas with absolutely no gifts. As you and your family dig into a delicious holiday meal, millions of other Americans will be breaking out the meager supplies they picked up at the food bank or that their food stamps have enabled them to purchase. As you and your family tell stories around the fire, millions of other Americans will literally sit shivering in their own homes because they have no money to heat them. The stories of those who are suffering so deeply very rarely get put on television, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t very real.
The truth is that there are millions upon millions of American families that have been pushed to the edge of despair by the lack of jobs. In August 2009, only 10 percent of the unemployed had been out of work for 2 years or longer. Today that number is up to 35 percent.
One very disturbing sign of the times is that many churches are now holding “blue Christmas” services to comfort those who are going through hard times. Back during the “good times” such a thing would have been unimaginable, but now they are being held from coast to coast.
All over the nation, food banks, aid agencies and homeless shelters find themselves absolutely overwhelmed this winter. Connie Lassandro, Nassau County’s director of Housing and Homeless Services, recently was quoted in the Huffington Post as saying that she has never seen a greater demand for her agency’s services….
“The new faces we’re seeing are families who have never before faced the risk of actually being homeless. Children don’t understand. ‘Where’s my bedroom? Where’s my toys? Where are my friends?'”
Sadly, the truth is that the U.S. economy no longer produces even close to enough jobs for everyone, so somebody is going to suffer. Today, there are over 6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer. It can be really easy to quote economic statistics such as this, but sometimes what gets lost in all the numbers are the very real stories of the people that are actually living through all of this. This year there are literally millions of American families that have sad Christmas stories to share.
On The American Dream blog, a reader of my column identified as “momma loses hope” recently left a comment in which she really opened up and shared her story with us. Sadly, her story is so similar to what so many millions of other young American families are going through this holiday season….
While my husband has experience, and an education, he is yet to find and keep a job that is worth anything, that would be possible to pay back these $400/mnth loans on deferment, let alone keep us going barely.
Despite his greatest effort and attempts, to locate work that would pay anything over $10 an hour in the field he trained for, or some cross over skills in another profession, still nothing has been happening beyond numerous and then dwindling interviews in the last 2 years.
He is currently working at a $10/hr people mill that has outrageous expectations that are near impossible to meet, just to keep your job. Much of what you are supposed to control, is not within your control! That was after having lost unemployment due to its exhaustion, where we had nothing coming in for 30 days. He found this job and went through training. We were thankful to have anything coming in, but it is not going well. Half of his training class is gone either bc they quit or were fired. We are finding out this is the normal for this business.
Prior to the unemployment of 99 weeks, he had a great new job. $60 k a year was good from having some on the job experience at another job prior to that which was an internship, he got. So this was a good option for a chance out of school. They were content with his level of experience of 3- 4 years in IT w/ the hands on education and internship. We moved to relocate for this job 2500 miles away and then he was let go 6 months later, after he was able to clean up a bunch of unresolved problems for them. They wanted someone with 10 years of experience, all the sudden, despite they knew his skill level! Anyhow, the network was held together with tape and bubble gum. So long “best practice” theory.
I guess they had been left in the lurch bc someone left without notice, they advertised for help for months even out of state, and then they hired my husband to fill the desperate gap. Then they didn’t want to keep shelling out the money to keep him. Used him and turned us away, like no big deal; They fired him after 6 months, after we spent all our savings to move to another state… That is when we went on unemployment, and hubby returned for more education, while still looking for a job too.
We moved back home confused as could be. We were helpful that something would come along back home. Things only got worse for the prospect of careers being offered.
I was hoping they were going to improve, but no they have not. We are dying here. But that is not the end of our troubles.
Last year my husband got a $10 a hour job, got H1N1 and Dble Pneumonia and went to the hospital for 14 days or whatever. He was fired by Stream for not being in training and they refused to place him in another training class when he got out the ICU. Then we were left with over $10,000 ( the other $90 grand was forgiven) and we have collectors after us. We survive day by day, we don’t have anything extra to pay anyone or anything….
So, we don’t have any savings,( we used it to relocate to gain employment as I already mentioned) & we have needed things bc we have a baby coming. We haven’t made it long enough to get anything else saved up to rely on, bc unemployment doesn’t pay you what you were making at your job. The unemployment is gone and there is none left, if he loses this job. We don’t qualify for anymore student loans at this stage. This job is shaky at best and these people fire and lose people like there is no tomorrow, and have constant training going on. What a nightmare! We are not able to get a career in the IT Industry that he trained for and paid for with these loans. What do we do? We have a 6 year old and a baby that is on the way in 3 months.
We are so lost and without hope. We trust in Jesus, but what do we do beyond trying to get a better job? It takes effort to gain a job, but there are not enough possiblities hiring as this article states, and I testify to. All my husband does beyond going to this crap job, and playing with our son, is scouring the internet for jobs, and this has been going on for so long!….
I can’t believe this is happening again…..What is a mother and wife to do? We can’t get on track! We don’t drink or drug or sabotage ourselves and our family, and yet we cannot get on track “with the go to school and get a great job” crap I have heard my whole life. Something is broken and cannot be fixed. Sometimes we wonder why God hadn’t just taken my husband’s life when it was in peril and the rest of our family, as it would be better than dealing with this pain and unresolved heartache.
I am so scared and lonely, I could just die. My tears go unnoticed. I sit here without answers. I am one of millions going through the same thing.
Can you imagine being in such a situation? What is perhaps saddest of all is what this economy is doing to so many children. According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 – the highest rate in 20 years.
Poverty is absolutely exploding all over the United States. The number of Americans living in poverty has increased for three consecutive years, and the 43.6 million poor Americans in 2009 was the highest number that the U.S. Census Bureau has ever recorded in 51 years of record-keeping.
So, no, this Christmas is not “a season of joy” for many Americans. For example, a commenter on the Unemployed-Friends website identified only as “jobless_in_MA” says that her holidays are going to be quite depressing since she has been out of work for 2 Christmases in a row now….
Well, this is now my 2nd Holiday season in a row being jobless, and this year seems far bleaker than last years. Ive always been the type to love this time of they year. I would look forward to it. I was always the one in the family who would be the great gift giver, especially to the younger members of my family.
Last year I was REALLY upset because I couldn’t do 1/4 of what I normally would do, but still managed to enjoy the season. Im not so sure about it this year.
A lot has happened to my situation in the past year, Ive lost my place, filed bankruptcy, lost some of my dignity, and my marriage is on the rocks.
I am NOT in the holiday season at all, and its really bringing me down.
Usually around now we would be talking about getting a tree. Sometimes we would cut our own tree down, and decorate it together.
We would always have a family holiday party at our place, and I don’t see that happening this year at all.
Yes, every year there are some Americans that are “down and out”, but it is undeniable that the number of Americans that are suffering extreme economic pain has absolutely skyrocketed in recent years. Today, one out of every six Americans is now enrolled in a federal anti-poverty program. As 2007 began, “only” 26 million Americans were on food stamps, but now 42 million Americans are enrolled in the food stamp program and that number keeps rising every single month.
Sadly, there are millions upon millions of Americans that do have jobs and yet barely find themselves able to hang in there. Many Americans have been forced to grab whatever job they can find. In fact, the number of Americans working part-time jobs “for economic reasons” is now the highest it has been in at least five decades.
It is becoming increasingly more difficult to make a living in the United States. Today, half of all American workers earn $505 or less per week.
Not that being wealthy is a bad thing, but what that statistic shows is that the middle class in America is being wiped out.
We are seeing this in community after community across the nation. A reader of this column identified as “Bibi” recently left a comment that did a great job of describing the economic decline and economic despair that we are now seeing all across America….
I have recently traveled from coast to coast and then some. This is a synopsis of what is really going on. Californians seem to be in lalaland. Look good and spend money, lots of it that you don’t have. LA has become very dangerous. Police will knock on your van if you stop to rest with a coffee even if you are at a convenience store. It is illegal to sleep in your vehicle and you will be arrested. Las Vegas is full of poor and homeless wandering around aimlessly. Tent cities and blocks of people living on the streets. dirty and super dangerous. The decline is in your face. Police and security presence are at ‘ad nauseum’ levels. AZ and NM are ****holes. My family refused to get out of the van in Albuquerque. Sedona is still nice but its surrondings make it on borrowed time. Little artsy towns will be taken over quickly when TSHTF. The only city I went to in TX was Amarillo. Didn’t see much but it looked seedy and dirty along the highway. OKlahoma- ***. If I didn’t stay on a military base, I would have broke the speed limit to get through it. The thought of getting gas in Little Rock still gives me nightmares. Enough said. AK- Lots of boarded up towns. Saw this all along Route 40. TN- Stay away from Memphis if you want to live. Nashville is the craziest city I have ever seen. Everyone acts like they are on speed. When you get around Pigeon Forge, Maggie Valley and Gatlinburg, you see the true beauty of this state but they are tourist traps. W. VA is beautiful, but the people are very backward. I could live in Northern W. VA. East coast- VA. Beach has been in decline and was just dubbed the “most drunken city in the U.S.” They must be proud. Lots of trouble here. Big police presence. Took 10 minutes for me to get questioned about my out-of- state plates. N&S Carolina- Bigger cities are dangerous, especially Columbia, SC. Big police presence. Baltimore- be afraid, be very afraid. Keep going. NJ- Something like a horror movie. Do people really live here? Scary and smelly. NYC- Was advised by thruway attendent to “keep going and don’t stop” Overturned cars, tons of high rise ghettos, not a safe place. I was terrified my van would break down. Albany, NY.- my destination. Ghettopolis. Stopped by police within minutes as to why I was driving in city so late. ? Informed it was not safe. Stopped again the next day regarding my plates at a police check. They threatened to tow my van because my “license didn’t come up”. [he was holding it] Stopped again for seatbelt violation. I always wear it but he said he couldn’t see it. Am I imagining it or did I really see National Guard walking around with rifles? Well, I promply left NYS and will never go back. The Florida panhandle is far from perfect and has an ever expanding police force, but it is quiet. Not safe, but quiet.
Once upon a time, there were a few cities and towns around the U.S. that were obviously in a state of decline, but now it is happening everywhere.
In fact, there are many areas throughout the country that scream “economic despair” the moment you drive into them. It is almost as if someone has sucked the life right out of them.
So why is this happening? Well, as I recently pointed out, America’s economic pie is rapidly shrinking. As our national wealth continues to be destroyed, even more American families are going to suffer.
For decades we have enjoyed a debt-fueled binge of prosperity that was unlike anything the world has ever seen. But now the day of reckoning is fast approaching and things are going to get even worse.
So if you are doing really well this holiday season, be thankful, because next year it may be you that has the sad Christmas story.
What in the world is happening over in Europe? Well, it is actually quite simple. We are witnessing the slow motion collapse of the euro and of the European financial system. At this point, many analysts are convinced that a full-blown financial implosion in Europe has become inevitable. Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and Belgium are all drowning in an ocean of unsustainable debt. Meanwhile, Germany and the few other “healthy” members of the EU continue to try to keep all of the balls in the air by bailing everyone out. But can Germany keep bailing the rest of the EU out indefinitely? Are the German people going to continue to be willing to hand out gigantic sacks of cash to fix the problems of other EU nations? The Irish were just bailed out, but their problems are far from over. There are rumors that Greece will soon need another bailout. Spain, Portugal, Italy and France have all entered crisis territory. At the same time, there are a whole host of nations in eastern Europe that are also on the verge of financial collapse. So is there any hope that a major sovereign debt crisis can be averted at this point?
One would like to think that there is always hope, but each month things just seem to keep getting worse. Confidence in European government debt continues to plummet. The yield on 10-year Irish bonds is up to 8.97%. The yield on 10-year Greek bonds is up to an astounding 12.01%. The cost of insuring French debt hit a new record high on December 20th.
Bond ratings all over Europe are being slashed or are being threatened with being slashed. For example, Moody’s Investors Service recently cut Ireland’s bond rating by five levels. Now there is talk that Spain, Belgium and even France could soon all have their debt significantly downgraded as well.
But if the borrowing costs for these troubled nations keep going up, that is just going to add to their financial problems and swell their budget deficits. In turn, larger budget deficits will cause investors to lose even more confidence.
So how far are we away from a major crisis point?
Professor Willem Buiter, the chief economist at Citibank, is warning that quite a few EU nations could financially collapse in the next few months if they are not quickly bailed out….
“The market is not going to wait until March for the EU authorities to get their act together. We could have several sovereign states and banks going under. They are being far too casual.”
Many analysts are even calling for some of these troubled nations to stop using the euro for a while so that they can recover. In fact, Andrew Bosomworth, the head of portfolio management for Pimco in Europe says that Greece, Ireland and Portugal must all quit the euro at least for a little while if they expect to survive….
“Greece, Ireland and Portugal cannot get back on their feet without either their own currency or large transfer payments.”
Sadly, most Americans don’t realize just how bad the situation in Europe is becoming. This is truly a historic crisis that is unfolding.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared earlier this year that this is the biggest financial crisis that the EU has ever faced….
“The current crisis facing the euro is the biggest test Europe has faced for decades, even since the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957.”
So what is the answer?
Well, many are speculating that the EU could actually break up over this whole thing, but another possibility is that we could eventually see much greater integration.
In fact, for the first time the idea that “euro bonds” could be issued is gaining some traction. This would spread the risk of European government debt throughout the European Union. At this point, Andrew Bosomworth says that things have gotten so bad that it now seems inevitable that we will soon see the creation of euro bonds….
“Whether now or later, there is no way around a euro bond.”
“I don’t want to scare anyone but I am considering investing in barbed wire and guns, things are not looking good and rates are heading higher.”
So why should Americans care about all this?
Well, what is happening to these troubled European states is eventually going to happen to us.
If rates on U.S. government debt eventually hit 8 or 12 percent it will literally be financial armageddon in this country. The U.S. government has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and if we continue piling up debt at the pace that we are, then it will only be a matter of time before the IMF is demanding that we implement our own “austerity measures”.
As I have written about previously, there are already numerous indications that confidence in U.S. Treasuries is dying. If that happens, we could literally see interest costs on the national debt double or even triple.
But it is not just the U.S. government that is in trouble. A bloodbath in the municipal bond market has already started. Hundreds of state and local governments across the United States are on the verge of bankruptcy.
So don’t laugh at what is going on in Ireland or Greece. The next victims could be financially troubled states such as California and Illinois.
In the history of global finance, we have never faced a sovereign debt crisis like we are seeing now. All over the globe governments are being suffocated by absolutely crushing debt loads. Once a couple of dominoes fall, it is going to be really hard to keep the rest of the dominoes from falling.
This is the biggest crisis that the euro has ever faced. At some point Germany will either be unwilling or unable to continuing rescuing the rest of the EU countries from the unsustainable mountains of debt that they have accumulated. When that moment arrives, it is going to throw world financial markets into turmoil.
But this is what happens when we allow long-term debt bubbles to be created. Eventually they always burst.
So keep your eye on the euro, because if a financial collapse does happen in Europe it is going to have a dramatic impact on the United States as well.
In the United States, it is not just the federal government that has a horrific debt problem. Today, state and local governments across America are collectively deeper in debt than they ever have been before. In fact, state and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. Once upon a time, municipal bonds (used to fund such things as roads, sewer systems and government buildings) were viewed as incredibly safe investments. They were considered to have virtually no risk. But now all of that has changed. Many analysts are now openly speaking of the possibility of a municipal bond market crash in 2011. The truth is that dozens upon dozens of city and county governments are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Even the debt of some of our biggest state governments, such as Illinois and California, is essentially considered to be “junk” at this point. There are literally hundreds of governmental financial implosions happening in slow motion from coast to coast, and up to this point not a lot of people in the mainstream media have been talking about it.
Fortunately, a recent report on 60 Minutes has brought these issues to light. If you have not seen it yet, do yourself a favor and click on the video below and spend a few minutes watching it. It is absolutely stunning.
In the piece, one of the people that 60 Minutes interviewed was Meredith Whitney – one of the most respected financial analysts in the United States. According to Whitney, the municipal bond crisis that we are facing is a massive threat to our financial system….
“It has tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest threat to the U.S. economy.”
State and local governments across the United States are facing a complete and total financial nightmare. The 60 Minutes report posted below does a pretty good job of describing the problem but it doesn’t even pretend to come up with any solutions….
Unlike the federal government, state and local governments cannot just ask the Federal Reserve to print up endless amounts of cash. If state and local governments want to spend more than they bring in, they must borrow it from investors.
If the municipal bond market crashes, and investors around the world are no longer willing to hand over gigantic sacks of cash to state and local governments in the United States, then the game is over. Either state and local governments will have to raise taxes or they will have to start spending within their means.
Most Americans have no idea what this would mean. For decade after decade, state and local governments throughout the nation have been living way, way, way above their means. If the debt cycle gets cut off, it is going to mean that many local communities around the nation will start degenerating into rotting hellholes nearly overnight.
We are already seeing this happen in places such as Detroit, Michigan and Camden, New Jersey but if the municipal bond market totally collapses we are quickly going to have dozens of Detroits and Camdens from coast to coast.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the state and local governments that are in some of the biggest trouble….
California
California is facing a 19 billion dollar budget deficit next year, and incoming governor Jerry Brown is scrambling to find billions more to cut from the California state budget. At this point, investors are becoming increasingly wary about loaning any more money to the state. The following quote from Brown about the desperate condition of California state finances is not going to do much to inspire confidence in California’s financial situation around the globe….
“We’ve been living in fantasy land. It is much worse than I thought. I’m shocked.”
Unfortunately, the economic situation in California continues to degenerate. For example, 24.3 percent of the residents of El Centro, California are now unemployed. In fact, the number of people unemployed in the state of California is approximately equivalent to the populations of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont combined.
The housing market in the state is also a major drag on the economy there. For instance, the average home in Merced, California has declined in value by 63 percent over the past four years.
The state of California is swamped with so much debt that there literally appears to be no way out.
Arizona
The state government of Arizona is so incredibly starved for cash that it actually sold off the state capitol building, the state supreme court building and the legislative chambers. Now they are leasing those buildings back from the investors that they sold them to.
Arizona also recently announced that it has decided to stop paying for many types of organ transplants for people enrolled in its Medicaid program.
Illinois
Illinois is widely regarded to be in the worst financial condition of all the U.S. states. At this point, Illinois has approximately $5 billion in outstanding bills that have not been paid.
According to 60 Minutes, the state of Illinois is six months behind on bill payments. 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Croft asked Illinois state Comptroller Dan Hynes how many people and organizations are waiting to be paid by the state, and this is how Hynes responded….
“It’s fair to say that there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people waiting to be paid by the state.”
The University of Illinois alone is owed 400 million dollars. There are approximately two thousand not-for-profit organizations that are collectively owed a billion dollars by the Illinois state government.
New Jersey
The New Jersey state budget has been slashed by 26 percent, a billion dollars have been cut from education and thousands of teachers have been laid off.
But even with all of those cuts, New Jersey is still facing a $10 billion budget deficit next year, and the state has $46 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $65 billion in unfunded health care liabilities that it is somehow going to have to address in the future.
Detroit
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has come up with a new way to save money. He wants to cut 20 percent of Detroit off from essential social services such as road repairs, police patrols, functioning street lights and garbage collection.
Miami
One Miami commissioner declared earlier this year that bankruptcy may be the city’s only financial hope.
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Sacramento
Major cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and Sacramento have instituted “rolling brownouts” in which various city fire stations are shut down on a rotating basis.
Camden
The second most dangerous city in the United States – Camden, New Jersey – is about to lay off about half its police in a desperate attempt to save money.
Oakland
Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced 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.
America used to be viewed as the land of great economic progress, but that is no longer the case. Sadly, all over the United States there are signs that we are actually going backwards as a country.
All over the nation, asphalt roads are actually 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 transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.
Just think about that – we are actually going back to gravel roads.
What’s next?
But this is what is going to happen all over America if dozens of state and local governments start defaulting and the municipal bond market crashes.
In fact, don’t look now, but there are signs that a “bloodbath” in the municipal bond market has already begun. The months of November and December have been incredibly rocky for municipal bonds.
The days when U.S. states and cities could borrow seemingly endless amounts of incredibly cheap money are officially over.
So where are state and local governments going to get the money that they need?
Well, they are going to come and try to get it from you of course. Over the past two years, 36 of the 50 U.S. states have jacked up taxes or fees.
Many local governments are trying to raise funds any way that they can. For example, from now on if you are caught jaywalking in Los Angeles you will be slapped with a $191 fine.
This kind of thing is happening all over America. Police departments are being turned into revenue raising operations. Police are so busy writing tickets that they barely have any time to investigate actual crimes anymore.
But it simply is not going to be enough. State and local governments across the U.S. are facing financial holes of legendary proportions.
The 60 Minutes report above stated that the combined unfunded pension and health care liabilities of the 50 states is $1 trillion. Unfortunately, that is an estimate that is probably way too conservative. In fact, two prominent university professors have calculated that the combined unfunded pension liability for all 50 U.S. states is approximately 3.2 trillion dollars.
So if the municipal bond market does crash will the federal government step in and bail everyone out?
Well, this upcoming spring the $160 billion in federal “stimulus money” runs out. At that point there will likely be a huge cry for even more “stimulus money” for state and local governments.
Unfortunately, as I wrote about yesterday, the federal government is also flat broke and swimming in an ocean of endless red ink. Congress could potentially step in and try to bail all the state and local governments out, but in the end it is the American people who are going to have to pay the bill.
We are on the verge of a horrific economic collapse which is going to change life in this country as we know it forever. All of this debt is absolutely going to swamp us. Our politicians can keep trying to kick the can down the road for as long as they can, but eventually the financial nightmare that so many of us have been dreading is going to overtake us.
You are not going to believe some of the things that the U.S. government is spending money on. According to a shocking new report, U.S. taxpayer money is being spent to study World of Warcraft, to study how Americans find love on the Internet, and to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam. Not only that, but money from the federal government is also being used to renovate a pizzeria in Iowa and to help a library in Tennessee host video game parties. These are just some of the examples in a new report on government waste from Senator Tom Coburn entitled “Wastebook 2010“. Even as tens of millions of American families find themselves suffering through the worst economic downturn in modern history, the U.S. government continues to spend money on some of the craziest and most frivolous things imaginable. Every single year articles are written and news stories are done about the horrific government waste that is taking place and yet every single year it just keeps getting worse. So just what in the world is going on here?
It almost seems as though Congress actually enjoys inventing new ways to waste U.S. taxpayer money. It seems nearly inconceivable that anyone could keep a straight face while trying to justify spending money on many of the things in the list below.
At a time when the U.S. national debt is closing in on 14 trillion dollars, government waste just seems more out of control than ever. The following are 20 of the craziest things that the U.S. government is spending money on….
#1 A total of $3 million has been granted to researchers at the University of California at Irvine so that they can play video games such as World of Warcraft. The goal of this “video game research” is reportedly to study how “emerging forms of communication, including multiplayer computer games and online virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second Life can help organizations collaborate and compete more effectively in the global marketplace.”
#2 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the University of New Hampshire $700,000 this year to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.
#3$615,000 was given to the University of California at Santa Cruz to digitize photos, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead.
#4 A professor at Stanford University received $239,100 to study how Americans use the Internet to find love. So far one of the key findings of this “research” is that the Internet is a safer and more discreet way to find same-sex partners.
#5 The National Science Foundation spent $216,000 to study whether or not politicians “gain or lose support by taking ambiguous positions.”
#6 The National Institutes of Health spent approximately $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.
#7 Approximately $1 million of U.S. taxpayer money was used to create poetry for the Little Rock, New Orleans, Milwaukee and Chicago zoos. The goal of the “poetry” is to help raise awareness on environmental issues.
#8 The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent $175 million during 2010 to maintain hundreds of buildings that it does not even use. This includes a pink, octagonal monkey house in the city of Dayton, Ohio.
#9$1.8 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars went for a “museum of neon signs” in Las Vegas, Nevada.
#10$35 million was reportedly paid out by Medicare to 118 “phantom” medical clinics that never even existed. Apparently these “phantom” medical clinics were established by a network of criminal gangs as a way to defraud the U.S. government.
#11 The Conservation Commission of Monkton, Vermont got $150,000 from the federal government to construct a “critter crossing”. Thanks to U.S. government money, the lives of “thousands” of migrating salamanders are now being saved.
#12 In California, one park received $440,000 in federal funds to perform “green energy upgrades” on a building that has not been used for a decade.
#13$440,955 was spent this past year on an office for former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that he rarely even visits.
#14 One Tennessee library was given $5,000 in federal funds to host a series of video game parties.
#15 The U.S. Census Bureau spent $2.5 million on a television commercial during the Super Bowl that was so poorly produced that virtually nobody understood what is was trying to say.
#16 A professor at Dartmouth University received $137,530 to create a “recession-themed” video game entitled “Layoff”.
#17 The National Science Foundation gave the Minnesota Zoo over $600,000 so that they could develop an online video game called “Wolfquest”.
#18 A pizzeria in Iowa was given $60,000 to renovate the pizzeria’s facade and give it a more “inviting feel”.
#19 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave one enterprising group of farmers $30,000 to develop a tourist-friendly database of farms that host guests for overnight “haycations”. This one sounds like something that Dwight Schrute would have dreamed up.
#20 Almost unbelievably, the National Institutes of Health was given $800,000 in “stimulus funds” to study the impact of a “genital-washing program” on men in South Africa.
In light of all this, is it any wonder why the approval rating of Congress recently hit another new record low?
According to the most recent Gallup poll, only 13 percent of Americans approve of the job that Congress is doing.
Just think about that – only 13 percent!
Our politicians seem very confused about why there is so much anger in the country today. Well, there are certainly a lot of reasons for it, including the fact that the U.S. economy is on the verge of collapse, but it certainly doesn’t help that our government is basically flushing our tax dollars down the toilet and spending them on some of the most wasteful things imaginable.
It would be bad enough if the federal government was swimming in money, but the truth is that all of this waste is being committed at a time when the U.S. government is nearing bankruptcy.
Over the last 30 years, the U.S. national debt has gotten 13 times larger. We have accumulated the largest debt in the history of the world and there is no end in sight.
In fact, we are rapidly running out of people to borrow money from. According to the Wall Street Journal, in order to repay maturing bonds and finance the exploding budget deficit, the U.S. government will have to borrow 4.2 trillion dollars in 2011.
Eventually the rest of the world is going to lose confidence in the ability of the U.S. government to repay all of this debt. Once confidence in U.S. Treasuries is totally gone, and there are already signs this is starting to happen, the game will be over and the U.S. financial system will collapse.
But the U.S. Congress just continues to act like it is “business as usual” and the wasteful spending just continues to get worse. Someday historians will look back and think that we must have been a nation full of idiots and morons.
For decades our politicians have been spending us into oblivion, yet we keep sending the vast majority of them back to Washington D.C. every time an election rolls around and the mainstream media keeps assuring us that our “respected leaders” know exactly what they are doing and that everything is going to be okay somehow.
It is almost as if some sort of collective insanity has overtaken most Americans. The path we are on inevitably leads to national bankruptcy and the destruction of our financial system, but only a small percentage of the population seems to care.
Well, in the end we will reap what we have sown. Unfortunately, the economic pain that is coming is going to be devastating for all of us – including those of us who are awake and are trying desperately to change things.
What in the world are they thinking over at the Federal Reserve? The privately-owned central bank that runs the U.S. economy is now forcing local banks to remove every shred of Christian faith from their establishments. When Federal Reserve examiners recently visited a local bank in Perkins, Oklahoma they demanded that the bank take down a “Bible verse of the day” and crosses that were displayed on the teller’s counter. In addition, the agents from the Federal Reserve forced all bank personnel to remove buttons that said “Merry Christmas, God With Us”. The bank was also ordered to remove a “Bible verse of the day” from the bank’s website. According to Federal Reserve officials, all visible expressions of Christian faith by bank officials are now banned in all banks across the United States.
Now, before people start screaming “separation of church and state”, please keep in mind that the “state” is not involved here. The local bank in Perkins is a privately-owned financial institution. The owners of that bank should be able to express themselves however they want.
In addition, it is important to note that it was not an agency of the federal government or a federal court that ordered this private local bank to remove all traces of Christianity.
The truth is that the Federal Reserve is not part of the U.S. government. In fact, the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is.
You doubt this?
Well, perhaps you will believe what the Federal Reserve is publicly saying about itself.
In defending itself against a Bloomberg request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve objected by declaring that it was “not an agency” of the U.S. government and therefore it was not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
In the video posted below, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan makes it very clear that the Federal Reserve is above the law and need not answer to anyone in the federal government….
So where in the world does the Federal Reserve get the idea that they have the authority to tell a private bank that they cannot display a Bible verse of the day and that their employees cannot wear Christmas buttons?
No matter what you think about the faith of the owners of the local bank in Perkins, the truth is that we should all be concerned about the kind of precedent that this sets for free speech.
According to Federal Reserve officials, any visible expression of Christianity by a private bank may cause someone from another religion to be offended and feel as though they may be discriminated against by that bank. Therefore any expression of Christianity is “an appearance of discrimination” and thus must be banned.
Okay, so if any expression of Christianity is “an appearance of discrimination”, will federal officials soon use all of the federal “anti-discrimination laws” already on the books to ban all expressions of Christianity in all private businesses throughout the United States?
Once again, it is absolutely crucial to note that the local bank in Perkins is not a government building. Federal Reserve agents are telling private business owners how they can express themselves as they run their privately-owned business on private property.
The following is a local news report about this very disturbing incident….
Does anyone still believe that we have “freedom of speech” in the United States?
It is almost as if all forms of Christian expression are now regarded as something horribly dirty by our public officials.
Even if you are an atheist, this should deeply concern you as well. When freedom of speech is taken from some of us, it is only a matter of time until it is taken from the rest of us as well.
And since when does the Federal Reserve have any authority to tell any private citizen what they can or cannot say?
This is just another example of how the Federal Reserve has gotten completely and totally out of control. The Fed has become an unaccountable monster that is just running around doing just about anything that it wants to do.
It is for some very good reasons that many members of Congress are starting to publicly speak out against the Federal Reserve. Just recently it came out that the Federal Reserve has been handing out gigantic piles of nearly interest-free cash to their friends at the largest banks, financial institutions and corporations all over the globe. The American people have completely lost control over the financial system, and as long as the Federal Reserve remains in control that is going to continue to be the case.
But now, not only is the Federal Reserve at the core of the rapidly developing financial nightmare that is enveloping this nation, they are also attempting to tell private bank owners what they can and cannot say inside their own private businesses.
No matter what your faith is or even if you have no faith, you should be objecting to this. If the Federal Reserve is allowed to get away with this, it will be just a matter of time before U.S. government agencies come along and start ordering all private businesses to remove all traces of Christianity because they are “discriminatory” and they might offend someone.
The freedoms and liberties that previous generations fought and died to defend are being stripped away from us. If you plan to say something about it before they are all gone, now would be a good time to start.
You and I live in a totally different world than the ultra-rich and the international banking elite do. Many of them live in a world where they simply do not pay income taxes. Today, it is estimated that a third of all the wealth in the world is held in offshore banks. So why is so much of the wealth of the globe located in places such as Monaco, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Isle of Man? It isn’t because those are fun places to visit. It is to avoid taxes. The super wealthy and the international banking elite think that it is really funny that our paychecks are constantly being drained by federal taxes, state taxes and Social Security taxes while they literally pay nothing at all. These incredibly rich elitists make a ton of money doing business in wealthy western nations and then they transfer virtually all of their profits offshore where they don’t have to contribute any of it in taxes. It works out really great for them, but it sucks for the rest of us.
Almost Everything Is A Crime In America Now: 14 Of The Most Ridiculous Things That Americans Are Being Arrested For
We are throwing anyone and everyone in prison these days. It is getting absolutely ridiculous. Today, the United States leads the world in the number of prisoners and in the percentage of the population in prison. The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but approximately 25% of the world’s incarcerated population.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, as of the end of 2009 a total of 7,225,800 people were either on probation, in prison or on parole in America.
That is a sign of a very, very sick society. Either we have a massive crime problem or the “control grid” that our leaders have erected for us is wildly out of control.
Or both.
But how in the world are we supposed to have a healthy economy if our entire nation is being turned into one gigantic prison?
Sadly, it is not just hardcore criminals that are being rounded up and abused by authorities these days. The following are 14 of the most ridiculous things that Americans are being arrested for….
#1 A Michigan man has been charged with a felony and could face up to 5 years in prison for reading his wife’s email.
#2 A 49-year-old Queens woman had bruises all over her body after she was handcuffed, arrested and brutally beaten by NYPD officers. So what was her offense? The officers thought that her little dog had left some poop that she didn’t clean up.
#3 A 56-year-old woman who was once a rape victim refused to let airport security officials feel her breasts so she was thrown to the floor, put in handcuffs and arrested.
#4 In Milwaukee, one man was recently fined $500 for swearing on a public bus.
#5 Several years ago a 12-year-old boy in South Carolina was actually arrested by police for opening up a Christmas present early against his family’s wishes.
#6 In some areas of the country, it is now a crime to not recycle properly. For example, the city of Cleveland has announced plans to sort through trash cans to ensure that people are actually recycling according to city guidelines.
#7 A 12-year-old girl from Queens was arrested earlier this year and taken out of her school in handcuffs for writing “Lex was here. 2/1/10″ and “I love my friends Abby and Faith” on her desk.
#8 Back in 2008, a 13-year-old boy in Florida was actually arrested by police for farting in class.
#9 The feds recently raided an Amish farmer at 5 AM in the morning because they claimed that he was was engaged in the interstate sale of raw milk in violation of federal law.
#10 A few years ago a 10-year-old girl was arrested and charged with a felony for bringing a small steak knife to school. It turns out that all she wanted to do was to cut up her lunch so that she could eat it.
#11 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 Islamic festival in Dearborn, Michigan and within three minutes 8 policemen surrounded them and placed them under arrest.
#12 A U.S. District Court judge slapped a 5oo dollar fine on Massachusetts fisherman Robert J. Eldridge for untangling a giant whale from his nets and setting it free. So what was his crime? Well, according to the court, Eldridge was supposed to call state authorities and wait for them do it.
#13 Once upon a time, a food fight in the cafeteria may have gotten you a detention. Now it may get you locked up. About a year ago, 25 students between the ages of 11 and 15 at a school in Chicago were taken into custody by police for being involved in a huge food fight in the school cafeteria.
#14 A few years ago a 70 year old grandmother was actually put in handcuffs and hauled off to jail for having a brown lawn.
Why in the world would anyone approve of the police arresting ordinary Americans for such things?
It seems like ever since 9/11 the whole country has gotten “security fever”.
Suddenly we need to “get tough” on everyone.
Yes, crime is making a comeback, but once upon a time the police in this country were able to handle crime quite well and be courteous and helpful to ordinary citizens at the same time.
But today it seems like nearly every single encounter with police ends up being negative.
It does not have to be that way.
The rest of the world sees what is going on in this country and many of them are deciding that they simply do not want to spend their tourist dollars here anymore. That is not a good thing for our economy.
As the government continues to get even bigger and exerts even more control over our lives, many of our own people are getting sick of it and are moving abroad.
America used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
That is no longer true.
Now we get thrown to the floor, handcuffed, beaten and arrested for things that we did not even know were crimes.
If America continues to move in this direction it is going to ruin our economy, our reputation in the world and our national spirit.
Unfortunately, history has shown us that once a free nation starts to lose that freedom it is hard to reverse that slide. Perhaps we will be different. Perhaps the American people will stand up and demand that we restore the principles of liberty and freedom that this country was founded on.
Do you think that will happen? Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion….