New DVDs By Michael Snyder
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 Is the world on the verge of another massive global financial collapse? Yes. The western world is drowning in an ocean of debt unlike anything the world has ever seen before, and our financial markets are gigantic casinos that are dependent on huge mountains of risk and leverage remaining very stable. In the end, this house of cards that has been built on a foundation of sand is going to come crashing down in a horrifying manner. Usually in this column I go on and on about why things will soon get much worse. But today I am going to take a bit of a break. Today, I am going to let some of the top financial professionals in the world tell you why things will soon get much worse. Many of the quotes that you are about to read just might make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Most people out there have no idea what is about to happen. Most people out there are working hard and are busy preparing for the holidays and they are hopeful that the economy will turn around soon. But that is not going to happen. We are heading for another major global financial collapse, and when it happens the U.S. economy is going to get even worse.
The epicenter for the coming global financial collapse is almost certainly going to be in Europe. As you will see below, financial professionals all over the world are sounding the alarm about Europe. It is a disaster that everyone can see coming but that nobody seems to be able to prevent.
Of course the failure of the “supercommittee” in the United States certainly is not helping matters. There is already talk that we may soon see another downgrade for U.S. debt. It is hard to even describe how incompetent the U.S. Congress is.
There is a tremendous lack of leadership both in the United States and in Europe right now. The financial world is more interconnected than ever before, and when the financial dominoes start to fall it is going to take a miracle to keep a complete and total disaster from unfolding.
So when the time comes, who is going to step forward and provide that leadership?
That is a really, really good question.
Right now, panic and fear are spreading like wildfire in the financial world and nobody knows for sure what is going to happen next.
But one thing is for certain. Pessimism is growing stronger by the day.
The following are 17 quotes about the coming global financial collapse that will make your hair stand up….
#1 Credit Suisse’s Fixed Income Research unit: “We seem to have entered the last days of the euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks.”
#2 Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup: “Time is running out fast. I think we have maybe a few months — it could be weeks, it could be days — before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it.”
#3 Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank: “If you don’t think Merkel’s tone will change then our investment advice is to dig a hole in the ground and hide.”
#4 David Rosenberg, a senior economist at Gluskin Sheff in Toronto: “Lenders are finding it difficult to finance their day-to-day operations with short-term funding. This is a lot like 2008 but with more twists.”
#5 Christian Stracke, the head of credit research for Pimco: “This is just a repeat of what we saw in 2008, when everyone wanted to see toxic assets off the banks’ balance sheets”
#6 Paul Krugman of the New York Times: “At this point I’d guess soaring rates on Italian debt leading to a gigantic bank run, both because of solvency fears about Italian banks given a default and because of fear that Italy will end up leaving the euro. This then leads to emergency bank closing, and once that happens, a decision to drop the euro and install the new lira. Next stop, France.”
#7 Paul Hickey of Bespoke Investment Group: “More and more, we are hearing anecdotal comments from individual and professionals that this is the most difficult environment they have ever experienced as the market is like a fish flopping around after being taken out of the water.”
#8 Bob Janjuah of Nomura International: “Germany appears to be adamant that full political and fiscal integration over the next decade (nothing substantive will happen over the short term, in my view) is the only option, and ECB monetisation is no longer possible. I really think it is that clear and simple. And if I am wrong, and the ECB does a U-turn and agrees to unlimited monetisation, I will simply wait for the inevitable knee-jerk rally to fade before reloading my short risk positions. Even if Germany and the ECB somehow agree to unlimited monetisation I believe it will do nothing to fix the insolvency and lack of growth in the eurozone. It will just result in a major destruction of the ECB‟s balance sheet which will force an ECB recap. At that point, I think Germany and its northern partners would walk away. Markets always want short, sharp, simple solutions.”
#9 Dan Akerson, CEO of General Motors: “The ’08 recession, which was a credit bubble that manifested itself through primarily the real estate market, that was a serious stress….This is much more serious.”
#10 Francesco Garzarelli of Goldman Sachs: “Pressures on Euro area sovereign bond markets have progressively intensified and spread like a wildfire.”
#11 Jim Rogers: “In 2002 it was bad, in 2008 it was worse and 2012 or 2013 is going to be worse still – be careful”
#12 Dr. Pippa Malmgren, the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management who once worked in the White House as an adviser to President Bush: “Market forces are increasingly determining what the options are and foreclosing on options policymakers thought they had. One option which is now under discussion involves permitting a country to temporarily leave the Euro, return to its native currency, devalue, commit to returning to the Euro at a better debt to GDP ratio, a better exchange rate and a better growth trajectory and yet not sacrifice its EU membership. I would like to say for the record that this is precisely the thought process that I expected to evolve,but when I proposed this possibility back in 2009, and again in September 2010, I had a 100% response from clients and others that this was “impossible” and many felt it was “ridiculous”. They may be right but this is the current state of the discussion. The Handelsblatt in Germany has reported this conversation, but wrongly assumes that the country that will exit is Germany. I think that Germany will have to exit if the Southern European states do not. Germany’s preference is to stay in the Euro and have the others drop out. The problem has been the Germans could not convince the others to walk away. But, now, market pressures are forcing someone to leave. Germany is pushing for that someone to be Italy. They hope that this would be a one off exception, not to be repeated by any other country. Obviously, though, if Italy leaves the Euro and reverts to Lira then the markets will immediately and forcefully attack Spain, Portugal and even whatever is left of the already savaged Greeks. These countries will not be able to compete against a devalued Greece or Italy when it come to tourism or even infrastructure. But, the principal target will be France. The three largest French banks have roughly 450 billion Euros of exposure to Italian debt. So, further sovereign defaults are certainly inevitable, but that is true under any scenario. Growth and austerity will not do the trick, as ZeroHedge rightly points out. Ultimately, I will not be at all surprised to see Europe’s banking system shut for days while the losses and payments issues are worked out. People forget that the term “bank holiday” was invented in the 1930’s when the banks were shut for exactly the same reason.”
#13 Daniel Clifton, a policy strategist with Strategas Research Partners on the potential for more downgrades of U.S. debt: “We would expect further downgrades, a first downgrade from Moody’s and Fitch and possibly a second downgrade from S&P.”
#14 Warren Buffett on the problems in the eurozone: “The system as presently designed has revealed a major flaw. And that flaw won’t be corrected just by words. Europe will either have to come closer together or there will have to be some other rearrangement because this system is not working”
#15 David Kostin, equity strategist for Goldman Sachs: “The wide range of possible outcomes on both the super committee process and the unstable political economy in Europe drives our view that investors should assume the worst while hoping for the best.”
#16 Mark Mobius, the head of the emerging markets desk at Templeton Asset Management: “There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner”
#17 Gerald Celente, founder of The Trends Research Institute: “The whole system is going down. Pull your money out your Fidelity account, your Scwhab accout, and your ETFs.”
Are you starting to get the picture?
When so many top financial professionals are freaking out like this, perhaps the rest of us should start paying attention.
They are telling us that “time is running out”.
They are telling us that “there is definitely going to be another financial crisis”.
They are telling us that this “is going to be worse” than 2008.
They are telling us that “the whole system is going down”.
Yes, a devastating financial collapse really is coming. Just like in 2008, it will seem like the “end of the world” while it is happening, but it won’t be. It will severely damage our financial system and our economy, but it will not finish us off.
Think of it this way. When you build a sand castle at the beach, it doesn’t get totally wiped out by the first wave or the second wave that hits it. Each wave does significant damage, but the destruction of your sand castle is a process.
It is the same thing with the U.S. economy. We once had the most incredible economic machine that the world has ever seen. It is constantly being gutted and the financial crisis of 2008 hit us really hard, but we are still doing okay.
After this next financial crisis we will be in even worse shape. But we will still be breathing.
More “waves” will come after this next financial crisis. If we continue on the road that we are on, our economy will progressively get worse and worse.
Not everyone will agree with this analysis, and that is okay. In the end, time will reveal the truth to all of us.
Right now, we all need to get ready for the next wave that is about to hit us. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs over the next few years. Hopefully you are prepared for that.
 Right now, we are watching the early rounds of a heavyweight fight between two extremely determined opponents. Occupy Wall Street has no plans of losing this fight and neither do law enforcement authorities. Perhaps those running the show actually believed that raiding Zuccotti Park and more than a dozen other “Occupy camps” around the nation would end these protests, but that is just not going to happen. Whatever your opinion of Occupy Wall Street is, everyone should be able to agree that this is one dedicated bunch. They are absolutely obsessed with their cause and in response to the recent raid on Zuccotti Park organizers are calling for “a national day of direct action” on Thursday. But if Occupy Wall Street protesters want to take things to “the next level”, they should not underestimate the resolve of the police state. Over the past decade, the homeland security apparatus of the federal government has been slowly but surely turning this country into a “Big Brother” police state. Today, our law enforcement authorities are obsessed with watching us, listening to us, tracking us, recording us, and gathering information on all of us. We are constantly reminded that we live in a prison grid (just think about what they do to you before you are allowed on an airplane) and they are not about to put up with anyone challenging their authority or their control. Have you even known parents that constantly feel the need to prove that they are “the boss” of their children? Well, that is essentially what the homeland security apparatus in this country has become. All over the United States, law enforcement personnel are taught that every American is a potential terrorist and they are actually trained to “act tough”, to bark orders at us and to not let anyone question their authority. If Occupy Wall Street believes that it can get the police state to “back down”, they are sorely mistaken. Hopefully everyone will cool off a bit as the temperatures go down this winter. But if we do see a “cooling off”, it probably will not last for long. As the U.S. economy continues to get worse, these kinds of protests are going to keep growing and they will become even more intense. Eventually, mass civil unrest will cause the streets of many of our major cities to closely resemble war zones. When it is all said and done, this is not going to end well for any of us.
The stunning police raid of Zuccotti Park at 1 AM on Tuesday morning made headlines around the world. Protesters were hauled off, tents were cut down and garbage trucks hauled off the personal possessions of those that had been encamped there. It was swift and it was brutal.
But it was just another in a long line of raids that we have seen over the past couple of weeks. Occupy camps in Portland, Oakland, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta and several other cities have also been raided.
There is an increasing body of evidence that these raids have been coordinated. For example, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan recently made the following statement during a recent interview about the Occupy movement….
I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation
Does anyone want to guess who was running that conference call?
Heidi Bogosian, the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, is convinced that the recent raids were coordinated at the federal level….
“We definitely feel, especially in a movement like this that has arisen so quickly in a number of cities, that there will be a coordinated national effort to try and shut it down”
Someone probably thought that cracking a few skulls and cutting up a few tents would probably make the hippies go away.
Yes, that might have worked in 1991.
But this is 2011. Whether you agree with Occupy Wall Street or not, one thing that should be clear to all of us is that these boys and girls are deadly serious.
In response to the recent raids, organizers have declared “a national day of direct action” on Thursday.
One of the “major actions” being planned is a “shut down” of Wall Street.
Of course that will not happen because thousands of law enforcement personnel will be dispatched to protect Wall Street if necessary.
But what does seem clear is that Occupy Wall Street seems determined to take things to the next level.
In this video, a wild-eyed protester can be seen making the following statement….
“On the 17th, we gonna burn this city to the ************* ground.”
Later on in the video, the same protester makes an even more inflammatory statement….
“No more talking. They’ve got guns, we’ve got bottles. They’ve got bricks, we’ve got rocks…in a few days you’re going to see what a Molotov cocktail can do to Macy’s.”
That is a very frightening statement.
As I noted the other day, one recent survey found that 31 percent of all Occupy Wall Street protesters “would support violence to advance their agenda”.
Let us hope that cooler heads prevail and that we don’t see outbreaks of violence.
If we do see violence in the coming days, it will just give law enforcement authorities an excuse to crack down even harder.
Up to this point, local law enforcement authorities have been advised to seek “legal reasons” for evicting Occupy protesters.
Since just about everything is illegal in America today, that has not been too difficult. So far “zoning laws”, “curfew rules” and regulations that target homeless people have been used as justifications to evict Occupy protesters.
In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has said that protesters can gather in Zuccotti Park, but that “the rules” do not allow them to have tents, sleeping bags or any sort of heavy equipment.
So will the protesters go along with this, or will this turn into a prolonged struggle over Zuccotti Park?
It is hard to say, but one thing is for sure – police all over the nation have already shown that they are prepared to use brutal force against these protesters in order to get their way.
We have seen tear gas used, we have seen pepper spray cannons used, we have seen rubber bullets used and we have seen flash-bang stun grenades used.
And they are just warming up. When it comes to protecting “national security”, there is a vast array of technologies and weapons that law enforcement authorities have at their disposal.
Many Americans are cheering the crackdown on these protesters, but we all should remember that real people are getting seriously injured. For example, just check out this photo of 84-year-old Dorli Rainey after pepper spray was blasted directly into her face.
Rainey and several other Occupy Seattle protesters are still in the hospital.
Ready for another example?
You can see video of a female Occupy Cal protester being brutally yanked by her hair right here.
How would you feel if that was you?
We all need to realize that these confrontations are not just a bunch of “fun and games”.
A lot of people have been sent to the hospital already, and this is just the beginning.
One of the key things that the American people will need to understand is that they don’t have to pick sides.
When law enforcement authorities commit atrocities, we should denounce them.
When Occupy Wall Street protesters commit acts of violence or vandalism, we should denounce them.
It would be nice if all Occupy Wall Street protests would be 100% non-violent.
It would be nice if the police would be reasonable and would carry out their duties with gentleness and respect.
But sadly, those things are probably not going to happen.
The civil unrest we are seeing now is only the beginning.
Things are going to get a lot worse.
If things keep getting escalated to “the next level”, eventually we will see martial law imposed in some of our largest cities.
Don’t think that it can’t happen.
The United States is increasingly becoming a very unstable place.
As America comes apart at the seams, this is not going to end well for any of us.
 In order for a society to function, there has to be a certain level of trust. Each day when we leave our homes, we take for granted that most people are not going to attack us for no reason, that there will only be isolated incidents of theft in our community and that rioting and violence are not going to erupt in the streets. Whether we realize it or not, we depend on the fact that the vast majority of the people around us are going to act in a civilized manner. Unfortunately, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear. When I was growing up, I was taught that challenging times reveal our true character. There are many that believe that the declining economy is causing a lot of the chaos that we are now witnessing, but perhaps what is going on is that these challenging economic times are simply revealing the character that has been there all along. For decades, a “false prosperity” that was fueled by unprecedented amounts of debt has masked a lot of the internal rot that has taken hold in America. But now that our prosperity is crumbling, our lack of values is becoming startlingly clear.
Greed, corruption and extreme self-centeredness have deeply infected our society. We see this on Wall Street and in Congress, and we see this among those that are trying to survive on the mean streets of our largest cities.
Our nation is breaking down on every level. If by some miracle we were able to fix our economy, that would mask our problems for a while, but it would not solve them.
Unfortunately, as I write about nearly every day, there are a whole host of indications that our economy is about to get even worse. When it does, millions of Americans will become even more desperate, and as we are now seeing all over this country, desperate people do desperate things.
The following are 22 signs that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear….
#1 In Detroit, 100 bus drivers recently refused to drive their routes out of fear for their own personal safety. An article posted on the website of the CBS affiliate in Detroit is quoting the head of the bus drivers union, Henry Gaffney, as saying that the drivers are “scared for their lives”….
“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.
#2 In Wilmington, Delaware recently, a man offered to help someone carry a television down the street, but quickly realized that it was his own television which had just been stolen out of his house….
A Wilmington resident who stopped home for lunch about noon today saw a man carrying a flat screen TV down the street and asked the man if he needed help.
He then recognized the television as his own, looked up and saw the door to his home ajar, said Master Sgt. Adam Ringle.
#3 Shocking video has surfaced of a young thug walking up to a defenseless elderly man in a Chicago subway station and knocking him out cold. In the video, the friends of the young man are cheering him on and laughing at how easy it was to knock the old man out cold.
#4 Beating up old people for no reason seems to be catching on all over the country. Just check out the following report from a recent article posted on philly.com….
AN 84-YEAR-OLD ex-university official savagely attacked by four young punks during a walk in Wissahickon Valley Park earlier this week theorizes that the beating he endured was a cruel game of “get the old geezer.”
Jim Shea, a former vice president of university relations for Temple, from 1968 to 1983, walks up to five miles on Forbidden Drive, in Fairmount Park, three times a week, but that type of stamina wasn’t enough to stave off the lowlifes who not only beat him bloody, but dealt a blow to one of the things he holds most dear – his pride.
#5 All over the United States, police are brutalizing Occupy Wall Street protesters and spraying pepper spray directly in their faces. Whatever you may think of the Occupy Wall Street protests, the reality is that this is not a sign that things are becoming “more stable” in America. You can see video of one very disturbing confrontation right here.
#6 Clashes between police and protesters in Oakland, California recently became so violent that at one point the streets of Oakland resembled a war zone.
#7 Unfortunately, as the American people become increasingly frustrated with out system many of them are actually starting to consider violence as a solution. According to one recent survey, 31 percent of all Occupy Wall Street protesters “would support violence to advance their agenda”.
#8 In New York recently, a confrontation between two female customers and a frustrated cashier ended with the cashier beating the living daylights out of them with a metal rod. The following is how a local CBS affiliate in New York described this incident….
It appeared to have started when two female customers argued and yelled obscenities at the cashier when he questioned a $50 bill they gave him.
One of the female customers then slapped the cashier. A woman is then seen jumping over the counter while the other woman goes behind the register.
That’s when the cashier can be seen on the video disappearing into the back of the fast-food restaurant. He comes back with a metal rod and begins hitting the women.
You can see video of this violent confrontation right here.
#9 These days, many Americans are so “on edge” that just about anything will make them snap. For example, a 60-year-old woman in New Mexico recently repeatedly stabbed her boyfriend because she thought that he was cheating during a game of Monopoly.
#10 If you thought that the above example was crazy, just check out what one man down in Georgia did recently. He actually firebombed a Taco Bell because they did not put enough meat in his Chalupa.
#11 In Cleveland last week, a 49-year-old man was sent to the hospital after a poll monitor working for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections tried to bite his nose off.
#12 Not only do TSA agents make us feel like dehumanized cattle as we go through airport security, some of them are evening making fun of us at the same time. For example, one TSA agent recently scribbled “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” on a TSA inspection notice after discovering a sex toy in the luggage of one female traveler.
#13 Identity theft is rising to very alarming levels all over the United States. For example, a recent article in the Palm Beach Post described what has been going on down in Florida this year….
In the first half of this year, the Federal Trade Commission received more than 20,000 complaints from Floridians whose identities had been stolen — nearly as many as in all of 2010. More than half of those reporting their Social Security numbers or other personal information had been ripped off and used to commit fraud or theft were in South Florida, with heavy concentrations in parts of Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.
“That kind of increase is really shocking,” said Vance Luce, deputy special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service in South Florida, which investigates identity theft and financial crimes. “The fact that it’s on the upturn doesn’t surprise me at all, but that’s pretty alarming.”
#14 In the Seattle area, an elderly couple in their eighties was recently brutally attacked by a 31-year-old man armed with a crossbow and a hatchet. The following description of this brutal crime comes from King 5 News….
Prosecutors say 31-year-old John Chase was walking down the highway when he saw Ralph Aldrich, 88, in his back yard. Detectives say Chase shot and killed Aldrich with a crossbow and then went inside the home and repeatedly hit 83-year-old June Aldrich with a hatchet.
#15 As America falls apart, more of us than ever are taking medication for depression. At this point, more than 1 out of every 10 Americans over the age of 12 is taking prescription antidepressants.
#16 In some areas of the country, people have been literally tearing apart their own cities in an attempt to find things to sell. I recently discussed this phenomenon on The American Dream Blog….
In Fresno, California the damage caused by thieves stealing copper wire from city street lights is costing the city about $50,000 a month. So far, about 2,500 street lights have been stripped of their wiring.
#17 As people become more desperate, we are starting to see some truly bizarre crimes in many parts of the nation. In northern Alabama, one team of crooks has been using a forklift to pull entire ATM machines out of the ground.
#18 Most Americans don’t realize this, but all over the U.S. livestock is being stolen from ranchers in unprecedented numbers. The following is from a recent Associated Press article….
While the brazenness may be unusual, the theft isn’t. High beef prices have made cattle attractive as a quick score for people struggling in the sluggish economy, and other livestock are being taken too. Six thousand lambs were stolen from a feedlot in Texas, and nearly 1,000 hogs have been stolen in recent weeks from farms in Iowa and Minnesota. The thefts add up to millions of dollars in losses for U.S. ranches.
Authorities say today’s thieves are sophisticated compared to the horseback bandits of the rugged Old West. They pull up livestock trailers in the middle of the night and know how to coax the animals inside. Investigators suspect it’s then a quick trip across state lines to sell the animals at auction barns.
#19 At this point, thieves are becoming so bold that they will steal literally anything that they are able to cart away. For example, in the San Francisco area a while back thieves actually stole a copper bell that weighs 2.7 tons.
#20 According to the FBI, the number of gang members in the United States has increased by a staggering 40 percent since 2009. Right now, there are 1.4 million gang members terrorizing citizens on the streets of America.
#21 Down in Miami, thieves have become so bold that they have actually been breaking into parked police cruisers and stealing guns and ammo out of them. Many of those guns undoubtedly are ending up in the hands of gangs members.
#22 Be careful who you befriend online. They might just hold you captive and use you as part of a Satanic sex ritual. The following description of an incident that recently happened in Milwaukee comes from thesmokinggun.com….
Two young Milwaukee women were arrested this week after an 18-year-old Arizona man–who traveled to Wisconsin by bus after meeting one of the suspects online–told cops that he was held captive in the duo’s apartment for two days and slashed and stabbed more than 300 times as part of an apparent satanic sex ritual.
Anger and frustration are growing to unprecedented levels in this country, and all of this anger and frustration is manifesting in thousands of different ways.
As I have written about previously, the rioting, the crime and the violence that we are seeing now is only just the beginning of what is coming.
Unless a miracle happens, our country is going to keep heading down the road toward societal collapse. For even more examples that show that our country is starting to come apart at the seams, please see the following articles that I have authored previously….
-“18 Signs The Collapse Of Society Is Accelerating”
-“12 More Signs That Society Is Collapsing”
It won’t happen all at once, but unless our nation changes direction dramatically, we will see things get progressively worse and worse.
Instead of teaching our children to love and care for one another, we have taught them to be incredibly self-involved. Today, way too many Americans deeply love themselves, deeply love money and are deeply addicted to entertainment. Each new generation seems to be even more prideful, even more arrogant and even more violent. As a nation, we are losing our empathy for others, our compassion for the needy and our respect for the elderly. Our family units are breaking down and thousands of our communities are being transformed into hellholes.
What in the world is happening to America?
If you have a thought on this topic, please feel free to share your opinion by leaving a comment below….
 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty than they have ever measured before. In 2010, we were told that the economy was recovering, but the truth is that the number of the “very poor” soared to heights never seen previously. Back in 1993 and back in 2009, the rate of extreme poverty was just over 6 percent, and that represented the worst numbers on record. But in 2010, the rate of extreme poverty hit a whopping 6.7 percent. That means that one out of every 15 Americans is now considered to be “very poor”. For many people, this is all very confusing because their guts are telling them that things are getting worse and yet the mainstream media keeps telling them that everything is just fine. Hopefully this article will help people realize that the plight of the poorest of the poor continues to deteriorate all across the United States. In addition, hopefully this article will inspire many of you to lend a hand to those that are truly in need.
Tonight, there are more than 20 million Americans that are living in extreme poverty. This number increases a little bit more every single day. The following statistics that were mentioned in an article in The Daily Mail should be very sobering for all of us….
About 20.5 million Americans, or 6.7 percent of the U.S. population, make up the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 per cent or less of the official poverty level.
Those living in deep poverty represent nearly half of the 46.2 million people scraping by below the poverty line. In 2010, the poorest poor meant an income of $5,570 or less for an individual and $11,157 for a family of four.
That 6.7 percent share is the highest in the 35 years that the Census Bureau has maintained such records, surpassing previous highs in 2009 and 1993 of just over 6 percent.
Sadly, the wealthy and the poor are being increasingly segregated all over the nation. In some areas of the U.S. you would never even know that the economy was having trouble, and other areas resemble third world hellholes. In most U.S. cities today, there are the “good neighborhoods” and there are the “bad neighborhoods”.
According to a recent Bloomberg article, the “very poor” are increasingly being pushed into these “bad neighborhoods”….
At least 2.2 million more Americans, a 33 percent jump since 2000, live in neighborhoods where the poverty rate is 40 percent or higher, according to a study released today by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
Of course they don’t have much of a choice. They can’t afford to live where most of the rest of us do.
Today, there are many Americans that openly look down on the poor, but that should never be the case. We should love the poor and want to see them lifted up to a better place. The truth is that with a few bad breaks any of us could end up in the ranks of the poor. Compassion is a virtue that all of us should seek to develop.
Not only that, but the less poor people and the less unemployed people we have, the better it is for our economy. When as many people as possible in a nation are working and doing something economically productive, that maximizes the level of true wealth that a nation is creating.
But today we are losing out on a massive amount of wealth. We have tens of millions of people that are sitting at home on their couches. Instead of creating something of economic value, the rest of us have to support them financially. That is not what any of us should want.
It is absolutely imperative that we get as many Americans back to work as possible. The more people that are doing something economically productive, the more wealth there will be for all of us.
That is why it is so alarming that the ranks of the “very poor” are increasing so dramatically. When the number of poor people goes up, the entire society suffers.
So just how bad are things right now?
The following are 19 statistics about the poor that will absolutely astound you….
#1 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of “very poor” rose in 300 out of the 360 largest metropolitan areas during 2010.
#2 Last year, 2.6 million more Americans descended into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
#3 It isn’t just the ranks of the “very poor” that are rising. The number of those just considered to be “poor” is rapidly increasing as well. Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty. Today, 15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty.
#4 The poverty rate for children living in the United States increased to 22% in 2010.
#5 There are 314 counties in the United States where at least 30% of the children are facing food insecurity.
#6 In Washington D.C., the “child food insecurity rate” is 32.3%.
#7 More than 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry.
#8 One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.
#9 Today, there are over 45 million Americans on food stamps.
#10 According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly 15 percent of all Americans are now on food stamps.
#11 In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps.
#12 The number of Americans on food stamps has increased 74% since 2007.
#13 We are told that the economy is recovering, but the number of Americans on food stamps has grown by another 8 percent over the past year.
#14 Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
#15 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.
#16 More than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid. Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#17 One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one government anti-poverty program.
#18 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.
#19 It is estimated that up to half a million children may currently be homeless in the United States.
Sadly, we don’t hear much about this on the nightly news, do we?
This is because the mainstream media is very tightly controlled.
I came across a beautiful illustration of this recently. If you do not believe that the news in America is scripted, just watch this video starting at the 1:15 mark. Conan O’Brien does a beautiful job of demonstrating how news anchors all over the United States are often repeating the exact same words.
So don’t rely on the mainstream media to tell you everything.
In this day and age, it is absolutely imperative that we all think for ourselves.
It is also absolutely imperative that we have compassion on our brothers and sisters.
Winter is coming up, and if you see someone that does not have a coat, don’t be afraid to offer to give them one.
All over the United States (and all around the world), there are orphans that are desperately hurting. As you celebrate the good things that you have during this time of the year, don’t forget to remember them.
We should not expect that “the government” will take care of everyone that is hurting.
The reality is that millions of people fall through the “safety net”.
Being generous and being compassionate are qualities that all of us should have.
Yes, times are going to get harder and an economic collapse is coming.
That just means that we should be more generous and more compassionate than we have ever been before.
 For a long time, there have been those that have warned that economic riots are coming to this nation. Anger and frustration with the economy and with our financial system have grown to unprecedented levels, and this has fueled the rise of the various protest movements that we have seen over the last couple of years. People are fed up and they want solutions. Unfortunately, anger and frustration can express themselves in dangerous and unpredictable ways. What we have seen in Oakland, in Seattle and in other major U.S. cities this week is only just the beginning of the massive economic riots that are coming to this country. Yes, “anarchists” were responsible for quite a bit of the violence that we have seen this week, but they were not the only ones involved. Some protesters were getting violent too, and there has also been quite a bit of police brutality. Of course the vast majority of Occupy Wall Street protesters do not want anything to do with violence and they recognize that violence is not the answer. But that is the thing with anger and frustration. It is hard to contain them in neat, self-disciplined packages. As the economy continues to get worse, the protests will grow and unfortunately so will the violence. You can preach the benefits of non-violence all day long to some people but they just will not get it. America has reached a turning point, and what we are seeing now is only just the beginning of the madness. In the years ahead we are going to see rioting that is going to be absolutely unprecedented.
According to a recent Associated Press-GfK poll, 43 percent of all Americans believe that the economy is in “very poor” shape. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, millions of Americans have lost their homes and tens of millions of Americans have been sickened by what they have seen happen on Wall Street over the last four or five years. It is easy to understand why people are frustrated and are marching in the streets. As I wrote about yesterday, approximately one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps. Poverty is rapidly spreading and large numbers of families have lost everything. People want answers, and it is understandable why so many are joining these protest movements.
Over the last couple of years, people such as Gerald Celente and myself have been warning that economic riots are coming. Those of us that have written about such things have been called “doom and gloomers” and “conspiracy theorists”.
But after the events of the last couple of months, almost everyone is starting to realize that something big is happening.
On Wednesday, huge crowds of protesters brought the city of Oakland, California to a standstill. Some media organizations said that there were 5,000 protesters, but others claimed that there may have been up to 20,000 people marching at one point.
A group of approximately 3,000 protesters marched over and shut down the Port of Oakland, which is the fifth largest deepwater port in the United States.
In other areas of the city, windows were smashed, graffiti was sprayed on buildings and senseless acts of vandalism were committed. There were also quite a few intense confrontations with police and dozens of protesters ended up getting arrested.
The following is how an article in USA Today described what went down….
Riot police arrested more than 80 protesters in the city’s downtown, where bands of demonstrators threw chunks of concrete and metal pipes as well as lit roman candles and firebombs, police said. Five protesters and several officers were injured.
You can see shocking pictures of some of the vandalism that was going on during these protests right here.
At one point, one group of protesters took over an empty building that had once been used to help the homeless. The following is what an article in the Los Angeles Times says happened next….
Demonstrators managed to gain entry to an empty building that had housed the Traveler’s Aid Society, a nonprofit organization that assists the homeless but had suffered funding cuts. Leaflets indicated that protesters had targeted the building for “reuse.” They branded it a new “community center” in Twitter feeds. Video from a local ABC affiliate’s helicopter showed jubilant crowds flowing in and out of the building, where a banner marked “Occupy Everything” hung. Others built a barricade nearby, presumably to discourage police.
Shortly before midnight, local media reported that police officers from various agencies were suiting up in riot gear. Some demonstrators set the barricade aflame. Firefighters doused it. A police statement later said protesters had hurled rocks, explosives, bottles and flaming objects at officers.
Does any of this solve anything?
Of course not.
But when people are angry and frustrated it can be difficult to talk sense to them.
America has become a powder keg, and it is going to be very difficult for anyone to control what is going on.
However, it also must be noted that not all of the violence was initiated by Occupy Oakland protesters. There were dozens of Black Bloc “anarchists” that were running around committing random acts of violence. Some Occupy Oakland protesters were actually seen trying to prevent these “anarchists” from committing acts of violence.
In fact, it is certainly possible that someone may be using these Black Bloc “anarchists” to discredit the protests. It has happened to other protest movements in the past.
In any event, it is very true that the “anarchists” were very much involved with much of the violence. You can see some video of “anarchists” in action right here.
But Oakland was not the only city where protesters were becoming more aggressive.
In Seattle, protesters surrounded a Sheraton hotel where JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was giving a speech. According to some media reports, some of the protesters were actually planning to make a “citizen’s arrest”.
Their plans were cancelled, however, when police dispersed them with a shower of pepper spray.
The funny thing is that Dimon was actually promoting some of the ideas of the Occupy Wall Street movement during his speech.
The following excerpt from his speech comes from the Seattle Times….
“America has become more inequitable in the last 10 or 20 years. That’s a fact,” he said. “I don’t personally think that’s a good thing. I’ve been a big supporter of progressive taxes.”
But that is the funny thing about economic riots. Just because you agree with the crowd, that does not mean that the crowd is not going to turn on you anyway.
Earlier that same day in Seattle, there was quite a bit of violence as police confronted groups of protesters. The following is how the Seattle Times described the action….
Earlier in the day, Seattle police arrested six people, five of whom had sprawled across the floor inside a Chase Bank on Capitol Hill.
Officers launched pepper spray, shoved protesters out of the way and yanked others from under a police van during a tense 30-minute confrontation. Police said at least 10 officers were physically assaulted during the arrests, and at least two of them had minor injuries.
In New York City, a different kind of confrontation took place. Approximately 100 military vets showed up in uniform and marched over to the New York Stock Exchange. Once they arrived, they stopped directly in front of the building which was protected by a line of heavily armed NYPD officers. It was a tense moment, but fortunately there was no violence.
This kind of “stare down” cannot be a sign of good things. What would have happened if even a single person had lost their cool?
While standing in formation in front of the New York Stock Exchange, the vets were heard chanting the following slogans….
“We are veterans! We are the 99 percent!”
“Corporate profits on the rise, soldiers have to bleed and die!”
Things are certainly getting very, very interesting.
The Occupy Wall Street protests started off very peacefully, but sadly there is no guarantee that the violence we are seeing now is not going to escalate even further.
One recent survey found that 31 percent of those involved with the Occupy Wall Street protests “would support violence to advance their agenda”.
That is a frightening statistic.
Hopefully everyone will calm down and the protesters will realize that they will get much farther ahead by non-violent means.
But once again, anger and frustration are difficult to predict or control. The more angry and frustrated that the American people get, the more chaotic the streets of our cities are going to become.
Sadly, while the vast majority of Americans agree that we have major problems, there is tremendous disagreement about what the solutions are. There are some good ideas floating around out there, but there are also some groups that are promoting some very, very bad ideas.
For example, there are some elements involved in the Occupy Wall Street protests that are actually promoting communism as the answer.
During the recent craziness in Oakland, some protesters actually hung a very large black banner downtown that said the following: “DEATH TO CAPITALISM“.
But is that really the answer?
Of course not.
Yes, our system is deeply, deeply corrupt and deeply, deeply broken.
Yes, it is understandable that people are very frustrated with it.
But communism is not the answer.
Look, when Republicans defend the abuses of the big banks and the big corporations they are wrong to do so.
When Democrats defend big government and advocate even more big government as the answer, they are also very wrong.
The truth is that neither side is right.
We need to dramatically reduce the size of government and we need to dramatically reduce the size and the power of the big corporations. That would mean a lot more liberty and freedom for the rest of us, and it would empower individuals and small businesses.
But most people don’t understand this. Most people think that they have to either take the side of the big corporations or the side of big government.
Sadly, the cold, hard truth is that most of the time big government and the big corporations are working together, and it is not for our benefit.
Most people feel a sense of powerlessness these days. Most people feel like things never seem to change no matter who they vote for.
People want things to change, but they don’t feel as though they have a way of bringing that change about.
This is not just happening in the United States. As the global economy has faltered, anger and frustration have been growing all over the planet.
In fact, the International Labor Organization is warning that civil unrest could erupt all over the globe if the current economic crisis gets even worse.
We are moving into unprecedented times.
Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.
But the warning signs are there.
Pressure just keeps building and building and building.
According to a recent Fox News poll, 76 percent of all Americans are “dissatisfied with how things are going in the country”. At the beginning of this year, that number was only at 61 percent.
When people get desperate, they do desperate things.
We can certainly hope that things will settle down, at least for a little while, but at some point another major financial crisis is going to erupt and the economy is going to get even worse.
So what will this country look like when that happens?
This is not the America that your grandparents grew up in.
Prepare accordingly.
 There is absolutely nothing wrong with working hard and making a lot of money, but there is something wrong with being completely arrogant and smug about it. Today, many among the elite are savagely mocking the poor, and that is a huge mistake. You shouldn’t kick people when they are down. There are tens of millions of Americans that are deeply frustrated about losing their homes, losing their jobs or barely being able to survive in this economy. These frustrations have been one of the primary reasons for the rise of the Tea Party movement and the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement. What these movements have in common is that people in both movements are sick and tired of the status quo and they want something to be done about our broken system. There are huge numbers of families out there right now that have just about reached the end of their ropes. Instead of showing compassion, many of the ultra-wealthy have decided that it is funny to mock the poor and those that are suffering. So how are all of these protesters going to respond to the “let them eat cake” attitude of the Wall Street elite? The protesters are being told that nothing that they can do will change anything and that they should be grateful for what Wall Street and the ultra-wealthy have done for them. They are essentially being told that they should just shut up and go home. So will we see these protest movements become discouraged and die down, or will the patronizing attitudes of so many among the elite just inflame them even further?
Right now, there really are two different “Americas”. In one America, the stock market is surging, corporate profits are soaring and BMW is operating factories at 110% of capacity just to keep up with demand.
In the other America, unemployment is rampant, millions of families are being kicked out of their homes and more than 45 million Americans are on food stamps.
There is more economic frustration in this country today than there has been at any other time since the Great Depression. We are watching pressure build to very dangerous levels.
It is important to note that I certainly do not agree at all with the solutions being put forward by the organizers of the Occupy Wall Street protests. As I have written about previously, collectivism is one of our biggest problems, and more collectivism is not going to solve anything.
But it is definitely understandable that people are incredibly upset about this economy and that they want to protest. Most Americans realize that something is fundamentally wrong with our economic system.
Unfortunately, most of them do not understand how we have gotten to this point or what it is going to take to fix things. That is one of the reasons why I write about economic issues so much. We desperately need to educate America.
But what is undeniable is that there is a growing rage in this country that protest movements such as the Occupy Wall Street are giving a voice to.
Our system is badly broken. The people out there protesting in the streets may not understand much, but they do understand that something needs to change.
The Wall Street elite should be taking these protests as a signal that they need to get their house in order. The status quo just is not going to cut it. But instead of taking leadership and calling for significant change, many among the elite are openly mocking the protesters.
The incredible arrogance displayed by so many on Wall Street and by so many in Washington D.C. is absolutely appalling.
The following are 10 examples of how the elite are openly mocking the poor in America today….
#1 According to an article in The New York Times, poor families that lost their homes to foreclosure were openly mocked during a Halloween party thrown by the law firm of Steven J. Baum. This particular law firm represents many of the largest mortgage lenders in the United States….
The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a “foreclosure mill” firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. Steven J. Baum is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
Photos from this Halloween party are posted on The New York Times website. To say that they are appalling would be a huge understatement. The following is how The New York Times described one of the photos….
In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: “3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served.” My source said that “I was never served” is meant to mock “the typical excuse” of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.
#2 To many on Wall Street, the OWS protests are one big joke. In fact, Wall Street executives have been spotted sipping champagne while watching the Occupy Wall Street protests from their balconies.
#3 In response to the Occupy Chicago protests, signs were put up in the windows of the building where the Chicago Board of Trade is located that spelled out this sentence: “We Are The 1%“.
#4 Many columnists for major financial publications have had no fear of mocking the Occupy Wall Street protesters. For example, Doug Hirschhorn recently wrote the following for Forbes….
As your Occupation of Wall Street continues, you may want to grasp a few things. First, it is not going to change anything in the short term and probably not much in the long-term either.
I hate to be the bearer of that news, but money makes the world go round and “Wall Street” is all about money. Second, the top traders, banks and hedge funds are still going to out earn and generate substantial profits from speculating on the disconnects in the prices of things generated from all the moving parts in the global economy and it has nothing to do with why you lost your house or job or can’t find a job. If anything the successful ones are helping you, your pensions funds, retirement savings and the economy in general. If Wall Street stops. The world stops. Period.
#5 Instead of attempting a balanced report on the Occupy Wall Street protests, Erin Burnett of CNN openly made fun of them during a recent broadcast. After being a stalwart on CNBC for so many years, Burnett has very close ties to Wall Street and apparently she does not like anyone criticizing her friends. You can see video of Burnett mocking the Occupy Wall Street movement right here.
#6 Barack Obama continues to mock the poor by telling them to cut back on vacations and little luxuries like going out to eat while at the same time sending his own family out on incredibly expensive vacations. The following is one example I noted in an article earlier this year….
Barack Obama recently made the following statement to American families that are struggling to survive in this economy: “If you’re a family trying to cut back, you might skip going out to dinner, or you might put off a vacation.” A few days after making that statement Obama sent his wife and children off on yet another vacation, this time to a luxury ski hotel in Vail, Colorado.
Later on in that same article I mentioned another outrageously expensive vacation taken by the Obamas that was paid for by our taxes….
Back in August, Michelle Obama took her daughter Sasha and 40 of her friends for a vacation in Spain.
So what was the bill to the taxpayers for that little jaunt across the pond?
It is estimated that vacation alone cost U.S. taxpayers $375,000.
During a time when so many millions of American families are deeply, deeply suffering it is truly appalling that the residents of the White House would be so insensitive.
#7 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain recently declared that anyone that is unemployed or poor in America should only blame themselves….
“Don’t blame the big banks. If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.”
#8 Sometimes our politicians are so insensitive that it is almost hard to believe. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News while she was still the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi stated that we need poor people to have less children because it costs the government so much money to take care of them….
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
#9 Warren Buffett has some interesting observations on class warfare. He is one of the few wealthy Americans that is willing to say what everyone else is thinking. Back in 2006, Buffett was quoted as saying the following in an article in The New York Times….
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Buffett was not taking pride in the fact that the elite have won, but there are many others among the elite that are very proud of what they have done and they are not afraid to look down on the poor.
The level of income inequality that we have in the United States today is absolutely amazing. According to data from a few years ago, the average household income for the top 0.01% of all Americans was $27,342,212. According to that same data, for the bottom 90% of all Americans the average household income was just $31,244.
#10 Every single day, our “representatives” in Washington D.C. are living the high life at our expense. It is amazing that out of the entire population of the United States, we continue to overwhelming elect rich people to Congress. As I noted in a recent article, more than half of all the members of Congress are millionaires, and the median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars.
Without a doubt, the wealthy rule over us all and they intend to maintain control and perpetuate the system which has rewarded them so handsomely.
When necessary, they are not afraid to call in the police to bust some skulls. Sadly, we are already seeing some brutally violent confrontations between law enforcement authorities and Occupy Wall Street protesters in many areas of the country. The other day, I wrote about the horrific violence that took place in Oakland recently….
Unfortunately, the authorities are not just going to sit by and watch these protests happen. In fact, they are already clamping down hard in many areas of the nation. For example, police in Oakland recently used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up the Occupy protest in that city. When police opened fire, the streets of Oakland literally became a war zone for a few minutes. You can see shocking videos of the violence here, here and here.
Power and wealth have become incredibly concentrated in the United States today. As one scientific study demonstrated recently, the elite control almost the entire global economy. In fact, the University of Zurich study discovered that there are just 147 gigantic corporations at the core of it all.
It is not a good thing that such a very small group of people completely dominates all the rest of us.
Once again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with working hard, making great contributions to society and becoming very wealthy.
However, what we have today is a fundamentally broken system that funnels most of the wealth and most of the power into the hands of the ultra-wealthy and the gigantic corporations that they own.
It would be great if the American people could come together and work to make some positive changes to our system.
But right now, it appears that strife, discord and hatred are going to continue to rapidly grow in this country. We have become a very divided nation and we are watching anger and frustration grow to very dangerous levels.
All of this is a recipe for mass chaos. Our country is marching toward a date with disaster and right now we show no signs of changing course.
Please pray for America.
We definitely need it.
 It is absolutely amazing how many Americans are still convinced that more “free trade” is the answer to our economic problems. The truth is that there is a vast difference between “free trade” and “fair trade”, and in this article I will prove that all true conservatives and all true liberals should be completely against the insane trade policies of the federal government. Yes, we will always need to trade with other nations. Other nations make or have things that we need to trade for. Balanced trade relationships with other nations that have similar economies and that share similar values can be very beneficial. For example, our trading relationship with Canada, though not perfect, is generally beneficial to both sides. However, the United States also has dozens of trading relationships that are highly destructive to the U.S. economy. There are some predatory nations that are blatantly and openly cheating and everyone can see it. They are getting away with bloody murder and they are robbing us blind. The United States of America is being taken advantage of, and as a result thousands of good businesses are being destroyed and millions of good jobs are being lost. If you are an American and you are in favor of all of the unfair trade that is currently going on, then either you don’t know much about economics or you actually want to see the U.S. economy be destroyed.
Congress has just passed new free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. The Obama administration has also made “the NAFTA of the Pacific” a very high priority.
Obama says that all of these new trade pacts will create more U.S. jobs.
Well, either Barack Obama is completely ignorant when it comes to economics or else he is lying.
When we merge our economy with the economies of nations where wages are much lower, it is inevitable that large numbers of jobs are going to leave the high wage areas (where we live) and go to areas where wages are much lower.
It also certainly does not help that we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, that we burden our businesses with mountains of ridiculous regulations, and that we allow our “trade partners” to give their businesses a huge advantage by openly subsidizing them.
The way that the system is set up now, nearly all U.S. businesses are at a massive, massive disadvantage. In general, the only businesses that can compete effectively in this environment are the giant corporations that can offshore huge portions of their operations.
If you are a conservative, then there is no way that you should support our current trade policies. If you are a liberal, then there is no way that you should support our current trade policies.
However, if you are a “George W. Bush Republican” or a “Clinton/Obama Democrat” that believes in globalism and the establishment of a one world economy as part of a “New World Order”, then it would make sense why you would want to see America deindustrialized and brought down to the level of the rest of the world.
But if you are a true conservative or a true liberal, then the following are reasons why you should be horrified by our current trade policies….
#1 Other Nations Openly Manipulate Their Currencies In Order To Gain A Significant Competitive Advantage
For example, China keeps its currency set at a super low level relative to the U.S. dollar. By doing this, their products are far cheaper than U.S. products, and U.S. businesses cannot compete with them. This has resulted in the death of large numbers of U.S. businesses and the loss of millions of U.S. jobs.
So just how bad is this problem? Well, a recent CNN article stated the following….
Critics of China’s policy estimate that the yuan is still undervalued by 25% to 40%, even with the recent rises in value.
The other day the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would impose tariffs on currency manipulators, and China has already retaliated, even though the bill has not become law yet and even though it almost certainly won’t.
China plays hardball. They love the advantage that they are getting right now and they do not plan on losing it.
#2 Millions Of Good Paying Jobs Have Been Shipped Overseas And They Are Never Coming Back
Our politicians all try to tell us how good they are at creating jobs.
But what is the truth?
The truth is that a total of zero jobs were created last decade. The following is a quote from a recent article in Washington Monthly….
“If any single number captures the state of the American economy over the last decade, it is zero. That was the net gain in jobs between 1999 and 2009—nada, nil, zip. By painful contrast, from the 1940s through the 1990s, recessions came and went, but no decade ended without at least a 20 percent increase in the number of jobs.”
Last decade we opened up our trade with the rest of the world more than ever before. But instead of creating jobs it destroyed them. Our trade deficits exploded and unemployment skyrocketed.
The Economic Policy Institute says that since 2001 America has lost approximately 2.8 million jobs due to our trade deficit with China alone.
So if you are unemployed, that is probably what happened to the job you are supposed to have.
It went overseas and it is not coming back.
#3 America Is Being Deindustrialized At A Blistering Pace Thanks To Globalism
The advocates of “free trade” cannot dispute the cold, hard facts….
*The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
*The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
*If you can believe it, more than 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed down since 2001.
*Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.
*Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.
#4 (For Conservatives) True Conservatives Should Be Horrified That We Are Being Taken Advantage Of By A Hardcore Communist Nation That Hates Us
Ronald Reagan would have never engaged in “free trade” with the Soviet Union. The Communist Party is in complete control of China and while we may regard China as a “frenemy”, they really do believe that they will totally defeat us someday. If you doubt this, just read what the top generals and politicians in China are writing.
It is so incredibly stupid what we are doing. Our trade relationship with China has enabled the largest communist economy in the world to go from third world status to superpower status. China is now the second largest economy in the world, and that would have never happened without our help.
A lot of people like to talk about how “capitalist” China is becoming, but the truth is that they have never wavered from their pure belief in communism. 7 of the 10 largest corporations in China are owned by the government.
A host of other corporations in China are very deeply subsidized by the government.
U.S. businesses have a very hard time competing with foreign businesses that are deeply subsidized by their own national governments.
It is called cheating, and we let other countries get away with it.
So our businesses die and their products fill up our store shelves.
#5 We Are Endangering Our National Security By Greatly Enriching Our Biggest Potential Enemies
The biggest threats to the United States are not some goat herders hiding out in the caves of Afghanistan.
The biggest threats to the United States are actually China and Russia.
Conservatives are supposed to be the ones that are so concerned about national security. But instead of expressing concerns about China, they just keep pushing for more free trade.
As a result, China has been able to become a true global military superpower.
Someday we will deeply, deeply regret that.
#6 China Brazenly Steals Technology From Anyone And Everyone That They Can
China gets away with bloody murder when it comes to stealing technology. They will do it “legally” if they can, and they will do it in “other ways” if they have to.
At this point, China has invented a whole host of ways to extract technology from any firms that wants to do business in China.
The following is a short excerpt from a recent article on CNN….
Foreign companies are often required to set-up joint ventures with Chinese firms before the can start doing business there. And China is instituting new “indigenous innovation” rules that U.S. companies say force them to transfer their own technology to their Chinese partners.
#7 We Should Never Trade With Any Nation That Has A “One Child” Policy
China has a very strict “one child policy” which should be absolutely abhorrent to all Americans.
Most Americans have no idea what is really going on over in China. The following is from a recent article in the Epoch Times….
Pregnant women lacking birth permits are hunted down like criminals by population planning police in China and forcibly aborted.
All over China, mobile abortion vans are used to help enforce the one child policy. What women in China must endure is absolutely sickening, and this kind of behavior should never be accepted in the global community.
But instead of penalizing China, we reward them for this behavior. They even get awards at the United Nations for it.
Look, conservatives are supposed to be pro-life. If you are a social conservative, then it goes against everything that you believe to support trade with China.
You can support trade with China if you want, but then don’t even try to call yourself “pro-life” again.
We should never trade with any nation that has a “one child policy”. Such a policy is against everything that America is supposed to stand for.
#8 Our Horrendous Trade Imbalance Has Allowed Other Nations To Accumulate Gigantic Amounts Of Our Debt
Every month, we send much more money to the rest of the world than they send to us. One thing that those other nations are doing with all of that money is that they are buying up our debt.
Our trade deficit with China has enabled them to accumulate nearly a trillion dollars of our debt. This gives them tremendous leverage over us and is a very serious threat to our economy and to our national security.
So now China can threaten the stability of our financial system with just a phone call.
#9 Globalist Trade Institutions Are A Serious Threat To Our National Sovereignty
Today, the “global economy” is governed by globalist institutions such as the G20, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. The United States has given up huge amounts of national sovereignty to these organizations.
If you are a true conservative, this should greatly disturb you.
We don’t want faceless international bureaucrats telling us what our trade policies will be. But to a large degree that is the situation that we have gotten ourselves into.
#10 Liberals (And All Americans) Are Supposed To Care About What Is Best For American Workers
Millions of working class jobs have been shipped overseas, and yet Barack Obama just keeps pushing for more “free trade” agreements which will make the problem even worse.
But instead of screaming bloody murder, liberals keep on supporting Obama.
It’s disgusting.
The truth is that the Obama administration actually says that there are certain kinds of jobs that we “don’t want” in the United States.
For example, the following is what U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk recently told Tim Robertson of the Huffington Post about the Obama administration’s attitude toward keeping manufacturing jobs in America….
Let’s increase our competitiveness… the reality is about half of our imports, our trade deficit is because of how much oil [we import], so you take that out of the equation, you look at what percentage of it are things that frankly, we don’t want to make in America, you know, cheaper products, low-skill jobs that frankly college kids that are graduating from, you know, UC Cal and Hastings [don’t want], but what we do want is to capture those next generation jobs and build on our investments in our young people, our education infrastructure.
So where is the outrage?
Is anyone even awake out there?
Even the construction of many of our roads and bridges is being outsourced to China. Just check out the following quote from a recent ABC News article….
In New York there is a $400 million renovation project on the Alexander Hamilton Bridge.
In California, there is a $7.2 billion project to rebuild the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland.
In Alaska, there is a proposal for a $190 million bridge project.
These projects sound like steps in the right direction, but much of the work is going to Chinese government-owned firms.
“When we subsidize jobs in China, we’re not creating any wealth in the United States,” said Scott Paul, executive director for the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
Liberals are supposed to be working to defend the working class.
So why won’t they openly go after Obama on these issues?
Our unfair trade agreements have put American workers in direct competition for jobs with the cheapest labor on the globe.
Until this is fixed, you will continue to hear a “great sucking sound” as millions of jobs continue to leave the United States and go to places where labor is ten to twenty times cheaper.
It is insanity what we are doing. We allow big corporations to send their manufacturing offshore and also to ship their products back into the United States for free.
Where in that equation is good news for the American worker?
#11 Liberals (And All Americans) Should Be Horrified By The Exploitation Of Slave Labor Around The Globe
All over the globe, workers toil in nightmarish conditions for slave labor pay just so that Americans can feed their addiction for cheap foreign products.
Big corporations and collectivist governments such as China are getting unbelievably rich by exploiting this slave labor pool.
Get educated about this and find out the truth. It just might totally change the way that you view “free trade”.
#12 Liberals (And All Americans) Should Be Horrified By The Damage To The Environment Our Trade Relationships Cause
Liberals are supposed to deeply care about the environment. But our trade relationship with nations on the other side of the globe result in thousands of factories and businesses leaving our shores and ending up in countries where the environmental regulations are not nearly as strict. In fact, nations such as China are a complete and total environmental nightmare at this point. If liberals truly cared about the environment they would want to keep factories and businesses here.
#13 Very Dangerous Products Continue To Flood Into This Country From Overseas
Isn’t product safety supposed to be a big thing for liberals? Today, a huge percentage of the products we buy are made outside the United States far from the watchful eyes of our regulatory agencies. Over the past couple of years, there has been headline after headline about dangerous products made in China. The following is just one example of this: 10 Babies Die Mysteriously At Fort Bragg: Toxic Drywall From China Used In Base Homes The Culprit?
#14 The Globalization Of The Economy Causes Income Inequality To Grow
By paying slave labor wages to workers overseas, the big corporations are becoming very wealthy. At the same time, that means that there are much fewer jobs for average working class Americans, and wages for the jobs that remain are pushed down because of increased competition for jobs.
So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
If you don’t believe that income inequality in the United States has become a huge problem, just check out this chart.
#15 Because Of All Of The Cheating And All Of The Predatory Behavior That Is Going On, Our Trade Relationships Have Become Incredibly Imbalanced
Today, the United States spends about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.
So how is that even close to “fair”?
Our store shelves are absolutely packed with stuff from China.
In 2010, the number one U.S. export to China was “scrap and trash”.
Even in high technology products we are being destroyed. In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in “advanced technology products” of $16 billion with the rest of the world. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.
#16 Our Gigantic Trade Deficit Is Destroying Our National Wealth
The United States has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976, and since that time the United States has run a total trade deficit of more than 7.5 trillion dollars with the rest of the world.
Our gigantic trade deficits are making us poorer as a nation each and every month. Each year, somewhere around half a trillion dollars of our national wealth gets transferred out of the United States. That half a trillion dollars could be going to support U.S. businesses and U.S. jobs. Taxes could be paid on that half a trillion dollars. But instead it leaves the country and makes other nations wealthier.
#17 The Globalization Of The Economy Has Caused Unemployment In The United States To Explode
If you gathered together all of the workers that are “officially” unemployed in the United States today, they would constitute the 68th largest country in the world.
#18 As Our Cities Are Deindustrialized, Many Of Them Are Being Transformed Into Absolute Hellholes
The other day, I wrote the following about what is happening in cities and towns across the United States….
All across America there are cities and towns that were once prosperous and beautiful that are being transformed into absolute hellholes. The scars left by the long-term economic decline of the United States are getting deeper and more gruesome.
#19 Without Good Jobs, An Increasing Number Of Americans Are Having To Turn To Government Assistance
We are going to support U.S. workers one way or another. Either we are going to provide them with good jobs, or we are going to let their jobs be shipped out of the country and we are going to pay for the government to feed and house them.
Today, there are more than 45 million Americans on food stamps. That number has gone up by more than 70 percent since 2007. Almost every single month we set a new all-time record for the number of people being fed by the federal government.
#20 If Nothing Is Done, All Of This Is Going To Get A Lot Worse
According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades.
Can you imagine what America is going to look like if that happens?
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Okay, so in light of all of that information, can anyone out there defend the current “free trade” policies of the federal government?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below….
 An increasing number of politicians and celebrities are openly declaring that if the economy continues to decline, it could lead to civil unrest, more crime and outbreaks of violence all over America. But instead of loudly denouncing the coming violence, many of them are making it sound like the natural response for those that have lost hope in the economy is to resort to violence. This is extremely unfortunate. The truth is that violence is not the solution to any of our problems. Violence is only going to make things worse. But right now a lot of big names are warning that if significant changes are not made soon, the only alternative is going to be civil unrest and violence. In fact, one of the latest to make a bold declaration like this is Vice President Joe Biden. According to Biden, there are going to be a lot more rapes and a lot more murders if Congress does not pass Obama’s jobs plan.
The following are comments that Biden made about Flint, Michigan during a recent speech he gave to promote the jobs bill….
“In 2008, when Flint had 265 sworn officers on their police force, there were 35 murders and 91 rapes in this city. In 2010, when Flint had only 144 police officers, the murder rate climbed to 65 and rapes–just to pick two categories–climbed to 229. In 2011, you now only have 125 shields. God only knows what the numbers will be this year for Flint if we don’t rectify it.”
So is there some truth to what Biden is saying?
Of course there is. Many of our cities are rapidly being transformed into hellholes where crime is rising dramatically.
But instead of fixing the underlying problems, Biden is saying that if we don’t spend more federal money in these local communities we are going to have chaos in the streets.
Sadly, this sounds so much like what a lot of other prominent people have been saying lately.
For example, Democratic strategist James Carville recently made national headlines when he told talk show host Don Imus that civil unrest is “imminently possible”….
“You know, look — this is a humanitarian — you know, you’re smart enough to see this . . . People, you know, if it continues, we’re going to start to see civil unrest in this country. I hate to say that, but I think it’s imminently possible.”
Much more frightening is what Michael Moore recently told Keith Olbermann. The following is a comment that Michael Moore recently made during an interview on Current TV….
“The smart rich know they can only build the gate so high. And, and, sooner or later history proves that people when they’ve had enough aren’t going to take it anymore. And much better to deal with it nonviolently now, through the political system, than what could possibly happen in the future, which nobody wants to see”
Even more bizarre is what Roseanne Barr had to say during a recent appearance on RT….
“I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100 million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100 million. And if they are unable to live on that amount of that amount then they should, you know, go to the reeducation camps and if that doesn’t help, then being beheaded”
Are “reeducation camps” and acts of violent revenge going to solve any of our problems?
Of course not.
But this is a mindset that is growing.
There are millions upon millions of Americans that are deeply suffering right now. The mainstream media is not telling them the truth about the economy and neither are our politicians. So the American people simply do not understand what is going on.
That means that they are prime candidates to be drawn into radical protest movements.
So far, the Occupy Wall Street protests have been non-violent, but that doesn’t mean that some of the protesters do not have violence on their minds.
For example, the following is what one speaker at the Occupy Los Angeles protests recently had to say about violence….
“One of the speakers said the solution is nonviolent movement. No, my friend. I’ll give you two examples: French Revolution, and Indian so-called Revolution.
Gandhi, Gandhi today is, with respect to all of you, Gandhi today is a tumor that the ruling class is using constantly to mislead us. French Revolution made fundamental transformation. But it was bloody.
India, the result of Gandhi, is 600 million people living in maximum poverty.
So, ultimately, the bourgeoisie won’t go without violent means. Revolution! Yes, revolution that is led by the working class.
Long live revolution! Long live socialism!”
You can see video of these shocking comments right here.
In past decades, the American population endured tough times with dignity and grace for the most part.
But times are different now. The American people have become addicted to endless prosperity, and now that things are going downhill they want someone to blame. As the economy continues to crumble, we are going to see some national “temper tantrums” that are going to be absolutely mind blowing.
For even more on how anger and frustration are rising in America, please see an article I did the other day entitled: “Buckle Up: America Is Getting Very Angry And The Protests Are Going To Become Much More Frightening“.
But let us not diminish in any way the very real pain and suffering that tens of millions of Americans are going through right now. About a million families a year are losing their homes, the number of good jobs continues to decline and many of our communities are rapidly turning into hellholes.
Unfortunately, there are signs that things will soon get even worse for our local communities. For example, the largest county in Alabama is preparing for what would be the biggest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States.
And this is just the beginning.
Hundreds of other state and local governments from coast to coast are on the verge of bankruptcy. The cry for bailouts from the federal government is going to get louder and louder, but the federal government has already piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world and there is only so much more debt that it can take on before our entire financial system collapses.
All of the long-term trends are pointing to a total collapse of the economy. If you think that people are angry now, just wait until that happens. We are going to see outbreaks of rioting and looting and crime and violence that will be absolutely unprecedented.
The American people are not morally equipped to handle a severe depression. We simply do not have the same character that previous generations possessed. We have gotten very soft and very spoiled and very selfish.
But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a remnant that will hold on to the truth and that will stand for what is right.
When things are the darkest, that is when the greatest heroes are called for.
Let us work together to wake up America, and let us continue shining a light in the darkness.
We must work while it is still day, because night is coming soon.
 The U.S. economy is dying and most American voters have no idea why it is happening. Unfortunately, the mainstream media and most of our politicians are not telling the truth about the collapse of the economy. This generation was handed the keys to the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen, and we have completely wrecked it. Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have left us drowning in an ocean of corruption, greed and bad debt. Thousands of businesses and millions of jobs have left the country and poverty is exploding from coast to coast. We are literally becoming a joke to the rest of the world. It is absolutely imperative that we educate America about what is happening. Until the American people truly understand the problems that we are facing, they will not be willing to implement the solutions that are necessary.
The following are the top 100 statistics about the collapse of the economy that every American voter should know….
#100 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.
#99 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.
#98 Since Barack Obama was sworn in, the share of the national debt per household has increased by $35,835.
#97 The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.
#96 It is being projected that the U.S. national debt will hit 344% of GDP by the year 2050 if we continue on our current course.
#95 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.
#94 In 2010, the U.S. government paid $413 billion in interest on the national debt. That is projected to at least double over the next decade.
#93 According to one new survey, one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.
#92 State and local government debt has reached an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP.
#91 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.
#90 U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.
#89 According to a new study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.
#88 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.
#87 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#86 The cost of a health insurance policy for the average American family rose by a whopping 9 percent last year, and according to a report put out by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, the average family health insurance policy now costs over $15,000 a year.
#85 One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
#84 An all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all at this point, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.
#83 According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.
#82 Average yearly tuition at U.S. private universities is now up to $27,293.
#81 The cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent since 1978.
#80 In America today, approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loans.
#79 In 2010, the average college graduate had accumulated approximately $25,000 in student loan debt by graduation day.
#78 The total amount of student loan debt in the United States now exceeds the total amount of credit card debt in the United States.
#77 One-third of all college graduates end up taking jobs that don’t even require college degrees.
#76 In the United States today, there are more than 100,000 janitors that have college degrees.
#75 In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.
#74 In the United States today, approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.
#73 It is being projected that for the first time ever, the OPEC nations are going to bring in over a trillion dollars from exporting oil this year. Their biggest customer is the United States.
#72 U.S. oil companies will bring in about $200 billion in pre-tax profits this year. They will also receive about $4.4 billion in specialized tax breaks from the U.S. government.
#71 The United States has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976, and since that time the United States has run a total trade deficit of more than 7.5 trillion dollars with the rest of the world.
#70 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
#69 The U.S. trade deficit with China is now 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#68 Today, the United States spends more than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.
#67 China has surpassed the United States and is now the largest PC market in the entire world.
#66 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in “advanced technology products” of $16 billion with the rest of the world. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.
#65 In 2010, the number one U.S. export to China was “scrap and trash”.
#64 Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.
#63 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#62 If you can believe it, more than 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed down since 2001.
#61 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.
#60 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.
#59 According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades.
#58 If you gathered together all of the workers that are “officially” unemployed in the United States today, they would constitute the 68th largest country in the world.
#57 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States right now than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.
#56 Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.
#55 Only 55.3% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 were employed last year. That was the lowest level that we have seen since World War II.
#54 Today, there are 5.9 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 that are living with their parents.
#53 The economic downturn has been particularly tough on men. According to Census data, men are twice as likely to live with their parents as women are.
#52 According to one recent survey, only 14 percent of all Americans that are 28 or 29 years old are optimistic about their financial futures.
#51 Incredibly, less than 30 percent of all U.S. teens had a job this summer.
#50 According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.
#49 Since the year 2000, we have lost approximately 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.
#48 In 1980, 52 percent of all jobs in the United States were middle income jobs. Today, only 42 percent of all jobs are middle income jobs.
#47 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.
#46 According to Paul Osterman, a professor of economics at MIT, approximately 20 percent of all employed Americans are making $10.65 an hour or less.
#45 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
#44 Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.
#43 New home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.
#42 The all-time record for fewest number of new homes sold in the United States was broken in 2009. Then it was broken again in 2010. It is on pace to be broken once again in 2011.
#41 At one point this year, U.S. home prices had fallen a whopping 33% from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble.
#40 U.S. home values have fallen approximately 6 trillion dollars since the housing crisis first began.
#39 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.
#38 Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5 percent. Today, it is up around 4.5 percent.
#37 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, at least 8 million Americans are currently at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.
#36 According to a Harris Interactive survey taken near the end of last year, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. In 2007, the same survey found that only 43 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck.
#35 Starting on January 1st, 2011 the Baby Boomers began to hit retirement age. From now on, every single day more than 10,000 Baby Boomers will reach the age of 65. That is going to keep happening every single day for the next 19 years.
#34 According to a new poll by Americans for Secure Retirement, 88 percent of all Americans are worried about “maintaining a comfortable standard of living in retirement”. Last year, that figure was at 73 percent.
#33 One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.
#32 In 1950, each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers. According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now only 1.75 full-time private sector workers for each person that is receiving Social Security benefits in the United States.
#31 According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security system paid out more in benefits than it received in payroll taxes in 2010. That was not supposed to happen until at least 2016.
#30 The U.S. government now says that the Medicare trust fund will run out five years faster than they were projecting just last year.
#29 According to one study, the 50 U.S. state governments are collectively 3.2 trillion dollars short of what they need to meet their pension obligations.
#28 A different study has shown that individual Americans are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire comfortably.
#27 Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.
#26 According to a shocking AARP survey of Baby Boomers that are still in the workforce, 40 percent of them plan to work “until they drop”.
#25 Last year, 2.6 million more Americans dropped into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
#24 Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty. Today, 15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty.
#23 More than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid. Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#22 More than 45 million Americans are now on food stamps.
#21 The number of Americans on food stamps has increased 74% since 2007.
#20 Approximately one-third of the entire population of the state of Alabama is now on food stamps.
#19 Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.
#18 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.
#17 The poverty rate for children living in the United States increased to 22% in 2010.
#16 There are 314 counties in the United States where at least 30% of the children are facing food insecurity.
#15 In Washington D.C., the “child food insecurity rate” is 32.3%.
#14 More than 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry.
#13 It is estimated that up to half a million children may currently be homeless in the United States.
#12 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.
#11 According to a recent report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.
#10 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own more than a third of all the wealth in the United States.
#9 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
#8 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.
#7 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.
#6 According to one recent poll, 90 percent of the American people believe that economic conditions in the United States are “poor”. To put this in perspective, only 11 percent of Americans rated economic conditions in the U.S. as “poor” back in January of 1999.
#5 According to another recent poll, 80 percent of the American people believe that we are actually in a recession right now.
#4 Our dollar is being systematically destroyed by the Federal Reserve. An item that cost $20.00 in 1970 will cost you $116.78 today. An item that cost $20.00 in 1913 will cost you $457.67 today.
#3 The Federal Reserve made $16.1 trillion in secret loans to their friends during the last financial crisis.
#2 The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine. Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 4700 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.
#1 According to a new CNN/ORC International Poll, 27 percent of all Americans have never even heard of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
We need to educate America.
Please share this with as many people as you can. Time is running out for America, and 2012 is going to be an absolutely pivotal year in the history of this nation.
We are in the midst of a long-term economic decline that is rapidly accelerating. If dramatic changes are not made very quickly, we will soon witness a full-blown collapse of the economy.
Wake up as many people as you can.
We are running out of time.
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The Police State Vs. Occupy Wall Street: This Is Not Going To End Well For Any Of Us
The stunning police raid of Zuccotti Park at 1 AM on Tuesday morning made headlines around the world. Protesters were hauled off, tents were cut down and garbage trucks hauled off the personal possessions of those that had been encamped there. It was swift and it was brutal.
But it was just another in a long line of raids that we have seen over the past couple of weeks. Occupy camps in Portland, Oakland, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta and several other cities have also been raided.
There is an increasing body of evidence that these raids have been coordinated. For example, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan recently made the following statement during a recent interview about the Occupy movement….
Does anyone want to guess who was running that conference call?
Heidi Bogosian, the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, is convinced that the recent raids were coordinated at the federal level….
Someone probably thought that cracking a few skulls and cutting up a few tents would probably make the hippies go away.
Yes, that might have worked in 1991.
But this is 2011. Whether you agree with Occupy Wall Street or not, one thing that should be clear to all of us is that these boys and girls are deadly serious.
In response to the recent raids, organizers have declared “a national day of direct action” on Thursday.
One of the “major actions” being planned is a “shut down” of Wall Street.
Of course that will not happen because thousands of law enforcement personnel will be dispatched to protect Wall Street if necessary.
But what does seem clear is that Occupy Wall Street seems determined to take things to the next level.
In this video, a wild-eyed protester can be seen making the following statement….
Later on in the video, the same protester makes an even more inflammatory statement….
That is a very frightening statement.
As I noted the other day, one recent survey found that 31 percent of all Occupy Wall Street protesters “would support violence to advance their agenda”.
Let us hope that cooler heads prevail and that we don’t see outbreaks of violence.
If we do see violence in the coming days, it will just give law enforcement authorities an excuse to crack down even harder.
Up to this point, local law enforcement authorities have been advised to seek “legal reasons” for evicting Occupy protesters.
Since just about everything is illegal in America today, that has not been too difficult. So far “zoning laws”, “curfew rules” and regulations that target homeless people have been used as justifications to evict Occupy protesters.
In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has said that protesters can gather in Zuccotti Park, but that “the rules” do not allow them to have tents, sleeping bags or any sort of heavy equipment.
So will the protesters go along with this, or will this turn into a prolonged struggle over Zuccotti Park?
It is hard to say, but one thing is for sure – police all over the nation have already shown that they are prepared to use brutal force against these protesters in order to get their way.
We have seen tear gas used, we have seen pepper spray cannons used, we have seen rubber bullets used and we have seen flash-bang stun grenades used.
And they are just warming up. When it comes to protecting “national security”, there is a vast array of technologies and weapons that law enforcement authorities have at their disposal.
Many Americans are cheering the crackdown on these protesters, but we all should remember that real people are getting seriously injured. For example, just check out this photo of 84-year-old Dorli Rainey after pepper spray was blasted directly into her face.
Rainey and several other Occupy Seattle protesters are still in the hospital.
Ready for another example?
You can see video of a female Occupy Cal protester being brutally yanked by her hair right here.
How would you feel if that was you?
We all need to realize that these confrontations are not just a bunch of “fun and games”.
A lot of people have been sent to the hospital already, and this is just the beginning.
One of the key things that the American people will need to understand is that they don’t have to pick sides.
When law enforcement authorities commit atrocities, we should denounce them.
When Occupy Wall Street protesters commit acts of violence or vandalism, we should denounce them.
It would be nice if all Occupy Wall Street protests would be 100% non-violent.
It would be nice if the police would be reasonable and would carry out their duties with gentleness and respect.
But sadly, those things are probably not going to happen.
The civil unrest we are seeing now is only the beginning.
Things are going to get a lot worse.
If things keep getting escalated to “the next level”, eventually we will see martial law imposed in some of our largest cities.
Don’t think that it can’t happen.
The United States is increasingly becoming a very unstable place.
As America comes apart at the seams, this is not going to end well for any of us.