Guess what? Unemployment is up again! That’s right – even though Wall Street is swimming in cash and the Obama administration is declaring that “the recession is over”, the U.S. unemployment rate has gone even higher. So are you enjoying the jobless recovery? The truth is that there should not be any talk of a “recovery” as long as the “official” unemployment rate remains at around 10 percent and the “real” unemployment continues to hover around 17 percent. There are millions and millions of American families that are living every day in deep pain because of the lack of jobs. Meanwhile, there are all of these economic pundits that are declaring that we are just going to have to realize that chronic unemployment is the “new normal” and that if other nations can handle high rates of unemployment then so can we. The most optimistic economists are projecting that we can perhaps get the unemployment rate down to around 8 percent by 2012. On the other hand, there are many economists that are convinced that things are going to get even worse.
If you have never been unemployed, it can be hard to describe how soul-crushing it can be. As the bills pile up and the financial obligations mount, the pressure can be debilitating. Being unemployed for an extended period of time can easily plunge you into depression and grind your self-worth away to almost nothing. After getting rejected dozens of times (or even hundreds of times), many Americans simply give up. There are countless marriages and countless families that are being ripped to shreds by financial pressure even as you read this. When the money is gone and there is no job in sight it can be a really, really empty feeling.
Of course there is a whole lot more to life than money, but it can be difficult to tell that to someone who can barely sleep at night because of the intense pressure to find a job.
The vast majority of Americans have at least one family member or close friend that is looking for work right now. Times are really, really tough and unfortunately the long-term outlook is very bleak. We should have compassion on those who are out of work right now, because soon many of us may join them.
The following are 25 unemployment statistics that are almost too depressing to read….
#1 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. unemployment rate for November was 9.8 percent. This was up from 9.6 percent in October, and it continues a trend of depressingly high unemployment rates. The official unemployment number has been at 9.5 percent or higher for well over a year at this point.
#2 In November 2006, the “official” U.S. unemployment rate was just 4.5 percent.
#3 Most economists had been expecting the U.S. economy to add about 150,000 jobs in November. Instead, it only added 39,000.
#4 In the United States today, there are over 15 million people who are “officially” considered to be unemployed for statistical purposes. But everyone knows that the “real” number is even much larger than that.
#5 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over 6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#7 It now takes the average unemployed American over 33 weeks to find a job.
#8 When you throw in “discouraged workers” and “underemployed workers”, the “real” unemployment rate in the state of California is actually about 22 percent.
#9 In America today there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone. In fact, there are now approximately 5 unemployed Americans for every single job opening.
#10According to The New York Times, Americans that have been unemployed for five weeks or less are three times more likely to find a new job in the coming month than Americans that have been unemployed for over a year.
#11 The U.S. economy would need to create 235,120 new jobs a month to get the unemployment rate down to pre-recession levels by 2016. Does anyone think that there is even a prayer that is going to happen?
#12 There are 9 million Americans that are working part-time for “economic reasons”. In other words, those Americans would gladly take full-time jobs if they could get them, but all they have been able to find is part-time work.
#13 In 2009, total wages, median wages, and average wages all declined in the United States.
#14 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#15 The United States has lost at least 7.5 million jobs since the recession began.
#16 Today, only about 40 percent of Ford Motor Company’s 178,000 workers are employed in North America, and a big percentage of those jobs are in Canada and Mexico.
#17 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.
#18 Earlier this year, one poll found that 28% of all American households had at least one member that was looking for a full-time job.
#20 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#21 As the employment situation continues to stagnate, millions of American families have decided to cut back on things such as insurance coverage. For example, the percentage of American households that have life insurance coverage is at its lowest level in 50 years.
#22 Unless Congress acts, and there is no indication that is going to happen, approximately 2 million Americans will stop receiving unemployment checks over the next couple of months.
#23 A poll that was released by the Pew Research Center back in June discovered that an astounding 55 percent of the U.S. labor force has experienced either unemployment, a pay decrease, a reduction in hours or an involuntary move to part-time work since the economic downturn began.
#24 According to Richard McCormack, the United States has lost over 42,000 factories (and counting) since 2001.
But this is what we get for creating the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world. For decades we have been digging a deeper hole for ourselves by going into increasingly larger amounts of debt. In America today, our entire economy is based on debt. Even our money is debt. We were fools if we ever thought this could go on forever.
Just think about it. Have you ever gone out and run up a bunch of debt? It can be a lot of fun sitting behind the wheel of a new car, running your credit cards up to the limit and buying a beautiful big house that you cannot afford.
But in the end what happens?
It always catches up with you.
Well, our collective debt is starting to catch up with us. There is a sea of red ink on every level of American society. It is only a matter of time before it destroys our economy.
If you think that things are bad now, just wait. Things are going to get a whole lot worse. A horrific economic collapse is coming, and it is going to be very, very painful.
How in the world is the U.S. economy going to recover if the American people have less money to spend? Millions of American families are heading into 2011 knowing that either they won’t be seeing an increase in income or that their incomes will be smaller next year. Long-term unemployment benefits are being cut off for millions of Americans, federal workers are having their wages frozen, Social Security recipients are not going to get a cost of living increase for 2011, taxes are going up for the vast majority of U.S. families and employers are forcing pay cuts on their workers across the United States. Meanwhile, the cost of food just keeps going up, the cost of gas just keeps going up and the cost of health care just keeps going up. So what are millions of American families that are already stretched to the limit going to do when they have less money in 2011?
Millions of unemployed American workers are heading for a very bleak 2011. Unless Congress acts, and there is no indication that is going to happen, approximately 2 million Americans will stop receiving unemployment checks over the next couple months.
The government is really between a rock and a hard place on this one. After all, who is so heartless that they actually want to cut off the little financial support that millions of deeply struggling American families are depending on? Not extending the long-term unemployment benefits is going to mean more Americans are going to lose their homes, more Americans are going to go bankrupt and more Americans will end up in tent cities.
But as CNN recently reported, extending the long-term unemployment benefits through next year would cost the federal government $56.4 billion that we simply do not have. The U.S. government is absolutely drowning in red ink and cannot afford to just chuck another 56 billion dollars more debt on to the pile.
At this point even Barack Obama is taking some small steps to get federal spending under control. He has just announced a plan to freeze the pay of federal government workers for the next two years.
So how are federal government workers handling the news that they will not be seeing any raises for the next coupe of years?
How would you feel if your wages were just frozen for two years and yet the price of everything just continues to keep going up?
Meanwhile, the Social Security Administration announced last month that there will be no cost of living adjustments for Social Security benefits once again next year.
According to the government, the cost of living is not going up.
So now our seniors will just have to stretch those meager checks even more.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, now a whole slew of tax increases is coming. The U.S. Congress is busy debating which (if any) of the Bush tax cuts that they are going to allow to expire, but the truth is that the Bush tax cuts are only a small part of the story. There are so many tax increases scheduled to go into effect in 2011 that it is hard to keep track of them all. In fact, there are many (myself included) that are calling 2011 “the year of the tax increase“.
But it is not just the federal government that is raising taxes. In the past two years, 36 of the 50 U.S. states have jacked up taxes or fees.
In addition, many local governments are so strapped for cash that they are going to absolutely ridiculous lengths to raise cash. For example, from now on if you are caught jaywalking in Los Angeles you will be slapped with a $191 fine.
This kind of thing is happening all over America. Police departments are being turned into revenue raising operations. Police are so busy writing tickets that they barely have any time to investigate actual crimes anymore.
Unfortunately, all of this latest news comes at a time when incomes are already down from coast to coast. Median household income in the U.S. declined from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009. Some areas are declining faster than others, but the truth is that almost all areas of the United States have been seeing incomes go down. In fact, of the 52 largest metro areas in the United States, only the city of San Antonio did not see a decline in median household income during 2009.
Times are getting really tough. Employers all over America are forcing their employees to take pay cuts. Even some of the most prominent unions are agreeing to unprecedented concessions. For example, just check out what The New York Times says is going on over at General Motors….
In its most recent union contract, General Motors is paying new employees $14 an hour, half the rate it pays its long-term workers.
Unfortunately, American families are going to have to try to do more with less during a time when prices are going to be going up. Most economists agree that all of the quantitative easing that the Federal Reserve is doing is going to cause inflation to start increasing significantly at some point. In fact, some of the top Federal Reserve officials have publicly stated that they want to purposely raise the rate of inflation as a way to stimulate the economy.
One of the great things about Americans is our relentless sense of optimism, but it is time for a major reality check. Our economic system is in an advanced state of decay. Our nation is a sea of red ink from coast to coast, we continue to consume tens of billions more than we produce every single month and we are rapidly being transformed into a post-industrial wasteland.
The economy is not going to be “getting better” in the long-term. Unless fundamental changes are made to our economic system, we are going to continue to speed toward a horrific economic collapse.
The storm clouds are gathering on the horizon and time is running out. It is imperative that we all make the most out of every single day because night is coming soon.
It seems with each passing year the madness on Black Friday gets even worse. This year, there were reports of fights and rioting from coast to coast. It was estimated that over 180 million U.S. shoppers headed for the stores on Friday, and whenever you get that many people together there are going to be problems. But just how crazed ordinary Americans are getting over saving a little bit of money is deeply disturbing when you really start thinking about it. If people will go this wild just to save 40 percent on a television set, then what in the world are they going to do when they have been without food for a couple of days? If Americans will act like psychotic animals just to save 50 bucks, then what in the world will they do when they have lost everything and are desperate to survive?
All of us had better hope and pray that an economic collapse does not happen any time soon, because it is becoming increasingly apparent that the American people are not morally equipped to be able to handle one. Greed and selfishness have become so rampant in America that large segments of the population have totally forgotten how to be any other way.
If the United States ever experiences a really, really bad economic downturn, this nation could very quickly start looking like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina from coast to coast. Most Americans would simply not know how to handle it.
The following are 9 shocking examples of Black Friday violence that should make all of us wonder what is happening to America….
#1 At a Target store in Buffalo, New York the crowds waiting impatiently outside suddenly became a chaotic mob once the doors opened at 4 AM on Friday morning.
One man that was lying on the ground remembers thinking “I don’t want to die here” while he was being trampled by crazed shoppers….
#2 Crowds were becoming so violent at a Wal-Mart in Sacramento, California that the police actually evacuated the store early Friday morning.
#3 Three women from West Palm Beach, Florida said that $1,000 in presents that they had just purchased at Best Buy were stolen from their vehicle on Friday morning within minutes of being purchased.
#4 One U.S. Marine reservist that was collecting toys for children was stabbed with a knife when he attempted to stop a shoplifter in eastern Georgia on Friday.
#5 Blogger Lynne Elder-Blau has posted about overhearing police officers describe a huge brawl that erupted this year at one well-known store on Black Friday….
Well, the girls and I were in a popular convenience store in Garden City last night while a store employee and a Garden City Police Department Officer were visiting. They were conversing about a large group of customers who got into a knock-down brawl at a nationally-known variety store in Garden City yesterday morning. Several police officers were brought in to break up the ball of adults who were pulling and tugging at products and actually punching other customers in their faces and stomach areas! We’re not just talking about a few people who were involved in this violent non-sense. The officer said that there was a large amount of people involved in this particular altercation. Ridiculous!!!
#6 A 21-year-old woman from Middleton, Wisconsin was arrested when she threatened to shoot other shoppers while waiting to get into a Toys R Us store for Black Friday. The other shoppers had objected when she attempted to move to the front of the line.
#7 The following is video of customers literally tearing apart a store display at a Wal-Mart in Douglasville, Georgia as they pushed and shoved each other in an attempt to grab the best deals….
#8 The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department actually “locked down” a section of a Cerritos, California shopping mall after a wild fight broke out in the food court. There were even reports that some people were flinging chairs at other customers.
#9 At one Wal-Mart in Texas, a near-riot broke out right in the middle of the store as a huge crowd of customers pushed and shoved each other to get a handful of Black Friday deals that were being wheeled out to the floor….
If you want to see even more videos of Black Friday craziness, check out this and this.
Remember, the products that these Americans are fighting over are not free. This is how crazy people are willing to go just to get a deep discount on an item.
So what is going to happen someday when people are desperate for food or shelter?
If this is how people act when the sun is shining, how are they going to behave once a really bad storm arrives?
In America today, fewer and fewer people are treating others the way that they would like to be treated themselves.
Instead of showing others kindness and respect, in 2010 most Americans would seemingly rather trample anyone who is in the way of getting what they want.
So what do you think? Are Americans becoming more greedy and more selfish or are they basically “good” and “decent” people most of the time? Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion….
Over the coming weeks, Americans will be wishing each other “happy holidays” millions upon millions of times. But are these really happy times? Record numbers of Americans are going to be going hungry and cold this winter. Millions upon millions of our fellow citizens would gladly give up all holiday celebrations in exchange for a decent job. The vast majority of us have plenty of examples of horrible personal tragedy all around us this holiday season, and much of that tragedy has been brought on by the deteriorating economic conditions. Meanwhile, we have a “control freak” government that wants to establish an even tighter grip over our lives and that now insists on either viewing our exposed bodies or groping our private areas before we can get on an airplane. Once upon a time in America the holiday season was a time to rejoice because we lived in a prosperous land where liberty and freedom were respected, but today we live in a nation with a highly centralized economy dominated by a federal government that is becoming more “totalitarian” by the day.
But we are told that centralized control by an overwhelmingly powerful national government is good in our case because “they” know what is best for us.
Oh really? They sure have done a great job “managing” our economic system, haven’t they? Unfortunately, it seems as though anything that the federal government takes control over just gets more messed up.
The following are 28 hard questions that you should ask anyone who believes that having a highly centralized economy and a highly centralized government is good for us….
#1 Why is the U.S. government trying to put a choke hold on our food production system? S. 510, The Food Safety Modernization Act, is being called one of the most dangerous bills in American history. This very vague and incredibly broad bill (which you can read here) will give the U.S. government unprecedented control over the growing, storing and sale of food in the United States.
#2 Approximately 14.8 million Americans are unemployed this holiday season. So why in the world is the “greatest economy on earth” not able to provide jobs for all of them?
#3 Why are the U.S. and South Korea insisting on conducting 4 days of naval exercises in the Yellow Sea when tensions in the reason are at an all-time high and when a single mistake could spark an all-out war? Wouldn’t it be better to postpone these naval exercises until things have calmed down a bit?
#4 What prompted Russia and China to suddenly decide to quit using the U.S. dollar and instead start using their own national currencies when trading with each other?
#5 Why does it cost $181,757 per hour for Barack Obama to travel on Air Force One?
#6 Are we still a “great nation” when so many of our citizens are going hungry? According to a recent BBC report, 15% of all U.S. households experienced a shortage of food at some point during 2009. One of our readers named Gary recently left a comment that indicated that he encountered a very big crowd during his recent visit to a local food pantry….
The line at the food pantry was very long. There are a lot of folks who have little food and no money.
#7 If the U.S. economy is recovering, why were new home sales for October down 28.9 percent from a year ago and why were existing home sales for October down 25.9 percent over the previous year?
#8 Why are there so many reports of unprofessional behavior by TSA agents? For example, it is being reported that some TSA agents have specifically targeted attractive young women for “additional screening”.
#9 Why are U.S. home builders only selling one-fifth of the homes that they were selling during the “boom times” five years ago?
#10 How did a man who had been convicted of misdemeanor harassment and stalking get hired to be a TSA agent? Now it turns out he is being accused of abducting and sexually assaulting a woman. These are the people who are supposed to be protecting us?
#11 In the “wealthiest nation on earth”, why are a record number of Americans going to be without heat this winter? According to the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, more than 10 million U.S. households will not be able to afford to heat their homes this winter without assistance, which would be a new all-time record. One of our readers named Elaine recently shared that she is one of those Americans that is going to be cold this winter….
It’s starting to get cold here in the mountains. I’m unemployed, no heat, at risk for foreclosure, etc. Everyone is at risk for this, it’s just that many of the muddleclass can’t face it yet. For a lot of us, it’s not cutting back on that bi-weekly latte that’s going to help, it’s cutting back on having electricity. Don’t judge the poor until you’ve been here.
#12 Why are Americans becoming so pessimistic about the future? According to one recent poll, now only 51 percent of Americans believe that today’s young people will have a better life than their parents did.
#13 How did we ever get to the point as a nation where only 39 percent of likely voters believe that the U.S. government is operating within the limits established by the U.S. Constitution?
#14 Why does the mainstream media largely ignore the fact that thousands of people are being slaughtered near the U.S. border with Mexico each year and a city just across the Mexican border is now being dubbed “the most dangerous place on earth”?
#15 What does it say about American politics that the companies that produce the new naked body scanners have more than doubled their spending on political lobbying over the last five years?
#16 Why is the Washington Post working so hard to defend the policies of the Federal Reserve?
#17 Have we now gotten to the point where the financial condition of the U.S. government is so bad that it will be virtually impossible to ever have a balanced federal budget ever again?
#18 Why aren’t more Americans deeply concerned about the dozens of nasty diseases that they could catch from TSA agents if they don’t change gloves between each groping?
#19 Why are there 18 times as many banks on the FDIC “problem list” as there were just four years ago?
#20 What does it say about the United States that now 39 percent of Americans believe that marriage is becoming obsolete?
#21 How can anyone claim that the U.S. economy is turning around as long as the number of Americans on food stamps continues to set a new all-time record month after month?
#22 As thousands of factories and millions of jobs continue to be shipped overseas, why does Barack Obama keep publicly proclaiming that globalism is so good for us?
#23 Why aren’t Homeland Security officials willing to consider changes to the new airport security procedures when many women are actually using the term “sexual assault” to describe their experiences with the new “enhanced pat downs”?
#24 The median wealth of a U.S. Senator in 2009 was 2.38 million dollars. So exactly what does that say about the health of our Republic?
#26 In 2009, 54.9 million international tourists visited the United States, and those tourists spent approximately 93 billion dollars. How far will those numbers drop once stories of TSA abuse circulate all over the globe?
#27 If Congress does not authorize another emergency extension of long-term unemployment benefits, then what in the world are the 2 million Americans who are going to suddenly lose their checks going to do?
#28 Are there still any areas left in the United States where liberty and freedom are respected, where taxes are low, where regulations are not suffocating, where the people are friendly and where Americans can be free to live an independent lifestyle?
Some analysts are warning that the U.S. dollar is in danger of collapse because of the exploding U.S. government debt, the horrific U.S. trade deficit and the new round of quantitative easing recently announced by the Federal Reserve. Other analysts are warning the the euro is in danger of collapse because of the very serious sovereign debt crisis that is affecting nations such as Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and Spain. So what happens if the dollar and the euro both collapse? Well, it would certainly throw the current world financial order into a state of chaos, but what would emerge from the ashes? Would the nations of the world go back to using dozens of different national currencies or would we see a truly global currency emerge for the very first time?
Up until recently, the idea of a world currency was absolutely unthinkable for most people. In fact, the notion that all of the major nations around the globe would agree to a single currency still seems far-fetched to most analysts. However, if enough “chaos” is produced by a concurrent collapse of the U.S. dollar and the euro, would that be enough to get the major powers around the world to agree to a new financial world order?
Let’s hope not, but it is getting hard to deny that we are heading for a major currency crisis, and if the U.S. dollar and/or the euro collapse, the world will certainly never be the same afterwards.
In case you missed it, China and Russia made a very big announcement the other day.
They told the world that instead of using the U.S. dollar to trade with each other, they will now be using their own national currencies.
Most Americans don’t realize it, but that is a very, very big deal.
The fact that the U.S. dollar has been the primary reserve currency of the world for decades has given the United States a tremendous amount of economic power.
But now nations are beginning to lose confidence in the U.S. dollar and they are slowly starting to move away from it.
When the Federal Reserve announced a new round of quantitative easing in early November, it created a huge backlash from other nations. For decades, many other countries have been heavily investing in dollar-denominated assets, and now they are quite upset that those assets are going to be devalued.
Chinese Finance Vice Minister Zhu Guangyao used very strong language in denouncing the Fed’s new quantitative easing scheme earlier this month….
“As a major reserve currency issuer, for the United States to launch a second round of quantitative easing at this time, we feel that it did not recognize its responsibility to stabilize global markets and did not think about the impact of excessive liquidity on emerging markets.”
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble was even more blunt. He has called current Federal Reserve policy “clueless”, and he says that he is absolutely disgusted with the Federal Reserve at this point….
“They have already pumped an endless amount of money into the economy via taking on extremely high public debt and through a Fed policy that has already pumped a lot of money into the economy. The results are horrendous.”
So where is all of this going?
If the Federal Reserve keeps flooding the system with new dollars, the rest of the world could eventually totally reject the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasuries.
If that day ever arrives, the results would be beyond catastrophic as the following short video from the National Inflation Association demonstrates….
But it is not just the U.S. dollar that is in trouble.
The euro is in danger as well.
Just consider the financial problems that some major European nations are experiencing right now….
*Standard & Poor’s has slashed Ireland’s credit rating two notches to “A”, and is warning that there could be further downgrades. The Irish budget deficit is projected to reach 32 percent of national output this year. Ireland’s finances are being called “just one big pyramid scheme”, and they recently accepted a huge European bailout. Unfortunately for Ireland, this bailout comes with strings. The Irish government is now being forced to implement an austerity program that is being referred to as “draconian”.
*Analysts are projecting that Portugal is going to need a bailout of at least 50 billion euros. The government of Portugal has implemented some harsh austerity measures in an attempt to get the red ink under control, and the people are not pleased. On Wednesday, a massive national strike shut down travel and basic services across the country.
*Things are so bleak in Portugal right now that Foreign Affairs Minister Luis Amado recently stated that his nation “faces a scenario of exit from the euro zone” if a solution is not found for this financial crisis.
*Greece was the first nation to need a European bailout, and now there are rumors that they may need even more assistance. The statistics agency for the EU, Eurostat, recently revealed that Greece’s budget deficit for 2009 was actually 15.4% of GDP rather than 13.6% of GDP as originally thought. The Greek national debt is now well over 120 percent of GDP. The financial problems in Greece never seem to stop.
*Belgium’s debt has reached 100 percent of annual national income, and the cost of insuring that country’s debt has now hit record levels.
*Even Spain is in trouble. Rates on Spanish 10-year government bonds have risen to frightening heights in recent days, and the official unemployment rate in Spain is hovering around 20 percent.
*In a recent article entitled “A Spanish Bailout Would Test Europe’s Strained Finances“, the New York Times quoted Jordi Galí, the director of the Center for Research in International Economics at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University as saying that rumors that Spain is in financial trouble could end up making it a self-fulfilling prophecy….
“If investors expect Spain to have trouble refinancing its debt, now or somewhere down the road, then Spain will have trouble,” he added. “This is only aggravated by the fact that the reluctance of investors to purchase the country’s public debt leads to an increase in the interest rate it has to pay and thus in the budget deficit and the amount of debt it has to issue.”
So could this sovereign debt crisis actually cause the euro to collapse?
Well, it depends who you ask.
European Financial Stability Fund chief Klaus Regling says that there is “zero” chance that the euro will collapse….
“There is zero danger. It’s inconceivable that the euro would collapse.”
Other European leaders are not so sure about that.
EU President Herman Van Rompuy recently warned that if some of the weaker countries in Europe are forced to abandon the euro it will likely cause a total meltdown of the European Union….
“We’re in a survival crisis. We all have to work together in order to survive with the euro zone, because if we don’t survive with the euro zone we will not survive with the European Union.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also warning that a failure of the euro could bring down the entire European Union….
So if the U.S. dollar and the euro do collapse, what would happen?
Well, already many world leaders are openly speaking of the need for a true global currency.
After all, they argue, there won’t be any “currency wars” if we are all using the same currency.
In fact, the Institute of International Finance, an organization that represents 420 of the biggest banks and financial institutions on the globe, recently declared that the time has come to adopt a one world currency.
A paper entitled “Reserve Accumulation and International Monetary Stability” by the Strategy, Policy and Review Department of the IMF recommends that the world adopt a global currency called the “Bancor” and that a global central bank be established to administer that currency. The report is dated April 13, 2010 and a full copy can be read here. Unfortunately this is not hype and it is not a rumor. This is a very serious proposal in an official document from one of the mega-powerful institutions that is actually running the world economy. Anyone who follows the IMF knows that what the IMF wants, the IMF usually gets. So could a global currency known as the “Bancor” be on the horizon? That is now a legitimate question.
So will any of this ever come to fruition?
Well, it would likely take one whale of a crisis to get the countries of the world to agree to such a thing.
However, we do live at a time when the world financial system seems to be perpetually on the edge of chaos. If at some point the U.S. dollar and the euro totally fall apart perhaps we will see a “new order” arise out of all of that chaos.
But let’s hope not. Once we give any organization the power to issue a global currency the odds of us ever getting our economic sovereignty back will be greatly reduced. The internationalists are going to use any crisis as an opportunity to argue for greater centralization of the world financial system, and it will be very important for the American people not to fall for those arguments.
Hopefully the U.S. dollar and the euro can remain stable currencies for at least a little while longer. Because once they collapse things will never, ever be the same again.
As you gather around the table with your family this Thanksgiving, ask yourself this question: are you better off today than you were four years ago? Unfortunately, most Americans are not. Both political parties have controlled the White House during the last four years – Barack Obama has been in office for nearly two years and before him it was George W. Bush – and yet no matter what politicians we send to Washington D.C. things just seem to keep getting worse. We buy more than we produce, we spend more than we bring in, we have 18 times as many “problem banks” as we did 4 years ago, the number of Americans on food stamps continues to set a new all-time record every month and we are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world. But at least the majority of Americans are still prosperous enough to enjoy a happy Thanksgiving inside a warm, comfortable home. Unfortunately, if things keep going the way they are going, we are going to experience a national economic nightmare that nobody will be thankful for.
If you watch the economic statistics from week to week and month to month, it will seem like sometimes they are getting worse and sometimes they are getting better. However, once you take a longer-term view of things, exactly what is happening to us starts to come clearly into focus. The truth is that the United States is in the midst of a long-term economic collapse, and many economic statistics just keep getting worse every single year.
The following are 11 statistics that reveal just how far the U.S. economy has fallen over the past four years….
#1 In November 2006, the “official” U.S. unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. Today, the “official” U.S. unemployment rate has been at 9.5 percent or greater for more than a year.
#2 At Thanksgiving back in 2006, 26 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, there are over 42 million Americans on food stamps and that number is climbing rapidly.
#3 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States fell from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009. Median household income declined the year before that too. Meanwhile, prices have continued to rise throughout that period.
#4 At the end of the third quarter in 2006, 47 banks were on the FDIC “problem list”. At the end of the third quarter in 2010, 860 banks were on the FDIC “problem list”.
#5 California home builders began construction on 1,811 homes during the month of August, which was down 77% from August 2006.
#7 A recent survey of last year’s college graduates found that 80 percent moved right back home with their parents after graduation. That was up substantially from 63 percent in 2006.
#9 In 2006, the Social Security program took in somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 billion more dollars than it paid out. Of course the U.S. government spent all that money instead of setting it aside. So now more U.S. retirees than ever are ready to start drawing on Social Security and a “tipping point” is rapidly coming. Social Security will pay out more in benefits in 2010 than it receives in payroll taxes. This was not supposed to happen until at least 2015, and the years ahead look very, very grim….
#11 In 2006, the U.S. national debt was getting close to 9 trillion dollars. Today, the U.S. national debt is well past 13 trillion dollars and is rapidly closing in on 14 trillion dollars.
So is there much hope for an economic turnaround any time soon?
No, not really.
Even the Federal Reserve, usually one of the biggest cheerleaders for the U.S. economy, is not very optimistic right now. In fact, the Fed has just announced that they are projecting that unemployment will still be at about 8 percent when the next presidential election arrives in 2012.
Actually, if the official unemployment rate was to get that low by then that would really be something to celebrate. Many economists fear that unemployment will be even higher than it is now by then.
Several years ago, a very foolish politician (Dick Cheney) famously said that “deficits don’t matter”. That is kind of like saying that credit card balances don’t matter. For decades, politicians from both political parties have been running up staggering amounts of government debt as if it would never catch up with us. For decades, Americans have been addicted to debt and have been buying more than they produce. We have enjoyed living beyond our means for so long that most of us simply have no idea that there are any consequences for doing so.
Living on debt is fun on the way up, but on the way down the pain can be excruciating. We are about to experience that on a national level, and it is going to be an absolute nightmare.
Did any of you actually believe that we were just going to go on living way, way, way beyond our means indefinitely?
America has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and unfortunately we are all going to pay the price for that.
So enjoy your turkey while you can. In future years we may have a lot less to be thankful for.
The Irish banking system is melting down right in front of our eyes. Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Spain are all drowning in debt. It is becoming extremely expensive for all of those nations to issue new debt. Officials all over Europe are begging Ireland to accept a bailout. Portugal has already indicated that they will probably be next in line. Most economists are now acknowledging that without a new round of bailouts the dominoes could start to fall and we could see a wave of debt defaults by European governments. All of this is pushing the monetary union in Europe to its limits. In fact, some of Europe’s top politicians are now publicly warning that this crisis may not only mean the end of the euro, but also the end of the European Union itself.
Yes, things really are that serious in Europe right now. In order for the euro and the European Union to hold together, two things have got to happen. Number one, Germany and the other European nations that are in good financial condition have got to agree to keep bailing out nations such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece that are complete economic basket cases. Number two, the European nations receiving these bailouts have got to convince their citizens to comply with the very harsh austerity measures being imposed upon them by the EU and the IMF.
Those two things should not be taken for granted. In Germany, many taxpayers are already sick and tired of pouring hundreds of billions of euros into a black hole. The truth is that the Germans are not going to accept carrying weak sisters like Greece and Portugal on their backs indefinitely.
In addition, we have already seen the kinds of riots that have erupted in Greece over the austerity measures being implemented there. If there is an overwhelming backlash against austerity in some parts of Europe will some nations actually attempt to leave the EU?
Right now the focus is on Ireland. The Irish banking system is a basket case at the moment and the Irish government is drowning in red ink. European Union officials are urging Ireland to request a bailout, but so far Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is not taking the bait. The Irish government does not seem too keen on having even more austerity measures imposed upon it by the EU and the IMF.
According to Nadeem Walayat, the harsh austerity measures that Ireland has endured during this past year have only made Ireland’s financial problems even worse….
The people of Ireland having endured over a year of austerity on the promise that it was all necessary to suffer pain today by cutting public spending so as to reduce the annual budget deficit to sustainable level for economic gains tomorrow. Instead the exact opposite is taking place as the Irish economy contracts due to economic austerity whilst its bankrupt banks are sending the countries debt and liabilities soaring, thus resulting in a far worse budgetary position than where Ireland was before the austerity measures were implemented as the bond markets are waking up to evitable debt default which is sending interest rates demanded to hold Irish debt soaring to new credit crisis highs.
But the big Irish banks are bleeding cash fast. For example, the Bank of Ireland recently reported “a 10 billion euro outflow of deposits from early August until the end of September.” Irish banks and the Irish government need help whether they are willing to admit it or not.
But Ireland is not the only one in trouble. Portugal became the latest European nation to push the panic button when Portuguese Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos announced that his country was in such bad financial shape that it might have to seek a bailout package.
Things are so bleak in Portugal right now that Foreign Affairs Minister Luis Amado says that his nation “faces a scenario of exit from the euro zone” if a solution is not found for this financial mess.
On top of all this, word is coming out that Greece is in even worse financial condition than initially believed. The statistics agency for the EU, Eurostat, revealed on Tuesday that Greece’s deficit for 2009 was actually 15.4% of GDP rather than 13.6% of GDP as originally thought.
The Greek national debt is now well over 120 percent of GDP. It seems inevitable at this point that Greece will need more bailouts if they are to remain part of the EU.
Spain is also starting to feel the heat. Spain’s short-term debt financing costs jumped sharply on Tuesday, and officials in Spain are begging the Irish government to accept the bailout they are being offered so that the “contagion” does not spread.
But could a few mid-size countries in Europe really cause the next great global financial crisis?
Already we are seeing world financial markets getting rattled by all this news.
Fears regarding what is happening in Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal helped push the Dow Jones industrial average down nearly 200 points on Tuesday.
But the real story is that this financial crisis in Europe could potentially cause the break up of the euro and of the European Union.
The truth is that the euro and the European Union are inseparably linked at this point. In fact, EU President Herman Van Rompuy is warning that if some of the weaker countries in Europe are forced to abandon the euro it will likely cause the total destruction of the European Union….
“We’re in a survival crisis. We all have to work together in order to survive with the euro zone, because if we don’t survive with the euro zone we will not survive with the European Union.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also warning that a failure of the euro could bring down the entire European Union….
“If the euro fails, then Europe fails.”
But officials in Europe are not going to let the dream of a united Europe slip away easily. Right now they are working really hard to keep Europe together, and that means some “tough love” has to be imposed on the “weak sisters”. As these weaker European economies collapse, they are being forced to accept harsh EU mandates in exchange for bailouts. As Ambrose Evans Pritchard recently pointed out, “forced austerity” is quite similar to serfdom….
Greece is now under an EU protectorate, or the “Memorandum” as they call it. This has prompted pin-prick terrorist attacks against anybody associated with EU rule. Ireland and Portugal are further behind on this road to serfdom, but they are already facing policy dictates from Brussels, but will soon be under formal protectorates as well in any case. Spain has more or less been forced to cut public wages by 5pc to comply with EU demands made in May. All are having to knuckle down to Europe’s agenda of austerity, without the offsetting relief of devaluation and looser monetary policy.
In the end, Europe is going to move in one of two directions. Either this financial crisis will finally be the thing that breaks up the euro and the European Union, or it will result in a Europe that is ruled even more strongly by EU bureaucrats.
As this crisis unfolds over the next couple of years, the EU is going to try to grab more power and more control. They are going to ask national governments to give up substantial amounts of power and sovereignty in exchange for bailouts. So far it is working.
But at some point will one nation say that enough is enough?
Perhaps that one nation could be Ireland. The citizens of Ireland actually voted “no” on the EU Constitution, but then the EU forced them to vote a second time so that they could “get it right”.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if it is Ireland that ends up lighting the fuse that breaks up the euro and the European Union? The Irish are a fiercely independent people, and they have a history of resisting tyranny.
In any event, this is going to be an extremely interesting winter across the EU. If things go badly, the entire global financial system could be plunged into mayhem. Let us hope that does not happen.
Ben Bernanke and the rest of the folks over at the Federal Reserve did not just wake up one day and decide that they wanted to start printing hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air. The truth is that the economic forces that have brought us to this point have taken decades to develop. In the post-World War 2 era, when the U.S. economy has fallen into a recession, either the Federal Reserve would lower interest rates or the U.S. government would indulge in even more deficit spending to stimulate the economy. But now, as you will see below, both of those alternatives have been exhausted. In addition, we are now rapidly reaching the point where there are simply not enough lenders out there to feed the U.S. government’s voracious appetite for debt. So now the Federal Reserve is openly printing hundreds of billions of dollars that will enable them to finance U.S. government borrowing, and (they hope) stimulate the U.S. economy at the same time. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is not amused. Nations such as China, Japan and many of the oil-exporting nations of the Middle East have accumulated a lot of U.S. dollars and a lot of U.S. Treasuries and they are not pleased that those investments are now being significantly devalued.
So how did we get to this point? Why is the Federal Reserve printing money out of thin air in a desperate attempt to stimulate the economy?
Well, the Federal Reserve has more or less exhausted all of the other tools that it has traditionally used to help the economy during an economic downturn. As you can see from the chart below, the Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates during past recessions. The goal of lowering interest rates is to make it less expensive to borrow money and thus spark more economic activity. Well, as you can see, the Federal Reserve has no place else to go with interest rates. Over the past 30 years, rates have consistently been pushed down, down, down and now they are kissing the floor….
Another way that the U.S. economy has been “stimulated” over the past 30 years is through increased government spending. The theory is that if the government spends more money, that will get more cash into the hands of the people and spark more economic activity. That was the whole idea behind the “economic stimulus packages” that were pushed through Congress. However, increased government spending always comes at a very high cost under our current system. Government debt is now totally out of control. As you can see below, the U.S. national debt has exploded from about one trillion dollars in 1980 to over 13 trillion dollars today. Currently, there is very little appetite in Congress for more government spending to stimulate the economy, especially after the results of the November election.
Most Americans don’t realize it, but much of our incredible “prosperity” over the last 30 years has been fueled by the mountains of debt that we have accumulated. Now U.S. government debt is exploding at an exponential rate….
Sadly, the U.S. government has absolutely no self-control when it comes to spending money. Our politicians are absolutely addicted to debt.
The truth is that the U.S. government just can’t seem to stop wasting money. One of the most comical news stories of the past few days involved the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, which is a sub-committee of the larger Recovery Accountability and Transparency board. This panel will be holding a meeting on November 22nd to discuss how to prevent “fraud, waste, and abuse” of economic stimulus funds.
So where will this meeting be held?
It is going to be held at the ultra-luxurious Ritz Carlton Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona.
Yes, seriously.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
So if the Federal Reserve cannot stimulate the economy through lower interest rates and the U.S. government cannot stimulate the economy by spending even more money, what does that leave us with?
Unfortunately, that leaves us with either doing nothing or with having the Federal Reserve print money out of thin air and shovel it into the economy.
Sadly, even after months of news headlines about quantitative easing, most Americans still do not understand what it is. The following is a short video that is very humorous but that also does a good job of simply explaining what quantitative easing is and why it is bad for the U.S. economy….
For much more on why quantitative easing is so destructive, please see an article that I previously authored entitled “9 Reasons Why Quantitative Easing Is Bad For The U.S. Economy“. The truth is that in an all-out effort to give the U.S. economy a short-term boost, the Federal Reserve is putting the entire world financial system in peril.
One group of prominent economists was so alarmed by this new round of quantitative easing that they recently wrote an open letter to Ben Bernanke warning of the dangers that flooding the economy with new money could create. The following is an excerpt from the text of that open letter which was also posted on the website of the Wall Street Journal…..
We believe the Federal Reserve’s large-scale asset purchase plan (so-called “quantitative easing”) should be reconsidered and discontinued. We do not believe such a plan is necessary or advisable under current circumstances. The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed’s objective of promoting employment.
We subscribe to your statement in the Washington Post on November 4 that “the Federal Reserve cannot solve all the economy’s problems on its own.” In this case, we think improvements in tax, spending and regulatory policies must take precedence in a national growth program, not further monetary stimulus.
We disagree with the view that inflation needs to be pushed higher, and worry that another round of asset purchases, with interest rates still near zero over a year into the recovery, will distort financial markets and greatly complicate future Fed efforts to normalize monetary policy.
The Fed’s purchase program has also met broad opposition from other central banks and we share their concerns that quantitative easing by the Fed is neither warranted nor helpful in addressing either U.S. or global economic problems.
But it isn’t just a few prominent economists that are expressing disapproval for this new round of quantitative easing. The truth is that almost every major industrialized nation has spoken out against all of this money printing by the Fed. Meanwhile, Barack Obama continues to publicly defend Ben Bernanke and this new round of quantitative easing at every opportunity.
That is some “change you can believe in”, eh?
Unfortunately, the danger that quantitative easing poses to our financial system is much greater than most Americans realize.
In order for the world financial system to operate smoothly, the rest of the world much have a great deal of faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries. Ben Bernanke had promised Congress (and the rest of the globe) that the Federal Reserve would not monetize U.S. government debt and that he was going to keep the U.S. dollar strong. But now Bernanke has broken his promises once again. At this point Bernanke has lost a ton of credibility. Unfortunately, Barack Obama and many of the key members of Congress continue to express unwavering support for him.
The rest of the world can see what is going on. They are not stupid. They are not going to keep pouring hundreds of billions into U.S. Treasuries if the Federal Reserve is going to “cheat” whenever economic conditions get a little tough.
If the day arrives when the rest of the globe completely loses faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries, it is going to create a complete and total financial disaster – especially for the United States.
Even with all of the massive economic problems that the United States is facing, if the government would just get off our backs most of us would do okay. In America today, it is rapidly getting to the point where it is nearly impossible to start or to operate a small business. The federal government, the state governments and local governments are cramming thousands upon thousands of new ridiculous regulations down our throats each year. It would take a full team of lawyers just to even try to stay informed about all of these new regulations. Small business in the United States is literally being suffocated by red tape. We like to think that we live in “the land of the free”, but the truth is that our lives and our businesses are actually tightly constrained by millions of rules and regulations. Today there is a “license” for just about every business activity. In fact, in some areas of the country today you need a “degree” and multiple “licenses” before you can even submit an application for permission to start certain businesses. And if you want to actually hire some people for your business, the paperwork nightmare gets far worse. It is a wonder that anyone in America is still willing to start a business from scratch and hire employees. The truth is that the business environment in the United States is now so incredibly toxic that millions of Americans have simply given up and don’t even try to work within the system anymore.
Today, the U.S. government has an “alphabet agency” for just about everything. The nanny state feels like it has to watch, track and tightly control virtually everything that we do. The Federal Register is the main source of regulations for U.S. government agencies. In 1936, the number of pages in the Federal Register was about 2,600. Today, the Federal Register is over 80,000 pages long. That is just one example of how bad things have gotten.
But it is not just the federal government that is ramming thousands of ridiculous regulations down our throats. The truth is that in many cases state and local governments are far worse. We have become a nation that is run and dominated by bureaucrats. Yes, there always must be rules in a society, but we have gotten to the point where there are so many millions of rules that the game has become unplayable.
The following are 12 examples of ridiculous regulations that are almost too bizarre to believe….
#1 The state of Louisiana says that monks must be fully licensed as funeral directors and actually convert their monasteries into licensed funeral homes before they will be allowed to sell their handmade wooden caskets.
#2 The city of Philadelphia now requires all bloggers to purchase a $300 business privilege license. The city even went after one poor woman who had earned only $11 from her blog over the past two years.
#3 In the state of Massachusetts, all children in daycare centers are mandated by state law to brush their teeth after lunch. In fact, the state even provides the fluoride toothpaste for the children.
#4 If you attempt to give a tour of our nation’s capital without a license, you could be put in prison for 90 days.
#5 A reader named Gene recently shared his regulatory horror story with us….
Started a new business this year in AZ. Paid over $10,000 in fees for permitting, $10,000 in fee for elec hookup, $10,000 in fees for gas hook up and an extra $200 fee per month just for the “privilige” of having gas. Adding up all the fees to start our business, I don’t think we would do it again. We are now just getting to the point that we are making our bills each month, and so we are not taking a paycheck, and don’t anticipate one for at least another year. Our family has been in business for ourselves for decades,and we know what we are doing, but the rising fees caught us off guard. Cities, municipalities, counties and states are raising all fees at astronomical rates to help offset the slump in their real estate income (since banks apparently don’t have to pay real estate taxes)…I’m telling you every business person I know is on their last leg. In a few more years, if things don’t turn out better for the BUSINESS PEOPLE THAT SUPPORT THE GOV, then the last ones standing will go down, and the GOV with it. Not counting the other bubbles that could blow, this one is just common sense. People talk about TAXES. This has nothing to do with taxes, or the blatent disregard for taking my money and giving it to someone else. This is just about the issue of actually getting a business started and keeping a business going. The fees are feeing us all out of business.
#6 Federal agents recently raided an Amish farm at 5 A.M. in the morning because they were selling “unauthorized” raw milk.
#8 A U.S. District Court judge slapped a 5oo dollar fine on Massachusetts fisherman Robert J. Eldridge for untangling a giant whale from his nets and setting it free. So what was his crime? Well, according to the court, Eldridge was supposed to call state authorities and wait for them do it.
#9 In the state of Texas, it doesn’t matter how much formal interior design education you have – only individuals with government licenses may refer to themselves as “interior designers” or use the term “interior design” to describe their work.
#10 Deeply hidden in the 2,409-page health reform bill passed by Congress was a new regulation that will require U.S. businesses to file millions more 1099s each year. In fact, it is estimated that the average small business will now have to file 200 additional 1099s every single year. Talk about a nightmare of red tape! But don’t try to avoid this rule – it is being reported that the IRS has hired approximately 2,000 new auditors to audit as many of these 1099s as possible.
#11 The city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin makes it incredibly difficult to go out of business. In order to close down a business, Milwaukee requires you to purchase an expensive license, you must submit a huge pile of paperwork to the city regarding the inventory you wish to sell off, and you must pay a fee based on the length of your “going out of business sale” plus a two dollar charge for every $1,000 worth of inventory that you are attempting to sell off.
#12 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is projecting that the food service industry will have to spend an additional 14 million hours every single year just to comply with new federal regulations that mandate that all vending machine operators and chain restaurants must label all products that they sell with a calorie count in a location visible to the consumer.
The following short video produced by the Institute for Justice examines some more examples of completely ridiculous regulations across the United States. The video is very funny, but please keep in mind that all of this red tape is absolutely killing many very real businesses….
So is this what “free enterprise” is supposed to look like?
Over and over again I have written about the dangers of globalization, but no matter what changes are made a lot of companies will still not want to set up shop in the United States until something is done about all of these ridiculous regulations.
As mentioned earlier, the U.S. economy is facing a vast array of incredibly serious problems, but if government would just get off our backs at least we would have a fighting chance.
Instead, it gets worse every single year. Each new wave of bureaucrats just seems to get worse than the wave before it. They always seem to think that if they just write more regulations and impose more fees and require more licenses and raise more revenue that they will be able to “fix” things.
But the truth is that they always make things worse. Our economy is literally being suffocated by red tape. A “total control grid” is being erected all around us and most Americans are so numb that they don’t even realize that it is happening.
Guess what? Unemployment is up again! That’s right – even though Wall Street is swimming in cash and the Obama administration is declaring that “the recession is over”, the U.S. unemployment rate has gone even higher. So are you enjoying the jobless recovery? The truth is that there should not be any talk of a “recovery” as long as the “official” unemployment rate remains at around 10 percent and the “real” unemployment continues to hover around 17 percent. There are millions and millions of American families that are living every day in deep pain because of the lack of jobs. Meanwhile, there are all of these economic pundits that are declaring that we are just going to have to realize that chronic unemployment is the “new normal” and that if other nations can handle high rates of unemployment then so can we. The most optimistic economists are projecting that we can perhaps get the unemployment rate down to around 8 percent by 2012. On the other hand, there are many economists that are convinced that things are going to get even worse.
Suffocated By Red Tape – 12 Ridiculous Regulations That Are Almost Too Bizarre To Believe
Today, the U.S. government has an “alphabet agency” for just about everything. The nanny state feels like it has to watch, track and tightly control virtually everything that we do. The Federal Register is the main source of regulations for U.S. government agencies. In 1936, the number of pages in the Federal Register was about 2,600. Today, the Federal Register is over 80,000 pages long. That is just one example of how bad things have gotten.
But it is not just the federal government that is ramming thousands of ridiculous regulations down our throats. The truth is that in many cases state and local governments are far worse. We have become a nation that is run and dominated by bureaucrats. Yes, there always must be rules in a society, but we have gotten to the point where there are so many millions of rules that the game has become unplayable.
The following are 12 examples of ridiculous regulations that are almost too bizarre to believe….
#1 The state of Louisiana says that monks must be fully licensed as funeral directors and actually convert their monasteries into licensed funeral homes before they will be allowed to sell their handmade wooden caskets.
#2 The city of Philadelphia now requires all bloggers to purchase a $300 business privilege license. The city even went after one poor woman who had earned only $11 from her blog over the past two years.
#3 In the state of Massachusetts, all children in daycare centers are mandated by state law to brush their teeth after lunch. In fact, the state even provides the fluoride toothpaste for the children.
#4 If you attempt to give a tour of our nation’s capital without a license, you could be put in prison for 90 days.
#5 A reader named Gene recently shared his regulatory horror story with us….
#6 Federal agents recently raided an Amish farm at 5 A.M. in the morning because they were selling “unauthorized” raw milk.
#7 In Lake Elmo, Minnesota farmers can be fined $1,000 and put in jail for 90 days for selling pumpkins or Christmas trees that are grown outside city limits.
#8 A U.S. District Court judge slapped a 5oo dollar fine on Massachusetts fisherman Robert J. Eldridge for untangling a giant whale from his nets and setting it free. So what was his crime? Well, according to the court, Eldridge was supposed to call state authorities and wait for them do it.
#9 In the state of Texas, it doesn’t matter how much formal interior design education you have – only individuals with government licenses may refer to themselves as “interior designers” or use the term “interior design” to describe their work.
#10 Deeply hidden in the 2,409-page health reform bill passed by Congress was a new regulation that will require U.S. businesses to file millions more 1099s each year. In fact, it is estimated that the average small business will now have to file 200 additional 1099s every single year. Talk about a nightmare of red tape! But don’t try to avoid this rule – it is being reported that the IRS has hired approximately 2,000 new auditors to audit as many of these 1099s as possible.
#11 The city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin makes it incredibly difficult to go out of business. In order to close down a business, Milwaukee requires you to purchase an expensive license, you must submit a huge pile of paperwork to the city regarding the inventory you wish to sell off, and you must pay a fee based on the length of your “going out of business sale” plus a two dollar charge for every $1,000 worth of inventory that you are attempting to sell off.
#12 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is projecting that the food service industry will have to spend an additional 14 million hours every single year just to comply with new federal regulations that mandate that all vending machine operators and chain restaurants must label all products that they sell with a calorie count in a location visible to the consumer.
The following short video produced by the Institute for Justice examines some more examples of completely ridiculous regulations across the United States. The video is very funny, but please keep in mind that all of this red tape is absolutely killing many very real businesses….
So is this what “free enterprise” is supposed to look like?
Over and over again I have written about the dangers of globalization, but no matter what changes are made a lot of companies will still not want to set up shop in the United States until something is done about all of these ridiculous regulations.
As mentioned earlier, the U.S. economy is facing a vast array of incredibly serious problems, but if government would just get off our backs at least we would have a fighting chance.
Instead, it gets worse every single year. Each new wave of bureaucrats just seems to get worse than the wave before it. They always seem to think that if they just write more regulations and impose more fees and require more licenses and raise more revenue that they will be able to “fix” things.
But the truth is that they always make things worse. Our economy is literally being suffocated by red tape. A “total control grid” is being erected all around us and most Americans are so numb that they don’t even realize that it is happening.