Government Debt

2011: The Year Of The Tax Increase

Unless the U.S. Congress acts, there is going to be a massive wave of tax increases in 2011.  In fact, some are already calling 2011 the year of the tax increase.  A whole host of tax cuts that Congress established between 2001 and 2003 are set to expire in January unless Congress chooses to renew them.  But with Democrats firmly in control of both houses that appears to be extremely unlikely.  These tax increases are going to affect every single American (at least those who actually pay taxes).  But this will be just the first wave of tax increases.  Another huge slate of tax increases passed in the health care reform law is scheduled to go into effect by 2019.  So Americans that are already infuriated by our tax system are only going to become more frustrated in the years ahead.  The reality is that the U.S. government will soon be digging much deeper into our wallets.

The following are some of the tax increases that are scheduled to go into effect in 2011….

1 – The lowest bracket for the personal income tax is going to increase from 10 percent to 15 percent.

2 – The next lowest bracket for the personal income tax is going to increase from 25 percent to 28 percent.

3 – The 28 percent tax bracket is going to increase to 31 percent.

4 – The 33 percent tax bracket is going to increase to 36 percent.

5 – The 35 percent tax bracket is going to increase to 39.6 percent.

6 – In 2011, the death tax is scheduled to return.  So instead of paying zero percent, estates of $1 million or more are going to be taxed at a rate of 55 percent.

7 – The capital gains tax is going to increase from 15 percent to 20 percent.

8 – The tax on dividends is going to increase from 15 percent to 39.6 percent.

9 – The “marriage penalty” is also scheduled to be reinstated in 2011.

It is being estimated that the total cost of these tax increases to U.S. taxpayers will be $2.6 trillion through the year 2020.

Ouch!

But wait, there are even more tax increases coming.

The “health care reform law” contains over a dozen new taxes that will be implemented in stages over the next decade.  When you add all of these taxes to the taxes that were mentioned earlier, the result is going to be absolutely devastating.  According to an analysis by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation the health care reform law will generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes by the year 2019.

Double ouch!

So is it any wonder why the public has such a low opinion of the U.S. Congress?

Every single major poll done on the topic shows that approval ratings for Congress are at record lows.

For example, Gallup’s 2010 Confidence in Institutions poll found Congress ranking dead last out of the 16 institutions rated this year.

Of course there are a whole host of reasons why the American people are upset with Congress, but one of the big ones is the fact that we are literally being taxed to death.

However, it is not just federal income taxes that are killing us.

In a previous article entitled “Taxed Enough Already!”, we listed just a few of the taxes that Americans have to pay each year….

Accounts Receivable Tax

Building Permit Tax

Capital Gains Tax

CDL license Tax

Cigarette Tax

Corporate Income Tax

Court Fines (indirect taxes)

Dog License Tax

Federal Income Tax

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

Fishing License Tax

Food License Tax

Fuel permit tax

Gasoline Tax

Gift Tax

Hunting License Tax

Inheritance Tax

Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)

IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

Liquor Tax

Local Income Tax

Luxury Taxes

Marriage License Tax

Medicare Tax

Payroll Taxes

Property Tax

Real Estate Tax

Recreational Vehicle Tax

Road Toll Booth Taxes

Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)

Sales Taxes

School Tax

Septic Permit Tax

Service Charge Taxes

Social Security Tax

State Income Tax

State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)

Telephone federal excise tax

Telephone federal universal service fee tax

Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes

Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax

Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax

Telephone state and local tax

Telephone usage charge tax

Toll Bridge Taxes

Toll Tunnel Taxes

Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)

Trailer registration tax

Utility Taxes

Vehicle License Registration Tax

Vehicle Sales Tax

Watercraft registration Tax

Well Permit Tax

Workers Compensation Tax

Are you dizzy yet?

The reality is that the American people are being drained in dozens and dozens of different ways.

But what did you expect?

Did you think that our politicians would pile up the biggest debt in the history of the world and never ask you to pay for it?

Did you think that we could run deficits equivalent to about 10 percent of GDP without ever seeing tax increases?

The truth is that the U.S. government needs a whole lot more money than even these new tax increases will bring in.

After all, it is being projected that the U.S. government will be spending $2 trillion on the interest on the national debt alone by the year 2020.

To put that in perspective, the entire budget for the U.S. government is less than $4 trillion for 2010.

Are you starting to get the picture?

In the years ahead the IRS is going to be digging deeper and deeper into our pockets and a gigantic chunk of that money is going to go directly into the pockets of those who own our debt.

But very few Americans wanted to listen when this problem was actually somewhat fixable 20 or 30 years ago.

So now we are all going to pay the price – literally.

GunMagWarehouse.com

One Economic Chart That You Should Permanently Burn Into Your Memory

Today most Americans are completely obsessed with the silliest of things.  They wonder how Lindsay Lohan is going to fare in jail and they agonize over who LeBron James is going to play basketball for.  But when it comes to the things that really matter, most Americans are completely clueless.  For example, while most Americans would agree that we are experiencing difficult economic times right now, most of them would also argue that our economic system is in fundamentally good shape and that things will get back to “normal” at some point.  Those of us who are trying to warn America of the impending economic nightmare are dismissed as “doom and gloomers” and “conspiracy theorists”.  But of course, as with so many things, the passage of time will tell who was right and who was wrong.  Below there is a chart that I want all of you to burn into your memory.  It is a chart of total U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP from 1870 until 2009.  This chart clearly and succinctly communicates the horror of the debt bubble that we are currently dealing with.  When this debt bubble pops, it is going to make the Great Depression look like a Sunday picnic.

As you can see from the chart below, the total of all debt (government, business and consumer) is now somewhere in the neighborhood of 360 percent of GDP.  Never before has the United States faced a debt bubble of this magnitude…. 

Most of us were not alive during the Great Depression, but those who were remember how incredibly painful it was for America to deleverage and bring the economic system back into some type of balance.

So if our current debt bubble is far worse, what kind of economic horror is ahead for us?

But the truth is that we are facing some circumstances that even the folks back during the Great Depression did not have to deal with….

1 – Back in the 1930s, tens of millions of Americans lived on farms or knew how to grow their own food.  Today the vast majority of Americans are totally dependent on the system for even their most basic needs.

2 – A vast horde of Baby Boomers is expecting to retire, and the “Social Security trust fund” has nothing but 2.5 trillion dollars of government IOUs in it.  According to an official U.S. government report, rapidly growing interest costs on the U.S. national debt together with spending on major entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare will absorb approximately 92 cents of every dollar of federal revenue by the year 2019.  This is a financial tsunami the likes of which Americans back in the 1930s could never have even dreamed of.

3 – American workers never had to compete for jobs with workers on the other side of the world back in the 1930s.  But today, millions upon millions of our jobs have been “outsourced” to China, India and a vast array of third world nations where desperate workers are more than happy to slave away for big global corporations for less than a dollar an hour.  How in the world are American workers supposed to compete with that?

4 – Back in the 1930s, there was nothing like the gigantic derivatives bubble that hangs over us today.  The total value of all derivatives worldwide is estimated to be somewhere between 600 trillion and 1.5 quadrillion dollars.  The danger that we face from derivatives is so great that Warren Buffet has called them “financial weapons of mass destruction”.  When this bubble pops there won’t be enough money in the entire world to fix it.

5 – During the Great Depression, the United States economy was relatively self-contained.  But today we truly do live in a global economy.  Unfortunately that means that a severe economic crisis in one part of the world is going to affect us as well.  Right now, the United States is far from alone in dealing with a massive debt crisis.  Greece, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Portugal and a number of other European nations are in real danger of actually defaulting on their debts.  Japan (the third biggest economy in the world) is on the verge of complete and total economic collapse.  So what happens to the U.S. economy when the dominoes start to fall? 

The truth is that by almost any measure, we are in worse economic condition than we were right before the beginning of the Great Depression.  We have been living way beyond our means and the debts we have been piling up are clearly not anywhere close to sustainable. 

Did you think that we could just continue to run deficits equal to 10 percent of GDP forever?

Of course not.

The U.S. economy is being driven off a cliff, but America’s “ruling class” has insisted all along that they know better than we do. 

But the truth is that in the final analysis it is not us that they care about.

What they do actually care about is getting more money and more power for themselves and for other members of the ruling class.  Today, 10,000 people make 30% of the total income in the United States each year.

That leaves 70% of the pie for the remaining 99.99% of us to divide up.

The reality is that however you want to slice it, the U.S. economic system is broken.  However, considering the fact that America’s ruling class has a stranglehold on both major political parties, we are not likely to see any fundamental changes any time soon.

That is very unfortunate, because time is running out on the U.S. economy.

Budget Cuts?

As violent protests erupted outside, the leaders of the world’s largest economies plotted the future course of the global economy at this weekend’s G20 summit.  So what was decided?  Well, according to various reports in the mainstream media, it was the “deficit hawks” who got their way.  Apparently the consensus of the G20 meetings was that a round of tough budget cuts is the medicine that the world economy needs.  In fact, the G20 leaders all pledged to cut their respective budget deficits in half by 2013.  Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, one of the key advocates of budget cuts, said that the G20 nations need to walk a “tightrope” between stimulating their economies and debt reduction.  But as the largest economies around the globe transition from reckless government spending to budget reductions and austerity measures, what is that really going to mean for the world economy?

Well, the truth is that as good as “budget cuts” sound, they can have some very nasty short-term side effects.

You see, there is no getting around the fact that whenever governments spend more money it is good for economic growth.  The problem is that a large number of governments around the globe have been consistently spending way beyond their means for decades and now they find themselves up to their eyeballs in debt.

The exploding sovereign debt levels around the globe are not sustainable by any definition, and so it was undeniable that something had to be done.

In fact, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso put it quite succinctly during the G20 meetings in Toronto when he told the press the following….

“There is no more room for deficit spending.”

The reality is that nations such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy are already on the verge of default.  Japan has accumulated so much debt that it makes headlines almost constantly in the newspapers over there.  The exploding U.K. debt was one of the key factors that enabled the Conservatives to take power in the most recent election.

But nobody has more debt than the United States.  As of June 1st, the U.S. National Debt was $13,050,826,460,886.97.  The U.S. government has accumulated the most colossal mountain of debt the world has ever seen and it is exploding at a rate that is breathtaking.

So, yes, the largest economies of the world have a major problem with government debt.

But are budget cuts and austerity measures the correct solution?

It depends who you ask.

The reality is that the U.S., the U.K. and many of the other most powerful economies in the world now find themselves between a rock and a hard place.

If they continue recklessly going into debt their economies will continue to be stimulated (at least to some degree), but interest expenses will continue to spiral upwards and borrowing costs will go through the roof as credit ratings fall.  In the end, nation after nation would end up defaulting and the world financial system would crash hard.

However, if the G20 nations actually do implement the hard budget cuts that are necessary to get their debts under control, it will suck a ton of money out of the system and could send the already vulnerable global economy into a devastating deflationary depression.

The truth is that neither option is a good option.

Either path is going to contain a good amount of economic pain.

So what do you do when there is no good solution?

Stephen Lewis of Monument Securities recently argued that the path of “fiscal stimulus” has been totally played out and so there is no good reason to continue to go down that path….

“Growth could be negative again as soon as the fourth quarter. There is no easy way out since fiscal stimulus has already been pushed as far as it can credibly go without endangering US credit-worthiness.”

However, Chris Whalen, a former Federal Reserve official and now head of Institutional Risk Analytics says that unless the printing presses are quickly cranked up again we are definitely headed for deflation….

“The party is over from fiscal support. These hard-money men are fighting the last war: they don’t recognise that money velocity has slowed and we are going into deflation. The only default option left is to crank up the printing presses again.”

So what is the right answer?

For now, G20 leaders have decided that budget cuts and austerity measures are the right answer.

Not that Barack Obama and U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke didn’t fight behind the scenes for additional “stimulus” for the world economy.

You see, when it comes to “Helicopter Ben”, his first instinct is to always pump more money into the economy.  In fact, according to one major U.K. newspaper, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has been fighting an intense behind the scenes war for control of U.S. monetary policy.  Bernanke is reportedly frightened that the U.S. could be headed for a deflationary spiral and has been pushing the idea of a fresh injection of money into the U.S. economy.

But for now Bernanke has lost.  Barack Obama has joined the other leaders of the G20 in promising to cut their budget deficits by 50 percent by 2013.

Not that we are actually going to see that happen.

We all know how reliable Barack Obama’s promises are.  He was busy breaking his 2008 campaign promises before he was even sworn in.

And the day will come when Barack Obama needs to turn the economy around in order to win some votes, and when that day arrives the temptation to “stimulate” the economy with some more government spending will prove irresistible.

But for the moment, Obama is lining up with the other G20 leaders and is swearing that he is going to get spending under control.

That should settle world financial markets down for the moment, but the reality is that as all of the major economies around the world suddenly see a dramatic reduction in government spending, a substantial economic slowdown will be inevitable.

When the world economy slows down, unemployment will spike, the global real estate mess will get even worse and “austerity riots” could even break out in many areas of the globe.

So at some point, the pendulum will once again swing back towards “stimulus” and world leaders will indulge their debt addictions once again.  But that will only make the long-term global economic problems even worse.

The truth is that the entire world economic system is broken.  It is built on a fraudulent pyramid of debt, derivatives, central banking and paper money that is doomed to fail.  But world leaders will continue to keep it alive for as long as they can.

Right now their big solution is to get all of the major industrialized nations to agree to huge budget cuts.  These budget cuts, if they are actually implemented, are very likely to lead to a severe economic slowdown and potentially even a deflationary depression.

But continuing on the path that the G20 leaders were on would have resulted in a wave of sovereign defaults and hyperinflationary meltdowns.

So the G20 leaders have decided to change course and they are hoping that they can navigate the economic minefield ahead and bring our economies through all of this okay.

But in the end they are going to fail.

Stimulus Waste

Back in February 2009, the U.S. Congress passed an $862 billion “economic stimulus” bill to help the struggling American economy recover from the horrible financial crisis of 2007 and 2008.  Right now, federal agencies are spending this stimulus money at the rate of approximately 196 million dollars an hour, and they will continue to spend it in staggering amounts up until the September 30, 2010 deadline.  Unfortunately, instead of being spent on useful projects that would revitalize U.S. industry and put American workers back to work, much of this money is being flushed directly down the toilet on some of the most wasteful projects imaginable.  The truth is that nobody is better at wasting money than the U.S. government.  In fact, some of the things that the U.S. government has been spending money on are absolutely mind blowing. 

The following are just some of the examples of “stimulus waste” that we have seen over the last 16 months….   

*Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida used $15,551 in stimulus money to pay two researchers to study how alcohol affects a mouse’s motor functions.

*The U.S. government handed over a staggering $54 million in “stimulus cash” to Connecticut’s politically-connected Mohegan Indian tribe, which runs one of the highest grossing casinos in the country.

*Syracuse professor of psychology Michael Carey received $219,000 in federal stimulus money for a study that examines the sex patterns of college women. 

*$1.15 million in stimulus funds was allocated for the installation of a new guard rail around the non-existent Optima Lake in Oklahoma.

*Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo received $389,000 to pay 100 residents of Buffalo $45 each to record how much malt liquor they drink and how much pot they smoke each day.  Instead of spending nearly $400,000, the U.S. government could have achieved the same goal by having a couple of scientists join a fraternity.

*$100,000 in federal stimulus funds were used for a martini bar and a brazilian steakhouse.

*A dinner cruise company in Chicago got nearly $1 million in stimulus funds to combat terrorism.

*$233,000 in stimulus money went to the University of California at San Diego to study why Africans vote.

*The Cactus Bug Project at the University Of Florida was allocated $325,394 in stimulus funds to study the mating decisions of cactus bugs.  According to the project proposal, one of the questions that will be answered by the study is this: “Whether males with large weapons are more or less attractive to females.”

*One Denver developer received $13 million in tax credits to construct a senior housing complex despite that fact that the same developer is being sued as a slumlord for running rodent-infested apartment buildings in the city of San Francisco.

*Sheltering Arms Senior Services was awarded a contract worth $22.3 million in stimulus money to weatherize homes for poor families in Houston, Texas – but a new report from Texas Watchdog says that the weatherization work was performed so badly that 33 of the 53 homes will need to be completely redone.

*A liberal theater in Minnesota named “In the Heart of the Beast” (in reference to a well known quote by communist radical Che Guevara) received $100,000 for socially conscious puppet shows.

*California’s inspector general found that $1 million in stimulus funds for a program to give summer jobs to young people was improperly used for overhead expenses such as rent and utility bills.

*Landon Cox, a Duke University assistant professor of computer science, was awarded $498,000 in stimulus money to study Facebook.

*The town of Union, New York is being urged to spend $578,000 in stimulus money that it did not request for a homelessness problem that it claims it does not have.

*Lastly, who could forget the $3.4 million “ecopassage” to help turtles cross a highway in Tallahassee, Florida?

Yes, the U.S. government sure knows how to waste money.

And the truth is that there is simply no way that the U.S. government would have been able to accumulate a debt of over $13 trillion dollars (and growing exponentially) without being incredibly skilled at wasting money.

In fact, the Pentagon says that there are literally trillions of dollars that it cannot account for.

Now how in the world do you lose track of trillions of dollars?

That takes some major league incompetence.

It is enough to make you want to pull your hair out.  We were once the wealthiest, most prosperous nation on the planet, but we have recklessly squandered our great wealth.  Over and over we kept voting for corrupt politicians who endlessly wasted our money on the most ridiculous things.

So now we will pay the price.

We are already being taxed brutally, but because of all the debt our “leaders” have gotten us into we are going to be taxed even more.  We did not demand accountability from our government, and so now we get to face the consequences.

But no amount of taxes will ever be enough for this government.  If we give them more money they just take that as a signal to get into even more debt.  As a nation we are on a path that can only be described as financial insanity.

So is there any hope that the U.S. government will stop wasting so much money?  Not with the current collection of Republicans and Democrats that currently inhabit Washington D.C. 

The truth is that both parties have been wasting our money for decades.  Many politicians will often talk about the need to “control spending”, but when time comes to do it very few of them are ever willing to take action.

So until the American people decide to start sending a different kind of politician to Washington D.C. we are probably going to continue to see huge mountains of money being wasted. 

Wake up America. 

U.S. National Debt 2010

So just how big is the U.S. national debt in 2010?  Well, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, on June 1st the U.S. National Debt was $13,050,826,460,886.97.  For those not used to seeing such big numbers, that is over 13 trillion dollars.  To give you an idea of just how much a trillion dollars is, if you had started spending one million dollars every single day when Christ was born, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.  And yet somehow the U.S. government has accumulated a debt of over 13 trillion dollars.  This is a debt that we have callously placed on the backs of future generations of Americans.  Somehow we have the gall to expect our progeny to pay off the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  What we have done to future generations is beyond sickening.

But hey, if you are feeling especially generous today, the federal government is actually taking online donations that will go towards paying off the national debt.

Yes, it is true.

Please try to resist the urge to laugh.

This request comes from the same government that spent $2.6 million tax dollars to study the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes and $400,000 tax dollars to pay researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires, Argentina to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior when drunk.

Perhaps they should not hold their breath while waiting for our donations to show up.

Or perhaps they should get their own house in order before expecting donations.

But the truth is that they continue to recklessly spend our money as if they have not learned anything.

This year, it is projected that the U.S. government will issue nearly as much new debt as the rest of the governments of the world combined.

Yes, getting into debt is another thing that we Americans dominate the rest of the world in.

It is estimated that the U.S. government will have a budget deficit of approximately 1.6 trillion dollars in 2010.

Now remember, when Ronald Reagan took office, the U.S. national debt was only about 1 trillion dollars.

So, from the founding of the United States until Reagan took office we accumulated a total of about 1 trillion dollars in debt.

In just the last 30 years we have accumulated 12 trillion dollars more.

You know, the truth is that it is really, really hard to even spend one trillion dollars.

If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

Hopefully that gives you an idea just how fast the U.S. government is getting us into debt.

And now we are officially in the danger zone.

According to Dr. Jerome Corsi,  the U.S. national debt is now equal to 90 percent of gross domestic product.

Most economists consider a level of 100 percent debt to GDP to be an absolute nightmare scenario.

But things look even worse when you total up all forms of debt in the United States.

The total of all government, corporate and consumer debt in the United States is now equal to 360 percent of GDP.

That is far greater than at any point during the Great Depression.

Yes, we are in a LOT of trouble.

So can we just raise taxes on everybody just a little bit and get rid of this budget deficit?

Well, unfortunately no.

According to the Tax Foundation’s Microsimulation Model, to erase the U.S. budget deficit for 2010, the U.S. Congress would have to multiply the tax rate for every American by 2.4.

That would mean that the 10 percent tax rate would become 24 percent, the 15 percent tax rate would become 36 percent, and the 35 percent tax rate would have to be 85 percent.

Would you like to pay 85 percent of your income in taxes?

And that would not reduce the national debt one penny – all that would do is eliminate the U.S. budget deficit for this year.

The truth is that it is simply not possible to pay off the national debt.  Most economists realize this and speak of more realistic goals such as getting our debt growth down to a level that is “sustainable”.

But the reality is that we are way beyond being able to get this debt under control.  If the U.S. government cut spending enough to make a real difference it would crush the economy and tax revenue would take a sharp nosedive.  If the U.S. government borrows even more money and increases government spending even more it will help the economy in the short-term, but it will make our long-term problems even worse.

No, the truth is that we have created an economic nightmare from which there simply is no escape under the current system.  The national debt will never be repaid and the never ending spiral of debt and paper money that we have created is doomed to failure.

So what will happen someday when the current economic system does collapse?

That will be for the American people to decide.  Hopefully they will learn from our mistakes and will return to our constitutional roots and devise a financial system based on solid economic principles.

How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It

Fed Up

Do you ever get to the point where you are just fed up with the way that things are headed?  There are times when it seems as if we are all stuck in some kind of horrific nightmare that we can’t wake up from.  Day after day we get the privilege of watching our esteemed leaders down in Washington D.C. wreck the U.S. economy, push us towards socialism and globalism, and slowly erode our constitutional freedoms.  Day after day we get the privilege of watching corruption and greed run wild down on Wall Street.  Day after day those of us who are awake to what is going on find ourselves increasingly frustrated with the vast majority of Americans who are either too dazed, too drugged or too asleep to even care that the great nation that their forefathers built is in the process of crumbling all around them.  Not that there aren’t some promising signs out there.  Certainly Rand Paul’s recent victory in Kentucky shows that the American people are not automatically going to vote for the candidates backed by the establishment anymore.  But it seems like every piece of good news these days is accompanied by a dozen news stories that are so bad that they make you want to scream.  It is incredibly frustrating that tens of millions of Americans who bust their backs working incredibly long hours, who try to do what is right, and who truly do love their country are going to pay the price for the errors of a bunch of idiots down in Washington D.C. and New York.  The America that so many of us grew up in love with (the once great Republic with the greatest free enterprise system in the world) is being strangled out of existence by a horde of globalists, socialists and elitists.  Well, there are millions of us who are fed up.  I am fed up.  So today you are going to get an “editorial”.  Actually what you are going to get is an old-fashioned rant.  But the truth is that we live during times when ranting is appropriate.  Feel free to express your agreement or disagreement with the various things I am going to rant about below.  Hopefully if enough people start talking about these things, the American people will wake up and start taking their country back.

So exactly what am I fed up about?   

I’m fed up with politicians in Washington D.C. who prance around and talk about what a good job they are doing while they pile up the biggest debt in the history of the world.  We are stealing trillions of dollars from future generations, and if they get the chance they will curse us for the horrific debt that we have left them. 

I’m fed up with an unelected, privately-owned central bank issuing and controlling the currency of the United States.  Nobody but the U.S. government should be issuing U.S. dollars.  The reality is that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is, and the international bankers have used it for decades to transfer the wealth of the nation into their own pockets.

I’m fed up with being told that the money I have worked so hard to earn needs to be “redistributed” to people who wouldn’t know a hard day of work if it came up and bit them on the rear.

I’m fed up with Tea Party activists who believe in the Constitution and who desperately want to see a return to the ideals that the American republic was founded upon being labeled as “extremists” by the media while those who are pushing a socialism and globalism on America are referred to as “centrist” and “mainstream”.

I’m fed up with anyone who suggests that it is a good idea for the government to get to look at an image of our naked bodies before we are allowed to get on an airplane.

I’m fed up with hearing that there are banks that are “too big to fail” and that it is necessary for tax money taken from me to be used to bail them out.

I’m fed up with a financial system that is so rigged that four of the biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) can have a “perfect quarter” with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.

I’m fed up with a financial system where the Dow can plunge nearly 1000 points in a single hour and nobody can seem to be able to figure out what happened.

I’m fed up with being told that I need to reduce my “carbon footprint” when carbon dioxide does not cause global warming and over 95% of total carbon dioxide emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth.

I’m fed up with people telling me that we should be glad to pay all the new taxes in the “health care reform” law because socialized medicine is such a good idea.   

I’m fed up with the open manipulation of the gold and silver markets right under the noses of the federal government.

I’m fed up with politicians that spend money in order to get votes without any concern for the financial future of this nation whatsoever.

I’m fed up with a government that can protect the South Korean border so well that not a single person gets through illegally for decades, and yet has done such a bad job of protecting our own border that Phoenix, Arizona has become the car theft capital of the world.

I’m fed up with a government that is so embarrassed by the recent anti-illegal immigration law passed in Arizona that they apologize to the communist Chinese for it.

I’m fed up with yuppies who went out and bought McMansions that they could not possibly afford whining and crying now that they are losing their houses.

I’m fed up with politicians shipping our manufacturing base to the third world and then pretending that it is our fault when we can’t get jobs.

I’m fed up with people telling me how wonderful “free trade” and “the global economy” are while our once great manufacturing cities such as Detroit turn into rusted-out war zones.

I’m fed up with international organizations such as the IMF and the WHO telling us that they want the American people to start paying global taxes.

I’m fed up with politicians being treated like celebrities and rock stars when they are actually leading American right into the toilet.

I’m fed up with a president and a Congress that are rapidly dismantling the strategic nuclear arsenal that has helped keep America safe for decades.

I’m fed up with politicians who run over to China and beg them to keep buying even more of our debt.

I’m fed up with the United Nations and members of the U.S. government claiming that there are far too many people in the world and that we need to promote population control measures all over the globe.

I’m fed up with a Supreme Court that has absolutely no respect at all for the personal property rights of ordinary Americans.

I’m fed up with a government that insists that freakishly-altered genetically modified crops are good for us, and that allows companies like Monsanto to ruthlessly push these “Frankenfoods” on to dinner tables all across the United States.

I’m fed up with a public that is far more interested in the death of Michael Jackson and in what is going on with Jon & Kate than in the absolutely crucial economic and political issues that directly affect them and their families. 

I’m fed up with a government that is so incompetent when it comes to foreign policy that Russia and China are literally running circles around them.

I’m fed up with a government that allows nearly a million innocent babies to be killed year in and year out.

I’m fed up with watching Wall Street bankers rake in record-setting bonuses while nearly 40 million Americans are on food stamps.

I’m fed up with a national debt that is impossible to pay off, a dollar that has lost over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created and a financial system that is designed to fail.

If you don’t understand why the U.S. economic system is doomed, you should check out the video posted below.  The inevitable collapse of the U.S. financial system is beautifully illustrated in this brand new documentary entitled “Meltup”.  It is one of the best videos on the economic crisis that America is facing that has ever been posted on YouTube.  This video is likely to make you very mad, but after watching it you will have a much greater understanding of the economic nightmare that the United States is now facing….

So are you fed up too? Please feel free to leave a comment telling us what you are upset about….

11 Signs That The U.S. Government Has Become An Overgrown Monstrosity That Almost Every American Is Dependent Upon For Economic Survival

Today, the number of Americans who are able to financially survive without any reliance on the U.S. government whatsoever is declining at a staggering rate.  Whether it is through direct handouts, entitlement programs, student loans, government bailouts, government contracts or direct employment, the truth is that now a solid majority of the American people are at least partially dependent on the federal government for their economic survival.  The sad thing is that the majority of the American people say that there is too much government in their lives when opinion polls are taken, but if you try to take the government check that they are getting away from them those same people will scream bloody murder.  But the truth is that it is getting to be really, really hard to be completely independent of the U.S. government economically.  That is because the U.S. government has their hands in almost everything.  The ideal of a “limited federal government” has long since faded away.  Very few people seem to believe in it anymore.  Instead, Americans today look to the federal government as the answer to all of our problems, as the provider of all of our needs, and as the regulator of every single detail of our lives. 

The U.S. government has become the “Big Mother” that we all scramble to for a handout when we get into trouble.

When you sit down and really analyze it, you quickly realize that there is no way that the U.S. government can be extricated from the U.S. economy now.  Instead of the free enterprise system that we once had in this country, today we have a situation where the U.S. government has become the very core of the economy.  It is the hub around which everything else in the economy revolves.

You don’t believe this?

The following are 11 signs that the U.S. government has become an overgrown monstrosity that almost every American is dependent upon for economic survival…. 

#1) The Explosion Of Government Handouts

39.68 million Americans are now on food stamps.  Millions of others are completely dependent on the extended unemployment benefits that they are receiving.  Millions of other Americans are able to survive financially because of the dozens of other welfare programs that the U.S. government subsidizes.  More Americans are receiving some form of welfare than ever before in history, and each month the numbers continue to go up.  Could there come a day when we all receive government handouts every month?

#2) The Entitlements Programs That Threaten To Destroy U.S. Government Finances

Entitlements are the single biggest U.S. government expense.  These programs include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social Ponzi schemes.  Tens of millions of Americans receive government assistance through these programs.  In fact, nearly 51 million Americans received $672 billion in Social Security benefits in 2009.  We all have friends or family members who receive these kinds of payments.  But cutting so many people a check year after year is slowly but surely destroying U.S. government finances.  According to an official U.S. government report, rapidly growing interest costs on the national debt together with spending on major entitlement programs will absorb approximately 92 cents of every dollar of federal revenue by the year 2019.  That is before a penny is spent on anything else.  This is clearly not a sustainable financial situation by any definition, but who wants to tell tens of millions of Americans that their checks are going to be reduced?

#3) The U.S. Government Is Now Even Paying Mortgages

Yes, you read that right.  As part of the “stimulus” package, the U.S. government is going to send money to some of the states that were hit the hardest by the real estate crisis.  So what is that money going to be used for?  Well, Florida, Michigan, California and Arizona have all announced that they plan to use $1.4 billion the Obama administration is sending their way to help the unemployed and the “underwater” pay their mortgages.

#4) Without The Student Loan Program A Huge Percentage Of College Students Would Not Get An Education

The federal student loan program (which was recently entirely nationalized) helps millions of college students pay for their education.  Without this assistance by the government, a lot less students would be going to college.  In fact, many of you that are reading this article directly benefited from the federal student loan program.

#5) The Bailout Of AIG

One of the biggest insurance companies in the world, AIG, would not be in existence today if not for direct federal government intervention.  It kind of makes you wonder what George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would think about a federal government that hands big bags of cash to a giant insurance company so that it can survive.  Whether it was so they could pay off their debts to Goldman Sachs or whether it was so that they could keep paying out record-setting bonuses, the truth is that AIG would not have made it without the federal government stepping in.

#6) The “Too Big To Fail” Banks

But it wasn’t just AIG that got bailed out.  A number of big banks may have gone under if not for the U.S. government.  The U.S. government decided that they were “too big to fail”.  Well, what about all the small banks that are going under?  The truth is that they are “too small to bother with”.  We now live in a nation where the U.S. government is the one who decides which banks live and which banks die like dogs.  Doesn’t that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

#7) The Bailout Of General Motors

But not only does the federal government bail out financial institutions – it is also now in the car business.  Yes, grand old General Motors may have ended up on the scrap heap of history if not for the U.S. government stepping in.  So if you work for General Motors or if you work for any company that does business with General Motors, you can thank Uncle Sam for the fact that you still have a job.

#8) The Bailouts Of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

If the U.S. government had not bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we may not have much of a mortgage industry at this point at all.  According to Inside Mortgage Finance, government-related entities backed 96.5% of all home loans during the first quarter of 2010, which was up from 90% in 2009.  So if you borrowed money to buy a home over the past couple of years, there is a very strong likelihood that the U.S. government was involved.

#9) The U.S. Government – The Nation’s Biggest Employer

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 2 million civilians work for the federal government, excluding the Postal Service.  When you add in all U.S. military personnel, that number goes much higher. 

The truth is that as the government continues to expand (become more bloated), more Americans than ever are hopping aboard the gravy train.  Today, the average federal worker now earns about twice as much as the average worker in the private sector.  So if you want to do little work, produce little of real value and enjoy super cushy benefits, maybe you should apply for a job with the federal government too.

#10) Millions Of Americans Are Employed By Firms That Rely On Government Contracts

When considering the impact of the U.S. government on the economy, you can’t forget the hundreds of companies that would go out of business if their U.S. government contracts were taken away.  There are literally millions of people who work for companies that do business with the government.  If the government disappeared it would cause economic chaos for those firms.  The truth is that a whole lot of people make a really good living plugging into the sweetest revenue source of them all – the U.S. government.

#11) The U.S. Government Takeover Of The Health Care System

The U.S. government takeover of the health care system is going to fundamentally change the economics of the health care industry.  The U.S. government will now play a major role in deciding which hospitals get built and which do not.  Approximately 17% of U.S. GDP is spent on health care, and now the U.S. government has unprecedented control over where that money goes.  Over a dozen new taxes have been established by the new health care reform law, and the U.S. government is going to pour an unprecedented amount of money into the system.  So will this result in all of us getting better health care?  We’ll just have to wait and see.

The truth is that the Founding Fathers never envisioned a federal government that completely dominated that national economy.  But that is what we have got.  As of now, only a very small percentage of Americans are still able to say that they are completely financially independent of the U.S. government. 

You see, in economic terms the U.S. government is not just the elephant in the room.  It is the elephant that sat on the room and nearly suffocated everything else out of existence.

As Americans, we live in an economy that is so intertwined with the government that it is impossible to separate the two anymore.

But the really bad news is that the U.S. government is in massive financial trouble.  According to one new report, the U.S. national debt will reach 100 percent of GDP by the year 2015.  Many economists regard that as an incredibly dangerous threshold to cross.

If U.S. government finances collapse, it will mean the collapse of the entire U.S. economy as well.  There is simply no separating the two.  And considering the fact that the U.S. government has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, things don’t look promising.

America is headed for an unprecedented economic collapse, and the U.S. government is leading the way.  If you can get financially independent, now is the time to try to do that, but the reality is that we will all feel massive economic pain when this thing comes crashing down.

Get Ready To Taste The Bitter Side Of Keynesian Economics

Most Americans have no idea what the term “Keynesian economics” means, but the truth is that it has been deeply influencing U.S. economic policy for decades.  Essentially, it is an economic theory that originated with a 20th century British economist named John Maynard Keynes, and it advocates government intervention in the economy in order to smooth out economic cycles.  The general idea was that lower interest rates and increased government spending could be used to increase aggregate demand when the economy was experiencing a downturn, thus increasing economic activity and reducing unemployment.

And you know what?

To a certain degree, Keynesian economic theory actually does work.

Increased government spending DOES stimulate the economy.

But the problem is that governments all over the world decided that they would just run constant budget deficits and stimulate the economy all the time.

All of this debt has brought a temporary prosperity to many of the nations around the globe, but there is one huge problem with debt.

It has to be paid back eventually.

With interest.

So what happens when nations have to start spending huge chunks of their national budgets just to service all the debt that they have piled up?

Well, that is when they taste the bitter side of Keynesian economics.

In fact, we see that starting to happen all over the world right now.

All of a sudden, governments all over the globe are talking about huge budget cuts, pay decreases, and higher taxes.

We all know about what is going on in Greece right now, but suddenly it seems like “austerity measures” are being implemented all over the place.  Just consider the following examples….

*Portugal has pledged to impose fresh austerity measures that include much higher taxes and dramatic budget cuts.

*Barack Obama is personally pressuring Spain to make severe austerity cuts.

*It’s not just Southern Europe that is facing these austerity measures either.  It is being reported that Germans are bracing themselves for a “bitter” round of budget cuts.

*The exploding debt situation in the U.K.was a major issue in the most recent election.  Bank of England governor Mervyn King has even gone so far as to warn that public anger over the “austerity measures” that soon must be implemented in the U.K. will be so painful that whichever party is seen as responsible will be out of power for a generation.

*Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says that United States citizens will soon have to make difficult choices between higher taxes and reduced government spending.

*California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is reportedly planning to seek “terrible cuts” to eliminate an $18.6 billion budget deficit facing the most-populous U.S. state through June 2011.

*In fact, many U.S. states are getting ready for their biggest budget cuts in decades.

Austerity measures for everyone?

That is the way it is shaping up.

So what happens when austerity measures are implemented?

Well, just as Keynesian economics correctly predicts that economic growth goes up when government spending increases, it also correctly tells us that economic growth goes down when government spending decreases.

So all of these austerity measures are going to mean economic pain for a whole lot of people.

Not only that, but there are now whispers that this European debt crisis could potentially cause the break up of the euro.

Whether or not that is actually the case, officials in Europe are sure seizing on this crisis to advocate for increased centralization of power in the EU.

For example, senior administrators of the European Union are proposing that they be given unprecedented power to scrutinize the spending plans of member countries before national parliaments can vote on those budgets.

Talk about a loss of sovereignty.

But not only that, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has come right out and said that he believes that the European Union must become a federalized fiscal union if it is to survive.

Doesn’t it seem like whenever there is a crisis the solution that is always being proposed is to give centralized institutions even more power?

There has also been talk that nations such as Greece could end up being ejected from the euro, but the reality is that such a scenario is not very likely.

For one thing, the ECB has already come out and said that under current EU law, ejection of a nation from the monetary union is “legally next to impossible”.

In addition, leaders throughout Europe realize that if the euro fails then the entire EU may fail as well.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel made this very clear when she recently warned that if the euro collapses, “then Europe and the idea of European union will fail.”

For many in Europe that would seem like a disaster, but the truth is that it would be a wonderful, wonderful thing if the euro failed.

Why?

Because it would represent a major defeat for those who are seeking to drag us towards a “world currency” and a “global government”.

It would also be a huge victory for those who still believe in national sovereignty and the decentralization of economic power.

So let us hope that the euro breaks up.

But don’t count on it.

Meanwhile, the one thing that we can count on is all of the economic pain that all of these new austerity measures are going to bring.

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