You better get ready, because there are a whole host of signs that economic trouble is on the horizon. U.S. economic growth slipped into negative territory during the fourth quarter of 2012. That was the first time that has happened in more than three years. Several important measures of manufacturing activity have also contracted in recent weeks, and consumer confidence is way down. There is a tremendous amount of economic pessimism in the air right now, and Americans are pulling enormous amounts of money out of our banks and they are buying up precious metals at unprecedented rates. Meanwhile, our “leaders” seem very confused about what is happening. For example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continues to insist that we are “in a recovery“, and some other Democrats are calling the latest GDP numbers “the best-looking contraction in U.S. GDP you’ll ever see“. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve says that economic growth has “paused” in recent months, and therefore a continuation of their latest quantitative easing scheme is necessary. Well, no matter how hard any of them try to spin the numbers, there is no way that they are going to get them to look good. Despite four years of outrageous “stimulus” spending by the federal government, despite four years of record low interest rates, and despite four years of unprecedented money printing by the Federal Reserve, the U.S. economy continues to perform miserably. Later this year the federal government will probably finally acknowledge that we have entered another recession, even though the truth is that if the federal government used honest numbers they would indicate that we are already in one. In any event, nobody should have ever expected that our debt-fueled prosperity would last forever. When the debt bubble that we have been living in completely bursts, a “recession” will be the least of our worries. (Read More...)
Who Runs The World? Solid Proof That A Core Group Of Wealthy Elitists Is Pulling The Strings
Does a shadowy group of obscenely wealthy elitists control the world? Do men and women with enormous amounts of money really run the world from behind the scenes? The answer might surprise you. Most of us tend to think of money as a convenient way to conduct transactions, but the truth is that it also represents power and control. And today we live in a neo-fuedalist system in which the super rich pull all the strings. When I am talking about the ultra-wealthy, I am not just talking about people that have a few million dollars. As you will see later in this article, the ultra-wealthy have enough money sitting in offshore banks to buy all of the goods and services produced in the United States during the course of an entire year and still be able to pay off the entire U.S. national debt. That is an amount of money so large that it is almost incomprehensible. Under this ne0-feudalist system, all the rest of us are debt slaves, including our own governments. Just look around – everyone is drowning in debt, and all of that debt is making the ultra-wealthy even wealthier. But the ultra-wealthy don’t just sit on all of that wealth. They use some of it to dominate the affairs of the nations. The ultra-wealthy own virtually every major bank and every major corporation on the planet. They use a vast network of secret societies, think tanks and charitable organizations to advance their agendas and to keep their members in line. They control how we view the world through their ownership of the media and their dominance over our education system. They fund the campaigns of most of our politicians and they exert a tremendous amount of influence over international organizations such as the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. When you step back and take a look at the big picture, there is little doubt about who runs the world. It is just that most people don’t want to admit the truth. (Read More...)
Federal Reserve Money Printing Is The Real Reason Why The Stock Market Is Soaring
You can thank the reckless money printing that the Federal Reserve has been doing for the incredible bull market that we have seen in recent months. When the Federal Reserve does more “quantitative easing”, it is the financial markets that benefit the most. The Dow and the S&P 500 have both hit levels not seen since 2007 this month, and many analysts are projecting that 2013 will be a banner year for stocks. But is a rising stock market really a sign that the overall economy is rapidly improving as many are suggesting? Of course not. Just because the Federal Reserve has inflated another false stock market bubble with a bunch of funny money does not mean that the U.S. economy is in great shape. In fact, the truth is that things just keep getting worse for average Americans. The percentage of working age Americans with a job has fallen from 60.6% to 58.6% while Barack Obama has been president, 40 percent of all American workers are making $20,000 a year or less, median household income has declined for four years in a row, and poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding. So quantitative easing has definitely not made things better for the middle class. But all of the money printing that the Fed has been doing has worked out wonderfully for Wall Street. Profits are soaring at Goldman Sachs and luxury estates in the Hamptons are selling briskly. Unfortunately, this is how things work in America these days. Our “leaders” seem far more concerned with the welfare of Wall Street than they do about the welfare of the American people. When things get rocky, their first priority always seems to be to do whatever it takes to pump up the financial markets. (Read More...)
Social Decay + Illegal Immigration + Poverty = Open War On The Streets Of America
What did you think was going to happen? Moral standards have been falling for decades, we have allowed massive hordes of criminals, gang members and drug dealers to enter this country illegally, and thanks to our declining economy our inner cities are being absolutely ravaged by poverty. Was such a combination really going to produce peace and prosperity? Should we be so shocked that we now have open war on the streets of America? In the United States today, there are millions upon millions of young people that can’t find jobs, that are living in poverty, that have no hope for a better future, and that have been raised without any moral standards. These young people are becoming increasingly desperate, and desperate people do desperate things. As I wrote about the other day, for those under the age of 18 living in the city of Detroit the poverty rate is 60 percent. Should we be surprised that Detroit police are now telling people to “enter Detroit at your own risk“. At this point, the FBI says that there are approximately 1.4 million gang members living in our cities. That number has risen by an astounding 40 percent just since 2009. Did we somehow delude ourselves into thinking that there would not be severe consequences for allowing that to happen? Today, Mexican drug cartels are active in more than 1,000 U.S. cities. Are they selling drugs and committing crimes in the area where you live? Well, don’t be so shocked. The federal government has left our border with Mexico wide open for decades even though the most violent drug war on the planet has been raging just across that border. Stupid decisions produce stupid results. Sadly, this is just the beginning. When our economy fully crashes the open warfare on the streets of America is going to get much, much worse. (Read More...)
The U.S. Has An Even Larger Gap Between The Rich And The Poor Than Downton Abbey Does
There are two very different Americas today. In one, the stock market is soaring, high end homes are selling briskly, big banks and hedge funds are rolling in money as if the last financial crisis never even happened, and life is really, really good. In the other America, good jobs are incredibly scarce, incomes are declining, and poverty is skyrocketing to levels that we have never seen before. The gap between the wealthy and the poor in America is getting wider with each passing day. In fact, it is my contention that the U.S. has an even larger gap between the rich and the poor than Downton Abbey does. If you have never seen Downton Abbey, you really should. It is one of the most extraordinary shows to appear on television in years. It is a drama set in the UK which follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants throughout the early part of the 20th Century. It can be a bit jarring to watch servants wait on their masters hand and foot and refer to them by such titles as “Lord” and “Lady”, but the truth is that in many ways there is more inequality today than there was back then. As far as people living in the worst areas of cities such as Detroit and Cleveland are concerned, the socialites that live on Fifth Avenue in New York City or in multi-million dollar homes out in the Hamptons might as well be from another planet. If you have lots of money, America is still a really great place to live. If you barely have any money, America can be really cold and cruel. Sadly, our politicians continue to pursue policies that make things even better for those working for the establishment in places such as Washington D.C. and Manhattan, and worse for all the rest of us. This has especially been true over the course of the past four years. If nothing is done, the gaping chasm between the rich and the poor will continue to get even worse, and in the end that will have some really severe consequences for our society. (Read More...)
Goldman Sachs Made 400 Million Betting On Food Prices In 2012 While Hundreds Of Millions Starved
Why does it seem like wherever there is human suffering, some giant bank is making money off of it? According to a new report from the World Development Movement, Goldman Sachs made about 400 million dollars betting on food prices last year. Overall, 2012 was quite a banner year for Goldman Sachs. As I reported in a previous article, revenues for Goldman increased by about 30 percent in 2012 and the price of Goldman stock has risen by more than 40 percent over the past 12 months. It is estimated that the average banker at Goldman brought in a pay and bonus package of approximately $396,500 for 2012. So without a doubt, Goldman Sachs is swimming in money right now. But what is the price for all of this “success”? Many claim that the rampant speculation on food prices by the big banks has dramatically increased the global price of food and has caused the suffering of hundreds of millions of poor families around the planet to become much worse. At this point, global food prices are more than twice as high as they were back in 2003. Approximately 2 billion people on the planet spend at least half of their incomes on food, and close to a billion people regularly do not have enough food to eat. Is it moral for Goldman Sachs and other big banks such as Barclays and Morgan Stanley to make hundreds of millions of dollars betting on the price of food if that is going to drive up global food prices and make it harder for poor families all over the world to feed themselves? (Read More...)
Does China Plan To Establish “China Cities” And “Special Economic Zones” All Over America?
What in the world is China up to? Over the past several years, the Chinese government and large Chinese corporations (which are often at least partially owned by the government) have been systematically buying up businesses, homes, farmland, real estate, infrastructure and natural resources all over America. In some cases, China appears to be attempting to purchase entire communities in one fell swoop. So why is this happening? Is this some form of “economic colonization” that is taking place? Some have speculated that China may be intending to establish “special economic zones” inside the United States modeled after the very successful Chinese city of Shenzhen. Back in the 1970s, Shenzhen was just a very small fishing village, but now it is a sprawling metropolis of over 14 million people. Initially, these “special economic zones” were only established within China, but now the Chinese government has been buying huge tracts of land in foreign countries such as Nigeria and establishing special economic zones in those nations. So could such a thing actually happen in America? Well, according to Dr. Jerome Corsi, a plan being pushed by the Chinese Central Bank would set up “development zones” in the United States that would allow China to “establish Chinese-owned businesses and bring in its citizens to the U.S. to work.” Under the plan, some of the $1.17 trillion that the U.S. owes China would be converted from debt to “equity”. As a result, “China would own U.S. businesses, U.S. infrastructure and U.S. high-value land, all with a U.S. government guarantee against loss.” Does all of this sound far-fetched? Well, it isn’t. In fact, the economic colonization of America is already far more advanced than most Americans would dare to imagine. (Read More...)
37 Statistics Which Show How Four Years Of Obama Have Wrecked The U.S. Economy
The mainstream media covered the inauguration of Barack Obama with breathless anticipation on Monday, but should we really be celebrating another four years of Obama? The truth is that the first four years of Obama were an absolute train wreck for the U.S. economy. Over the past four years, the percentage of working age Americans with a job has fallen, median household income has declined by more than $4000, poverty in the U.S. has absolutely exploded and our national debt has ballooned to ridiculous proportions. Of course all of the blame for the nightmarish performance of the economy should not go to Obama alone. Certainly much of what we are experiencing today is the direct result of decades of very foolish decisions by Congress and previous presidential administrations. And of course the Federal Reserve has more influence over the economy than anyone else does. But Barack Obama steadfastly refuses to criticize anything that the Federal Reserve has done and he even nominated Ben Bernanke for another term as Fed Chairman despite his horrific track record of failure, so at a minimum Barack Obama must be considered to be complicit in the Fed’s very foolish policies. Despite what the Obama administration tells us, the U.S. economy has been in decline for a very long time, and that decline has accelerated in many ways over the past four years. Just consider the statistics that I have compiled below. The following are 37 statistics which show how four years of Obama have wrecked the U.S. economy… (Read More...)