Police: “Enter Detroit At Your Own Risk”

If you plan on visiting Detroit any time soon, the police have a message for you: “Enter Detroit at your own risk”.  That ominous message was actually emblazoned across the top of a flyer that the Detroit Police Officer Association was passing out prior to a rally on Saturday.  The flyer pointed out that Detroit is the most violent city in the nation and that more homicides are committed in Detroit than anywhere else.  Meanwhile, the number of police officers in Detroit has been steadily decreasing.  There are more murders in Detroit today than there were a decade ago, but the number of police officers in the city has decreased by about 1,000 over that time period.  The remaining police officers are overworked and incredibly frustrated.  But Detroit is far from alone.  All over the nation there are major cities that are reporting a spike in crime even as police budgets are being slashed.  Sadly, this is just the beginning.  As the economy gets even worse, budget cuts will become even more severe and crime will become an even bigger problem. (Read More...)

The Largest Economy In The World Is Imploding Right In Front Of Our Eyes

A devastating economic depression is rapidly spreading across the largest economy in the world.  Unemployment is skyrocketing, money is being pulled out of the banks at an astounding rate, bad debts are everywhere and economic activity is slowing down month after month.  So who am I talking about?  Not the United States – the economy that I am talking about has a GDP that is more than two trillion dollars larger.  It is not China either – the economy that I am talking about is more than twice the size of China.  You have probably guessed it by now – the largest economy in the world is the EU economy.  Things in Europe continue to get even worse.  Greece and Spain are already experiencing full-blown economic depressions that continue to deepen, and Italy and France are headed down the exact same path that Greece and Spain have gone.  Headlines about violent protests and economic despair dominate European newspapers day after day after day.  European leaders hold summit meeting after summit meeting, but all of the “solutions” that get announced never seem to fix anything.  In fact, the largest economy on the planet continues to implode right in front of our eyes, and the economic shockwave from this implosion is going to be felt to the four corners of the earth. (Read More...)

A Jobs Report Conspiracy?

Well, isn’t that convenient?  The Obama campaign desperately needed the last employment report to be released before the election to show that the unemployment rate had fallen below 8 percent, and somehow it magically happened.  Even though non-farm payroll employment only increased by 114,000 last month (not enough to even keep up with population growth), the official unemployment rate fell from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent.  So how did that happen?  Well, the unemployment number is not based on the survey of employers that showed that 114,000 jobs were added to the economy last month.  Rather it is based on a survey of households.  And that survey showed that the total number of Americans employed last month increased by a whopping 873,000 – almost eight times the number that the employer survey showed.  That figure for September (873,000) was the biggest one month increase in 29 years.  And it just happened to come at the exact perfect time for Barack Obama.  So was there a jobs report conspiracy?  Examine the evidence and decide for yourself. (Read More...)

16 Critical Economic Issues That Obama And Romney Avoided During The Debate

Did you watch the presidential debate on Wednesday night?  It is absolutely amazing how they can have an hour and a half debate about the economy and say so little.  It seemed like both candidates were falling all over each other wanting to talk about how much they value education, but will more education really solve our problems?  After all, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor’s degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed in 2011.  So perhaps they should just both agree that education is a good thing and start talking about how to create more jobs for all of us.  If you want to grade the debate from a technical standpoint, clearly Romney was the winner of the debate.  Romney was full of energy and was generally sharp with his answers.  Obama looked like he had just popped a couple of antidepressants and was ready for nap time.  As a result, this might have been the worst blowout in the history of presidential debates.  A CNN/ORC International poll that was taken right after the debate found that 67 percent of all Americans that had watched the debate thought that Romney was the winner.  Never before had any presidential candidate crossed the 60 percent mark in the history of their post-debate polling.  So Romney definitely had a big night.  But the reality is that both candidates were telling the American people what they want to hear.  If either Obama or Romney told the truth about what we are facing they would lose votes, and in a race this tight both of them really want to avoid doing that.  Obama and Romney both desperately want to win this election, and the words that are coming out of their mouths have been carefully crafted to appeal to the “undecided voters” in the swing states.  If you actually believe that they can deliver on everything that they are promising, then you must not have been paying much attention to U.S. politics over the past several decades. (Read More...)

Warnings That A Massive Stock Market Crash Is Imminent

In the financial world, the month of October is synonymous with stock market crashes.  So will a massive stock market crash happen this year?  You never know. The truth is that our financial system is even more vulnerable than it was back in 2008, and financial experts such as Doug Short, Peter Schiff, Robert Wiedemer and Harry Dent are all warning that the next crash is rapidly approaching.  We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world and Wall Street has been transformed into a giant casino that is based on a massive web of debt, risk and leverage.  When that web breaks we are going to see a stock market crash that is going to make 2008 look like a Sunday picnic.  Yes, the Federal Reserve has tried to prevent any problems from erupting in the financial markets by initiating another round of quantitative easing, but 40 billion dollars a month will not be nearly enough to stop the massive collapse that is coming.  This will be explained in detail toward the end of the article.  Hopefully we will get through October (and the rest of this year) without seeing a stock market collapse, but without a doubt one is coming at some point.  Those on the wrong end of the coming crash are going to be absolutely wiped out. (Read More...)

Americans May Be Getting Poorer, But At Least We Are Getting Fatter And Sicker

I know, there really isn’t any good news in that headline.  Americans are steadily getting poorer, fatter and sicker and yet most people continue to operate under the delusion that things are somehow going to get better.  Sadly, not only are we not better off than we were four years ago, the truth is that things have been getting worse for a very long time.  Median household income in the United States has declined for four years in a row, and it has fallen by more than $4000 overall since Barack Obama has been in the White House.  Yet the media insists that we are in the midst of an “economic recovery”.  A higher percentage of Americans are obese or severely obese than ever before, and Baby Boomers are much sicker than their parents were at the same age.  Yet we are supposedly a “health conscious” nation.  Technology is advancing faster than we have ever seen before in human history, but the life expectancy of poor Americans has dropped significantly in recent years.  So exactly what in the world is going on here? (Read More...)

The Federal Reserve Sends Thank You Letters To Congress For Allowing Them To Destroy Our Economy In Secret

The Federal Reserve continues to pump up this “bubble economy” by recklessly printing money and by setting interest rates artificially low, and the U.S. Congress continues to stand aside and allow them to systematically destroy our economy.  The U.S. Congress could choose to end this madness at any time, but the truth is that Congress won’t even pass a law that would allow the American people to see what is going on over at the Federal Reserve.  Congress has voted down every single bill that would authorize a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve.  So the folks over at the Fed will continue to be able to destroy our future in secret.  In fact, back in July Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke actually sent five thank you letters to members of Congress that gave speeches on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives encouraging their fellow lawmakers to vote against the bill to audit the Fed.  Since the U.S. Congress continues to refuse to do anything to hold the Federal Reserve accountable, the Fed will continue to print unprecedented amounts of money, it will continue to set interest rates insanely low and it will continue to pump up the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world.  Unfortunately, all debt bubbles eventually burst, and when this one does it is going to be a financial nightmare unlike anything we have ever seen before. (Read More...)

Why Does Our Society Look Down On Unemployed Men So Much?

If you are unemployed for an extended period of time, people are going to look at you differently.  Unfortunately, this is especially true if you are a man.  In our society, men are primarily defined by “what they do”.  If you have been unemployed for a long period of time, that can make social interactions even more awkward than normal.  Most people will instantly become more uncomfortable around you when they find out that you are unemployed.  Many will look at you with pity, and others will actually look at you with disdain.  Women will not want to date you, and if you are in a relationship unemployment will put a tremendous amount of strain on it.  Once you “don’t have a job”, you will not get the same level of respect from former co-workers, friends, members of your own family and possibly even your own wife.  So why does our society look down on unemployed men so much?  Well, it is generally expected that men are supposed to be the “breadwinners” for their families.  If a woman stays home with the kids nobody has any problems with that, but if men do the same thing it tends to raise eyebrows.  But there is a big problem.  Our economy is not producing enough jobs for everyone.  In fact, there are millions upon millions more workers than there are jobs.  It would be great if this was just a temporary situation, but as I have written about previously, there will never be enough jobs in America ever again.  So there will continually be millions upon millions of men that are looked down upon by society because they can’t get jobs, and as a result we are going to have millions upon millions of men that are constantly battling against soul-crushing despair. (Read More...)