Money

24 Outrageous Facts About Taxes In The United States That Will Blow Your Mind

The U.S. tax code is a complete and utter abomination and it needs to be thrown out entirely.  Nobody in their right mind would ever read the whole thing – it is over 3 million words long.  Each year, Americans spend billions of hours and hundreds of billions of dollars trying to comply with federal tax requirements.  Sadly, it is the honest, hard working Americans in the middle class that always get hit the hardest.  The tax code is absolutely riddled with loopholes that big corporations and the ultra-wealthy use to minimize their tax burdens as much as possible.  Many poor people do not pay any income taxes at all.  The dishonest are rewarded for cheating on their taxes (if they can get away with it) and the ultra-wealthy have moved trillions of dollars to offshore tax havens where they can avoid U.S. taxation altogether.  Our system is incredibly unfair to the millions of hard working people in the middle class and upper middle class that drag themselves out of bed and go to work each day and try to do the right thing.  In addition, the current U.S. tax system is incredibly inefficient, it diverts a tremendous amount of resources away from more valuable economic activities, and it has chased thousands of businesses and trillions of dollars out of the United States.  The U.S. tax code is such a complete and utter mess at this point that it can never be “fixed”.  The only rational thing to do is to abolish it completely, and any politician that tells you otherwise is lying to you.

The following are 24 outrageous facts about taxes in the United States that will blow your mind….

1 – The U.S. tax code is now 3.8 million words long.  If you took all of William Shakespeare’s works and collected them together, the entire collection would only be about 900,000 words long.

2 – According to the National Taxpayers Union, U.S. taxpayers spend more than 7.6 billion hours complying with federal tax requirements.  Imagine what our society would look like if all that time was spent on more economically profitable activities.

3 – 75 years ago, the instructions for Form 1040 were two pages long.  Today, they are 189 pages long.

4 – There have been 4,428 changes to the tax code over the last decade.  It is incredibly costly to change tax software, tax manuals and tax instruction booklets for all of those changes.

5 – According to the National Taxpayers Union, the IRS currently has 1,999 different publications, forms, and instruction sheets that you can download from the IRS website.

6 – Our tax system has become so complicated that it is almost impossible to file your taxes correctly.  For example, back in 1998 Money Magazine had 46 different tax professionals complete a tax return for a hypothetical household.  All 46 of them came up with a different result.

7 – In 2009, PC World had five of the most popular tax preparation software websites prepare a tax return for a hypothetical household.  All five of them came up with a different result.

8 – The IRS spends $2.45 for every $100 that it collects in taxes.

9 – According to The Tax Foundation, the average American has to work until April 17th just to pay federal, state, and local taxes.  Back in 1900, “Tax Freedom Day” came on January 22nd.

10 – When the U.S. government first implemented a personal income tax back in 1913, the vast majority of the population paid a rate of just 1 percent, and the highest marginal tax rate was just 7 percent.

11 – Residents of New Jersey pay $1.64 in taxes for every $1.00 of federal spending that they get back.

12 – The United States is the only nation on the planet that tries to tax citizens on what they earn in foreign countries.

13 – According to Forbes, the 400 highest earning Americans pay an average federal income tax rate of just 18 percent.

14 – Warren Buffett had an effective tax rate of just 17.4 percent for 2010.

15 – The top 20 percent of all income earners in the United States pay approximately 86 percent of all federal income taxes.

16 – Sadly, as Bill Whittle has shown, you could take every single penny that every American earns above $250,000 and it would only fund about 38 percent of the federal budget.

17 – The United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world (35 percent).  In Ireland, the corporate tax rate is only 12.5 percent.  This is causing thousands of corporations to move operations out of the United States and into other countries.

18 – Some tax havens are doing a booming business in setting up sham headquarters for U.S. corporations.  For example, the city of Zug, Switzerland only has a population of 26,000 people but it is the headquarters for 30,000 companies.

19 – In 1950, corporate taxes accounted for about 30 percent of all federal revenue.  In 2012, corporate taxes will account for less than 7 percent of all federal revenue.

20 – In a previous article, I discussed how many of our largest corporations make huge profits and yet pay less than nothing in taxes….

What U.S. corporations are able to get away with is absolutely amazing.

The following figures come directly out of a report by Citizens for Tax Justice.  These are combined figures for the tax years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

During those three years, all of the corporations below made a lot of money.  Yet all of them paid net taxes that were below zero for those three years combined.

How is that possible?  Well, it turns out that instead of paying in taxes to the federal government, they were actually getting money back.

So for these corporations, their rate of taxation was actually below zero.

If you have not seen these before, you are going to have a hard time believing some of these statistics…..

*Honeywell*

Profits: $4.9 billion

Taxes: -$34 million

*Fed Ex*

Profits: $3 billion

Taxes: -$23 million

*Wells Fargo*

Profits: $49.37 billion

Taxes: -$681 million

*Boeing*

Profits: $9.7 billion

Taxes: -$178 million

*Verizon*

Profits: $32.5 billion

Taxes: -$951 million

*Dupont*

Profits: $2.1 billion

Taxes -$72 million

*American Electric Power*

Profits: $5.89 billion

Taxes -$545 million

*General Electric*

Profits: $7.7 billion

Taxes: -$4.7 billion

Are you starting to get the picture?

21 – Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, but not a single penny went to the U.S. government.

22 – Many wealthy Americans hide enormous amounts of money outside the country in order to avoid paying taxes.  According to the IMF, a total of 18 trillion dollars is currently being hidden in offshore banks.

23 – The number of traffic accidents spikes each year right around April 15th.  The following is from a recent Bloomberg article….

Deaths from traffic accidents around April 15, traditionally the last day to file individual income taxes in the U.S., rose 6 percent on average on each of the last 30 years of tax filing days compared with a day during the week prior and a week later, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

24 – Most of the tax debate is focused on income taxes, but the truth is that Americans pay dozens of other taxes every single year.  The following are just a few of the taxes that many Americans pay….

#1 Building Permit Taxes

#2 Capital Gains Taxes

#3 Cigarette Taxes

#4 Court Fines (indirect taxes)

#5 Dog License Taxes

#6 Federal Unemployment Taxes

#7 Fishing License Taxes

#8 Food License Taxes

#9 Gasoline Taxes

#10 Gift Taxes

#11 Hunting License Taxes

#12 Inheritance Taxes

#13 Inventory Taxes

#14 IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)

#15 IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

#16 Liquor Taxes

#17 Luxury Taxes

#18 Marriage License Taxes

#19 Medicare Taxes

#20 Property Taxes

#21 Recreational Vehicle Taxes

#22 Toll Booth Taxes

#23 Sales Taxes

#24 Self-Employment Taxes

#25 School Taxes

#26 Septic Permit Taxes

#27 Service Charge Taxes

#28 Social Security Taxes

#29 State Unemployment Taxes (SUTA)

#30 Telephone Federal Excise Taxes

#31 Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Taxes

#32 Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Taxes

#33 Telephone State And Local Taxes

#34 Tire Taxes

#35 Toll Bridge Taxes

#36 Toll Tunnel Taxes

#37 Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)

#38 Utility Taxes

#39 Vehicle License Registration Taxes

#40 Vehicle Sales Taxes

#41 Workers Compensation Taxes

When you account for all forms of taxation on the federal, state and local levels there are many Americans that pay out more than half of their incomes in taxes.

We are being taxed into oblivion, and yet most Americans do not even realize that it is happening.

It is kind of like being killed by thousands of tiny cuts.

So what do all of these taxes buy us?

They buy us a massively bloated government that wastes money on some of the craziest things imaginable.

Millions of Americans work for the federal government, and yet most of them produce very little of real economic value.  The following comes from a recent National Review article….

By 2005, the federal government employed 14.6 million people: 1.9 million civil servants, 770,000 postal workers, 1.44 million uniformed service personnel, 7.6 million contractors, and 2.9 million grantees. This amounted to a ratio of five and a half “shadow” government employees for every civil servant on the federal payroll. Since 1999, the government had grown by over 4.5 million employees.

According to that same article, when you add in state and local government workers the numbers are even more dramatic….

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 3.8 million full-time and 1.5 million part-time employees on state payrolls. Local governments add a further 11 million full-time and 3.2 million part-time personnel. This means that state and local governments combined employ 19.5 million Americans.

Yes, we do need some government.  For example, without any law enforcement at all our society would descend into complete chaos, and without any military at all we would be completely open to foreign conquest.

In order to have a stable, secure society we do need some government.

However, we definitely do not need the massively bloated government that we have today.

The truth is that most government employees are a drain on the system.  Most of them just push paper around.  I used to work in Washington D.C. so I know what pushing paper around is all about.

And as I wrote about yesterday, there are millions of other Americans that enjoy a comfortable existence at the expense of the federal government without doing any work whatsoever.

Of course the biggest welfare recipients of all are the big corporations.  All forms of corporate welfare should be eliminated immediately.

When are U.S. taxpayers going to get sick and tired of paying for all of this?

Every single year, the federal government, state governments and local governments drain massive amounts of desperately needed money from hard working middle class families.

Then they take that money and spend it on incredibly foolish things.

When are American voters going to stand up and boldly declare that they have been taxed enough already and they aren’t going to take it anymore?

The current tax code is completely and utterly broken and it is beyond repair.

Unfortunately, neither the Republicans or the Democrats are proposing that we should get rid of it.

So we are just going to continue to get more of the same year after year, and it is the middle class that will feel the pain.

Why Is The Heartland Of America Being Ripped To Shreds By Gigantic Tornadoes That Are Becoming More Frequent And More Powerful?

What in the world is going on in the heartland of America?  Spring has barely even begun and we are seeing communities all over America being ripped to shreds by gigantic tornadoes.  A lot of meteorologists claimed that the nightmarish tornado season of 2011 was an “anomaly”, but 2012 is shaping up to be just as bad or even worse.  These tornado outbreaks just seem to keep getting more frequent and more powerful.  For example, several “supercell” tornadoes ripped across the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area on Tuesday.  People all over America were absolutely horrified as they watched footage of these tornadoes toss around tractor trailers as if they were toy trucks.  Personally, I have never seen a tractor trailer tossed 100 feet into the sky before.  This is not normal.  CBS 11 meteorologist Larry Mowry told his viewers that one of these torandoes was “as serious of a tornado we’ve seen in years“.  So why is this happening?  Why is the heartland of America being ripped to shreds by gigantic tornadoes that are becoming more frequent and more powerful?

Up to this point in 2012, at least 57 people have been killed by tornadoes across the country.  Thousands more have been injured and countless homes have been reduced to splinters.  In fact, there have been a couple of small towns that have been essentially wiped off the map by giant tornadoes.

What we are witnessing is not normal.  Prior to the horrific tornadoes that we saw on Tuesday, there had been 326 tornadoes in the United States so far in 2012.  That is about twice as many as usual for this time of the year.

Overall, the United States only sees about 1,200 tornadoes for the entire year usually.  The busiest time of the year for tornadoes is still a way off, and we are on pace for a truly historic year.

But it is not just the number of tornadoes that is the problem.  Many of these tornadoes are immensely powerful.  The following is how the local CBS affiliate described the damage done by the recent tornadoes in Texas….

Multiple tornadoes threw tractor-trailers in the air, ripped the roof off an elementary school, leveled houses and shut down airline traffic out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as one of the worst storms in years hit North Texas Tuesday.

Baseball-sized hail punched holes through car roofs, and a Red Cross spokeswoman warned the breadth of the destruction may not be cleared until well into Wednesday. The mayors of Arlington and Lancaster declared a state of disaster following the storm strike.

There were even reports of massive “debris balls” in Dallas, Ellis, Johnson and Tarrant counties.  These tornadoes picked up huge amounts of debris into the air that were just carried along by the storms.  That must have been an absolutely horrifying sight to behold.

A lot of jaw-dropping footage from these tornadoes has already been posted on the Internet.  For example, the following video shows tractor trailers being tossed about like rag dolls….

Have you ever seen anything like that before in your life?

I know that I haven’t.

Look, one bad year can be dismissed as a coincidence.

But two historically bad years in a row?

Many would call that a trend.

Last year, America experienced one of the worst tornado seasons of all time.  Many Americans will never, ever forget the devastation caused by the tornadoes of 2011.

For example, National Geographic reported that a gigantic F5 tornado that ripped through the Tuscaloosa, Alabama area had winds of up to 260 miles an hour.  If you drive through Tuscaloosa today you can see that they are still trying to recover.

And Joplin, Missouri may never be the same again after what happened to that city last year.  The gigantic tornado that ripped through Joplin was called by some the deadliest single tornado in more than 60 years.

That mammoth tornado ripped a path of destruction through Joplin that was more than a mile wide and more than 6 miles long.  You can see some amazing before and after photographs of Joplin right here.

But people don’t think about what happened to Joplin much anymore because there have been so many other horrific disasters since then.

Overall, 2011 was the worst year for natural disasters in U.S. history.

Many were hoping that there would be a return to normalcy in 2012.

Unfortunately, that simply is not happening.

In 2012, we have already seen one of the worst tornado outbreaks ever recorded in the month of March in all of American history.  A couple of small towns in Indiana were virtually completely wiped out by that outbreak.

Sadly, what we have already seen in Indiana and Texas may just be the warm up act.

The truth is that usually May is the worst month for tornadoes in the United States.

So how bad are things going to get this year?

How many other communities across the nation are going to be absolutely ripped to shreds before tornado season is over this year?

In 2009, there were 1146 tornadoes in the United States.

In 2010, there were 1282 tornadoes in the United States.

In 2011, there were 1691 tornadoes in the United States.

In 2012, we are on pace to far exceed the total we saw in 2011.

So would could be causing all of this?

Do you think that you have a theory that explains these tornadoes?

Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below….

Read This First Before You Decide That Preppers Are Crazy

Do you believe that preppers are a few cards short of a full deck?  Do you assume that anyone that is “preparing for doomsday” does not have their elevator going all the way to the top floor?  Well, you might want to read this first before you make a final decision that all preppers are crazy.  The information that you are about to read shook me up a bit when I first looked it over.  To be honest, I had no idea how incredibly vulnerable our economic system is to a transportation disruption.  I am continually getting emails and comments on my websites asking “how to prepare” for what is coming, so when I came across this information I knew that I had to share it with all of you.  Hopefully what you are about to read will motivate you to prepare like never before, and hopefully you will share this information with others.

Originally, I was going to write an article about the rising unemployment in Europe today.  Did you know that unemployment in the eurozone is now at a 15 year high?  It has risen for 10 months in a row with no end in sight.

But I have written dozens of articles about the economic crisis in Europe already.  So before starting on that article I started thinking of all the “preparation” questions I have been getting lately and I went over and checked out one of my favorite preparation websites: shtfplan.com.

Well, an article had just been posted over there about a report put out by the American Trucker Associations entitled “When Trucks Stop, America Stops“.

I went and found that original report and I was stunned as I read it.

The truth is that our “just in time” inventory and delivery systems leave us incredibly vulnerable to a nationwide disaster.

You see, it is very expensive to hold and store inventory, so most manufacturers and retailers rely on a continual flow of deliveries that are scheduled to arrive “just in time”, and this significantly reduces their operating expenses.

This is considered to be good business practice for manufacturers and retailers, but it also means that if there was a major nationwide transportation disruption that our economic system would grind to a halt almost immediately.

Once store shelves are picked clean, they would not be able to be replenished until trucks could get back on the road.  In the event of a major nationwide disaster, that could be quite a while.

So what could potentially cause a nationwide transportation shutdown?

Well, it is easy to imagine a lot of potential scenarios – a volcanic eruption, a historic earthquake, an EMP attack, a solar megastorm, a war, a major terror attack, an asteroid strike, a killer pandemic, mass rioting in U.S. cities, or even martial law.

If something caused the trucks to stop running, life in America would immediately start changing.

So exactly what would that look like?

The following is an excerpt from the report mentioned above put out by the American Trucker Associations entitled “When Trucks Stop, America Stops“….

*****

A Timeline Showing the Deterioration of Major Industries Following a Truck Stoppage

The first 24 hours

• Delivery of medical supplies to the affected area will cease.
• Hospitals will run out of basic supplies such as syringes and catheters within hours. Radiopharmaceuticals will deteriorate and become unusable.
• Service stations will begin to run out of fuel.
• Manufacturers using just-in-time manufacturing will develop component shortages.
• U.S. mail and other package delivery will cease.

Within one day

• Food shortages will begin to develop.
• Automobile fuel availability and delivery will dwindle, leading to skyrocketing prices and long lines at the gas pumps.
• Without manufacturing components and trucks for product delivery,
assembly lines will shut down, putting thousands out of work.

Within two to three days

• Food shortages will escalate, especially in the face of hoarding and consumer panic.
• Supplies of essentials—such as bottled water, powdered milk, and
canned meat—at major retailers will disappear.
• ATMs will run out of cash and banks will be unable to process
transactions.
• Service stations will completely run out of fuel for autos and trucks.
• Garbage will start piling up in urban and suburban areas.
• Container ships will sit idle in ports and rail transport will be disrupted, eventually coming to a standstill.

Within a week

• Automobile travel will cease due to the lack of fuel. Without autos and busses, many people will not be able to get to work, shop for groceries, or access medical care.
• Hospitals will begin to exhaust oxygen supplies.

Within two weeks

• The nation’s clean water supply will begin to run dry.

Within four weeks

• The nation will exhaust its clean water supply and water will be safe for drinking only after boiling. As a result gastrointestinal illnesses will increase, further taxing an already weakened health care system.

This timeline presents only the primary effects of a freeze on truck travel. Secondary effects must be considered as well, such as inability to maintain telecommunications service, reduced law enforcement, increased crime, increased illness and injury, higher death rates, and likely, civil unrest.

*****

Earlier in the report, the reasons why America’s water supply would be in such jeopardy are described in greater detail….

According to the American Water Works Association, Americans drink more than one billion glasses of tap water per day. For safety and security reasons, most water supply plants maintain a larger inventory of supplies than the typical business. However, the amount of chemical storage varies significantly and is site specific. According to the Chlorine Institute, most water treatment facilities receive chlorine in cylinders (150 pounds and one ton cylinders) that are delivered by motor carriers. On average, trucks deliver purification chemicals to water supply plants every seven to 14 days. Without these chemicals, water cannot be purified and made safe for drinking. Without truck deliveries of purification chemicals, water supply plants will run out of drinkable water in 14 to 28 days. Once the water supply is drained, water will be deemed safe for drinking only when boiled. Lack of clean drinking water will lead to increased gastrointestinal and other illnesses, further taxing an already weakened healthcare system.

Can you see why I always recommend that you make sure that you and your family have access to fresh water and a way to purify it?

This report should be very sobering for all of us.

What would you and your family do if you had no food, no clean water and the stores were shut down because their supplies were gone?

An article by Tess Pennington entitled “Emergency Items: What Will Disappear First” contains a list of 100 things that are likely to disappear from store shelves first.  The following are the first 10 things on her list….

1. Generators (Good ones cost dearly. Gas storage, risky. Noisy…target of
thieves; maintenance etc.)
2. Water Filters/Purifiers
3. Portable Toilets
4. Seasoned Firewood. Wood takes about 6 – 12 months to become dried, for home
uses.
5. Lamp Oil, Wicks, Lamps (First Choice: Buy CLEAR oil. If scarce, stockpile
ANY!)
6. Coleman Fuel. Impossible to stockpile too much.
7. Guns, Ammunition, Pepper Spray, Knives, Clubs, Bats & Slingshots.
8. Hand-can openers, & hand egg beaters, whisks.
9. Honey/Syrups/white, brown sugar
10. Rice – Beans – Wheat

You can find the rest of the list right here.

Most Americans just assume that they will always be able to run out to the supermarket or to Wal-Mart and buy anything that they need.

But if the trucks stop running that will change almost overnight.

After reading the information above, does anyone out there still believe that preppers are crazy?

The truth is that there are good, solid reasons why millions of Americans have been storing up food, water filters and other supplies.

Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and all of us need to get educated about how to prepare for the difficult years that are coming.

One nightmarish event can change everything that we take for granted in a single moment.

Just remember what happened after Hurricane Katrina.  Even though that was only a regional disaster, millions of people had their lives completely turned upside down by that tragedy.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because the U.S. has always known tremendous peace and prosperity since World War II that things will always be that way.

Our lives will only continue to be “normal” as long as the trucks continue running.

When the trucks stop running in America, there will be mass chaos.

Are you prepared for that?

20 Signs That We Are Witnessing The Complete Collapse Of Common Sense In America

What do you do when an entire nation begins to lose the capacity to think rationally?  Many Americans spend a great deal of time criticizing the government, and there is certainly a lot to complain about, but it is not just the government that is the problem.  All over America, people appear to be going insane.  It is almost as if we have been cursed with stupidity.  Sadly, this applies from the very top of our society all the way down to the very bottom.  A lot of us find ourselves asking the following question much more frequently these days: “How could they be so stupid?”  Unfortunately, we are witnessing a complete collapse of common sense all over America.  Many people seem to believe that if we could just get Obama out of office or if we could just reform our economic system that our problems as a nation would be solved, but that is simply not true.  Our problems run much deeper than that.  The societal decay that is plaguing our country is very deep and it is everywhere.  We are a nation that is full of people that do not care about others and that just want to do what is right in their own eyes.  We hold ourselves out to the rest of the world as “the greatest nation on earth” and an example that everyone else should follow, and yet our own house is rotting all around us.  The words “crazy”, “insane” and “deluded” are not nearly strong enough to describe our frame of mind as a country.  America has become a sad, delusional old man that can’t even think straight anymore.  The evidence of our mental illness is everywhere.

The following are 20 signs that we are witnessing the complete collapse of common sense in America….

#1 According to Wired Magazine, FBI agents have been taught that they can “bend or suspend the law” as they pursue criminals and terrorists.  But when they break the law they become criminals themselves.

#2 A TSA manager (not just an agent) at Dulles International Airport was recently discovered to be running a prostitution ring out of a local hotel room.  TSA agents have been charged with crime after crime after crime and yet we continue to allow them to be in charge of airport security.

#3 CBS News is reporting that approximately 200 pieces of luggage a day are being stolen by employees at John F. Kennedy International Airport and authorities still have not been able to stop it.

#4 Visitors to the United States must now pay $14 to complete an online form that asks them a series of really bizarre questions.  For example, one of the questions asks visitors to the U.S. if they ever “collaborated with the Nazis”.

#5 The U.S. military is buying huge amounts of electronic parts from China (mistake number one) and a government investigation has uncovered the fact that a large percentage of these parts are counterfeit.  Yet the U.S.military continues to buy huge amounts of electronic parts from China (mistake number two).

#6 A high school senior in Indiana was recently expelled from school for cussing on Twitter.

#7 Police in Chicago apparently believe that our “First Amendment rights can be terminated” at their discretion.

#8 Americans are becoming very cruel to one another.  This is especially true when it comes to the weak and the elderly.  For example, two “caregivers” down in Georgia were recently charged with waterboarding an 89-year-old woman that had been entrusted to their care….

Police charge two caregivers at a Jonesboro facility with waterboarding an 89-year-old woman.

Clayton County police said Jermeller Steed and Cicely Reed held down Anna Foley after an argument that started over ice cream.

#9 An increasing number of American families are taking out student loans in order to pay for their children’s kindergarten tuition.

#10 One town in Massachusetts plans to distribute free condoms to children as young as 12 years of age.

#11 Children in America are exposed to enormous amounts of sexual material on television these days, but we are always so shocked when they try to act out on it.  The following is one very disturbing example that happened recently in Ohio….

Authorities in southwest Ohio have charged a 13-year-old boy with raping a 5-year-old girl at a McDonald’s play area.

The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office said Monday that the alleged assault occurred Oct. 29 at a McDonald’s in the Cincinnati suburb of Anderson Township. Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Barnett says the girl’s grandmother was nearby in the restaurant at the time.

#12 The following is another example from Indiana of how our sexualized society is affecting our young children….

Fishers police said an 8-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy were caught in a sexual act on a school bus.

The girl’s parents are now trying to determine if the February incident was a rape or molestation.

In a statement, police said a bus aid caught the girl and the boy “trying to have intercourse,” and that the “bus aid immediately separated the juveniles and informed the bus driver.”

#13 According to Natural News, the Michigan state government intends to raid private farms and kill pigs that have “the wrong hair color” even though some of these farmers have been raising these pigs for decades.

#14 An executive order recently updated by the Obama administration would give the federal government complete control over all food, all energy, all health resources, all transportation resources and “all other materials, services, and facilities” at the discretion of Barack Obama.  The wording of the executive order has been changed so that this can now be done even in “non-emergency” situations.  Very few Americans seem concerned by this.

#15 These days many Americans are very hesitant to get involved with helping out anyone else.  For example, an 86-year-old World War II veteran living near Detroit was recently brutally carjacked in broad daylight at a gas station.  He could not walk after the attack because his leg was shattered so he began to crawl across the concrete pavement to get help.  Sadly, many people walked past and drove past as if he was not even there.

#16 At one airport in Hawaii, TSA agents recently required one new mother to go to a public restroom and fill up the empty baby bottles she was carrying with her own breast milk before they would allow her to get on to her flight.  The following is how one local news station described the incident….

She claims agents told her she couldn’t take the pump on the plane because the bottles in her carry-on were empty.

“I asked him if there was a private place I could pump and he said no, you can go in the women’s bathroom. I had to stand in front of the mirrors and the sinks and pump my breast in front of every tourist that walked into that bathroom. I was embarrassed and humiliated and then angry that I was treated this way.

When the bottles were full, she was allowed back on the plane.

#17 Massive brawls have been erupting at Chuck E. Cheese restaurants all over the nation.  Police responded to violence at one particular Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Pennsylvania 17 times in just one recent 18 month time period.

#18 Thieves in New Jersey have become so desperate for scrap metal that they have started breaking into churches and ripping the copper piping right out of the walls.

#19 Tide detergent has become an alternative form of currency on the streets of America and there has been an epidemic of Tide thefts all over the nation.  The following is from a recent article in The Daily….

Theft of Tide detergent has become so rampant that authorities from New York to Oregon are keeping tabs on the soap spree, and some cities are setting up special task forces to stop it. And retailers like CVS are taking special security precautions to lock down the liquid. 

One Tide taker in West St. Paul, Minn., made off with $25,000 in the product over 15 months before he was busted last year.

“That was unique that he stole so much soap,” said West St. Paul Police Chief Bud Shaver. “The name brand is [all] Tide. Amazing, huh?”

Tide has become a form of currency on the streets. The retail price is steadily high — roughly $10 to $20 a bottle — and it’s a staple in households across socioeconomic classes.

#20 New federal rules will severely restrict the kind of work that children can do on farms in America.  Kids will be banned from doing many of the most basic kinds of farm chores under the new regulations.  Perhaps the children can just sit inside and watch television while the adults do all the work.

As mentioned earlier, what America is experiencing is not just an economic collapse.  The truth is that our entire society is collapsing.

For many years our great prosperity masked much of our decline, but now our great economic strength is rapidly fading and it is becoming very difficult to deny how far we have fallen as a nation.

You can find more examples of how American society is decaying right here and right here.  Anyone with half a brain can see what is happening to the United States.  It really is sad, because America was once a truly great nation.

So is there any hope of a recovery?

Not if we keep going down the same path.

In the end, the choice is up to you America.

40 Weird Facts About The United States That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

In case you hadn’t noticed, the United States is a really weird place.  Not that “weird” is always bad.  Sometimes “weird” can keep life interesting.  But without a doubt, the United States is one of the most unique nations in the history of the world.  Some of the weird facts about the United States listed below may be difficult for you to believe.  Others are likely to completely shock you.  Hopefully there is a little something for everyone in this article, and hopefully you will learn some new things from reading it.  I know that I certainly learned some new things as I wrote it.  In general, everything tends to be larger in America.  The people are larger, the cars are larger, the divorce rate is the highest on the planet and the U.S. government has piled up the largest debt in the history of the world.  Whether America does something good or bad, it usually does it in a very “big” way.  It is easy to love the United States and all the good that it has done, but it is also easy to be horrified by how far this nation has fallen and by the direction that this country is currently headed.  So where does America go from here?  That is a very good question.

The following are 40 weird facts about the United States that are almost too crazy to believe….

#1 The highest point in the state of Florida is only 345 feet (115 yards) above sea level.

#2 Today, 66 percent of all Americans are considered to be overweight.

#3 The state of Alaska is 429 times larger than the state of Rhode Island is.  But Rhode Island has a significantly larger population than Alaska does.

#4 The average supermarket in the United States wastes about 3,000 pounds of food each year.

#5 Approximately 48 percent of all Americans are currently either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.

#6 Alaska has a longer coastline than all of the other 49 U.S. states put together.

#7 In the UK, an average of about $3,500 is spent on healthcare per person each year.  In the United States, an average of about $8,500 is spent on healthcare per person each year.

#8 Montana has three times as many cows as it does people.

#9 The average U.S. citizen drinks the equivalent of more than 600 sodas each year.

#10 The only place in the United States where coffee is grown commercially is in Hawaii.

#11 The United States has 845 motor vehicles for every 1,000 people.  Japan only has 593 for every 1,000 people and Germany only has 540 for every 1,000 people.

#12 The grizzly bear is the official state animal of California.  But no grizzly bears have been seen there since 1922.

#13 For many years it was the other way around, but today a majority of all Americans (including Pat Robertson) actually support the legalization of marijuana.

#14 Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to have been born in a hospital.

#15 In the middle of the last century, the United States was #1 in the world in GDP per capita.  Today, the United States is #13 in GDP per capita.

#16 Today, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

#17 One survey found that 25 percent of all employees that have Internet access in the United States visit pornography websites while they are at work.

#18 In 2011, our trade deficit with China was more than 49,000 times larger than it was back in 1985.

#19 One out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#20 The city of Juneau, Alaska is about 3,000 square miles large.  It is actually bigger than the entire state of Delaware.

#21 The United States puts a higher percentage of its population in prison than any other nation on earth does.

#22 There are more unemployed workers in the United States than there are people living in the entire nation of Greece.

#23 The original name of the city of Atlanta was “Terminus“.

#24 Sadly, more than 52 percent of all children that live in Cleveland, Ohio are living in poverty.

#25 The median price of a home in the city of Detroit is now about $6000.

#26 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#27 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.

#28 According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, approximately 167,000 Americans have more than $200,000 of student loan debt.

#29 There are three towns in the United States that have the name “Santa Claus“.

#30 There are 313 million people living in the United States.  46 million of them are on food stamps.

#31 In the United States as a whole, one out of every four children is on food stamps.

#32 In 1940, 68.0% of all women in the 20 to 34 year old age group in the United States were married.  In 2010, only 39.2% of women in that age group were married.

#33 The United States has a teen pregnancy rate of 22 percent – the highest in the world.  New Zealand is number two at 14 percent.

#34 According to the CDC, there are 19 million new cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia in the United States every single year.

#35 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.  Puerto Rico is number two.  Perhaps Puerto Rico really would fit in as the 51st state.

#36 More people have been diagnosed with mental disorders in the United States than in any other nation on earth.

#37 The United States has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.

#38 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

#39 The U.S. national debt is now more than 22 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.

#40 It took from the founding of the nation until 1981 for the U.S. national debt to cross the one trillion dollar mark.  Today, our national debt is well over 15 trillion dollars and we add more than a trillion dollars to our debt every single year.

Do you have any other weird facts that you think should be added to this list? Please feel free to leave a comment with your feedback below….

Why Are Millions Of Americans Preparing For Doomsday?

All over America, there are millions of Americans that are quietly preparing for doomsday.  They are turning spare rooms into long-term food storage pantries, they are planting survival gardens, they are converting their homes over to alternative sources of energy, they are taking self-defense courses and they are stocking up on just about anything you can imagine.  They are called “preppers”, and their numbers have absolutely exploded in recent years.  In fact, you might be living next door to one and never even realize it.  According to a recent Daily Mail article, there are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today.  Others believe that the true number is significantly higher than that.  This movement has become so popular that there are now even television shows being done about preppers.  The most popular is probably “Doomsday Preppers” on the National Geographic Channel.  This movement is still growing and is not going to go away any time soon.  In fact, as the world continues to become even more unstable it is likely that a lot more Americans will find themselves becoming preppers in the years ahead.

So what exactly are all these people so concerned about?  Exactly why are there millions of Americans that are feverishly preparing for doomsday?

Well, the truth is that you will never find two preppers that are exactly alike.  Some are deeply concerned about the potential for natural disasters and believe that we are now entering into a time when there will be catastrophic earth changes.  Other preppers believe that terrorism is the most significant threat to our way of life.  Killer pandemics, an EMP attack, World War III, martial law, solar megastorms, asteroid strikes and societal chaos are some of the other things that some preppers are worried about.

Of course an economic collapse is one of the biggest concerns for preppers, and without a doubt the U.S. economy is deeply troubled.  A collapse of the financial system would change all of our lives permanently.

But it isn’t just preppers that are concerned about these things.

A recent survey conducted by National Geographic asked Americans the following question….

“Which of the following, if any, do you think might happen in the United States in the next 25 years? Please choose all that apply.”

These were the results….

Significant Earthquake 64%
Significant Hurricane 63%
Terrorist Attack 55%
Financial Collapse 51%
Significant Blackout 37%
Pandemic, Such as From a Super-Virus 29%
Nuclear Fallout 14%
None of These 13%

Obviously there are a whole lot of people out there that feel as though we are heading for some really bad stuff.

So if hard times are coming, why not prepare for them?

After all, none of us want to end up like the poor people of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  Large numbers of people were herded into the Superdome and food and water ran out really fast.  There was rampant looting of stores and people were shooting each other in the streets.  It was mass chaos.

The following is what one Australian blogger experienced while staying in the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina….

Last night was horrendous. I heard shouting, and drinks machines being smashed. There’s no sanitation and it’s so smelly. My hair is greasy and I feel a wreck. There are crack alleys among the maze of corridors. The lights are broken in the loos which, as well as being disgusting, have become dangerous, so we now only go as a big group.

More people are arriving, and the dome is like a refugee camp. I see two soldiers carrying a corpse and we hear there are more dead in the basement.

As an article in the New York Times from that time period detailed, food and water were in very short supply and those cramped into the Superdome were rapidly becoming impatient….

Desperation was in the air. Danielle Shelby tugged at a reporter’s arm. “I have a handicapped daughter,” she said. “She’s over there with her wheelchair. She’s hot. We don’t have any water. I’m afraid she’s going to have a seizure.”

Others crowded around. “I’ve been in the food line twice, and every time I get to the front they tell me they don’t have any left,” said Juanita McFerrin, 80.

Later on in that same article, we are told that there were fights, rapes and at least one suicide in the Superdome during that time….

It got worse. Ms. Rousell recalled hearing a loud bang Tuesday afternoon as the body of a man slapped the concrete at the edge of the football field in a fatal suicidal plunge, after he apparently learned that his home had been destroyed. Others told of fights that broke out in food lines, and of a husband and wife who slugged each other in a wild argument.

Several residents said they had heard of children being raped, though it was not clear whether anyone reported such incidents to the authorities, and no officials could be found who could confirm the accounts.

To get an even better idea of what life in New Orleans was like in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, just check out this video.

Within just a few days food, water and supplies started pouring into New Orleans and things started slowly getting back to normal, but imagine what things would look like in this country if we had to deal with a national disaster that stretched on for months or even years?

Many preppers are not taking any chances.  Many are absolutely determined to be able to take care of their families and friends no matter what the years ahead may bring.

ABC News recently profiled one prepper named Tim Ralston….

Tim Ralston, a married father of two from Arizona, is one such “prepper.”

“There’s a lot of different things that could happen,” Ralston said. “For me, I look at prepping as kind of like insurance. You have car insurance, health insurance, life insurance.”

Call it Apocalypse insurance. Ralston turned his family’s two-car garage into a staging area. Inside is a trailer, which he keeps packed and ready to go at all times, stockpiles of freeze-dried food, including cartons of canned chicken with a shelf life of 15 years, survival gear, such as a system for purifying polluted water, first aid kits and lots of weapons and ammunition. His son has his own AK-47.

Some preppers are going to the extreme and are spending huge amounts of money on their prepping.

CNN recently profiled one Australian prepper that has spent about $350,000 preparing for doomsday….

Bast has spent about $5,000 on stockpiles of food and water, and $11,000 on equipment including gas cookers, generators, batteries, water purifiers and solar power. He also purchased roughly an acre of land that’s a 75-minute drive from Melbourne and 1,500 feet above sea level (in order to stay high and dry in case of a flood or tsunami). He has built a house there, as well as a bunker to serve as his “safe spot” in the event of an emergency. Together, the land, buildings and bunker have cost him a total of about $330,000.

He’s also spent $10,000 on an 8-year old Toyota HiLux pickup truck to drive to his safe spot.

But the truth is that prepping does not have to be expensive.

The key is to start by focusing on the five basics….

1) Food

2) Water

3) Shelter

4) Energy

5) Self-Defense

There are some practical things that just about anyone can do even if you don’t have a lot of money.

For example, when you go to the store try to pick up a few extra items that are on sale and add them to your supplies.  If you rotate your food supplies, they won’t go bad.

In addition, just about anyone can plant a garden.  Often fruits and vegetables are some of the most expensive items at the grocery store, and so growing a garden can end up saving you a lot of money.

Get educated.  There are dozens of prepper websites out there where you can get an education in prepping for free.  The following are a few examples of some of the excellent prepper websites that are out there today….

*Survival Blog

*American Preppers Network

*The Survival Mom

*SHTFPlan.com

*Prepper Website

*Survival 4 Christians

*Backdoor Survival

*Off Grid Survival

The truth is that our world is becoming increasingly unstable in a whole bunch of different ways and we all need to learn how to prepare for the difficult years ahead.

As the economy continues to fall apart, America is going to become a very heartless place.  You don’t want to be caught in the middle of societal chaos without a plan.

None of us should be relying on the government to save us when things hit the fan.  We all saw what happened after Hurricane Katrina.  Those that were depending on the government were deeply disappointed.

We should all try to become as independent of the system as we can, because the system is failing.  In the years ahead there might not be anybody to help you and your family, so you need to be working hard right now to ensure that you and your family will be taken care of.

Yes, as you may have guessed by now, I am a prepper too.  My wife and I moved to an entirely different state and totally changed our lifestyle to prepare for what is coming.

Hopefully this article will inspire many more Americans to prepare for what is coming.  A great economic collapse is on the horizon and time is rapidly running out.

Not So Fast On That Whole Economic Recovery Thing

Not so fast.  Those that are publicly declaring that an economic recovery has arrived are ignoring a whole host of numbers that indicate that the U.S. economy is in absolutely horrendous shape.  The truth is that the health of an economy should not be measured by how well the stock market is doing.  Rather, the truth health of an economy should be evaluated by looking at numbers for things like jobs, housing, poverty and debt.  Some of the latest economic statistics indicate that unemployment is getting a little bit worse, that the housing market continues to deteriorate, that poverty in America continues to soar and that our debt problem is worse than ever.  If we were truly experiencing the kind of economic recovery that the United States has experienced after every other post-World War II recession we would see a sharp improvement across the board in most of our economic statistics.  But that simply is not happening.  Sadly, this is about as much of an “economic recovery” as we are going to get because soon the economy will be getting much worse.  So enjoy this period of relative stability while you can.

The Obama administration would have us believe that unemployment in the United States has declined, but the truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed has stayed very, very flat for more than two years and now there are some measures of unemployment that are actually getting worse.

For example, according to Gallup the unemployment rate in the United States has risen from 8.5% in December to 8.6% in January to 9.1% in February.  The Obama administration would have us believe that it is actually going the other direction.

Initial unemployment claims are rising again.  For the week ending March 3rd, they increased by 8,000 over the previous week to 362,000.  This is not the kind of good news that people were hoping for.

What the U.S. economy could really use are millions of good jobs.  But those are being shipped out of the country at a staggering pace.

Right now there are millions of Americans in their prime working years that are sitting at home wondering what to do with their lives.  The average duration of unemployment in the United States continues to hover near a record high, and if we were truly experiencing an economic recovery it should have been falling by now.

But a lot of Americans have bought into the propaganda about an economic recovery and they are out running up huge amounts of debt once again.  In January, consumer credit increased by much more than expected.  The following is from a recent Reuters report….

Nonrevolving credit, which includes auto loans as well as student loans made by the government, rose $20.723 billion during the month. That was the biggest increase in dollar terms since November 2001, when credit was surging in the wake of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

Don’t fall into the trap of debt slavery.  During the last recession millions of Americans lost their homes and most of what they owned because they got overextended.

Don’t do it.

The U.S. housing market continues to deeply struggle as well.  If we were really in an economic recovery housing would be bouncing back.  But that is not happening.  Just consider the following facts….

*The number of new homes sold in the United States continues to hover near a record low.

*U.S. home prices in the 4th quarter of 2011 were four percent lower than they were during the 4th quarter of 2010.

*According to CoreLogic, 22.8 percent of all homes with a mortgage in the United States were in negative equity as of the end of the 4th quarter of 2011.  That was an increase from 22.1 percent in the third quarter.

Why are things still getting worse for the U.S housing market?

That is a really good question.

We should have seen some improvement by now.

But it isn’t happening.

Also, poverty in America continues to explode.

For example, the number of Americans on food stamps has increased to 46.5 million – a brand new all-time record.

If we really were in an economic recovery, wouldn’t that number be going down?

We should be thankful that the U.S. economy is not declining as rapidly as it was during 2008 and 2009.  But what we are experiencing right now is not an economic recovery.  It is simply just a bubble of false hope.

The big problem is that our nation is covered in an ocean of constantly expanding debt.

U.S. consumers are drowning in debt, U.S. businesses have pushed debt levels to the red line, and the U.S. financial system is massively overleveraged.

Of course government debt is our biggest debt problem of all.

All over the nation, state and local governments are on the verge of financial ruin.

If we were in the middle of an economic recovery, so many states would not be in crisis mode.  A recent article in the Los Angeles Times declared that “California could run out of cash in March“.  As the economy continues to crumble we are going to hear a lot more of this kind of thing.

A lot of local governments around the nation are on the verge of total financial collapse.  Stockton, California has announced that they will be defaulting on some debt payments, and Suffolk County in New York recently declared a fiscal emergency after discovering that it would rack up more than 500 million dollars of debt between 2011 and 2013.

Keep your eyes open for more news items like this in the months ahead.

Of course the biggest problem of all is the U.S. national debt and it continues to rapidly get worse.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. government had a budget deficit of 229 billion dollars in the month of February.  That is the worst one month budget deficit in the history of the United States.

The Congressional Budget Office also says that the U.S. government is now borrowing 42 cents of every single dollar that it spends.

Ouch.

The U.S. national debt has gotten more than 59 times larger since 1950.

The U.S. national debt is now more than 22 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.

Are there any words in the English language that are strong enough to describe how foolish we have been?

Of course we won’t be able to accumulate so much debt indefinitely.  At some point the trillion dollar deficits will stop and our false prosperity will disappear.

If you want to get an idea of what happens then, just take a look at Greece.

But Barack Obama and most members of the U.S. Congress don’t really care about what they are doing to our future.

What they care about is winning the next election so that they can continue living their fabulous lives.

Barack Obama is supposed to be taking care of the American people, but instead he has been very busy taking care of the people who helped him get elected.  Politics in America is all about money.  Just check out the following very short excerpt from a recent article in the Washington Post….

More than half of Obama’s 47 biggest fundraisers, those who collected at least $500,000 for his campaign, have been given administration jobs. Nine more have been appointed to presidential boards and committees.

At least 24 Obama bundlers were given posts as foreign ambassadors, including in Finland, Australia, Portugal and Luxembourg. Among them is Don Beyer, a former Virginia lieutenant governor who serves as ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Washington D.C. is deeply corrupt and if you are waiting for our politicians to fix our problems you are going to be deeply disappointed.

The federal government is not going to save you.

Our politicians are not going to save you.

You better figure out how you are going to take care of yourself and your family in the years ahead because this is about as good as things are going to get.

This “economic recovery” is about to end and more pain is about to begin.

Now THAT Is Cold – 19 Signs That America Is Becoming A Very Heartless Place

The economy is not the only thing that is wrong with America.  In order for a society to function smoothly, people need to be able to trust one another and be able to expect that most of their fellow citizens will behave in a somewhat civilized manner.  Unfortunately, we are starting to see the very fabric of our society slowly unravel all over the nation.  The truth is that America is becoming a very heartless place.  People simply do not care about one another the way that they used to in this country.  Of course there are many exceptions, but the reality is that millions of hearts are going cold from coast to coast.  In America today, we are more self-absorbed than ever, more self-centered than ever, and we are more isolated from others than ever.  Just think about the number of people that you personally interact with on a regular basis.  Unless you are involved with a very large organization such as a school or a church, it is probably a very limited number.  Our addiction to entertainment gives us the illusion of being connected to society, but the truth is that Americans spend less time personally interacting with one another than ever before.  Meanwhile, Americans are seemingly becoming more arrogant, more prideful, more angry, more brutal, more greedy and more addicted to pleasure than ever before.  When you combine millions of very cold hearts with an economy that is rapidly crumbling, that adds up to a whole lot of trouble in the years ahead.

Even government authorities are becoming heartless.  TSA agents and police officers are actually trained to “act tough” and to bark orders at us.  In the old days, you could reason with a police officer, but these days if you try to talk common sense with some of these thugs you will get tasered before you even realize what is happening.

The American people can see the deep corruption in Washington D.C. and throughout most of our other major institutions and they wonder why they should keep trying to do “the right thing”.

If our leaders are selfish and heartless, then it is only natural that millions of average Americans will follow their examples.

In America today, we are taught to hate one another.  Democrats are taught to hate Republicans and Republicans are taught to hate Democrats.  We are a deeply divided nation and our hearts are getting colder with each passing year.

Parents are becoming more cruel, thieves are becoming more bold and thugs are becoming more brutal.  Hate, anger and frustration are fueling some really twisted behavior all over the country.  America is changing, and not for the better.

The following are 19 signs that America is becoming a very heartless place….

#1 At one airport in Hawaii, TSA agents recently required one new mother to go to a public restroom and fill up the empty baby bottles she was carrying with breast milk before they would allow her to get on to her flight.  The following is how one local news station described the incident….

She claims agents told her she couldn’t take the pump on the plane because the bottles in her carry-on were empty.

“I asked him if there was a private place I could pump and he said no, you can go in the women’s bathroom. I had to stand in front of the mirrors and the sinks and pump my breast in front of every tourist that walked into that bathroom. I was embarrassed and humiliated and then angry that I was treated this way.

When the bottles were full, she was allowed back on the plane.

#2 One way that a society is judged is by how it treats children.  Unfortunately, stories such as the following one from Texas are becoming increasingly common in America today….

Texas authorities said Tuesday they removed 11 children from a crowded home where a registered sex offender lives after they found eight confined in a small, dark bedroom with restraints tying some to their beds.

Along with the children, 10 adults were living in the one-story, 1,700-square-foot home in Dayton, about 30 miles northeast of Houston, Child Protective Services spokeswoman Gwen Carter said. One month after a raid on the house, authorities are still trying to determine how the children are related and why they were there, she said.

#3 Across the United States, there have been an increasing number of reports of teens randomly attacking people on the street for no apparent reason whatsoever.  In some cases, the victims are actually being pulled out of their vehicles.  The following recent example comes from Philadelphia….

IN A HORRIFIC assault in Center City on Saturday night, three teenagers who were spouting racial slurs pulled a man out of a cab to beat him. And when the cabdriver intervened to stop the assault, the teens turned their rage on him, police said yesterday.

#4 One man down in Arizona was recently charged with skinning and eating a cat.  He told authorities that he did it because he was “hungry”.

#5 In the Detroit area, an 86-year-old World War II veteran was recently brutally carjacked in the middle of the day at a gas station.  His leg was broken during the assault, and as he slowly crawled across the concrete parking lot many people walked by him and drove by him as if he was not even there.

#6 One 69-year-old woman down in Texas recently went without running water for six years and nobody ever helped her out until just recently.

#7 In Ohio, one man has been charged with raping three children that he adopted and with allowing other men to have sex with them as well.

#8 One man down in Texas was recently fined by the city government for not mowing the lawn of a house that he had already lost to foreclosure.

#9 These days thieves will steal anything that is metal that they think that they can resell.  In the Philadelphia area recently, there has been a rash of brass door knocker thefts.  Thieves have been going up and pulling them right off of the front doors of private homes.

#10 As the price of gasoline rises, gasoline thieves are becoming more creative.  The following is a recent example from the Tampa Bay area….

As gas thefts go, this one was deceptively elaborate.

Inside a blue Chevrolet Venture minivan, criminals had cut out a large hole in the floorboard and set up a portable pumping station, complete with power source, pump and plastic container.

The goal: to steal hundreds of gallons of gas pulled directly from the gas station’s underground storage tank and funneled into a plastic tank inside the van.

Gasoline thefts have become so common in Detroit that one city councilman wants to force gas station owners to hire security guards.

#11 One 29-year-old female tutor was recently arrested for having a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old boy that she was supposed to be tutoring.

#12 The ACLU is trying to force one library district in Washington state to allow full public access to pornography on library computers – even if children will be walking by and able to see what is going on.

#13 In America today, a lot of parents are becoming extremely cruel.  Down in Alabama, one 9-year-old girl recently died after being forced by her mother and grandmother to run for three hours straight as punishment for lying about having eaten some candy bars.

#14 Some Americans have become so desperate that they are trying to get sent to prison on purpose.  For example, one ex-police officer in Georgia recently robbed a bank and allowed authorities to catch him so that he could get food, shelter and free medical care in jail.

#15 What can account for the rash of seemingly random violent crimes that we have been seeing lately?  Over near Seattle, an 88-year-old man and an 83-year-old woman were brutally attacked by a 31-year-old man armed with a crossbow and a hatchet for no apparent reason whatsoever….

Prosecutors say 31-year-old John Chase was walking down the highway when he saw Ralph Aldrich, 88, in his back yard. Detectives say Chase shot and killed Aldrich with a crossbow and then went inside the home and repeatedly hit 83-year-old June Aldrich with a hatchet.

#16 In America today, many people are so angry and so frustrated that even the slightest provocation can push them over the edge.  For example, one man in Georgia actually firebombed a Taco Bell because they did not put enough meat in his Chalupa.

#17 These days Americans are having a hard time feeling safe in their own homes.  Down in Maryland, one very sick home invader was recently sentenced to 100 years in prison for doing some very twisted things….

In one case, authorities said, he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl after breaking into her family’s Fort Washington home with a cinder block and forced her to pose nude on a bed as he took photographs and videos of her.  Authorities said in another case, Scott and an accomplice, Marcus Dermanellian Hunter – who has already pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges – held up a Bowie family at gunpoint in April 2009, used their debit cards to steal money from ATM machines and then stole a luxury car.

#18 In America today you never know who is going to come driving up to you on the street.  Most of the time people that you meet will be at least somewhat “normal”, but there is also a chance that the next strangers that you run into will be crack-fueled perverts.  Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened to a Montana teacher named Sherry Arnold…

Spell and Waters had left Colorado days before the crime claiming they wanted work in eastern Montana and western North Dakota’s oil fields.

After smoking crack cocaine over the entire trip, Waters allegedly told Spell the drug ‘brought the devil out in him’ and began talking about kidnapping and killing a female, AP reports.

After they spotted Arnold, Spell claims that Waters told him to ‘grab the lady’ and pull her into their Ford Explorer as she jogged by.

After they got her into the Ford Explorer, they choked the life out of her and then buried her body in a shallow grave in North Dakota.

#19 In the Boston area, the FBI recently used a chainshaw to cut through the front door of one apartment during a raid.  They quickly subdued the woman living inside and had her on the floor for 35 minutes as her young daughter cried out to her.  Eventually they figured out that they had the wrong apartment and they issued a “routine apology” to the woman.

As our country falls apart all around us, there is going to be a greater need for love and compassion than ever before.

Don’t count on the government to help those in need.  The government always does  a miserable job of that.

As I have written about previously, already more than 40 percent of all children in Atlanta and more than 50 percent of all children in Detroit are living in poverty.

In the years ahead those numbers are going to get even worse.

But it isn’t just in the major cities where poverty is exploding.  Sadly, today one out of every four children in the United States is on food stamps.

As times get tough, you have two choices.

You can allow your heart to grow cold like so many other people are doing.

Or you can decide that you are going to become more loving and more compassionate than ever before.

America is becoming a very heartless place, and unfortunately there is no sign that trend is going to turn around any time soon.

But you don’t have to become heartless.

Be a light that shines in the darkness.

In the end, you will be glad that you were.

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