Money

Kicked In The Groin: Health Insurance Companies Are Dramatically Increasing Premiums Due To The New Health Care Law And There Is Not Much We Can Do About It

Wasn’t the new health care reform law supposed to make health care more affordable for everyone?  Well, imagine my surprise when I opened up a letter from my health insurance company recently and found out that my health insurance premiums were going up by nearly 50 percent.  I am in perfect health and I have never had a single health insurance claim with this company.  Unfortunately, after doing a little research, I discovered that I am far from alone.  All over the United States, people are being hit with double-digit percentage increases in their health insurance premiums even as the health insurance predators continue to rake in record profits.  At a time when millions of American families are barely making it from month to month, the last thing they need is to be figuratively kicked in the groin by the health insurance companies.  But that is exactly what is happening. 

Not that health insurance companies ever needed an excuse to raise rates, but in 2010 many of them are blaming changes in health care law for the dramatic rise in premiums. 

Of course it is true that there are over a dozen new taxes on the health care industry in the “health care reform” law that Barack Obama and the Democrats rammed down the throats of the American people, and everyone should have realized that those taxes would ultimately be passed on to the consumer.

But what is also true is that the health insurance companies basically wrote large sections of the health care reform law and health insurance company stocks rose when this new law was passed.

So why is this new law so good for health insurance companies?

Well, the new health care law requires all of us to purchase health insurance from them.

We are no longer going to have the choice of opting out of their system.

We are going to be forced to buy health insurance.

And since they are all raising rates, there is no escape from the pillaging.

As the new health care bill was being debated, Obama promised that the average American family would save $2,500 in yearly premiums under the new law.

If any of you still believe that claim I have got a bridge to sell you.

The Congressional Budget office says that yearly health insurance premiums are actually going to increase by about $2,300 each year as a result of the new law, but that estimate is probably far, far too low.

The truth is that rates are already shooting through the roof.  Just consider the following excerpt from a recent article on Fox News….

Here is the terse reason CareFirst/Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Washington gave its subscribers for raising a monthly premium from $333 to $512 on a middle aged man who is healthy, is not a smoker and is not obese: “Your new rate reflects the overall rise in health care costs and we regret having to pass these additional costs on to you.”

Could you afford to pay $512 a month for health insurance just for yourself?

Unfortunately, the truth is that this is nothing new.  Many health insurance companies have been increasing health insurance premiums by double-digit percentages year after year after year even as they continue to reel in record profits.

In particular, health insurance companies seem to love to stick it to small businesses and the self-employed.

According to an article on the Mother Jones website, health insurance premiums for small employers increased 180% between 1999 and 2009.

The greed of the health insurance companies seems to know no bounds.  For example, the 39% hike that Anthem Blue Cross sent some California customers last year made headlines across the nation.  But executives defended the dramatic premium hikes as perfectly justifiable.

The reality is that health insurance is becoming so insanely expensive that millions of Americans can’t even afford it anymore.

But thanks to the new health care law they are being forced to keep shelling out their hard-earned money for it.

It is getting really hard for anyone to deny that the health care system in the United States is deeply, deeply broken.  The new health care law is not going to reduce costs.  It is only going to help the health insurance companies continue to rake in obscene profits.

But wasn’t the new health care law supposed to prevent the health insurance companies from abusing all of us?

Well, as it turns out, the new health care law does not give the federal government much regulatory power at all to prevent premium increases.

But what about the states?

Can’t they do something?

Well, yes they can, but unfortunately most state legislatures have been bought off by the health insurance industry.

Since 2003, health insurance companies have shelled out more than $42 million in state-level campaign contributions.

That is a lot of money, and they wouldn’t be spending that kind of money if they did not expect a return for it.

“The pressure that the industry can bring to bear in state legislatures is unbelievable,” J. Robert Hunter, a former insurance commissioner in the state of Texas recently told the Los Angeles Times. “They pretty much get what they want.”

The cold, hard reality is that health insurance companies are not in business to help people and provide affordable health care.  They are in business to make money and they are very good at it.

But there are a few states that have stood up to the health insurance companies.  States that have “prior approval” laws have been able to successfully fend off some of the over-the-top rate increases that health insurance companies have been trying to ram down the throats of consumers.  For example, the Los Angeles Times recently reported on what has been happening in the state of Oregon….

Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon was forced to cut back a proposed 26.4% increase in one of its individual plans to 17.3%. Other carriers were ordered to scrap altogether hikes as high as 20%.

Unfortunately, a number of these states that have these “prior approval” laws are now being sued by insurance companies.

That is how these folks work – they will either try to buy off politicians or they will keep filing lawsuits until they get what they want.

Meanwhile, the top executives at the five largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States received nearly $200 million in total compensation in 2009.

Are you upset yet?

You should be.

And you know what?

When it finally comes time to actually use your health insurance, these predators will do anything they can to get out of paying up.

In fact, it has been documented that some of the largest health insurance companies actually pay their employees large bonuses for denying claims.  The employees who deny the most claims are the ones that get the largest bonuses.

The health care system in the United States is messed up beyond all recognition, and the new health care law has made things worse than ever.  Americans pay more than anyone else in the world for health care, and all that we get in return is a system that is deeply, deeply broken.

If you have a health insurance horror story of your own, please feel free to share it in the comments section below….

Look What Surprises They Snuck Into The Financial Reform Bill

Even just a decade ago, major pieces of legislation in the U.S. Congress would be just a few dozen pages long.  But today, it seems like every time Congress passes an important bill it ends up being over a thousand pages long.  In fact, the final version of the new financial reform law was over 2,300 pages.  Overall, as we wrote about extensively in a previous article, this much-ballyhooed new law does a whole lot of nothing, but it turns out that lobbyists and special interests were able to insert a few nasty surprises that we are just now finding out about.  But it was the same thing with the health care reform law.  It was only after it was passed that most of us learned that it contained a provision that will force U.S. small businesses to collectively produce millions more 1099 tax forms each year.  Now small businesses from coast to coast are screaming bloody murder about that provision but it is too late – the law has already passed.  Unfortunately, there are some surprises in the recently passed financial reform law that are nearly just as bad.

So just what are those surprises?

Well, first let’s talk about what the financial reform law does not do.  The financial reform bill was supposed to “fix” Wall Street and the financial system, but it did not do much of anything….        

-It does nothing to address the problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

-It does not eliminate “too big to fail”.

-It does absolutely nothing to eliminate the horrific bubble in the derivatives market.

-It does nothing to reform the organization most responsible for the recent financial crisis – the Federal Reserve.  In fact, this new law actually gives the Federal Reserve even more power.

But it does create a ton of new paperwork and a bunch of new government organizations.

Oh goody!

But was there any major law that Congress has passed over the last several years that did not increase the size and scope of government?

That is a good question.

In any event, let’s get to some of the nasty surprises contained in the new financial reform law….

*Barack Obama has been running around touting how this new law will “increase transparency” in the financial world, but it turns out that a little-noticed provision of the new law exempts the Securities and Exchange Commission from virtually all requests for information by the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

Not that the SEC was doing much good anyway.

But now the SEC’s incompetence and the nefarious actions of those they are investigating will be hidden from public view.

So what makes the SEC so special that they get to block the public from seeing their records while other government agencies still have to comply with FOIA?

Talk about ridiculous.

But there is actually another little surprise contained in the new law that is even more nasty….

*Another little-noticed section deeply embedded in the financial reform law actually gives the federal government the authority to terminate government contracts with any “financial firm” that fails to ensure the “fair inclusion” of women and minorities in its workforce.

This section of the law, written by U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, is 1,261 words long and it establishes “Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion” in the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and more than a dozen other finance-related agencies.

The directors of these new departments are tasked with developing standards that “ensure, to the maximum extent possible, the fair inclusion and utilization of minorities, women, and minority-owned and women-owned businesses in all business and activities of the agency at all levels, including in procurement, insurance, and all types of contracts.”

The maximum extent possible?

That sounds pretty strong.

 So what kind of firms does this section apply to?

Well, according to Politico, this section is going to apply to just about anyone who has anything to do with the financial industry….

This applies to “services of any kind,” including investment firms, mortgage banking firms, asset management firms, brokers, dealers, underwriters, accountants, consultants and law firms, the legislation states. Every contractor and subcontractor must now certify that their workforces reflect a “fair inclusion” of women and minorities.

The truth is that this small section of the law represents a fundamental change in employment law in the United States.

And it is written so vaguely that firms are going to be tempted to go above and beyond in complying with it just so they are safe.  In fact, many analysts are already saying that it could lead to an unofficial quota system.

In any event, hundreds of new federal government bureaucrats will be watching to make certain that these vague new regulations are fully implemented.

*It also looks like the new financial reform law is going to end the era of free checking accounts.

Why?

Well, it turns out that the new law really limits the amount of fees that banks can charge and the way that they charge them.

So banks have got to make their money somewhere.  Wells Fargo and Bank of America have already announced new fees on checking accounts, and other banks are expected to follow their lead shortly.

What a mess.

Can’t Congress do anything right these days?

At this point Congress is so incompetent that if they would just sit there and do nothing that would be a vast improvement.

But that isn’t going to happen.

So what do you all think about this new financial reform law?  Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below….

Disaster Plan

Does your family have an economic disaster plan?  If not, why not?  By now, most people know that very hard economic times are coming.  No, America is not going to turn into a post-apocalyptic war zone where motorcycle gangs ravage the populace next week, but the truth is that it doesn’t take a genius to understand that the U.S. economic system (and indeed the entire world economic system) is in the process of dying.  For decades we have lived far beyond our means by borrowing insane amounts of money, but the party is ending and now many of us are going to get to experience what it means to live below our means.  The golden days of the U.S. economic machine are gone, and now we are moving into a time when we are going to reap the fruit of the incredibly foolish economic policies of the past hundred years.  Meanwhile, the two major political parties will continue to play the American people against each other.  The Democrats will insist that everything will be great if we just give them control.  The Republicans will insist that everything will be great if we just give them control.  But the truth is that both political parties have had numerous chances over the past 50 years, and each of them have blown them badly.  Both parties have had a hand in piling up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, both parties have been complicit in shipping our jobs and our factories off to China and to dozens of third world nations, both parties have dramatically expanded the size of government and the welfare state when they were in control, and both parties have continually handed more power to the big banks and to the Federal Reserve.  We built an entire economy based on paper money and a gigantic spiral of debt and now the wheels are starting to come off and people are starting to panic.  We are truly going to pay the price for decades of foolish decisions.

Not that an economic collapse is the only reason to have a family disaster plan.  We live at a time when it seems like the whole world is going crazy.  You never know when or where the next oil spill, hurricane, earthquake, volcano, pandemic or terror event is going to strike. 

So the reality is that it is imperative that we all have a disaster plan that sets out exactly how we are going to provide food, water, shelter and security for our families in the event of a major disaster or emergency.

So exactly what should such a disaster plan entail?

If you have not done so already, please read the following two articles that we previously published on this theme….

1) 20 Things You Will Need To Survive When The Economy Collapses And The Next Great Depression Begins

2) What To Do

Both of those articles lay out some of the basic principles of emergency preparedness.

But there is so much to know about emergency preparation beyond just the basics.

Over the last couple of months, the readers of this column have shared some amazing information on this topic, and we have compiled some of the very best of those tips below….

Smuggler:

As a long time hiker and back country lover I have had a bit of experience in rustic living. From Tents in the Rockies and Sierras to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and an old trapper’s cabin in Alaska I have pretty much lived in that way most of my life.

Survival depends on a lot of things, not just how much grub you got or how many bottles of water are stashed away. If all roads are blocked your stocked RV is suddenly going to be a liability not an asset.With roads blocked by earthquake or check points the ability to travel cross country will be reduced to foot transportation, unless you plan to tote your pick-up over the mountains think lighter….

If it all goes up the first thing you must do is realize that this is not a camping trip, you come home from a camping trip, you won’t have a home to come to if it all goes up. You are going to have to find food and water as you go and in the case of food you will most likely have to kill it and clean it. Man bites dog will have a whole new meaning.

That is where the best survival tool will be most welcome. The nice thing about this tool is it takes up no room and it doesn’t weigh an oz. Become knowledgeable.learn about water and how to test it, find it and save it. learn how to preserve foods by drying or smoking. learn what plants in your area can be eaten or used for medicine.

You get the idea here, the more ya know the longer you will live. One of the places I have spent some time hiking is the Idaho and Utah boarder area and parts of the old Boozeman Trail. one of the remarkable things you see on the Trail is tons of cast Iron cook stoves, nickel trimmed Parlor stoves, furniture, house hold goods, sinks etc. that litter the ground. All tossed off overloaded wagons, from about the middle part of the Trail tapering off to just a few items the farther west they got. Take to much you have to throw it away.

A good make pro back pack, a good sleeping bag/ground pad, light tent, fire making items, [ I recommend a mag and steel striker. ]a good hand axe, a good hunting knife, a pro grade compass, [Learn how to use it.} Food, freeze dried is best very lite and can carry many days of food. Limit clothes as appropriate for the weather and how much you can carry. Water, what you can carry and treatment tablets for new sources if in doubt. Other wise boil it for ten mins.

Things like sewing kits are nice but won’t kill ya if you don’t have one. Judge your wants balanced against your needs, in the case of candles and radios and such, they are heavy hard to secure and take up lots of room. In the case of candles I’ve had them melt all over the inside of my back pack not a fun thing.

Keep it light and essential,you may have to relocate in a big hurry. Now, do you see why community is a good idea? You can survive one man alone, but in a group is easier, safer and more productive and more fun. Here’s hoping all your trips are camping trips and may you always come home.

RLTW:

Food: If you are about to go on a long “hike” like for a couple of weeks… seriously fatten up. Talk to anyone who has done ranger school. They lose 20-45lbs in only 63 days. Most fatten up just before going. If you only have one meal/ day, then eat in the morning and eat small amounts throughout the day (like a candy or cracker) and keep drinking water. Surprise salt is important, dont go low sodium in food especially if you are consuming a lot of water. On the move, Eat the most perishable first, eat based solely off the energy you are expending. If you open it consume it, or you will have unwanted pests/animals. In bear country, hang it from a high limb away from where you sleep. If you cant brush your teeth, chew gum, or chew soft twigs.

Gerber or Leatherman is better than a Swiss knife, and BTW Butch I pack heat, so good luck and don’t let the laser sight on your forehead deter you.

Gasoline doesnt store for very long, and know the difference between diesel and gas (I know this is basic, but some people cant tell except for what it says at the pump). And also know that Syphoning gas from new autos is impossible, so don’t try, remove it from the fuel line/filter under the car.

Have a small tool kit/box, with basic tools.

If you are on the move, the right Clothing is extremely important…. Get loose fitting clothing that you can easily layer, have about 3 layers or more (depending on your local climate). One layered set should be enough, but you NEED extra socks, 2-3 pair (or more) of heavy cushioned socks are ESSENTIAL if you are on the move. Change your socks every day, even if you cannot wash them. A week could turn into a month. Dont pack underwear, b/c after a week it will be gone anyway (Most infantry soldiers go without in the field) and is just extra weight. Think of going for a long hunting trip when packing this up, and remember its always colder than you think even in the summer especially when you cannot go indoors anywhere. Pack gloves and ski type hats. At a minimum, keep your feet and shoes dry. If they get wet, walk it out, & change socks more frequently. In the cold, Keep your shoes/boots next to you when you sleep to keep them warm and be ready if you need to move out quickly. Dont be unpacked, take out what you need and leave the rest packed. You may have to take off quickly. (Pack everything you want to keep dry in gallon-sized ziplocks)

Don’t rely on a store first aid kits, buy a medium sized tool bag and get a good first aid “trauma” list(most stuff you can get at walmart). But also consider learning how to start an IV and get a few. Also, address all knicks and cuts, even the small ones. Infections can put you under, ESPECIALLY ON YOUR FEET/LEGS.

Water: If you have bleach, you can use that to purify water. One drop per Quart. Be careful, if you use too much then you will have a bad case of buttmud.

Fire: can be started with 2 D-cell batteries and steel wool, but invest in a magnesium stick that you can use with a knife.

If Money is worthless, have things to bargin with & you will be better off. Consider gold coins, you can always cut off chucks to use as payment. CAUTION: To much of something valuable will make you a target, so consider things that are valuable other than Gold.

A NON-digital watch is helpful, and can be used for navigation… plz dont ask, google it or get a survival book (which is also good) – I use the SAS survival book

MAPS!!!!! Hello, a good map of your area where you intend on going is very helpful, especially of your immediate area (topographic) and will help you locate water. It is impossible to hand carry your water needs, know your sources along your route. Keep a good small atlas with your kit, may have to leave a contaminated area and may have to travel on the roads or beside the roads. You can easily use a good atlas to terrain navigate in lieu of a good topo map. Know the state evacuation routes, then plan an alternative b/c they will be packed.

Set up “rally” points that everyone knows and will link up or leave messages if safe and no communications exist.

Flashlight: invest in an efficient LED headlamp, that way you have both hands free.

The AXE is not required: You need only a good Knife, like a K-bar…dont buy a cheap hollow survival knife (they will break), buy a regular good 5-8in blade that is heavy and durable. You can use the knife with a piece of wood or log to hammer the knife like an axe for firewood….but your call. Remember, you may have to carry it.

If you have a friend in Spec ops or is a Ranger, Seal, etc… ask them for tips or advice… we train in this type of thing.

Elocutionist:

There are other things people can do; must do: Build up a network of support. Get to know your neighbors and be certain all of you support one another. I live in a small development of about 90 homes. We are closed off from the main highway and, even in these relatively ‘good’ times, we always rely on one another for various things (i.e. snow ploughing, lawn mowing, etc.). Make a plan with your family, if they’re not nearby, so that in tough times you’re not alone. Develop a skill. Learn how to make bread, for instance, from flour on a wood stove. Become an expert ‘handyman,’ the ability to repair things will be an important skill. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. In either case, you’ll be prepared.

Jim:

You’d be surprised at how little work it takes to have a seed turn into dinner. It’s almost as if that was what the seed was designed to do. Even people in apartments can cut their food down quite a bit with herbs, tomatoes, and the like in the windows. 1/4 acre can feed a family of more than four, and that’s worth spending a few minutes a day if you ask me.

Paul:

A couple of useful items: Clorox. Very cheap. Can purify water and also handy for sterilizing anything. Saving a pile of old newspapers is another good cheap item — useful for starting a fire and, hey— better than nothing, using as toilet paper. More expensive — a couple of handfuls of silver coins in case no one wants US paper dollars.

John:

Also, look at yard sales and thrift shops. If you really need a couple of cheap shirts, instead of buying cheap ones made in India, recycle what is already in your community, putting some money into your neighbors’ pockets.

Try to buy food locally. It’s more expensive, but if you are careful, you can find a few affordable items. If you live in the city, talk to your local council and try to get projects going that allow community vegetable patches on vacant land. In some areas this is already happening. Grow herbs in your kitchen. When you are down to beans and rice, it is amazing how a little bit of fresh herbs can spice up your life. YOu have a sunny window in your house? Start growing something easy like zucchini.

Learn how to repair – anything. You won’t get rich, but you might eventually make a decent living. Most of us are getting poorer and are going to want what we have to last longer. I remember as a kid in a small town there was a shoe repair shop, an electrical repair shop, a furniture repair shop, etc. Now they have all disappeared because most of us have gotten use to throwing things out and buying new. My guess is that the market for repairs is only going to grow.

Have you got a sewing machine? Buy up cheap clothing/fabrics from a thrift shop and turn them into quilts, stuffed animals, bags, interesting clothes for kids. This Xmas lots of people are going to be looking for cheap gifts for their children. You won’t be making much per hour, but at least you might be making something

Go dumpster diving. Especially if you live in a private college town, you will be amazed at how much perfectly good clothing and furniture gets dumped every year. In a small town that I visit every summer, one thrift shop fills a complete dumpster with clothes every week – almost all of it in near perfect condition. The dumpsters near dorms are overflowing at the end of terms.

Boycott. Don’t buy from/do business with companies that send all their jobs overseas.

If you live in a place with a community college and if you have a bit of money, learn a trade. Community colleges tend to be relatively cheap and they give you good skills. And if you have a kid of college age, ask them if they really want that degree in 18th century literature badly enough to starve.

Finally – get involved and become political. A lot of people know that they are not happy, but they are not sure what to do and are waiting around for other people to come up with the solutions. Start thinking about something that is important to you locally, regionally or nationally and figure out a way to be part of the solution. One reason we are in such a mess is because we all tuned out a bit and let the bigshots call all the shots – and they created a world that works great for them, but at our expense.

Michael:

Every once in a while, I see these “survivalist” cans of Costa Rican canned green coffee beans. Ok, so I pay about $80 bucks (not to mention some paying for some hefty shipping charges). I thought to myself-why can’t I do it (in the spirit of DIY). Ok, it can be easily done. First, purchase GREEN coffee beans. Second, seal them in a good container. I use a half gallon Ball canning jar WITH an oxygen absorber. A half gallon jar will hold about 2.5 pounds of beans and I use one or two 500CC oxygen absorbers-just to make sure no oxygen exists afterwards. Thrid, Seal the jar with a new canning jar lid. Keep out of light. No moisture (dry beans and glass sealed jar), no oxygen (absorber does that), no light, and keep in cool storage (room temp or cooler); and the coffee is good to go for years!

J.E. Chapman:

I will tell you that a swiss army knife wont cut it, you need a good beefy knife like a K-Bar fighting knife something you can use to pound, dig, chop, and even kill with if nessesary, a SOG is another good choice, remember you get what you pay for.  Also read and study up time I believe is short a good manual is Emergency Preparedness and Survival Guide from Backwoods Home magazine is a very good book to have along with all the military survival manuals you can get your hands on, arm up with a Good rifle a good sidearm and plenty of ammo, enough food for a year and good luck. Praying Helps moreso than most would believe, God Bless.

Uncle Sam:

Knowledge is the store of value that “neither moth nor flame can corrupt or destoy” They can’t take that from you.

Store enough food to make it through a year from ANY point in the agricultural cycle. Start growing food now, so you can learn how it works. A farmer doesn’t become a farmer after one or two seasons, you must get everything wrong before you know how to do it right, and that takes time and experience. Start now, its July…plant greens in August and have salads through November just to get some experience.

Basically, you will find that it breaks down like this…If you can’t grow it, mine it, trade for it, or kill for it; you are not going to have it, and if you are not prepared to do all four of those, you are in danger.

There exists a critical tipping point, a point of mass despair and anger that will capitulate our way of life. This is NOT like the 30’s. In that era, we were set up to live autonomously, so long as we could keep the mortgator at bay (with a shotgun) we are not like that anymore. Americans especially are not prepared for what is coming. We are too integrated. Most have neither the means or opportunity to live autonomously, they only have fear as the motive when they run out of food or are kicked out of their homes. Very dangerous, they are forced to crime. In the 30’s, people were bummed that they had to return to the agrarian lifestyle of their ancestors on the family farm instead of “making it” in the city, we don’t have that option today. People will riot hard and more and more police are laid off every day.

One day, the power will go out and not return. The day that happens, the poles will be felled for the wood, and the copper stripped for trade. Then, the infrastructure is gone. Remember that sight, as the defining momonet of the descent.

Francis:

The two of us have a tiller, a grubbing hoe and some smaller hoes. Each spring we hire a tractor to prepare the garden. Get soil tested through gov’t. or ag school for knowledge of correct soil amendments (lime, fertilizer etc.) Bugs will take care of themselves for the most part, though some hand work may be necessary. Diseases will need to be worked around (different varieties of plants) We don’t use poisons.

We work about an hour a day in the spring, 4-5 days a week on about 1/2 acre, less as the year goes along. We grow two crops, the fall garden is usually small. Our biggest chore is weeds. The two of us could live off of this if we had to. We have about 20 fig trees and lots of other fruit trees. Yes, we are blessed. But there is something we can all do to supplement the bounty nature gives.

City folk, think small. You will be amazed at what some diligence and patience will do when joined to a willing hand and some knowledge. By the way, the sweetest meal you will ever eat is the one you grow yourself.

Lots of you talk about slavery. The best way out is to get rich. The best way to get rich is slowly. If you are profligate forget it. But if you save some of everything you get and through nothing away that has any possible worth, you will start finding ways to save a penny here and there.

And community is the long term key to subsistence. Even the hard-headedest persons I know take notice when the fruits of frugality are exposed. I can’t fix a motor and my mechanic neighbor can’t grow corn. I have gone out of my way to make him a friend.

We Americans are resourceful when not anesthetized by superfluity. Despise nothing. Make every object the subject of evaluation. A lot of something adds up to a little of anything.

Wake up.

Bearmaster:

Those of us who are preparing for what now seems to be at our door will be ready. Not only preparing with water, food, fuel, matches, seasonal clothing and whatever else is needed, we will be the few who do survive and will remember the rest of you who did not ‘believe’.

There is no shame in getting ready for any event, especially when it comes on suddenly. Those caught by surprise are the ones who will suffer the most. If you think because you have guns and ammo that you will come and take away what you feel you need and deserve, how?

Without water after two days you will be delirious to the point you can’t think straight. After five days of beans and bacon bits you’ll wish you had stocked up on toilet paper. When you come staggering up with gun in hand, do you really think you’ll be able to pull off this ‘robbery’ and take what you can, how?

Will you have a shopping cart or a little red wagon? Maybe the back of your pickup would work but where will you get the gas? How can you carry anything with guns in hand, don’t you think there will be others waiting who will then take advantage of you?

Those who think the ‘community’ idea won’t work are those who can’t get along with or won’t trust other people. How can you stay awake and alert for 24/7, you, the wife and kids against what odds? Think about it, trusting family, neighbors and friends in a small group will be the only way to get through this unless they bomb us into eternity.

A small group can provide many things, sharing in the expense of preparing and putting things away in the best, safest location you can find. Those living in a city, large town or even in a development, you need to have a plan of escape to quickly get to a safer location.

*****

So what do you think of the tips shared by the readers?  Do you have any additional disaster plan tips to share?  Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below….

What Does The Financial Reform Bill Do Other Than Being Completely And Utterly Worthless?

Is it possible to write a 2,300 page piece of legislation that accomplishes next to nothing and is pretty much completely and utterly worthless?  The answer is yes.  Barack Obama has been trumpeting the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill as the “biggest rewrite of Wall Street rules since the Great Depression”, but the truth is that after the Wall Street lobbyists got done carving it up, the bill that was left was so watered down and so toothless that it essentially accomplishes nothing except creating even more government bureaucracy and even more mind-numbing paperwork.  The bill is so riddled with loopholes for the big banks that it is basically the legislative equivalent of Swiss cheese.  The Democrats in the Senate were ecstatic when they announced that they had secured the 60 votes needed to pass this legislation, but when they are asked about what the financial reform bill will do, most of them are left stammering for some kind of cohesive response.  The sad truth is that most of them probably don’t understand the bill and none of them will probably ever read the entire thing.

So will the financial reform bill do any good at all?

Well, yes.

A very, very small amount.

Essentially, it is kind of like going over to the Pacific Ocean and scooping out a couple of cups of water.

That is about how much good this bill is going to do.

But U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is making this sound like this is some kind of history-changing legislation….

“We’re cleaning up Wall Street.”

Oh really?

Charles Geisst, professor of finance at Manhattan College recently had the following to say about this absolutely toothless bill….

Like health-care reform, this bill is being drawn up to grab headlines but its details betray it as nothing more than a slap on the wrist for Wall Street. It is true that Wall Street can commit grand theft and apparently get off with nothing more than community service.

The truth is that most of us never expected the U.S. government to truly take on Wall Street.  The relationship between the two is just way too cozy for that to happen.

So does the financial reform bill actually accomplish anything?

Yes.

Let’s take a look at the “sweeping changes” contained in the bill….

*Federal regulators will receive more authority to monitor everything from mortgages to complex derivatives.  (Oh goody!  Just what we needed – more federal regulation!  As if federal agencies have ever been very good at regulating the financial industry…) 

*Financial firms will be required to reduce the debt they take on and to hold more capital in reserve.  (This will make financial firms marginally more stable, but the truth is that the big banks are so good at accounting tricks that this will not really make much of a difference.  When a big firm is going to fail a few extra bucks in reserve is NOT going to make a difference.) 

*The U.S. government will be given extensive power to seize collapsing financial firms.  Federal regulators would keep collapsing firms operating long enough to prevent a massive panic and would slowly sell off its pieces.  (This does not eliminate “too big to fail” – instead it enshrines “too big to fail” into law permanently.  The bill institutes “orderly procedures” for exactly how to proceed when the U.S. government steps in and takes over failing financial firms.  Just what we need – more socialism!)

*The financial reform bill creates a new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection at the Federal Reserve that is supposed to help prevent abusive lending by mortgage and credit card companies.  (Wait a second – this bill gives the Federal Reserve more power?  Who came up with that grand idea?  Yeah, let’s give the fox more power to guard the hen house.  The truth is that the Federal Reserve is one of the core problems with our economic system as we have written about previously.)  

*Some rather toothless regulations will be placed on the derivatives markets, hedge funds and credit rating agencies.  (A big emphasis on “toothless”.)

So what does this legislation not do?

-It does not eliminate “too big to fail”.  The truth is that the biggest banks and financial institutions have been systematically gobbling up a bigger and bigger share of the market and this legislation does nothing to change that.  Anthony Sanders, a professor of finance in the School of Management at George Mason University, says that this bill essentially does nothing about the “too big to fail” problem….

“As far as I can see the ‘too big to fail’ problem is still in place.”

In fact, this legislation may cause even more consolidation in the financial industry, because small firms are going to have an especially difficult time complying with all of the new rules, regulations and paperwork created by this bill.

-The financial reform bill does nothing about the horrific bubble in the derivatives market.  Originally it was believed that some tough regulations were going to be imposed on derivatives trading, but the Wall Street lobbyists were all over those provisions like rabid dogs. 

So now there is loophole after loophole in the bill and the “derivatives problem” still ominously hangs over Wall Street.  Not that there is any way to fix it. 

Nobody actually knows the true total value of all the derivatives in the world, but estimates place it at somewhere between 600 trillion dollars and 1.5 quadrillion dollars.

When the derivatives bubble pops, and it will, there won’t be enough money in the entire world to fix it.

-The financial reform bill does nothing about mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  They remain financial black holes that the U.S. government will be forced to pour hundreds of billions (if not trillions) of dollars into.

-A proposal to conduct yearly comprehensive audits of the Federal Reserve was left out of the financial reform bill.  Instead, a very, very, very limited one-time audit of a few of the transactions that the Federal Reserve conducted during the height of the financial crisis was included. 

What we really need is a true audit of the Fed.  The Federal Reserve has never been the subject of a true, comprehensive audit since it was created in 1913.  Considering the fact that the Federal Reserve issues our currency, controls our banking system, sets our interest rates and is basically the core of the U.S. economy, you would think that the American people should have the right to see what is going on over there.

But Ben Bernanke and the rest of the folks over at the Fed fought against the comprehensive audit proposal with everything that they had.  They seemed extremely alarmed that the American people might actually get to take a look inside their books.

The truth is that unless something is done about the Federal Reserve, no true “financial reform” is really going to take place.

But the U.S. Congress could have done at least some good with this bill.

Instead, they have given us a 2,300 page mess that is pretty much completely and utterly worthless.

So what do you think about the “financial reform” bill.  Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion….

Economic Problems?

With each passing news cycle, it seems like the economic headlines just keep getting worse.  And unfortunately, the highly integrated global economy that we have constructed means that what happens on one side of the world is going to very likely have a big impact on the other side of the world.  A meltdown in New York or Los Angeles is going to affect London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing and Tokyo.  That is just the way the world works now.  Back in 2007 and 2008, the financial crisis that began in the United States devastated economies across the globe.  So are there any economic problems brewing out there right now that could send another wave of panic across the globe?

Well, yes, actually there are a whole bunch of them.  In fact, if certain things break the wrong way it could create a gigantic mess in the financial world.  Let’s take a few moments to examine a few of the questions that economists are asking right now….

Will The Eurozone Break Up And Devastate The Global Economy?

One of the most respected financial journalists in the world, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, is warning that cases currently making their way through the German court system could actually result in the breakup of Europe’s monetary union.  The cases involve the massive EU bailouts that have been agreed to recently.  It is being argued that these bailouts actually violate EU treaty law, and therefore they also violate Germany’s supreme and sovereign Basic Law.

So what would happen if the German courts rule against these bailouts?

Well, it could be catastrophic.  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard put it this way in his recent column…. 

“Should they succeed, of course, the eurozone risks disintegration within days, and perhaps hours.”

And he is not the only one sounding the alarm.  In fact, one major Dutch bank is warning that a full-fledged disintegration of the eurozone would trigger the worst economic crisis in modern history and would unleash a deflationary shockwave that would envelop the entire globe including the United States.

That doesn’t sound promising, does it?

So is it going to happen?

No, probably not.

It would be a great, great victory for national sovereignty if it did happen, but there are just way too many powerful interests that are way too invested in seeing the eurozone succeed.  In addition, the legal, economic and political obstacles that would have to be overcome to fully break apart the eurozone are absolutely mind-numbing when you start thinking about them all.

Instead, what we are likely to see are calls for even more European integration.  Already, many politicians are claiming that the current crisis has been caused because Europe is simply not integrated enough.

So, no, the eurozone is not likely to break up, but that doesn’t mean that we are not going to see massive economic problems in Europe over the coming years.

Will The U.S. Congress Extend Long-Term Unemployment Benefits?

The U.S. Congress continues to debate whether or not they are going to extend long-term unemployment benefits for an estimated 2.1 million unemployed Americans that have stopped getting unemployment checks.

So will they end up getting it done?

Probably.

But there are a growing number of lawmakers that are extremely alarmed about how incredibly fast the U.S. debt is growing.

It is a shame that many of them were not concerned about it 12 or 13 trillion dollars ago.

Not that we shouldn’t help the millions of American workers that have been out of work for a long time and can’t get jobs.

A lot of people are really, really suffering out there right now.

So where did all the jobs go?

Well, as we detailed in a previous article, our politicians and our big American corporations have been busy shipping them off to China and to a whole host of third world nations over the past couple of decades.

The millions upon millions of jobs that have been lost are gone permanently and are not coming back.

So we are likely to continue to have a growing underclass of chronically unemployed blue collar workers that don’t have jobs and can’t get jobs because there are not nearly enough of them for everyone.

So, yes, Congress is likely to extend the unemployment benefits soon, but what those millions of Americans really need are good jobs.

Will The World Trade Imbalance Continue To Get Worse?

It was recently announced that China’s trade surplus climbed 140 percent in June compared to a year earlier.

At least globalism is working well for somebody.

The truth is that someday people will look back and think that U.S. leadership must have been insane when they allowed the greatest economic machine to ever be assembled to systematically be dismantled and shipped off to China, India and dozens of other third world countries around the globe.

The other side of this tragedy is the tremendous exploitation of third world populations which we are allowing big global corporations to get away with.

In one of his recent articles, Stephen Lendman told the tragic story of sweatshop worker Naran Dhula Bhil…. 

In February 2009, he was hospitalized at Dharmaj, in Gujarat state, coughing, very weak, struggling to walk, and unable to lift anything heavier than five pounds. Since mid-2008, he lost almost half his body weight, dropping from 132 to 70 pounds of skin and bones. On April 14, he died of silicosis, the result of greed, indifference, and consumer ignorance about buying “gemstones of death.”

Bhil was 11 when he began working as a grinder, shaper, and polisher, making gemstones into hearts, pendants, rings, beads, and various type ornaments.

For a day’s work, he produced 100 – 150 for 15.5 cents an hour, $1.08 daily, or less than a penny for each stone produced, each giving off silica dust that killed him. By age 20, he knew it, stayed on the job, borrowed money to buy gemstones, and became “bonded,” meaning he couldn’t quit until out of debt, what few grinders ever do.

Bihl said his shop employed 35. Only four or five are left, the others sick or dead. “So many have died,” he said, and when he expired “he did not have a single penny to his name,” as true for most others.

Could you imagine if that was your life story?

What big global corporations are getting away with is absolutely mind blowing.

The global economic system is broken and the only ones who seem to really be benefiting from it are the giant corporations and the ultra-rich.

Is this going to change any time soon?

No, unfortunately, it will not.

Will Americans Continue to Be Obsessed With Money?

According to a new poll of Americans between the ages of 44 and 75, 61% said that running out money was their biggest fear. The remaining 39% thought death was scarier.

Running out of money scarier than death?

Yes, it is very important to provide for ourselves and for our families, especially as we head towards economic collapse, but the obsession that the American people have with money and wealth is completely and totally out of control.

At the end of your life, do you want your life to be defined by the pile of stuff that you have accumulated or by what you were able to do with your life?

The truth is that we don’t even actually “own” most of what we think that we own.

There is so much more to life than getting stuff and having stuff, but the mainstream media will continue to push Americans to love the “consumer culture” which has come to dominate our way of life.

So, yes, Americans will continue to be obsessed with wealth, money and with who LeBron James is playing basketball for. 

But you can make a different choice.  You can choose to live your life for what really matters.

Is The U.S. Economy Going To Turn Around As We Approach The Christmas Season And The End Of The Year?

Many analysts are hoping that as the holidays approach the American people will get back to their old ways of spending massive amounts of money and that this will help jumpstart the U.S. economy.

So is there reason for optimism?

Well, no.

Vacancies and lease rates at U.S. shopping centers continued to get even worse during the second quarter of 2010.  In fact, in some of the most depressed areas of the United States, many malls and shopping centers could end up looking like ghost towns by the time Christmas rolls around. 

So what are some of the areas in the U.S. that are the worst economic disaster zones?

Well, everyone knows about Detroit.  Once regarded as one of the crown jewels of American industry, Detroit is now a rusted-out war zone that is a shell of its former self.

South of there, the state of Illinois has now become a complete and total disaster zone.  The government of Illinois has stopped paying even its most essential bills and it now ranks eighth in the world in possible bond-holder default.  Universities and government agencies are experiencing absolute chaos as they try to figure out how they are going to continue to function without any money.

Of course then there is California, where the Schwarzenegger administration has won an appellate court ruling saying it has the authority to impose the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour on more than 200,000 state workers as California wrestles with its latest budget crisis.  Things are now so bad in California that in the region around the state capital, Sacramento, there is now one closed business for every six that are still open.

Next door to California, in Nevada, things may be even worse.  Official unemployment in Nevada is hovering around 14 percent (unofficially it is much higher of course) and it is estimated that a whopping 65 percent of all homes in the state of Nevada are underwater.  There is perhaps no state in the U.S. that has been hurt more seriously by the housing crash than Nevada.

Unfortunately, things look like they are going to get even tighter for state and local governments in the year ahead.  Economist Mark Zandi is warning that up to 400,000 state and local government workers could lose their jobs in the next year as states, counties and cities grapple with lower revenue and less federal funding.

On top of all this, there is the threat that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could push the teetering U.S. economy completely over the edge.

Many cities along the Gulf of Mexico coast were already economic disaster zones even before this oil spill.   

But now we are talking about an economic nightmare of unprecedented proportions.

The seafood, tourism and real estate industries along the Gulf coast have been decimated and people are leaving in droves.  It could be years, or even decades, before things get back to some kind of “normal” in the area.

Some are even warning that this oil spill could cause the collapse of BP, and if that happens it could bring about absolute chaos on world financial markets.

Why?

Well, it turns out that BP is a major source of global liquidity and is a major player in the worldwide derivatives market.

If someday the worldwide derivatives market crashes, there won’t be enough money in the entire world to fix that problem.

But that is a topic for another day….

What To Do

Today, more Americans than ever are absolutely convinced that we are headed for an economic collapse.  After all, it doesn’t take an advanced degree in economics to understand that American consumers, American businesses, local governments, state governments and the U.S. federal government are all drowning in debt.  It would be hard enough to deal with all of this debt during good economic times, but these are not good economic times.  In fact, right now the U.S. economy is being pounded by an unprecedented number of economic problems.  Tens of millions of Americans are unemployed or underemployed, 40 million Americans are on food stamps, the U.S. real estate crash continues to get worse, and the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatens to drag that entire region, and perhaps all of the United States, into a devastating economic depression.  So these days it is fairly easy to convince Americans that really hard economic times are coming.  But now an increasingly large number of people have a new question.  They want to know what to do about all of this.  In fact, probably the biggest group of questions I receive from readers is regarding what to do in order to prepare for the economic collapse that is coming.   People are tired of just talking about all of these problems and they want an action plan. 

So what is the answer?

What should people do about this coming economic collapse?

Well, when I attended law school I was taught that there is a two word answer to almost any question that someone can ask about the law….

It depends.

And while there are some fundamental principles which we should all follow in getting prepared for the coming economic crisis (which I will share below), the truth is that each and every person has very different circumstances that they are facing, so when someone asks what they should do I give them that same answer….

It depends.

If you have a family you are going to prepare much differently than if you are single.

If you live along the coast you are going to prepare much differently than if you live in the mountains or in the city.

If you are wealthy you are going to prepare much differently from someone who only possesses limited resources.

If you are dependent on a job you are going to prepare much differently from someone who is self-employed.

If you live on a farm you are going to prepare much differently from someone who lives in an apartment building and has never even grown a garden.

The truth is that there are a ton of variables and there just is not a “one size fits all” answer.

However, there are some fundamental principles that we should all be following as we prepare for the coming economic collapse….

Get Out Of Debt

It is always, always, always a good idea to get out of debt, but this is particularly true during a time of economic crisis.  During an economic collapse, it will be very difficult to get work, money will be tight, and the last thing you will want to be doing is to be making monthly payments on some debt that you accumulated five years ago.  The reality is that when we borrow money we become a servant, and debt is a very cruel master. 

You especially want to get rid of debt that is at high interest rates (such as credit card debt).  There are very few things that are as good at bleeding your finances as credit card debt is.  For example, according to the credit card repayment calculator, if you have a $6000 balance on a credit card with a 20 percent interest rate and only pay the minimum payment each time, it will take you 54 years to pay off that credit card.

During those 54 years you will pay $26,168 in interest rate charges on that credit card balance in addition to the $6000 in principal that you are required to pay back.  That is before any fees or penalties are even calculated.

Can you see how financially debilitating that can be?

The truth is that if you haven’t already started, now is the time to develop a plan for how to get out of debt.  Paying off debt can be very painful, but it will put you in a much, much better position to weather the financial storms that are ahead.

Reduce Your Expenses

Along the same lines, it is a very good idea to start reducing your expenses right now.  The truth is that you cannot be sure that you will always have the same job or the same level of income.  Times are going to be very tight in the future.  Now is the time to start the belt tightening.

Yes, the truth is that the cost of everything seems to be going up these days, and most American families are already finding it increasingly difficult to get by each month.

But if your household is spending $5000 a month right now, are there ways that you could get that down to $4000 or maybe even $3000? 

If we all start learning to live with less right now, it will be much easier to do when times really get hard.

Increase Your Income

Yes, this is much easier said than done.  Especially considering the fact that it seems like there are hardly any jobs out there right now.

But the truth is that we are all going to have to work a lot harder and become a lot less dependent on employers.

It is going to become increasingly difficult to get good jobs in the months and years ahead.  The big global corporations are figuring out that they really don’t need us after all.  In many ways, it is much easier for them to hire a workforce from the other side of the world.

So where does that leave us?

Well, fortunately there are still a lot of ways to make money in America.  How long that will last is uncertain, but for now we should work while the working is good.  We are all going to have to start becoming a lot more entrepreneurial.

Nobody is going to hand you anything in this life.  If you just settle for your job (“just over broke”) you aren’t going to get too far in today’s world.

Many people start developing an extra income during their spare time in the evenings after work.  Yes, that would mean that you would have less time to sit on the couch and watch people talk about who LeBron James is going to play basketball for, but did you think that we were going to be able to get through this without making sacrifices?

Now is the time to rise up off the sofa and figure out how to make some more money.  There is still a little more time to get prepared.  If you keep putting off what you know needs to be done, eventually it will be too late.

In addition, learning to do things like growing a garden is another way of “increasing” your income.  All of the fruit and vegetables that you grow will mean that you won’t have to spend as much at the grocery store.

Stock Up On Essentials

There are tons of supplies still in the stores, and prices are still relatively low right now (especially compared to what they will be in the future).  So it is time to stock up on essentials while the getting is good.

In a previous article entitled “20 Things You Will Need To Survive When The Economy Collapses And The Next Great Depression Begins”, we listed 20 of the things that you will need in the event of a major disaster, an emergency or an economic collapse.  These are the things that you are going to want to make sure that you have ready right now, because after the crisis begins it may be too late to prepare….

#1) Storable Food

#2) Clean Water

#3) Shelter

#4) Warm Clothing

#5) An Axe

#6) Lighters Or Matches

#7) Hiking Boots Or Comfortable Shoes

#8) A Flashlight And/Or Lantern

#9) A Radio

#10) Communication Equipment

#11) A Swiss Army Knife

#12) Personal Hygiene Items

#13) A First Aid Kit And Other Medical Supplies

#14) Extra Gasoline (But Be Very Careful How You Store It)

#15) A Sewing Kit

#16) Self-Defense Equipment

#17) A Compass

#18) A Hiking Backpack

#19) A Community

#20) A Backup Plan

In the comments to that article, our readers suggested the following additional items….

A K-Bar Fighting Knife

Salt

Extra Batteries

Medicine

A Camp Stove

Propane

Pet Food

Heirloom Seeds

Tools

An LED Headlamp

Candles

Clorox

Calcium Hypochlorite

Ziplock Bags

Maps Of Your Area

Binoculars

Sleeping Bags

Rifle For Hunting

Extra Socks

Gloves

Gold And Silver Coins For Bartering

Of course there are probably many more items you could put on the list.

The point is to get educated, get informed and start getting prepared.

When things get really hard, that brand new pool table isn’t going to do you much good, but having a good supply of food and clean water will make all the difference.

Not that things are going to totally fall apart overnight.  It is going to be a process.

But you don’t start preparing when the storm is already on top of you. 

Most of us know what is coming.

Now we need to start taking action. 

This is how Americans got through the Great Depression of the 1930s – they tightened their belts, they were resourceful, and they did whatever they needed to do to provide for their families.

Now it is our turn.  Sure some people will laugh as many of us adjust our lifestyles in preparation for hard economic times, but it is those same people who will come knocking on your door when the rain does start pouring.

What Do You Believe Is America’s Biggest Economic Problem?

Today there are literally dozens of major threats to the U.S. economy.  Each one of these threats alone could cause a major economic implosion.  The Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the derivatives bubble, the housing crisis, the exploding U.S. national debt and the burgeoning European debt crisis all threaten to push the struggling U.S. economy over the edge.  But which one is America’s biggest economic problem?  Below, 16 of America’s greatest economic threats are listed in no particular order.  The goal of this article is to hear what all of you readers believe is the worst crisis the U.S. economy is facing.  If you would like to vote, please choose one of the 16 economic problems listed below (or nominate one of your own) and leave a comment explaining your choice….

#1) The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill – The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is already the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.  Is it also about to become the worst economic disaster in U.S. history?   

#2) The Derivatives Bubble – The total value of all derivatives worldwide is estimated to be well over a quadrillion dollars.  In fact, the danger from derivatives is so great that Warren Buffet has called them “financial weapons of mass destruction”.  Will the derivatives bubble end up being the major cause of the next depression?

#3) The Housing Crash – Last month, sales of new homes in the United States dropped to the lowest level ever recorded.  Also, the number of U.S. home foreclosures set a record for the second consecutive month in May.  Very few Americans are buying houses right now.  The subprime mortgage crisis brought the U.S. financial system to the brink of ruin in 2007 and 2008.  Is it about to happen again?

#4) The Federal Reserve – Instead of printing and issuing their own currency, the U.S. government actually has to go into more debt before any new currency is created.  But the problem is that the money to pay the interest on that debt is not created at that time, so in order to pay that interest the U.S. government will need to create even more currency in the future.  That means going into even more debt.  Thus the U.S. government is caught in an endless debt spiral that has now become impossible to escape.  By basing our economy on mountains of debt and paper money that is backed by nothing, have we essentially guaranteed that our economic system will totally fail someday?     

#5) The European Sovereign Debt Crisis – Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and a number of other European nations are in real danger of actually defaulting on their debts.  If a wave of national defaults starts sweeping the globe, will it end up wiping out the U.S. economy as well?

#6) The Growing Welfare State – For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.  More than 1 in 5 American children now live below the poverty line.  Nearly 51 million Americans received $672 billion in Social Security benefits in 2009.  How many people can the U.S. government possibly support financially before it finally collapses under the weight?

#7) Illegal Immigration– There are an estimated 30 million illegal immigrants now living in the United States.  Not only is this a very serious economic burden, but it is a huge national security issue as well.  Federal agents and local law enforcement officials along the border are now openly telling the media that they are outgunned, outmanned and are increasingly being shot at by the Mexican drug cartels that are openly conducting military operations inside the United States.  There is now significant Latin American gang activity in almost every large and mid-size city in the United States.  Meanwhile, Barack Obama continues to leave the border wide open.  

#8) Corruption On Wall Street– The corrupton in the financial system that has been revealed in 2010 has been absolutely mind blowing.  Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers and Wachovia are all being investigated by the government at this point.  The rampant manipulation of the gold and silver markets was completely blown open by an industry insider, and the U.S. government has finally been convinced to take a look at it.  It seems like the more the layers are peeled back, the more corruption we find in the financial community.  So how long can the U.S. financial system survive when corruption is seemingly everywhere? 

#9) War In The Middle East – The U.S. government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting the war in Iraq.  The U.S. government has spent over 247 billion dollars on the war in Afghanistan, and yet June 2010 has now become the deadliest month of the Afghan war for coalition troops.  Now there is a very real possibility that war could erupt with Iran.  How long can the U.S. government continue to afford to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into wars in the Middle East?  Not only that, but if a war with Iran cuts off the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf, what would that do to our economic system that is so highly dependent on oil?

#10) Barack Obama’s Health Care “Reform” – Barack Obama’s pet project is actually the biggest tax increase in U.S. history, it is going to cause the premature retirement of thousands upon thousands of American doctors, and it is going to drive health insurance premiums through the roof.  Health insurance companies are going to do very well (they actually helped write the bill), but the rest of us are going to be absolutely crushed by this brutal legislation.  So what will happen when the U.S. healthcare system implodes?

#11) Barack Obama’s “Cap And Trade” Carbon Tax Scheme– Rather than focusing all of his attention on fixing the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, Barack Obama has been busy playing golf and figuring out how he can use this crisis as an opportunity to get his “cap and trade” carbon tax scheme pushed through the U.S. Congress.  But will Barack Obama’s obsession with “global warming” end up totally wrecking the U.S. economy?

#12) Globalism – Most American workers had no idea that free trade would mean that they would suddenly be competing for jobs against workers in the Philippines and Malaysia.  Today, corporations often find themselves having to choose whether to build a factory in the United States or in the third world.  But in the third world workers often earn less than 10% of what American workers earn, corporations are often not required to provide any benefits to workers, and there are usually hardly any oppressive government regulations.  How can American workers compete against that?

#13) The Moral Decline Of America – An economy stops working efficiently when people stop feeling safe and when they stop trusting one another.  As greed, selfishness, lust, pride, theft and violence continue to explode, how much longer will the U.S. economy be able to function normally?

#14) Genetic Modification – Scientists around the globe have now produced “monster salmon” which grow three times as fast as normal salmon, corn that has been genetically modified to have a pesticide grow inside the corn kernel, cats that glow in the dark and goats that produce spider silk.  Is it possible that all of this genetic modification could unleash an environmental hell that could destroy not only the economy but also our entire society?

#15) Unemployment – Tens of millions of Americans are out of work and nearly a million people have lost their unemployment benefits because the U.S. Senate has once again failed to pass a bill that would extend those benefits.  In some areas of the United States unemployment has been pushing up towards depression-era levels.  For example, a while back the mayor of Detroit said that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere around 50 percent.  So is the biggest problem that the U.S. economy is facing the fact that so many millions of willing American workers simply cannot find work?

#16) The U.S. National Debt – As of June 1st,  the U.S. National Debt was $13,050,826,460,886.  According to a U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.  The total of all government, corporate and consumer debt in the United States is now about 360 percent of GDP.  The United States has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  So how long will it be before this mountain of debt collapses?

So of the 16 economic problems listed above, which one do you believe is the biggest threat to the U.S. economy?

Please feel free to leave a comment with your vote….

Does The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Mean That The U.S. Is Headed For Gas Lines, Higher Food Prices And A Broken Economy?

As the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis enters a third month, the economic impact of this environmental nightmare is starting to become clearer.  The truth is that the “oil volcano” spewing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf has absolutely decimated the seafood, tourism and real estate industries along the Gulf coast.  Not only that, but energy industry insiders are now warning that the chilling effect that this crisis will have on offshore drilling could precipitate a new 1970s-style energy crisis.  Considering the fact that the U.S. economy was already on incredibly shaky ground even before the oil leak, the last thing we needed was a disaster of this magnitude.  But it has happened, and the reality is that the long-term effects of this crisis are potentially going to reverberate for decades. 

The American people certainly have a negative view on the impact that this oil spill will have on the economy.  According to a new poll, about eight out of every 10 Americans expect the oil spill to damage the U.S. economy and drive up the cost of gas and food.

But is a new 1970s-style energy crisis really a possibility?

Could we actually soon be headed for blackouts and gas lines?

Well, former Shell executive John Hofmeister believes that is exactly what we are headed for….

“Within a decade I predict the energy abyss looks like brownouts, blackouts and gas lines.” 

In fact, Hofmeister claims that some of his fellow energy industry insiders expect things to be even worse than he is projecting in the years ahead.

Why?

Hofmeister says that the problem is the U.S. government….

“Our federal government, when it comes to energy and the environment, is dysfunctional, it’s broken, and it’s unfixable in its current form.”

Without a doubt, the oil spill will have a chilling effect on offshore drilling.  But does that mean that we are going to be facing a shortage of oil in the future?

Well, that is what the advocates of peak oil would have us believe. 

But the truth is that there are actually a TON of untapped reserves throughout the United States that could provide everything that we need for decades and more.

Nobody is really supposed to talk about it, but the reality is that there are massive deposits of oil in Alaska, the Colorado Rockies and in the Bakken formation in Montana and the Dakotas that are larger than anything found in Saudi Arabia. 

So we will only have an “energy crisis” if that is what oil industry insiders and the U.S. government want.

You see, the oil industry likes to keep the supply of oil down because it means much larger profits for them, and these days the folks in Washington D.C. like anything that causes the U.S. public to use less oil, so higher energy prices are just fine with them.

In fact, rather than focusing on getting the crisis in the Gulf solved, Barack Obama has been exploiting this oil spill to really push his economy-killing climate bill.  It seems like Barack Obama would do just about anything to foist his “cap and trade” carbon tax scheme on the American people. 

Energy issues aside, the impact that this oil spill is having on other areas of the Gulf coast economy is very significant.

For example, the Gulf oil spill is absolutely playing havoc with real estate prices in the region.

Real estate agent Linda Henderson recently put it this way….

“I can tell you that things have pretty much dropped to dead.”

After all, who is going to pay top dollar for beachfront property down there at this point?

Nobody.

Not only that, but obviously the oil spill is devastating the seafood industry in the Gulf as well.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the average wholesale price for Gulf brown shrimp has jumped by more than half since the crisis began.

In addition, oyster prices are up 33% since the beginning of the oil spill, and as oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico the price increases are only going to become more dramatic.

In fact, many are wondering if the seafood industry in the Gulf will ever recover from all of this.

The truth is that fishermen in Cordova, Alaska are still struggling 21 years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill devastated the fishing industry in that area.

Some local shrimpers in Louisiana are already predicting that it will be seven years before they can set to sea again, but even that actually may prove to be too optimistic.

Some scientists are warning that the massive quantities of methane that are being spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from the “oil volcano” could create “dead zones” where oxygen is so depleted that literally nothing lives.

So if the oil continues to flow for several more months could very large portions of the Gulf of Mexico become dead zones?

That is a legitimate question at this point.

In addition, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is completely destroying tourism along the Gulf coast.

The truth is that nobody wants to visit places where the beaches are coated with oil and where breathing the air makes your kids want to gag.

Public Service Commissioner Benjamin Stevens recently described what this is going to mean for beaches in his area….

“You get hit by a hurricane and you can rebuild. But when that stuff washes up on the white sands of Pensacola Beach, you can’t just go and get more white sand.”

Hotel Owner Dodie Vegas was even more blunt in describing what this crisis means for her business….

“It’s just going to kill us. It’s going to destroy us.”

But not everyone has been ruined economically by this oil spill.

In fact, it turns out that BP CEO Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his BP stock one month before the well on the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

Not only that, it has been revealed that Goldman Sachs sold 58% of its shares in BP between January and March of this year.

Isn’t it amazing how the elite always seem to have such perfect timing?

Even if Tony Hayward resigns as a result of this crisis, he is going to get a 10.8 million pound ($16 million) golden parachute.

No, the true losers in all of this are going to be those living along the Gulf of Mexico who have had their lives, their businesses and the beautiful environment around them destroyed.

We are literally watching an entire region of America slowly die, and Barack Obama still refuses to accept any of the international assistance that is being offered. 

If what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico is not enough to get the American people angry, then what will?  This crisis has been so badly mismanaged that it is absolutely mind blowing.  Let’s just hope that someone can find a way to stop the oil soon.

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