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50 Mind Blowing Facts About America That Our Founding Fathers Never Would Have Believed

If our Founding Fathers were alive today, what would they think of America?  Surely they would be very proud that the United States stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific and has built some of the most amazing cities that the world has ever seen.  They would probably be surprised that the country they founded went on to become the greatest economic machine in the history of the world, and they would be absolutely astounded by things like our interstate highway system and the Internet.  However, there are quite a number of things that they would be horrified about as well.  The fact that over 40 million Americans are dependent on the federal government for their daily food would be deeply disturbing to our founders.  Also, the fact that the U.S. government has accumulated the greatest mountain of debt in human history would be incredibly distressing to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the founders.  But perhaps most of all, our founders would be absolutely disgusted that the land where Americans could once be free to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has become so tightly regulated and controlled that Americans dare not even squeak without the permission of the federal government.

Needless to say, our founders would certainly not understand many of our institutions or many of the advanced technologies that we have today.  But without a doubt they would be able to grasp how far we have fallen as a nation and how far we have strayed from the fundamental principles that they enshrined in our founding documents.  The United States is a much different place today than it was in 1776, and unfortunately many of the changes have been for the worse.

The following are 50 mind blowing facts about modern America that our Founding Fathers never would have believed….

#1 In 2010, not only does the United States have a central bank, but it also runs our economy and issues all of our currency.  The Federal Reserve has devalued the U.S. dollar by over 95 percent since 1913 and it has been used to create the biggest mountain of government debt in the history of the world. 

#2 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that U.S. government agents can legally sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, place a secret GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of you everywhere that you go.

#3 The 50 wealthiest members of Congress saw their collective fortunes increase by 85.1 million dollars to $1.4 billion in 2009.

#4 The U.S. government has accumulated a national debt that is rapidly approaching the 14 trillion dollar mark.

#5 All over the United States, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel because it is cheaper to maintain.  The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt road into gravel over the past year, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have now turned some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.

#6 Americans now owe more than $849 billion on student loans, which is more than the total amount that Americans owe on their credit cards.

#7 In 2010, Americans waste an astounding amount of food.  According to a study by the California Integrated Waste Management board, 63 percent of the average supermarket’s waste stream is food. When you break that down, it means that each supermarket wastes approximately 3,000 pounds of food each year.

#8 The city of Cleveland plans to sort through curbside trash to ensure that people are actually recycling properly.  If it is discovered that some citizens are not recycling they will be hit with very large fines.

#9 Once upon a time, U.S. industry was the envy of the world.  But since 1979, manufacturing employment in the United States has fallen by 40 percent.

#10 Even though the U.S. population has exploded in size, the number of Americans with manufacturing jobs today is smaller than the number of Americans who were employed in manufacturing in 1950.

#11 Having one out of every eight Americans enrolled in the food stamp program is now considered “the new normal” and Americans continue to drop into poverty in astounding numbers.

#12 One out of every six Americans is now being served by at least one government anti-poverty program.

#13 A family of four actually has difficulty surviving on an income of $50,000 a year in America in 2010.

#14 Barack Obama is backing a proposal to create a national database that will store the DNA of all individuals who have been arrested, even if they end up not being convicted of a crime.

#15 In 2010, it takes the average unemployed American worker over 8 months to find a job.

#16 The U.S. government has made some parts of Arizona off limits to U.S. citizens because of the threat of violence from Mexican drug smugglers.  The federal government has actually posted signs more than 100 miles north of the Mexican border warning travelers that certain areas are unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers.

#17 One recent survey of last year’s college graduates discovered that 80 percent moved right back home with their parents after graduation.

#18 In one of the very first military commissions held under the Obama administration, a U.S. military judge ruled that confessions obtained by threatening the subject with rape are admissible in court.

#19 The average American worker now pays literally dozens of different kinds of taxes each year.

#20 In recent years the U.S. government has spent $2.6 million tax dollars to study the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes and $400,000 tax dollars to pay researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires, Argentina to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior when drunk.

#21 Christians are being arrested and thrown in jail in some areas of the United States for quietly passing out Christian literature on public sidewalks.

#22 The Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice has announced that it will begin using cutting edge analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents and will place “potential offenders” in prevention and education programs.

#23 Organic milk is now considered such a national crisis that the FDA has been conducting military style raids on Amish farmers in the state of Pennsylvania.

#24 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently announced that they are considering a crackdown on farm dust.

#25 According to a new CDC report, nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis.

#26 Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts says that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer.  The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.

#27 Today, Americans are losing their homes in staggering numbers.  One out of every seven mortgages was delinquent or in foreclosure during the first quarter of 2010.

#28 Many of our leading scientists are now calling themselves “transhumanists” and are openly proclaiming that a future where men have fully merged with machines is inevitable.

#29 Americans who spend large amounts of cash are viewed as “potential criminals” by the U.S. government in 2010.

#30 New full body security scanners going into airports all across the United States can actually see through our clothing and produce very clear and very detailed images of our exposed bodies as we walk through them.

#31 The U.S. financial system has become a massive gambling parlor in 2010.  As a result, a horrific derivatives bubble has developed that threatens to destroy our entire economy at any moment.  Nobody knows exactly how big the derivatives bubble is, but low estimates place it at around 600 trillion dollars and high estimates put it at around 1.5 quadrillion dollars.  Once that bubble pops there simply will not be enough money in the entire world to fix it.

#32 The U.S. government is spending an amount of money equivalent to approximately 25.4 percent of GDP this year.

#33 Today, 10,000 people make 30% of the total income in the United States.

#34 A 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation discovered that 250 employees of the Defense Department used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations.  However, the investigation also found that the Pentagon investigated only a handful of those cases.

#35 According to a recent 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.

#36 Approximately 57 percent of Barack Obama’s 3.8 trillion dollar budget for 2011 consists of direct payments to individual Americans or is money that is spent on their behalf.

#37 A recent Department of Justice guide for investigators of criminal and extremist groups lists “constitutionalists” and “survivalists” alongside organizations like Al-Qaeda and the Aryan Brotherhood.

#38 The U.S. trade deficit has exploded to nightmarish proportions over the past two decades.  Every single month tens of billions more dollars goes out of the United States than comes into it.  Essentially, the United States is becoming far poorer as a nation each and every month.

#39 Factories are closing in droves across the United States because the American people would rather buy things made in China.

#40 Millions upon millions of good paying middle class jobs are being shipped off to China and they are never coming back.  Meanwhile, U.S. politicians stand by idly and do nothing.

#41 Some analysts now believe that China could become the largest economy in the world by the year 2020.

#42 If the U.S. government was forced to use GAAP accounting principles (like all publicly-traded corporations must), the annual U.S. government budget deficit would be somewhere in the neighborhood of four to five trillion dollars.

#43 According to one recent survey, 28% of all U.S. households have at least one person that is currently searching for a full-time job.

#44 The U.S. dollar continues to rapidly decline in value.  An item that cost $20.00 in 1970 will cost you $112.35 today.  An item that cost $20.00 in 1913 will cost you $440.33 today.

#45 Major international organizations are actually proposing that the United States start considering the adoption of a truly global currency.

#46 Students at a high school in Missouri have built a car that they claim can get up to 450 miles per gallon.  On another note, some of the top energy experts in the world believe that thorium could solve our energy problems and supply very cheap energy for society for hundreds of thousands of years.  But in today’s world technologies such as these are endlessly suppressed by the rich and powerful.

#47 One Colorado high school student is seeking an explanation from officials at his school after he was ordered by security guards to remove American flags from his truck because they might make other students at the high school “uncomfortable”.

#48 Three California high school students were recently forced to remove their American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.

#49 Memorial crosses erected along Utah public roads to honor fallen state troopers have been found unconstitutional by a federal appeals court and now must be removed permanently.

#50 One group of high school students made national headlines recently when they revealed that a security guard ordered them to stop singing the national anthem during a visit to the Lincoln Memorial.

30 Statistics That Prove The Elite Are Getting Richer, The Poor Are Getting Poorer And The Middle Class Is Being Destroyed

Not everyone has been doing badly during the economic turmoil of the last few years.  In fact, there are some Americans that are doing really, really well.  While the vast majority of us struggle, there is one small segment of society that is seemingly doing better than ever.  This was reflected in a recent article on CNBC in which it was noted that companies that cater to average Americans are doing rather poorly right now while companies that market luxury goods and services are generally performing exceptionally well.  So why aren’t all American consumers jumping on the spending bandwagon?  Well, it seems that there are a large number of Americans who either can’t spend a lot of money right now or who are very hesitant to.  A stunningly high number of Americans are still unemployed, and for many other Americans, there is a very real fear that hard economic times will return soon.  On the other hand, there is a significant percentage of Americans who are blowing money on luxury goods and services as if the economy has fully turned around and it is time to let the good times roll.  So exactly what in the world is going on here?

Well, in 2010 life is very, very different depending on whether you are a “have” or a “have not”.  The recent article on CNBC referenced above described it this way….

Consumer spending in the U.S. has turned into a tale of two cities in 2010, with an entire segment of consumers splurging confidently on the finer things in life, while another segment, concerned about unemployment and with little or no discretionary income, spends only on bare necessities.

So why is this happening?

It is happening because the rich are getting richer and they have plenty of money to buy stuff and the poor are getting poorer and have less money to spend than ever.

In case you haven’t been paying attention over the past couple of decades, what we have in America today is a system that is designed to funnel as much wealth into the hands of the elite as possible.

This isn’t capitalism that we have in America in 2010.  Instead, what we have created is a system where the laws are set up so that the power elite and their big, dominant corporations always win. 

Why do you think so many of America’s largest corporations pay so little in taxes? 

Why do you think so many of them are showered with government subsidies, tax breaks and bailouts?

It’s not about competition anymore.

It’s about rigging the game in your favor.

The power elite and the giant corporations they control spend millions and millions on lobbying and campaign contributions and they expect a big return on that investment.

Let’s take a look at one example.  Many people think that Barack Obama and the Democrats are supposed to be anti-business, right?

Well then why are some of Barack Obama’s biggest donors the very same corporations that are receiving giant bailouts, making record profits and paying their employees billions in bonuses?

Goldman Sachs was Barack Obama’s second biggest donor.  Microsoft was number four.  Citigroup was number six.  JPMorgan Chase was number seven.  Time Warner was number eight.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Every single year, the U.S. Congress passes law after law after law that makes it easier for big corporations to dominate and makes it easier for the rich to get even richer.

America’s economy is not about competition anymore.

It is about eliminating competition.

And unfortunately for middle class Americans, the giant predator corporations that now dominate our economy are realizing that they don’t really need nearly as many American workers anymore.

Instead, they are slowly but surely shipping our jobs off to the other side of the world where workers are willing to work for about a tenth as much.

And yet we still run out to the “big box” stores and fill up our carts with a bunch of plastic crap made on the other side of the world by these giant corporations.

Meanwhile, those giant corporations are taking the profits they make out of our communities and they are taking our jobs and are shipping them overseas.

So in the final analysis, is it any wonder why the income inequality gap is growing?

Without small businesses having a legitimate chance to compete and without good jobs for American workers, the middle class in America is going to continue to get chewed up and spit out.

The following are 30 statistics that prove that the elite are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is being destroyed in 2010….

The Rich Are Getting Richer

1 – As of 2007, the top 1 percent of all Americans was taking home 24 percent of the national income.  This was a level that had not been seen since the days of the Great Depression.

2 – Incomes have been growing in the United States, but those at the very top of the pyramid have been gobbling up almost all of the income growth.  According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

3 – Even official government figures bear out the fact that the rich are getting richer.  An analysis of income-tax data by the Congressional Budget Office a few years ago found that the top 1% of all American households own nearly twice as much of the corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.

4– Most Americans have suffered during the last few years, but not the boys and girls down on Wall Street.  New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says that Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.

5 – Even as the number of Americans living in poverty skyrockets, the number of millionaires just keeps growing.  In fact, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million during 2009.

6 – The amount of money some of these Wall Street hotshots are making is incredible.  Back in 2005, the top 25 hedge fund managers earned a total of 9 billion dollars.  That would be bad enough, but even in these hard economic times the rich just keep getting richer.  One year after the recent financial collapse the top 25 hedge fund managers earned a total of approximately $25 billion.  That breaks down to an average of $1 billion each.  The truth is that the United States has been experiencing uneven prosperity for quite some time and things just seem to get worse with each passing year.

The Poor Are Getting Poorer

7 – Government anti-poverty programs are exploding in size in response to the recent economic difficulties.  USA Today is reporting that a record one in six Americans are now being served by at least one government anti-poverty program.

8 – Over 50 million Americans are on now Medicaid.  That figure is up more than 17 percent since the beginning of the recession.

9 – The number of Americans in the food stamp program rose to a new all-time record of 40.8 million in May.  That number is up almost 50 percent since the beginning of the recession.

10 – The number of Americans who cannot afford even the basic necessities is absolutely staggering.  A whopping 50 million Americans could not afford to buy enough food in order to stay healthy at some point over the last year.

11 – Compared to other industrialized nations, the United States is doing very poorly.  The U.S. poverty rate is now the third worst among the developed nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

12 – The saddest part of this is what we are doing to our children.  According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010. 

13 – But the American people cannot provide for their families if they don’t have jobs.  Today there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.  In 2010, it takes the average unemployed American worker over 8 months to find a job.

14 – Approximately 10 million Americans are currently receiving unemployment insurance, which is a number that is nearly four times higher than what it was at back in 2007.

15 – The truth is that we are creating a permanent underclass of Americans that cannot get jobs.  The number of Americans receiving long-term unemployment benefits has increased over 60 percent in just the past year.

16 – Increasingly, the wealth of the United States is being held in fewer and fewer hands.  One study found that as of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

17 – It is not a good time to be living in “the bottom half” in America.  The size of “the pie” being divided up among those at the low end of the wage scale is becoming really, really small.  In fact, the bottom 40 percent of all income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

The Middle Class Is Being Destroyed

18 – Even those Americans that still do have decent jobs are seeing their wealth fade rapidly.  For example, U.S. families have $6 trillion less in housing wealth than they did just three years ago.

19 – Home ownership used to be a sign that one had arrived in the middle class, but in 2010 an increasing number of Americans are finding out that they simply can’t afford their homes anymore.  One out of every seven mortgages were either delinquent or in foreclosure during the first quarter of 2010.

20 – The reality is that incomes have just not kept up with housing costs.  This has put an incredible amount of pressure on the middle class.  Just how much pressure?  Well, only the top 5 percent of all U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

21 – The debt binge middle class Americans have been on over the past couple of decades has drained many of them completely dry, and now more Americans than ever have bad credit scores.  Over 25 percent of Americans now have a credit score below 599, which means that they are a very bad credit risk.

22 – A rapidly rising number of Americans are actually choosing bankruptcy as a way out of their financial problems.  Nationwide, bankruptcy filings rose 20 percent in the 12 month period ending this past June 30th.

23 – The middle class manufacturing jobs that once defined so many American cities are rapidly disappearing.  Despite the fact that the U.S. population has dramatically increased, less Americans are employed in manufacturing today than in 1950.

24 – These days it seems like almost everyone is looking for a good job, but very few people are finding them.  According to one recent survey, 28% of all U.S. households have at least one member that is looking for a full-time job.

25 – Even many of those Americans that still have decent jobs have been hit hard by this economic downturn.  A recent Pew Research survey found that 55 percent of the U.S. labor force has experienced either unemployment, a pay decrease, a reduction in hours or an involuntary move to part-time work since the recession began.

26 – The number of jobs that are evaporating is absolutely stunning.  According to one analysis, the United States has lost a total of 10.5 million jobs since 2007.

27 – So where are the jobs going?  It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.  China’s trade surplus (much of it with the United States) climbed 140 percent in June compared to a year earlier.

28 – The truth is that “globalism” and “free trade” have put middle class American workers in direct competition with the cheapest labor in the world.  This is what middle class American workers must now compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.

29 – Due to these difficult economic conditions, the middle class is being squeezed as never before.  According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck.  That was up significantly from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.

30 – So what kind of future do our young people have in front of them?  Unfortunately, things don’t look pretty.  Many fresh college graduates can’t even get a job that will allow them to be independent.  One recent survey of last year’s college graduates discovered that 80 percent moved right back home with their parents after graduation.  That was up significantly from 63 percent in 2006.

A Two-Tier Internet?

The Internet as you know it is in serious, serious danger. Some of the most powerful communications companies in the world have been involved in negotiations and have been making agreements that would throw net neutrality out the window and would move us toward a two-tier Internet.  So exactly what would that mean?  It would mean that the big corporate giants that have a virtual monopoly on other forms of media and entertainment would be able to buy access to the blazing fast “next generation” Internet that communications companies are developing and the rest of us (like this site for example) would be stuck on the decaying “gravel roads” of the old Internet.  The threat that this poses to freedom, liberty, Internet commerce and the free flow of information should not be underestimated.   

I want you to take a few moments and imagine with me what the future of the Internet could look like if something is not done.  Imagine a world in which your Internet service provider gives you more “choices” regarding your level of Internet access.  For a “budget” price, you can get email and access to several hundred of the hottest and most popular websites (controlled by the big media conglomerates of course) on the incredibly fast “next generation” Internet.  For a bit more, you can get access to thousands of websites (once again, controlled by the big media conglomerates) on the new blazing fast version of the Internet that has been developed.  Or lastly, you can get the “premium package” which will give you access to the entire Internet, including the millions of websites that are still chugging along on the “old Internet”. 

Wouldn’t that be great?

Of course not.

Isn’t it obvious what would happen?

The millions of websites that are unwilling or unable to pay the exorbitant “tolls” to get on the new blazing fast version of the Internet would rapidly start losing traffic and would eventually fizzle out almost altogether. 

After all, in this day and age who is going to stick with technology that is slow and outdated? 

For example, how many people still use “dial-up” anymore?  There are a few, but it is just not that many.

For years, the big Internet companies have been dreaming of getting permission to sell access to an Internet “fast lane” to the highest bidder.  The potential profits to be had are staggering.

But right now there is one thing that stands in the way of those profits and that must be eliminated according to them.

Net neutrality.

Up until now, any information sent over the Internet has been treated more or less equally.  When a data packet enters the Internet, it is directed to its destination regardless of the identity of the customer or the importance of the information.

But now some very powerful interests want to change all that.  The idea is to have the Internet much more closely resemble cable television.

In particular, a recent agreement regarding net neutrality between Google and Verizon is causing alarm among Internet users.

The following is how The Daily Mail described the recent agreement between Google and Verizon….

Technology giants Google and Verizon have today paved the way for a future ‘two-tier’ internet in which companies can pay extra to make sure their services get through.

Whenever anyone starts using phrases like “pay extra” when it comes to access to the Internet, alarm bells should start going off in your head.

Once we start going down that road, the big media companies with the deep pockets will do all they can to gain a “competitive” advantage.

The future of the Internet is at stake.  Are we going to continue to have a free and open Internet with millions of choices, or are we going to have an Internet dominated by “toll roads” where there are only a few thousand choices which are all tightly controlled by the giant media conglomerates?

Already, there is a lot of talk about the new “high bandwidth” Internet that is coming.

According to The Daily Mail, even Verizon’s CEO admits that the agreement between his firm and Google would create a “separate” high bandwidth Internet…. 

The new high bandwidth internet would remain separate from the normal public internet and would probably include services such as healthcare and 3D video and gaming, according to Verizon’s chief executive, Ivan Seidenberg.

So what do you think is eventually going to happen if a new “high bandwith Internet” is set up?

Well, everyone will want to move over to it of course.

And that is exactly the idea.

Over the past several years, the big media conglomerates that dominate television, newspapers, radio, movies and even video games have come to realize that they have completely and totally lost control over the Internet.

The Internet has given the common man a voice in the world, and it is probably the greatest breakthrough for the free flow of information since the printing press was invented.

But to the big media conglomerates there is a big problem.

They have lost their monopoly.

People are not forced to come to them for their news and entertainment anymore.

The rise of the alternative media has been one of the most incredible stories of this past decade, and today information flows more freely around the globe than ever before.

But now there are some very powerful corporate interests that would like to force alternative websites, radio programs and television shows to shut down for good.

They realize that they need to make their move quickly, because we are rapidly approaching a critical turning point for the Internet.

You see, the truth is that virtually all communications will eventually go through the Internet.  Phone service, television service and Internet access are rapidly merging into one.

The battle for control over this media pipeline we call the Internet is only going to heat up even more.  Literally trillions of dollars will be made or lost depending on the direction that the Internet takes in the years ahead.

So will we allow the Internet to become a network of private toll roads where the big media conglomerates control what we see and hear and think?

Or will we stand up and demand that the Internet remain a free and neutral platform where information flows freely and where we can all have our say?

As for me, I choose to stand on the side of Internet freedom.

What say you?

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….

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