All across America there are cities and towns that were once prosperous and beautiful that are being transformed into absolute hellholes. The scars left by the long-term economic decline of the United States are getting deeper and more gruesome. The tax base in many areas of the nation has been absolutely devastated as millions of jobs have left this country. Hundreds of cities are drowning in debt and are desperately trying to survive. Last year, city government revenues in the United States fell by another 2.3 percent. That was the fifth year in a row that we have seen a decline. Meanwhile, costs associated with health care, pensions and virtually everything else continue to explode. So what are cities doing to make ends meet? Well, one big trend that we are now witnessing is that many U.S. cities have been getting rid of huge numbers of employees. If you can believe it, 72 percent of all U.S. cities are laying workers off this year. Social services and essential infrastructure programs are also being savagely cut back in many areas of the country. The cold, hard truth is that most of our cities are flat broke and things are going to get even worse in the years ahead. (Read More...)
LOL – This Stock Market Rally Is For Suckers
Hey, have you heard? The stock market is absolutely soaring right now. The Dow was up 330 points on Monday, and overall the Dow has risen by more than 10 percent since October 3rd. So should we all be throwing our money into the stock market in order to take advantage of this tremendous rally? Well, if you actually believe that the sovereign debt crisis has passed and that we are no longer on the verge of a massive worldwide financial crisis then I have a bridge that I would like to sell you. The stock market may be soaring, but absolutely nothing has been solved. The truth is that this stock market rally is for suckers. The primary reason why stocks rose today was because German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised that they would reveal a “comprehensive response” to the European debt crisis by the end of this month. When pressed for specifics, Sarkozy stated that “now is not the moment to go into the details.” So do global financial markets really have a legitimate reason to be giddy about the super secret plan cooked up by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, or are Merkel and Sarkozy just blowing a bunch of smoke? (Read More...)
The Top 100 Statistics About The Collapse Of The Economy That Every American Voter Should Know
The U.S. economy is dying and most American voters have no idea why it is happening. Unfortunately, the mainstream media and most of our politicians are not telling the truth about the collapse of the economy. This generation was handed the keys to the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen, and we have completely wrecked it. Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have left us drowning in an ocean of corruption, greed and bad debt. Thousands of businesses and millions of jobs have left the country and poverty is exploding from coast to coast. We are literally becoming a joke to the rest of the world. It is absolutely imperative that we educate America about what is happening. Until the American people truly understand the problems that we are facing, they will not be willing to implement the solutions that are necessary. (Read More...)
And So It Begins – The First Major European Bank Has Been Bailed Out And More Bailouts Are Coming
And so it begins. The first major European bank bailout of 2011 has now happened. French/Belgian banking giant Dexia has failed and both governments have pledged to participate in a rescue plan. But Dexia will not be the last major European bank to fail. Even now, governments all over Europe are feverishly developing plans to bail out major national banks in the event that the current financial crisis goes from bad to worse. Instead of learning the lessons of 2008, most major European banks have continued to pile up huge mountains of debt, leverage and risk. Now the bill for that stupidity is about to be passed on to the taxpayers of those nations. But with most nations in Europe already drowning in debt, are bank bailouts really the right course of action? What is it going to happen to Europe if dozens of major banks start failing and trillions of euros are needed to bail them all out? (Read More...)
Bank Fees? Let’s Tell The Banksters That We Don’t Want Their Stinking Bank Fees And That We Are Switching Banks
Millions of Americans are about to get stabbed in the back by their banks. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and several other large banks are either already implementing outrageous new bank fees or are currently testing them. So are these ridiculous new bank fees going to be enough to get millions of Americans to finally boycott the big banks? When millions of Americans start paying a $5 fee every month to use their debit cards and when millions of Americans start paying a $20 fee every single month just to have a checking account hopefully that will be enough to wake them up. These fees are certainly not going to cause an “economic collapse”, but they are incredibly annoying. The truth is that the big banks are trying to take advantage of us. It shouldn’t cost $60 a year just to use a debit card. It shouldn’t cost $240 a year just to have a checking account. What we need to do is to send an unequivocal message to the big banks: we don’t want your stinking bank fees and we are switching banks. (Read More...)
Bad Financial News Keeps Pouring In: 14 Facts That Just Might Scare The Living Daylights Out Of You
Will the bad financial news ever stop? A lot of people in the financial world were hoping for a much better fourth quarter after an absolutely disastrous third quarter. Well, if Monday was any indication, October could end up being a really rough month for global financial markets. So much bad financial news keeps pouring in that it really is a challenge to try to keep track of it all. Greece seems to get closer to defaulting on their debts with each passing day, and it appears that Germany is not going to contribute any more bailout money beyond what they have already committed to. Major banks on both sides of the Atlantic are on the verge of collapse, and investors all over the world are afraid that we may have another “Lehman Brothers moment” soon. Shares of American Airlines dropped a staggering 33 percent on Monday as rumors that they will soon be entering bankruptcy swirled. Yes, things certainly are getting interesting. Back in 2008, the governments of the western world saved the financial system with gigantic bailouts that were absolutely unprecedented. If the financial system crashes again at some point in the coming weeks or months, will the political will for more bank bailouts be there? If not, what is going to happen to the banking system? (Read More...)
Uh Oh: 90 Percent Of Americans Rate Economic Conditions In The U.S. As “Poor”
Uh oh – are we rapidly reaching another major economic tipping point? According to a new CNN/ORC International Poll, 90 percent of the American people believe that economic conditions in the United States are “poor”. This represents a significant increase from when the same question was asked in June. Back then, 81 percent of the American people considered economic conditions to be “poor”. To put this in perspective, only 11 percent of Americans rated economic conditions in the U.S. as “poor” back in January of 1999. The Federal Reserve and the Obama administration keep telling us that we are in the middle of an “economic recovery”, but obviously what average Americans are experiencing on the street is a different story. Millions of families have been absolutely devastated by mass layoffs, heartless foreclosures or bad debts. All of the recent polls show that satisfaction with government is at an all-time low and anger at Wall Street and the financial community is rising to dangerous levels. In the United States today, the economy is the most important issue for most Americans. When you have 9 out of 10 Americans rating economic conditions as “poor”, that is a very troubling sign. (Read More...)
Prophets Of Doom: 12 Shocking Quotes From Insiders About The Horrific Economic Crisis That Is Almost Here
We are getting so close to a financial collapse in Europe that you can almost hear the debt bubbles popping. All across the western world, governments and major banks are rapidly becoming insolvent. So far, the powers that be are keeping all of the balls in the air by throwing around lots of bailout money. But now the political will for more bailouts is drying up and the number of troubled entities seems to grow by the day. Right now the western world is facing a debt crisis that is absolutely unprecedented in world history. Europe has had a tremendously difficult time just trying to keep Greece afloat, and several much larger European countries are now on the verge of a major financial crisis. In addition, there is a growing number of very large financial institutions all over the western world that are also rapidly approaching a day of reckoning. The global financial system is a sea or red ink, and when we get to the point where there are hundreds of ships going under how is it going to be possible to bail all of them out? The quotes that you are about to read show that quite a few top financial and political insiders know that things cannot hold together much longer and that a horrific economic crisis is coming. We built the global financial system on a foundation of debt, leverage and risk and now this house of cards that we have created is about to come tumbling down. (Read More...)