Have you noticed that most Americans seem to know far more about American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Justin Bieber and their favorite sports teams than they do about world affairs? Most Americans cannot even find Tunisia and Algeria on a map, and if you told them that food riots are happening in those nations right now most of them would not even care anyway. We have become a very self-centered, self-involved and self-absorbed nation. Quite a few people have accused this column of being obsessed with “doom and gloom”, but the truth is that the world really is falling apart out there. What are we supposed to do? Are we all supposed to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that everything is going to be okay? Should we all not try to warn others so that they can prepare for what is coming? Until people understand that we are facing absolutely massive problems they are not going to be motivated to take significant action, and hopefully those of us that are proclaiming “doom and gloom” are doing a good enough job of describing what is really going on out there that some people are starting to wake up and actually make changes. (Read More...)
20 Shocking New Economic Records That Were Set In 2010
2010 was quite a year, wasn’t it? 2010 will be remembered for a lot of things, but for those living in the United States, one of the main things that last year will be remembered for is economic decline. The number of foreclosure filings set a new record, the number of home repossessions set a new record, the number of bankruptcies went up again, the number of Americans that became so discouraged that they simply quit looking for work reached a new all-time high and the number of Americans on food stamps kept setting a brand new record every single month. Meanwhile, U.S. government debt reached record highs, state government debt reached record highs and local government debt reached record highs. What a mess! In fact, even many of the “good” economic records that were set during 2010 were indications of underlying economic weakness. For example, the price of gold set an all-time record during 2010, but one of the primary reasons for the increase in the price of gold was that the U.S. dollar was rapidly losing value. Most Americans had been hoping that 2010 would be the beginning of better times, but unfortunately economic conditions just kept getting worse. (Read More...)
House Prices – Up Or Down In 2011?
How soon will it be before people finally start using the term “depression” to describe what has happened to the U.S. housing market? It has been four and a half years since housing prices began to decline, and they are still falling. In fact, U.S. housing prices have now fallen further during this economic downturn than they did during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Just think about that. We are now in unprecedented territory, and most analysts believe that U.S. house prices will continue to decline in 2011. Mortgage rates have been moving up, mortgage delinquencies are on the rise again, U.S. mortgage lenders have really tightened lending standards and “foreclosuregate” continues to plague the entire mortgage industry. It would be really nice for the overall economy if house prices did go up in 2011, but right now it looks like that simply is not going to happen. (Read More...)
10 Things That Would Be Different If The Federal Reserve Had Never Been Created
The vast majority of Americans, including many of those who believe that they are “educated” about the Federal Reserve, do not really understand how the Federal Reserve really makes money for the international banking elite. Many of those opposed to the Federal Reserve will point to the record $80.9 billion in profits that the Federal Reserve made last year as evidence that they are robbing the American people blind. But then those defending the Federal Reserve will point out that the Fed returned $78.4 billion to the U.S. Treasury. As a result, the Fed only made a couple billion dollars last year. Pretty harmless, eh? Well, actually no. You see, the money that the Federal Reserve directly makes is not the issue. Rather, the “magic” of the Federal Reserve system is that it took the power of money creation away from the U.S. government and gave it to the bankers. Now, the only way that the U.S. government can inject more money into the economy is by going into more debt. But when new government debt is created, the amount of money to pay the interest on that debt is not also created. In this way, it was intended by the international bankers that U.S. government debt would expand indefinitely and the U.S. money supply would also expand indefinitely. In the process, the international bankers would become insanely wealthy by lending money to the U.S. government. (Read More...)
Two Americas: 12 Facts That Show That Those Who Are Too Big To Fail Are Thriving On The Bailout Money That Our Politicians Gave Them Even As The Economic Suffering Of Ordinary Americans Continues To Deepen
Most Americans have a deep aversion to the phrase “redistribution of wealth”, and rightly so. On a fundamental level, it is just not right to take the money that one man has worked so hard to earn and “redistribute” it to someone else. In the political realm, the phrase “a redistribution of wealth” is usually a reference to our ballooning social programs, but what most Americans don’t realize is that one of the biggest redistributions of wealth in world history took place during the Wall Street bailouts of a couple years ago. Trillions of dollars of our money and of money that belongs to future generations was redistributed to the Wall Street bankers. The Wall Street bankers did not earn this money and they did not deserve this money. We were told that if Wall Street did not get this money that the global economy would collapse and that there would be martial law in the streets. We were promised that this money would “fix” Wall Street and then the prosperity would “trickle down” to Main Street. So did this happen? Of course not. (Read More...)
14 Eye Opening Statistics Which Reveal Just How Dramatically The U.S. Economy Has Collapsed Since 2007
Most Americans have become so accustomed to the “new normal” of continual economic decline that they don’t even remember how good things were just a few short years ago. Back in 2007, unemployment was very low, good jobs were much easier to get, far fewer Americans were living in poverty or enrolled in welfare programs and government finances were in much better shape. Of course most of this prosperity was fueled by massive amounts of debt, but at least times were better. Unfortunately, things have really deteriorated over the last several years. Since 2007, unemployment has skyrocketed, foreclosures have set new all-time records, personal bankruptcies have soared and U.S. government debt has gotten completely and totally out of control. Poll after poll has shown that Americans are now far less optimistic about the future than they were in 2007. It is almost as if the past few years have literally sucked the hope out of millions upon millions of Americans. (Read More...)
Instead Of Using This Period Of Economic Stability To Party We Should Be Using It To Prepare
The fact that the official U.S. government unemployment rate has dipped slightly is good news. However, it is not the “economic turning point” that Barack Obama and others are proclaiming it to be. Rather, what we are in right now is “the calm before the storm”. The massive amount of government spending that the U.S. government has done over the past few years and the massive quantities of new dollars that the Federal Reserve has been pumping into the system has bought us all just a little bit of time. Instead of using this brief period of economic stability to party, we should all be using it to prepare for the very hard economic times that are coming. Please do not get fooled when the short-term economic numbers go up or down a little bit. When evaluating the state of the U.S. economy, the key is to look at the long-term trends. The truth is that when you take a longer-term view, it becomes undeniable that the United States is in the midst of a long-term economic decline from which there is no escape. (Read More...)
In The Future You May Not Be Able To Provide The Basics For Your Family Even If Everyone In Your Family Has A Job
Today, millions of American families are extremely stressed out because they are working as hard as they can and yet they find at the end of the month they still haven’t been able to pay all of the bills. Unfortunately, things are only going to get rougher in the years ahead. The U.S. government has reached a terminal phase of the debt spiral that it is trapped in, and the only way to keep the system going is to print more money, borrow more money and spend more money. But won’t this cause horrible inflation eventually? Of course it will. That is why so many people around the world have so loudly denounced “quantitative easing 2”. The Federal Reserve is just creating hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air and is chucking all of this money into the system in a desperate attempt to get it moving again. This is also why the Tea Party movement is so angry about the record amounts of government debt that are being piled up. When the U.S. government goes into more debt, it creates more dollars. As the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government flood the system with new dollars, it means that there are now more dollars chasing roughly the same number of goods and services, and that is a recipe for inflation. (Read More...)