The mainstream media is full of happy economic news these days. The S&P 500 has shot up 16 percent since the beginning of July. Ford Motor Company just reported a profit that jumped nearly 70 percent in the third quarter. It was Ford’s best third quarter performance ever and it was the 6th quarterly profit in a row for the company. Other major firms have announced earnings that have far exceeded expectations in recent weeks. Hooray! The pundits are proclaiming that the economic collapse is over and that the U.S. economy has won. It is almost enough to make one tear into a stirring rendition of “Happy Days Are Here Again”. But perhaps we should take a moment and get a hold of ourselves first. After all, the underlying economic fundamentals have not changed. The same long-term trends that were ripping the U.S. financial system apart a month or two ago are still continuing to do so. Millions upon millions of American families are still deeply suffering. So exactly what in the world is going on here? Well, this is what is known as a “sucker’s rally”. Those on the inside know better than to throw money at this market. In fact, corporate insiders are now selling off stock so fast you would think it is going out of style. Meanwhile, hordes of innocent rubes are jumping back into the stock market thinking that it is the perfect time to get in. (Read More...)
Millions Of Unemployed Americans Now Live As Paupers Even As Foreign Nations Use Sovereign Wealth Funds To Buy Up Huge Chunks Of American Infrastructure
Most Americans still do not understand just how bad the economic horror we are facing really is. Today, millions of Americans are living as paupers in the land that their foreathers built even as America’s infrastructure is literally being sold out from under their feet by corrupt politicians. The “official” unemployment rate in the United States has been at nine and a half percent or above for 14 consecutive months, and today it takes the average unemployed American about 35 weeks to find a job. However, the “official” unemployment rate is misleading, because it does not include workers that have quit looking for work or that have had their hours cut back to part-time. According to 60 Minutes, when you add those “discouraged workers” and “underemployed workers” into the equation the actual rate is about 17 percent, and in the state of California the actual rate is about 22 percent. Meanwhile, foreign nations are using sovereign wealth funds to buy up staggering amounts of U.S. infrastructure. America is quite literally for sale in 2010. All across the United States, highways, ports, toll roads and even parking meters are being gobbled up by foreign powers. We have shipped massive amounts of wealth and jobs to other nations, and now those very same countries are turning around and buying huge amounts of U.S. infrastructure with the gigantic piles of dollars that they have accumulated. (Read More...)
100 Dollar Oil Is Coming
The price of oil has been hovering around 80 dollars a barrel for quite some time now, but get ready, because it is going to move significantly higher. Oil prices have already risen about 9 percent over the past month, and many believe that this could very well be the start of a new trend. Lawrence Eagles, a top analyst at JP Morgan, recently made headlines across the globe when he stated that oil could hit 100 dollars a barrel “much sooner than we expect”. Not only that, but a number of top OPEC officials are also publicly discussing the possibility of 100 dollar oil. But just because a few people are talking about it does not mean that it is going to happen. So are there any other reasons why we should anticipate a significant increase in the price of oil? (Read More...)
California Is Broke – 19 Reasons Why It May Be Time For Everyone To Leave The State Of California For Good
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a seemingly endless parade of pop songs about how great life was in California, and millions of young Americans dreamed of moving to the land of sandy beaches and golden sunshine. But now all of that has changed. Today, millions of Californians are dreaming about leaving the state for good. The truth is that California is broke. The economy of the state is in shambles. The official unemployment rate has been sitting above 12 percent for an extended period of time, and poverty is everywhere. For many Californians today, there are very few reasons to stay in the state but a whole lot of reasons to leave: falling housing prices, rising crime, budget cuts, rampant illegal immigration, horrific traffic, some of the most brutal tax rates in the nation, increasing gang violence and the ever present threat of wildfires, mudslides and natural disasters. The truth is that it is easy to understand why there are now more Americans moving out of California each year than there are Americans moving into the state. California has become a complete and total disaster zone in more ways than one, and an increasing number of Californians are deciding that enough is enough and they are getting out for good. (Read More...)
75 Ways That The Government And The Financial Elite Will Be Sucking Even More Of The Life Blood Out Of The American People In 2011
The American people are experiencing financial death by a thousand cuts and most of them don’t even realize it. The U.S. government, state governments, local governments and the financial elite are draining us financially in dozens upon dozens of different ways, and yet we have become so programmed to accept it that it just seems normal to us. 2011 is rapidly approaching, and a whole slate of federal taxes is scheduled to go up, state taxes are being increased from coast to coast, local governments are finding new and creative ways to stick it to us and the financial elite are becoming more predatory than ever. Meanwhile, the incomes of many average Americans are actually going down. According to the Census Bureau’s annual survey of income and poverty in the United States, of the 52 largest metro areas in the nation, only the city of San Antonio did not see a decline in median household income during 2009. Tens of millions of Americans are flat broke and they are getting pissed off. According to a new poll conducted by CNBC, 92 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is either “fair” or “poor”. The American people desperately want someone to fix the economy, but instead our “leaders” are trying to come up with new and creative ways to drain even more money out of us. (Read More...)
The Big Wall Street Banks Have Found A New Way To Strangle The American People: Predatory Property Tax Collection
It turns out that the big Wall Street banks have found a dirty new way to make loads of cash from U.S. homeowners, and they really, really don’t want to talk about it. So what is this dirty new business? America’s biggest financial institutions have become property tax collectors, and it is extremely lucrative. From coast to coast, the big Wall Street banks are buying up thousands upon thousands of tax liens and are making a killing by socking distressed homeowners with predatory interest, outrageous penalties and almost unbelievable legal fees. In some areas, the big banks are able to foreclose on these homes in as little as six months. The elderly and the poor are the most common targets of these practices. An absolutely brilliant expose in the Huffington Post has brought these issues to light, and it is creating quite a controversy in the financial world. The big banks are doing nothing illegal here. Local governments are offering to sell thousands of tax liens and somebody is going to end up buying them. But something seems extremely unsavory about the big Wall Street banks capitalizing on the economic downturn that they were so instrumental in causing in such a predatory manner. (Read More...)
Unfair Trade: 10 Questions About Our Globalized Economy That Neither Conservative Or Liberal Supporters Of Current U.S. Trade Policies Can Answer
Most Americans still seem to be convinced that “free trade” is “fair trade” and that to be against current U.S. trade policies and globalization means that you are anti-business, anti-free enterprise and anti-American. In the mainstream media, any unfair trade practices that are brought up are treated as minor nuisances that will be ironed out as we march towards the glorious globalized economy of the future. But the truth is that the kind of world trade that is going on today is neither “free” nor is it “fair”. Major exporting countries around the globe are openly manipulating their currencies, they are heavily subsidizing their major industries and they are erecting huge tariffs against many U.S. goods in order to protect their own domestic companies. Meanwhile, U.S. consumers enjoy mountains of cheap goods, but thousands of factories, hundreds of thousands of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars of national wealth leave our country for good every year. So how in the world is that good for us? It is kind of like ripping apart your house to get more firewood just to keep the fire going. Eventually you aren’t going to have a house anymore. (Read More...)
The Biggest Bank Robbery In History? More Quantitative Easing = Backdoor Bailouts For The Big Banks Without Having To Go Through Congress
The U.S. Federal Reserve is getting ready to conduct another gigantic bailout of the big banks, but this time virtually nobody in the mainstream media will use the term “bailout” and the American people are going to get a lot less upset about it. You see, one lesson that was learned during the last round of bank bailouts was that the American people really, really do not like it when the U.S. Congress votes to give money to the big banks. So this time, the financial “powers that be” have figured out a way around that. Instead of going through the massive headache of dealing with the U.S. Congress, the Federal Reserve is simply going to print money and give it directly to the banks. To be more precise, the Federal Reserve is going to use a procedure known as “quantitative easing” to print money out of thin air in order to purchase large quantities of “troubled assets” (such as mortgage-backed securities) from the biggest U.S. banks at well above market price. Some are already openly wondering if this next round of quantitative easing is going to be the biggest bank robbery in history. Most Americans won’t understand these “backdoor bailouts” well enough to get upset about them, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be just as bad (or even worse) than the last round of bailouts. In the end, all of the inflation that this new round of quantitative easing is going to cause is going to be a “hidden tax” on all of us. (Read More...)