15 Examples That Show Many Americans Have Become So Desperate That They Will Do Just About Anything For Money

More Americans than ever are desperate for money and many of them will do just about anything to get it.  The crumbling U.S. economy has pushed millions of ordinary Americans to the brink of utter desperation.  When it comes time to choose between being able to survive or breaking the law, many people are choosing to break the law.  These days it seems like Americans will do just about anything for money.  All over the country, there are areas where just about anything that is not bolted down is being stolen.  A lot of people have resorted to making money however they can – selling drugs, selling their bodies, shoplifting, invading homes, taking bribes, running credit card scams and even stealing from their own family members.  You will have a hard time believing some of the things that you are about to read below.  When people have their backs pushed up against the wall, often they find that they are willing to do things that they never imagined that they would do.  Things are getting crazy out there on the streets of America, and as the economy continues to decline things are going to get a lot crazier.

The following are 15 examples that show many Americans have become so desperate that they will do just about anything for money….

#1 In Utah, one unemployed 28 year old man is offering to be “human prey” for hunters for the bargain price of $10,000.  For an additional $2,000, he will let people hunt him down while he is running around naked.

#2 The Huffington Post is reporting that there has been an epidemic of air conditioning thefts all over the United States….

Across the country, in states like Illinois, Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Florida, there have been reports of thieves stealing unsecured air conditioning units weighing as much as 125 pounds.

#3 In Corpus Christi, Texas thieves have actually been breaking into funeral homes in order to steal the embalming fluid.

#4 Even police officers are committing desperate acts these days.  Just check out what one police officer in Chicago is charged with doing….

A Chicago Police officer stole $50,000 from his ailing elderly father to pay off his bills and gambling debts and unsuccessfully attempted to swipe his dad’s retirement savings by impersonating him

#5 Nothing is off limits to thieves these days.  Criminals recently broke into a southwest Atlanta beauty supply store and took off with $30,000 in hair extensions.

#6 In another area of Atlanta, thieves have been breaking down walls and busting bathroom fixtures with sledgehammers in order to get their hands on copper, brass and steel….

Kids in two Atlanta communities won’t have their neighborhood pools to help beat the summer heat, at least for now. Thieves used what is believed to be sledge hammers to bust walls and break fixtures in bathrooms at Adams and South Bend parks to steal copper, brass and steel.

#7 One grandmother in Florida has been accused of trying to sell her newborn grandson for $75,000.

#8 In Antioch, California a total of approximately 300 power poles were recently knocked down by thieves and stripped of their copper wiring.

#9 In Minnesota recently, a mob of teen girls brutally pummeled a mother and her two daughters until they were black and blue.  Apparently the mob of teen girls was enraged over a pair of missing sunglasses.

#10 In Asheville, North Carolina thieves recently took off with 4 metal tables and 16 metal chairs that were sitting outside a pizzeria.

#11 In Florida, thieves have actually been stealing storm drain covers.

#12 In Oregon, thieves recently broke into a Salvation Army community center and stole 3 large air conditioning units.  Now all the people that come to that facility for help and for community programs this summer will be absolutely sweltering.

#13 In the Cleveland area, two young boys that had set up a lemonade stand were robbed in broad daylight.  The crooks got away with approximately 12 dollars.

#14 In Oklahoma, thieves recently broke into a church and stole “arts and crafts supplies meant to help teach bible stories to children“.

#15 A 59 year old man from North Carolina named Richard James Verone was so desperate for money that he actually robbed a bank and got caught on purpose so that he could be put in prison and be given free health care.

One day Verone walked into an RBC Bank in North Carolina, handed a clerk a note demanding exactly one dollar and sat down and waited for the police to arrive and arrest him.

Verone has a growth on his chest and two ruptured disks but he does not have any health insurance.  He is hoping that in prison he will get the medical treatment that he needs.

As society continues to unravel, prison is going to look like an appealing option for more and more people.

At least in prison you get fed, you have a roof over your head and they will take care of your medical needs.

For a whole lot of Americans, that would be a major step up.

Have you noticed that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear?

America is becoming a cold, cruel place and lawlessness is everywhere.

For many more signs that our society is starting to crumble, please see these two articles….

*”18 Signs The Collapse Of Society Is Accelerating

*”12 More Signs That Society Is Collapsing

For ages, Americans have looked down on the crime and the depravity that goes on in other areas of the world.

Well, now America has all of the crime and depravity it can handle and it is going to get a lot worse as millions of formerly middle class Americans descend into poverty.

A regular commenter on my website who identifies himself as “El Pollo de Oro” recently described the kind of chaos that he believes is coming to the streets of America….

I live in Philadelphia, a city that used to have a ton of blue-collar manufacturing jobs as well as a great deal of white-collar employment, but the blue-collar manufacturing jobs have disappeared–and on the white-collar side, a college degree isn’t necessarily the ticket to prosperity it once was. Philly has its share of nasty, dangerous ghetto areas as well as ritzy, upscale areas like Rittenhouse Square. But then, there are parts of Mexico City that look like Beverly Hills except that the signs are en español. A minority of Chilangos are filthy rich, which is what you expect in a Third World country: an uber-rich minority and a poor majority. And when The Banana Republic of America (formerly the USA) signed on for globalism and ignored Ross Perot’s warning, it opted to become a Third World country—which means that you can kiss the American middle class goodbye.

But there will be some growth industries in The Banana Republic of America: kidnapping, drug smuggling, murder for hire, carjacking, armed robbery. And if you want a taste of what life will be like in American cities in the future, just spend a few weeks in Guatemala City, Johannesburg or Caracas—all of which have the type of horrible crime rates that BRA cities can look forward to in the future. Desperate people do desperate things, and hardcore desperation will be in the norm in the BRA. It won’t be fun (unless, of course, being robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight is one’s idea of a good time).

Welcome to life in a rotting, decaying Third World hellhole. Welcome to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Welcome to life in The Banana Republic of America, formerly the USA.

America is changing.  The safe, secure environment that we all used to take for granted is dying.  The number of truly desperate people rises by the day, and many of those desperate people are willing to do just about anything for money.

The United States used to have a thriving middle class, but our economic system has been so manipulated over the decades that now almost all of the economic rewards go to the very top of the food chain.

25 years ago, the wealthiest 12 percent of all Americans controlled 33 percent of all the wealth.  Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans control 40 percent of all the wealth.

In the United States today, we are actually witnessing the death of the middle class.  Our jobs have been shipped overseas, the banks have enslaved us to debt, the government keeps finding more ways to tax us and the Federal Reserve keeps debasing our currency.

Everywhere you go, despair is in the air.  According to a brand new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 63 percent of Americans believe that the nation is on the wrong track.

Fortunately, many Americans are responding to these signs of trouble by preparing.

One local Oklahoma newspaper recently did an article that profiled a few of the growing number of Americans that are preparing for hard times….

Rod and Lauretta Smith estimate they could survive a year without going to the grocery store.

A large garden on their 5-acre property in south Tulsa produces hundreds of quarts of canned and frozen beans, tomatoes and other vegetables. Chickens provide eggs.

The Smiths are among a small but growing number of people stocking up on food to become more self-reliant in a time marked by natural disasters and economic uncertainty.

The truth is that all of us should try to become less dependent on the system.  The Democrats, the Republicans, the Federal Reserve and the big corporations are not there to help you.  They are not going to come riding to the rescue if you lose your job and your home.

We all need to do what we can to become more independent and to prepare ourselves and our families for the incredibly difficult economic times that are inevitably coming.  Those that have faith that their jobs will always be there or that the government will always take care of them will be deeply disappointed.

The system is dying and society is coming apart.

The only rational thing to do is to prepare for what is coming.

 

Outcasts: Tonight Tens Of Thousands Of Formerly Middle Class Americans Will Be Sleeping In Their Cars, In Tent Cities Or On The Streets

Economic despair is beginning to spread rapidly in America.  As you read this, there are millions of American families that are just barely hanging on by their fingernails.  For a growing number of Americans, it has become an all-out battle just to be able to afford to sleep under a roof and put a little bit of food on the table.  Sadly, there are more people than ever that are losing that battle.  Tonight, tens of thousands of formerly middle class Americans will be sleeping in their cars, even though that is illegal in many U.S. cities.  Tens of thousands of others will be sleeping in tent cities or on the streets.  Meanwhile, communities all over America are passing measures that are meant to push tent cities and homeless people out of their areas.  It turns out that once you lose your job and your home in this country you become something of an outcast.  Sadly, the number of “outcasts” is going to continue to grow as the U.S. economy continues to collapse.

Most Americans that end up living in their cars on in tent cities never thought that it would happen to them.

An article in Der Spiegel profiled one American couple that is absolutely shocked at what has happened to them….

Chanelle Sabedra is already on that road. She and her husband have been sleeping in their car for almost three weeks now. “We never saw this coming, never ever,” says Sabedra. She starts to cry. “I’m an adult, I can take care of myself one way or another, and same with my husband, but (my kids are) too little to go through these things.” She has three children; they are nine, five and three years old.

“We had a house further south, in San Bernardino,” says Sabedra. Her husband lost his job building prefab houses in July 2009. The utility company turned off the gas. “We were boiling water on the barbeque to bathe our kids,” she says. No longer able to pay the rent, the Sabedras were evicted from their house in August.

How would you feel if you had a 3 year old kid and a 5 year old kid and you were sleeping in a car?

Sadly, if child protective services finds out about that family those kids will probably be stolen away and never returned.

America is becoming a very cruel place.

Unfortunately, what has happened to that family is not an isolated incident.  As rampant unemployment has spread across America, the number of people that have lost their homes has soared.

Today, it is estimated that approximately a third of the homeless population in Seattle live in their cars.

It is even happening to my readers.  A reader named JD left the following comment on one of my articles a while back….

I was laid off from my construction job almost 2 yrs ago was on unenjoyment for over a yr they cut me off last september so i lost my apartment. Since then ive been couch surfing and hotel hopping. Now i occaisonally sleep in my car. I was lucky enough to have a friend with a lawn care business so i can at least put ever increasing gas in my car\house. I hate to say it but i think we will see hoovervilles in the major cities soon. When the welfare & food stamps & all the other govt. programs end the anarchy begins.

Desperation is rising all over America.  Most people had hoped to see an economic recovery by now but it just hasn’t happened.

The phenomenon of Americans living in their cars has become so prominent that even Time Magazine has done a story about it….

For people who cannot afford rent, a car is the last rung of dignity and sanity above the despair of the streets. A home on wheels is a classic American affair, from the wagon train to the RV. Now, for some formerly upwardly mobile Americans, the economic storm has turned the backseat or the rear of the van into the bedroom. “We found six people sleeping in their cars on an overnight police ride-along in December,” says John Edmund, chief of staff to Long Beach councilman Dee Andrews. “One was a widow living in a four-door sedan. She and her husband had been Air Force veterans. She did not know about the agencies that could help her. I had tears in my eyes afterwards.”

Unfortunately, it turns out that sleeping in cars has been made illegal in many areas of the United States.

In many cities, police are putting boots on the cars and when the homeless owners can’t pay the fines the vehicles are being taken away from them.

Venice, California is one place where people have been arrested for living in vehicles.  Venice had been a popular spot for people living in their RVs to go, but police started arresting people that were living in RVs and they began towing away their vehicles. The following is an excerpt from an article that appeared on the Daily Kos website….

They took Eric while he was changing his battery in his car. Claimed he lived in his car. A few days later they went to 3th Street and took his RV because he was in jail and no one moved it for 72 hours. Saturday they did a sweep of 7th and took Bear and his RV. They also took Elizabeth’s RV but do not know if they took Elizabeth but can not find her. The police went to 6th and took the white RV that always parks by Broadway on 6th. Everyday they take 1 to 4 RVs. Very soon there will be no one left.

Once you are down on your luck in America you will quickly find that authorities will try to take everything else you still have away from you.

The United States can be a very brutal place to be if you are poor.

All over America, communities are making tent cities illegal or they are simply just chasing them away.

It turns out that many Americans really don’t like large numbers of homeless people camping out in their neighborhoods.

But many of those now living in tent cities used to be just like you and me.

What is being done to tent cities in some areas of the country is absolutely disgusting.

For example, who could ever forget this video of police in St. Petersburg, Florida using box cutters to slash up the tents of the homeless….

What goes through your mind when you watch something like that?

If you don’t feel at least a little bit of compassion for those people then something is wrong.

You never know – you might be the next one forced to take refuge in a tent city.

In many U.S. cities, it is even illegal to sleep on the street.  If you are homeless I am not sure what you are supposed to do.  In some areas of the U.S. you can’t sleep in your car, you can’t sleep in a tent city and you can’t sleep on the street.

So what should we do with all of the Americans that are being forced out of their homes by this economy?

Should we just round them all up and put them into fenced camps?

Don’t laugh – we are getting closer to that kind of thing every day.

We live in very frightening times.

Poverty is absolutely exploding in America.  The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.  There are 44 million Americans on food stamps.  If it was not for measures like these, the streets of America would be filled with destitute people.

Things are tough out there and they are about to get tougher.

At the beginning of next year, the extended unemployment benefits that have been helping the unemployed during this economic downturn will expire.  Up to now, many unemployed Americans have been able to enjoy up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits.  Now that is coming to an end.

According to the New York Times, this is going to drain 37 billion dollars out of the wallets of unemployed Americans that are just barely hanging on.

What in the world is that going to do to the economy?

This all comes at a time when it looks like unemployment is going to start rising once again.

Cisco has just announced that they are going to be laying off 10,000 workers.  Other large firms are expected to announce more layoffs shortly.  The number of good jobs continues to shrink.

There are other signs that the economy is slowing once again.  Pre-orders for Christmas toys are way down.  Vacancies at U.S. shopping malls are rising again.  Nearly every major poll shows that Americans are extremely pessimistic about the economy right now.

So why in the world is all of this happening?

Where in the world did all of our jobs go?

Well, it turns out that millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas where the labor is far, far cheaper and it is really starting to catch up with us.

On The American Dream website, I just finished an article entitled “How Globalism Has Destroyed Our Jobs, Businesses And National Wealth In 10 Easy Steps“.  It is a 2500 word essay that explains how globalization has absolutely gutted our economy.  The article will hopefully help you understand why so many good jobs have left the United States and why they aren’t coming back.

Many of our great cities that used to be the envy of the entire globe are now a bad joke to the rest of the world.

The following is what one reporter from the UK found when he visited one of the worst areas of Detroit….

Occasionally a half-ruined or half-burned house still stands to remind you that this used to be a cityscape. Pathetic, besieged knots of surviving homes remind you of what was once here. Sometimes amazing efforts have been made to keep them smart. More often, they haven’t.

Many bear menacing notices warning visitors to stay away. On the door of one, easy to imagine as a neat home with an iron-pillared porch where the head of the family must once have sat on summer evenings, are the words ‘Enter at ya own risk’ accompanied by a crude drawing of an angry face.

I ventured into a nearby ruin, smashed, charred and half-filled with garbage. You have no idea who or what might be lurking in these houses.

But don’t laugh at Detroit.  What is happening in Detroit is coming to your area soon enough.

America is in an advanced state of decay.  The number of “outcasts” is going to multiply as more Americans lose their jobs and their homes.  Millions more Americans will be sleeping in their cars, in tent cities or on the streets before this is all over.

The U.S. economy is never going to get back to “normal”.  What we are living through now is the “new normal” and it is rip-roaring prosperity compared to what is coming.

Please show compassion to the people around you that are hurting right now.

You never know, as the economy continues to unravel it may be you that needs some compassion soon.

 

A Bad Mood Has Descended On World Financial Markets

Have you noticed that a really bad mood seems to have descended on world financial markets?  Fear and pessimism are everywhere.  The global economy never truly recovered from the financial crisis of 2008, and right now everyone is keeping their eyes open for the next “Lehman Brothers moment” that will send world financial markets into another tailspin.  Investors have been very nervous for quite some time now, but this week things seem to be going to a whole new level.  Fears about the spread of the debt crisis in Europe and about the failure of debt ceiling talks in the United States have really hammered global financial markets.  On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 151 points.  Italian stocks fared even worse.  The stock market in Italy fell more than 3 percent on Monday.  The stock markets in Germany and France fell more than 2 percent each.  On top of everything else, the fact that protesters have stormed the U.S. embassy in Syria is causing tensions to rise significantly in the Middle East.  Everywhere you turn there seems to be more bad news and large numbers of investors are getting closer to hitting the panic button.  Hopefully things will cool down soon, because if not we could soon have another full-blown financial crisis on our hands.

Even many of those that have always tried to reassure us suddenly seem to be in a really bad mood.

For example, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted to “Meet the Press” that the U.S. economy is really struggling and that for many Americans “it’s going to feel very hard, harder than anything they’ve experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come.”

Does Geithner know something that we don’t?

To say that what Americans are facing will be “harder than anything they’ve experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come” is very, very strong language.

It almost sounds like Timothy Geithner could be writing for The Economic Collapse blog.

It certainly is not helping things that the Democrats and the Republicans still have not agreed on a deal to raise the debt ceiling.  It is mid-July and Barack Obama and John Boehner continue to point fingers at each other.

Of course if they do reach a “deal” it will likely be a complete and total joke just like their last “deal” was.

But for now they are playing politics and trying to position themselves well for the 2012 election season.

Meanwhile, world financial markets are starting to get a little nervous about this situation.  The newly elected head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, has stated that she “can’t imagine for a second” that we are going to see the U.S. default on any debt.  Most investors seem to agree with Lagarde for now, but if we get to August 2nd without a deal being reached things could change very quickly.

But it isn’t just the debt ceiling crisis that is causing apprehension in the United States.  The truth is that there are a host of indications that the U.S. economy is continuing to struggle.

Even big Wall Street banks are laying people off.  A recent Reuters article described the bad mood that has descended on Wall Street right now….

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and some other large U.S. investment banks are not just laying off weak performers and back-office employees. They are also cutting the pay of those they are keeping, scrutinizing expense reports and expecting even the most profitable workers to bring in more business for the same amount of compensation.

That is not a good sign for the U.S. economy.

If the corrupt Wall Street banks are even struggling, what does that mean for the rest of us?

But the big trouble recently has been in Europe.  The sovereign debt crisis continues to get worse and worse.

As I wrote about yesterday, the emerging financial crisis in Italy has EU officials in a bit of a tizzy.  If Italy requires a bailout it is going to be an unmitigated disaster.

One of the most respected financial journalists in Europe, Ambrose Evans Pritchard, says that financial tensions in the EU are rising to dangerous levels….

If the ECB’s Jean-Claude Trichet is right in claiming that Europe was on the brink of a 1930s financial cataclysm a year ago – and I think he is – it is hard see how the threat is any less serious right now.

Fall-out from Greece flattened Portugal and Ireland last week. It is engulfing Spain and Italy, countries with €6.3 trillion of public and private debt between them.

Last year it was just small countries like Greece and Ireland that were causing all the trouble.

Now Italy (the fourth largest economy in the EU) and Spain (the fifth largest economy in the EU) are making headlines.

Up to this point, the EU has had all kinds of nightmares just trying to bail countries like Greece out.

What is going to happen if Italy or Spain goes under?

At this point things with Greece have gone so badly that some EU officials are actually suggesting that Greece should just default on some of the debt.

Yes, you read the correctly.

There are news reports coming out of Europe that say that EU leaders are actually considering allowing the Greek government to default on some of their bonds.  According to The Telegraph, “the move would be part of a new bail-out plan for Greece that would put the country’s overall debt levels on a sustainable footing.”

All of this chaos is causing bond yields in Europe to go soaring.

Earlier today, The Calculated Risk blog detailed some of the stunning bond yields that we are now seeing in Europe….

The Greek 2 year yield is up to a record 31.1%.

The Portuguese 2 year yield is up to a record 18.3%.

The Irish 2 year yield is up to a record 18.1%.

And the big jump … the Italian 2 year yield is up to a record 4.1%. Still much lower than Greece, Portugal and Ireland, but rising.

Could you imagine paying 31.1% interest on your credit cards?

Well, imagine what officials in the Greek government must be feeling right about now.

If these bond yields do not go down, we are going to have a full-blown financial crisis on our hands in Europe.  If these bond yields keep rising, we are going to have a complete and total financial nightmare in Europe.

The only way that any of these nations that are drowning in debt can keep going is if they can borrow more money at low interest rates.  There are very few nations on earth that would be able to survive very high interest rates on government debt for an extended period of time.

Pay attention to what is happening in Europe, because it will eventually happen in the United States.  Right now we are only paying a little more than $400 billion in interest on the national debt each year because of the super low interest rates we are able to get.

When that changes, our interest costs are going to absolutely skyrocket.

Not that the United States needs any more economic problems.

Right now Americans are more pessimistic about the economy than they have been in ages.

In a recent article entitled “16 Reasons To Feel Really Depressed About The Direction That The Economy Is Headed” I noted a number of the recent surveys that seem to indicate that the American people are in a real bad mood about the economy right now….

*One of the key measures of consumer confidence in the United States has hit a seven-month low.

*According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans that lack confidence in U.S. banks is now at an all-time high of 36%.

*According to one recent poll, 39 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy has now entered a “permanent decline”.

*Another recent survey found that 48 percent of Americans believe that it is likely that another great Depression will begin within the next 12 months.

The American people are in a really bad mood and investors around the world are in a really bad mood.  More bad financial news seems to come out every single day now.  Everyone seems to be waiting for that one “moment” that is going to set off another financial panic.

Hopefully we can get through the rest of this summer without world financial markets falling apart.  But the truth is that the global economy is even more vulnerable today than it was back in 2008.  None of the things that caused the financial crash of 2008 have been fixed.

We will eventually have a repeat of 2008.  In fact, next time things could be even worse.

The entire world financial system is a house of cards sitting on a foundation of sand.  Eventually another storm is going to come and the crash is going to be great.

Rampant Unemployment = The Death Of The Middle Class – 40 Facts That Prove The Working Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out

Without an abundance of good jobs, the middle class in the United States is going to shrivel up and die.  Right now, rampant unemployment is absolutely killing communities all over America.  Hopelessness and poverty are exploding and many are now wondering if we are actually witnessing the slow death of the middle class.  There simply are not nearly enough “good jobs” to go around anymore, and even many in the mainstream media are referring to this as a “long-term structural problem” with the economy.  The only thing that most working class Americans have to offer in the marketplace is their labor.  If nobody will hire them they do not have any other ways to provide for their families.  Well, there is a problem.  Today wealth has become incredibly centralized.  The big corporations and the big banks dominate everything.  Thanks to incredible advances in technology and thanks to the globalization of our economic system, the people with all the money don’t have to hire as many ordinary Americans anymore.  They can hire all the labor they want on the other side of the globe for a fraction of the cost.  So the rich don’t really have that much use for the working class in America anymore.  The only thing of value that the working class had to offer has now been tremendously devalued.  The wealthy don’t have to pay a lot for physical labor anymore.  Thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs have been shipped overseas and they aren’t coming back.  The big corporations are thriving while tens of millions of ordinary Americans are deeply suffering.  Almost all of the wealth being produced by our economy is going to a very centralized group of people at the very top of the food chain.  The rich are getting richer and the working class is being systematically wiped out.

So the fact that we are facing rampant unemployment that never seems to go away should not be a surprise to anyone.  Today, the “official” unemployment rate went up to 9.2 percent even though a whopping 272,000 Americans “dropped out of the labor force” in June.  The government unemployment figure that includes “discouraged workers” went up from 15.8% to 16.2%.  The mainstream media is proclaiming that this was “a horrific report” because most economists were expecting much better news.

Well, guess what?

Things are going to get a whole lot worse.

More job cuts are coming.  One recently released report found that the number of job cuts being planned by U.S. employers increased by 11.6% in June.

It is also being projected that state and local governments across the U.S. will slash nearly half a million more jobs by the end of next year.

Needless to say, things don’t look good.

Most people that still have jobs are desperately trying to hold on to them.

Employers know that most workers are easily replaceable these days, so wages are not moving up even though the cost of living is.

We are right in the middle of the worst employment downturn since World War 2.  Jay-Z recently summed up the situation this way….

“Numbers don’t lie. Unemployment is pretty high.”

Jay-Z certainly has a way with words, eh?

If something is not done about the rampant unemployment in this nation, the death of the middle class will accelerate.

Most Americans just assume that the United States will always have a large middle class, but there is no guarantee that is going to happen.  In fact, there is a whole lot of evidence that the middle class in America is rapidly shrinking.

Take a few moments to read over the facts compiled below.  Taken together, they provide compelling evidence that the working class is being systematically wiped out….

#1 Right now, the U.S. government says that 14.1 million Americans are unemployed.

#2 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million people to the population since then.

#3 The number of Americans that are “not in the labor force” is at an all-time high.

#4 The United States has never had an employment downturn this deep and this prolonged since World War 2 ended.

#5 There are officially 6.3 million Americans that have been unemployed for more than 6 months.  That number has risen by more than 3.5 million in just the past two years.

#6 It now takes the average unemployed worker in America about 40 weeks to find a new job.  Just check out this chart….

#7 There are now about 7.25 million fewer jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.

#8 Back in 2000, the employment to population ratio was over 64 percent.  Today, it is sitting at just 58.2%.

#9 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year.  That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.

#10 During this economic downturn, employee compensation in the United States has been the lowest that it has been relative to gross domestic product in over 50 years.

#11 The number of “low income jobs” in the U.S. has risen steadily over the past 30 years and they now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States.

#12 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.

#13 According to a report released in February from the National Employment Law Project, higher wage industries are accounting for 40 percent of the job losses in America but only 14 percent of the job growth.  Lower wage industries are accounting for just 23 percent of the job losses but 49 percent of the job growth.

#14 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#15 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.

#16 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.

#17 Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe?  Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.

#18 In 2010, South Korea exported 12 times as many automobiles, trucks and parts to us as we exported to them.

#19 The United States now spends more than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.

#20 Since China entered the WTO in 2001, the U.S. trade deficit with China has grown by an average of 18% per year.

#21 The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#22 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#23 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in “advanced technology products” of $16 billion with the rest of the world.  In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.

#24 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry was actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

#25 Since 2001, over 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed.

#26 There were more manufacturing jobs in the United States in 1950 than there are today.

#27 Since the year 2000, we have lost approximately 10% of our middle class jobs.  In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.  Meanwhile, our population has gotten significantly larger.

#28 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.

#29 One recent survey found that 9 out of 10 U.S. workers do not expect their wages to keep up with soaring food prices and soaring gas prices over the next 12 months.

#30 Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

#31 One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.

#32 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States were living below the poverty line in 2010.

#33 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#34 As 2007 began, there were 26 million Americans on food stamps.  Today, there are more than 44 million Americans on food stamps, which is an all-time record.

#35 Today, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#36 59 percent of all Americans now receive money from the federal government in one form or another.

#37 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.

#38 In the United States today, the richest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

#39 According to Moody’s Analytics, the wealthiest 5% of all households in the United States now account for approximately 37% of all consumer spending.

#40 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the United States is experiencing a long-term economic decline.

Every single day, more American families fall out of the middle class and into poverty.  There are millions of American families out there tonight that are just barely hanging on by their fingernails.

More Americans than ever are constantly borrowing more money just to stay afloat.  Even as rampant unemployment plagues this nation and even as wages remain stagnant, middle class Americans are increasing their use of credit.

A CNBC article noted the increase in consumer borrowing that we have seen recently….

The Federal Reserve says consumer borrowing rose $5.1 billion following a revised gain of $5.7 billion in April. Borrowing in the category that covers credit cards increased, as did borrowing in the category for auto and student loans.

It is very hard to live “the American Dream” without going into huge amounts of debt these days.

But for an increasing number of Americans, “the American Dream” is just a distant memory.

Tonight, there are large numbers of people living in the tunnels under the city of Las Vegas.  As the wealthy live the high life in the casinos and hotels above them, an increasing number of desperate “tunnel people” are attempting to carve out an existence in the 200 mile long labyrinth of tunnels that stretches beneath Vegas.  It is a nightmarish environment, but it is all those people have left.

Don’t look down on them, because you never know who might be next.

If you lost your current job, how long would you be able to survive?

Unfortunately, as bad as things are now, the reality is that this is just the beginning.

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Do what you can to make sure that you and your family are not totally wiped out by the next wave of the economic collapse.

Number One? 20 Not So Good Categories That The United States Leads The World In

Is the United States “number one”?  Many Americans take deep pride in their nation and the truth is that the U.S. has a lot going for it.  The United States has the largest economy in the world.  The United States also has the most powerful military on the entire planet.  The United States has produced most of the greatest movies that the world has ever seen.  But the United States is also number one in a lot of categories that are not go great.  If we ever want to turn this country around, we need to be very honest with ourselves.  We need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and realize that it is not a good thing that we are number one in divorce, drug addiction, debt, obesity, car thefts, murders and total crimes.  We have become a slothful, greedy, decadent nation that is exhibiting signs of advanced decay.  Until we understand just how bad our problems really are, we won’t be able to come up with the solutions that we need.

A lot of people that write articles like this have a deep hatred for America.  But that is not the case with me.  I love the United States.  I love the American people.  America is like an aging, bloated rock star that has become addicted to a dozen different drugs.  America is a shadow of its former self and it desperately needs to wake up before it plunges into oblivion.

If you do not believe that America is in bad shape, just read the list below.  The following are 20 not so good categories that the United States leads the world in….

#1 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe.

#2 According to NationMaster.com, the United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.

#3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.

#4 The United States is tied with the U.K. for the most hours of television watched per person each week.

#5 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.

#6 There are more car thefts in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world by far.

#7 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

#8 There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

#9 There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.

#10 The United States also has more police officers than anywhere else in the world.

#11 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth.

#12 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.

#13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.

#14 Americans have more student loan debt than anyone else in the world.

#15 More pornography is created in the United States than anywhere else on the entire globe.  89 percent is made in the U.S.A. and only 11 percent is made in the rest of the world.

#16 The United States has the largest trade deficit in the world every single year.  Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.

#17 The United States spends 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet does.  In fact, U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.

#18 The United States has far more foreign military bases than any other country does.

#19 The United States has the most complicated tax system in the entire world.

#20 The U.S. has accumulated the biggest national debt that the world has ever seen and it is rapidly getting worse.  Right now, U.S. government debt is expanding at a rate of $40,000 per second.

So are you convinced that we are in trouble yet?

The truth is that America has changed.  Most of us don’t even say hello to our neighbors anymore.

In fact, we have become so self-involved that many of us don’t even notice when someone around us dies.

Just consider the following two examples.

*USA Today recently reported on the body of a dead woman that was not found for approximately a year even though a whole bunch of people walked right past the car where she died….

Bank contractors, inspectors and even the new owner of a foreclosed home walked past the silver Chevy Nova in the garage numerous times before discovering the former homeowner — dead on the front seat.

*In an even more shocking case, the CBS affiliate in Boston recently reported that a dead woman was lying on the bottom of a public pool for two days while large numbers of people swam right over her.  How in the world could something like this possibly happen?….

It’s a mystery as murky as the water at Veteran’s Memorial swimming pool in Fall River public pool: how did swimmers, lifeguards, or inspectors not notice a woman’s body at the bottom of the pool for a few days?

Marie Joseph, 36, was last seen at the pool on Sunday. The pool was open to the public Monday and Tuesday with six lifeguards on duty, and no one noticed the body under 12 feet of water.

Most Americans have become so self-involved that they barely even notice anyone other than their family and close friends.

The love of most Americans is growing cold and when the collapse of the U.S. economy happens it is just going to make things worse.  Instead of working as a community, most Americans will only be concerned with making sure that their own needs are taken care of.

The United States was once the most blessed nation on the face of the earth, but now we are literally falling to pieces.

Does anyone have any ideas about why this could be happening?

 

Why Are Food Prices Rising So Fast?

If you do much grocery shopping, you have probably noticed that the cost of food has been rising at a very brisk pace over the past year.  So why are food prices rising so fast?  According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, inflation is still very low and the economy is improving.  So what is going on here?  When I go to the grocery store these days, there are very few things that I will buy unless they are on sale.  In fact, I have noticed that many of the new “sale prices” are the old regular prices.  Other items have had their packages reduced in size in order to hide the price increases.  But with millions of American families just barely scraping by as it is, what is going to happen if food prices keep rising this rapidly?

The food prices are especially painful if you are trying to eat healthy.  Most of the low price stuff in the grocery stores is garbage.  Eating the “typical American diet” is a highway to cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

But if you try to stick to food that is “healthy” or “organic” you can blow through hundreds of dollars in a heartbeat.  In fact, the reality is that tens of millions of American families have now essentially been priced out of a healthy diet.

Soon there will be millions more American families that will not even be able to afford an unhealthy diet.

Some recent statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are absolutely staggering.  According to a recent CNBC article, over the past year many of the most popular foods in America have absolutely soared in price….

Coffee, for instance, is up 40 percent. Celery is 28 percent higher while butter prices rose 26.4 percent. Rounding out the top five are bacon, at 23.5 percent, and cabbage, at 23.3 percent.

Unfortunately, it looks like the trend of rising food prices is accelerating.  Just look at what the CNBC article says happened in the month of April alone….

Just in April—the most recent month for which data is available—grapes went up nearly 30 percent, cabbage jumped about 17 percent and orange juice surged more than 5 percent.

Meat is becoming more expensive as well.  Since March 2009, livestock prices have risen by 138%.

So when Ben Bernanke tells us that inflation is very low, that really is a lie.  On the stuff that people spend money on every day (like food and gas), prices have gone up dramatically.

Sadly, this is not just a phenomenon that is happening in the United States.  The truth is that the entire planet is rapidly approaching a horrific global food crisis.

Over the past year, the global price of food has risen by 37 percent and this has pushed approximately 44 million more people around the world into poverty.

When food prices rise in the U.S. it may be painful for millions of American families, but around the world a rise in food prices can mean the difference between surviving and not surviving.

That is why it has been so alarming that the global price of wheat has approximately doubled over the past year.

But it is not just wheat that has been soaring.  Check out what a recent Bloomberg article had to say about what has been happening to many key agricultural commodities over the past year….

Corn futures advanced 77 percent in the past 12 months in Chicago trading, a global benchmark, rice gained 39 percent and sugar jumped 64 percent. There will be shortages in corn, wheat, soybeans, coffee and cocoa this year or next, according to Utrecht, Netherlands-based Rabobank Groep. Prices also rose after droughts and floods from Australia to Canada ruined crops last year. European farmers are now contending with their driest growing season in more than three decades.

Even before this recent spike in food prices the world was struggling to get enough food to everybody.  It has been estimated that somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds, and 75 percent of those are children under the age of five.

So what is going to happen if food prices keep on rising at the current pace?

That is a very good question.

We really are starting to move into unprecedented territory.  Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.

So why is all of this happening?

Well, a lot of people are blaming the Federal Reserve.  All of the “quantitative easing” that the Fed has done has flooded the financial markets with money.  All of that money had to go somewhere.  Much of it has pumped up the prices of hard assets such as oil, gold and agricultural commodities.

But it is not just the Fed that is to blame.  The truth is that central banks all over the world have been recklessly printing money.

When the amount of money in an economy goes up, the purchasing value of all existing money goes down.  In the United States, that means that your dollars will not go as far as they did before.

But it is not just monetary policy that is affecting food prices.  In 2010 and 2011 we have seen an unprecedented wave of natural disasters and crazy weather.  This has caused problems with crops all over the globe.

In addition, U.S. economic policies are also playing a role.  At this point, almost a third of all corn grown in the United States is used for fuel.  This is putting a lot of stress on the price of corn.

Also, there are some long-term trends that are not in our favor.  For example, the systematic depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer could eventually turn “America’s Breadbasket” back into the “Dust Bowl”.  If you have not heard of this problem I would encourage you to do some research on it.

Things are going to get a lot worse, but already America is having a really hard time feeding itself.  According to Feeding America’s 2010 hunger study, more than 37 million Americans are now being served by food pantries and soup kitchens.

So is that number unusual?

Yes, it sure is.

The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.

That is not a good trend.

Another stat that I talk a lot about in this column is the number of Americans on food stamps.

Right now, there are 44 million Americans on food stamps.  Nearly half of them are children.

How did we ever get to the point as a nation where more than 20 million children end up on food stamps?

It is estimated that one out of every four American children is currently on food stamps, and it is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.

So what is going to happen if the economy gets even worse?

What is going to happen if there really is a major food crisis in this country someday?

Food prices have been going up for decades and they are going to continue to go up.  But the frightening thing is how fast they are increasing now.

As the U.S. middle class continues to be destroyed, the number of Americans that can’t afford to buy enough food is going to continue to rise.  Food prices are rising much faster than wages are, and that is not likely to change any time soon.

Food is rapidly becoming one of the most important global economic issues of this decade.  The farther one looks down the road, the bleaker things look for the global food situation.

I hope you are prepared for that.

Is The Economy Improving?

Is the U.S. economy improving?  That is what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke would have us believe.  Bernanke declared today that the “recovery appears to be proceeding at a moderate pace” and that everything is going pretty much as planned.  Sadly, the mainstream media and most of the American people still seem to have faith in the economic pronouncements of Helicopter Ben.  They seem to have forgotten all of the Bernanke quotes from before the financial crisis.  Bernanke pledged that there would not be a housing crash and that there would not be a recession.  It is amazing that anyone still believes that Bernanke has any credibility left.

Of course “economic recovery” is one of Barack Obama’s favorite new terms.  He loves to talk about all of the signs that the economy is improving.  To Obama, all of the recent bad economic news is no big deal.  He says that what we are experiencing right now are simply “bumps on the road to recovery“.

Well, whether you want to call them “bumps” or “potholes” or “massive gaping wounds that are gushing blood all over the place”, the truth is that the U.S. economy is not improving at all.  In fact, it is rapidly getting worse.

Let’s take a look at just a few areas of the economy….

Federal Government Finances

As I wrote about yesterday, the national debt is completely and totally out of control.  Since Barack Obama took office, the U.S. national debt has increased by nearly 4 trillion dollars.

Keep in mind that from George Washington to Ronald Reagan, the U.S. government accumulated only 1 trillion dollars in debt.

Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.

Now the Democrats and the Republicans are busy negotiating over some modest reductions in spending.

But unprecedented federal spending is one of the only things propping the economy up right now.

If the U.S. economy is performing so poorly after being flooded with “stimulus money” from the federal government, what is going to happen once the federal government cuts back?

State And Local Government Finances

All over the United States, there are large numbers of state and local governments that are on the verge of bankruptcy.

For the moment, let’s just focus on the state of Illinois.

Did you know that things have gotten so bad in Illinois at this point that the Illinois state government is letting bills go unpaid for long periods of time on a regular basis?

It’s true.

Right now they have billions in unpaid bills and they are facing a financial future that is so bleak that it is almost indescribable.

In one recent article, author Stephen Lendman described the horrific financial crisis that Illinois is facing right now….

With spending exceeding revenues, and obligations not postponed, unpaid bills are growing “at a frightening rate. For instance, IGPA’s Fiscal Futures Model indicates (they) could reach $40 billion by July 1, 2013, with an associated delay in paying those bills of more than five years.”

Besides its $13 billion deficit and $6 billion in unpaid bills, its pension fund is about $130 billion in the red – a red flag that state workers may lose out altogether, wiping out their promised retirement savings.

But it isn’t just the state government that is having problems.  According to Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, the average household in Chicago would owe a whopping $63,525 if all local government debt was divided up equally among all of the households.

The truth is that even if the finances of the federal government could somehow be fixed, there would still be dozens and dozens of very significant “government debt problems” all across America.

With so many state and local governments drowning in debt, jobs are being slashed at an alarming rate.  UBS Investment Research is projecting that state and local governments in the U.S. will combine to slash a whopping 450,000 jobs by the end of next year.

So would the U.S. government step in and start bailing out state and local governments?

Not likely.

U.S. Representative Paul Ryan has said the following about the prospect of bailing out the states….

“If we bail out one state, then all of the debt of all of the states are almost explicitly on the books of the federal government.”

So for now, state and local governments are on their own.

Commercial Real Estate

Commercial real estate continues to decline all across America.

Moody’s/REAL All Property Type Aggregate Index fell 3.7% in April and is now the lowest it has been in over 10 years.

Overall, commercial real estate is down by over 40 percent since the peak back in 2007.

Residential Real Estate

The United States is dealing with a housing crash that never seems to end.

According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales in the United States fell another 3.8% in May.

During this housing crash home values have declined more than they did during the Great Depression and there does not appear to be any hope in sight.

New home sales are in even worse shape.  During the first three months of this year, less new homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.

Unemployment

As 2009 began, the official U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6 percent.  Today it is 9.1 percent.

The American people keep waiting for a “jobs recovery”, but it has not shown up.

Sadly, all of this is part of a long-term trend.

Over the past decade, U.S. multinational corporations have been laying off millions of workers in the U.S. and hiring millions of workers overseas to take their place.

The labor of American workers is rapidly losing value in a globalized economy.  Big corporations have a tough time justifying paying ten times more to a worker in the United States when they are allowed to hire people for slave labor wages overseas.

The share of the national income taken in by U.S. workers continues to decline.  Just consider what Mortimer Zuckerman had to say in a recent article for usnews.com….

Labor’s share of national income has fallen to the lowest level in modern history, down to 57.5 percent in the first quarter as compared to 59.8 percent when the so-called recovery began. This reflects not only the 7 million fewer workers but the fact that wages for part-time workers now average $19,000—less than half the median income.

In the United States today, there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.  The number of “middle class jobs” has fallen by about 10 percent over the last decade.

Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year.  That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.

We are seeing the rise of a whole class of people that are chronically unemployed.  At the beginning of 2009, the number of “long-term unemployed” in the United States was approximately 2.6 million.  Today, that number is up to 6.2 million.

So in light of these employment statistics, can anyone really say that the economy is improving?

Economic Anxiety

The economy is the number one issue on the minds of the American people.  There is an extraordinary about of economic pain out there today, and Americans are becoming impatient.

According to CNBC, the Money Anxiety Index is at its highest level in 30 years….

The latest indicator to ring up trouble is the Money Anxiety Index, which uses traditional economic metrics as well as other factors to gauge the level of consumers’ worry regarding their personal financial conditions.

According to the May figures, the MAI is not only at its highest level in 30 years at 91.9 but also two months away from indicating another dip into recession. In the past, five straight months of increases in the index often signaled recession.

Most recent polls show that the American people are rapidly becoming more pessimistic about the direction the U.S. economy is headed.

According to a recent CNN poll, 48 percent of Americans believe that “another Great Depression” is likely within the next 12 months.

When you really stop and think about that number, it is really frightening.

Inflation

Ben Bernanke may not admit it, but the truth is that the price of just about everything is soaring.

For example, when Barack Obama took office, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $1.83.  Today it is about $3.74.

So what are our politicians doing about it?

Not much.

They just want to pretend that it isn’t happening.

In fact, members of Congress are actually tinkering with the idea of changing the way that inflation is calculated once again.

By making inflation appear lower, it would be easier for Congress to deny cost of living increases to those on Social Security and other social programs.

How sad is that?

Economic Suffering

As American families find it increasingly difficult to pay the mortgage and put food on the table, many of them find themselves forced to put off other expenses.  According to one recent survey, 26 percent of Americans have put off doctor visits because of the economy.

Other Americans can’t make it at all without government assistance.  As 2007 began, there were only 26 million Americans on food stamps.  Today, there are more than 44 million Americans on food stamps, which is an all-time record.

It is not good to have so many Americans on food stamps, but it is probably better than the alternative.

If there were tens of millions of Americans that could not feed themselves we would probably already have economic riots in the streets.

Solutions?

So do our politicians have any solutions?

Of course not.  Everything that they have tried has failed.

Several top Democrats in Washington D.C. are now calling for a new economic stimulus package.  When in doubt, our politicians usually revert to spending more money.

Sadly, this is about the best that our economy is going to get.

What we are experiencing right now is “the recovery”.  As we move forward things are going to get progressively worse.

A lot of people don’t like to hear that we are in the middle of a long-term economic decline, but that is the truth.

The era of tremendous economic prosperity for America is coming to an end.

An economic nightmare is coming.

You better get ready.

48 Percent Of Americans Believe Another Great Depression Is Likely In The Next 12 Months – 19 Reasons Why They Are Not Completely Crazy

Do you believe that the U.S. economy is steamrolling toward a depression?  If so, you are not alone.  According to a recent CNN poll, 48 percent of Americans believe that “another Great Depression” is likely within the next 12 months.  Americans have been waiting for almost three years for a “recovery” to materialize, but instead there are all kinds of signs that the economy is about to get worse yet again.  Inflation is rising but wages are not.  There are millions of Americans that would do just about anything to get a decent job.  The “misery index” is the highest it has been in almost 30 years.  All of the recent polls show that the American people are more pessimistic about the economy than at any other time in recent memory.  World financial markets are incredibly unstable right now and many analysts are expecting a repeat of 2008 (or worse).  Meanwhile, our state and local governments are drowning in debt, the federal government is drowning in debt and governments all over Europe are drowning in debt.  No, it is not crazy for 48 percent of Americans to believe that we are about to go into another Great Depression.

Just think about that statistic for a moment.  Nearly half of the country expects the economy to fall to pieces at some point over the next year.

So do I agree with them?

Yes, I certainly believe that an economic collapse is coming.  But that doesn’t mean that it will necessarily happen within the next year.  The United States is in the midst of a long-term economic decline, and the next big financial crisis could potentially happen in 2011 or 2012.

But it might not.

There are so many variables and it is so hard to predict with certainty the exact timing of how things will play out.

However, it is true that incredibly painful economic times are coming.  Our long-term economic future looks unbelievably bleak.

So anyone that believes that we are headed for another depression is certainly not crazy.  The following are 19 reasons why it is perfectly rational to be pessimistic about the U.S. economy right now….

#1 Today, 25 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed.  6 million of those have been out of work for at least 6 months.  The average duration of unemployment in the U.S. is now close to 40 weeks.

#2 The unofficial misery index, which is calculated by combining unemployment and inflation, is now at a 28 year high.

#3 Sadly, if unemployment and inflation were calculated the same way that they were back in the 1970s, the misery index would actually be much, much higher.  According to John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics, the current “real” rate of inflation is approximately 11.2% instead of the 3.6% figure that the U.S. government wants us to believe.

#4 Greece is on the verge of complete and total financial collapse.  The yield on two year Greek bonds is up to 28 percent.  The European Central Bank and the German government have been fighting over what to do to solve the Greek crisis.  The truth is that without a bailout the Greek government will default.  If Greece defaults, it would be a huge nightmare for world financial markets.

#5 Neil MacKinnon, an analyst at VTB Capital, is warning that a Greek implosion could set off a 2008-style financial crisis….

“The risk of a ‘Lehman moment’ for the eurozone is increasing”

#6 Spain is also potentially a major problem.  The Spanish economy is more than twice the size of the Greek, Irish and Portuguese economies combined.  Over the past 12 months, the yield on 10 year Spanish bonds has been rising steadily, and many believe that Spain could be the tipping point that pushes the sovereign debt crisis in Europe over the edge.

#7 State and local governments all over the United States are cutting their budgets and are implementing brutal austerity measures.  For example, one small town in Alabama has actually decided that they are simply going to stop paying pension benefits to their retirees.  In other areas, teachers and police officers are being fired in massive numbers. UBS Investment Research is projecting that state and local governments in the U.S. will combine to slash a whopping 450,000 jobs by the end of next year.

#8 The middle class in the United States is being systematically ripped to shreds.  The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States at this point.

#9 It is never a good sign when even the big Wall Street banks start laying off workers.  CNBC is reporting that Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and many other big firms on Wall Street are planning some large staff reductions in the months ahead.  That is a very bad sign for the economy.

#10 Things have gotten so bad that some mainstream media outlets are actually encouraging Americans to go out and start racking up credit card debt once again.  For example, one recent USA Today article was actually entitled “More credit card debt might be good for the economy“.  Of course the big banks are ready to suck the lifeblood out of anyone that does slip up on making their credit card payments.  One major bank has announced that a single late payment could result in a penalty rate as high as 29.99%.

#11 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the share of national income being taken home by American workers is at a post-war low and is rapidly declining.

#12 Reuters is reporting that many of Wall Street’s biggest banks plan to cut their use of U.S. Treasuries starting in August.  China has already been dumping short-term U.S. debt.  But if most of the big players abandon the market, who is going to buy up the massive amounts of debt that the U.S. government needs to issue?

#13 Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research apparently believes that we are already in a depression….

“At some point, the pain of high unemployment may lead to some new thinking in Washington – but until that time, welcome to the second Great Depression”

#14 The U.S. banking system could plunge into disaster at any moment.  The FDIC is backing up 7 trillion dollars in deposits with an insurance fund that barely has anything in it.

#15 It seems like almost everyone is talking about the next financial collapse.  Renowned investor Jim Rogers recently said the  following….

“I would expect to see some serious problems in the foreseeable future….By 2011, 2012, 2013, 2013, I don’t know when, we’re going to have an economic slowdown again.”

#16 Legendary hedge fund manager Mark Mobius is bracing for the worst.  Just consider the following quote from Mobius that recently appeared in Forbes magazine….

There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner,” says hedge fund legend Mark Mobius, “because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis.”

#17 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.  It is clearly unsustainable for our debt to be growing so much faster than our economy is.

#18 Peter Yastrow, a market strategist for Yastrow Origer, recently told CNBC the following….

“Interest rates are amazingly low and that, thanks to Ben Bernanke, is driving everything,” Yastrow said. “We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it.”

#19 The American people are extremely pessimistic about the economy right now.  According to one recent poll, 56 percent of Americans have lost sleep due to the economy and about three-quarters of Americans believe that the nation is on the wrong track.

The nation is in a very sour mood right now, and this is causing even many in the mainstream media to ask some very hard questions.

For example, Jack Cafferty recently asked the following question to viewers on CNN….

“What are the chances the U.S. economy could eventually trigger violence in our country?”

You can view the video of Cafferty asking this question right here or you can just watch it below….

Sadly, we are already starting to see violence erupt all over North America.

Yesterday I highlighted the horrifying violence that we saw in Vancouver this week.

In previous articles I have discussed the insanity that has been going on in major U.S. cities such as Chicago.

Now even the mainstream media is being forced to report on the surge in violence.

A recent USA Today article described some of the most recent mob robberies that have been happening in Chicago….

A Chicago Tribune report tells of a 68-year-old man from Washington State who was set upon while he was smoking a cigar on a bench when youths surrounded him, attacked him and reportedly stole a phone and iPad. The report says a 42-year-old Japanese tourist also was beaten and robbed on a bicycle path by the lakefront. The paper says seven were arrested, but that the group participating in the felonies was estimated at 15 to 20 people strong. One 20something suburbanite told Chicago’s WGN TV that he was hit so hard in the head with a baseball that it knocked his motorcycle helmet off. he managed to fight his way out of trouble and hail police, he said.

When people don’t have hope, they get desperate.

There are millions of other Americans that are suffering through this economy quietly.

There are so many people out there that have worked hard and have followed all the rules and yet now find themselves struggling just to survive.

For example, a reader named Carolyn recently left a comment in which she shared her story with my readers….

My husband lost his long-term job in 2009 due to budget cuts. Don’t worry, I said. I’m still working, and we have a year of our salary in savings. You’re smart, you’re educated, you’re a hard worker. You’ll find a job soon.

Two months later, my long-term job was sent to India.

I still wasn’t worried. I’m smart, I’m educated, and I’m a smart worker.

A year and a half later, I haven’t found new career yet. I’m 50. No one is going to hire me. I am working – at a Home Depot. At a 79% pay cut from my prior position. But it doesn’t pay for anything. My husband found a new position in his field – at a 62% pay cut from his prior position.

We lived off unemployment and our savings, until both ran out. We put our house and investment property on the market the day after I lost my job.

We haven’t had one offer.

We just had our Chapter 7 bankruptcy discharged. Our foreclosure is still pending. No word yet when that will be done.

To add insult to injury, we owe Federal income taxes on the penalties we used to make withdrawals from our 401(k)’s to live off. My husband took a job in another state, and we were SHOCKED to learn that we owed NEW YORK STATE taxes on the income he earned in Mississippi – to New York state! Apparently there is some loophole that if you are a property owner in New York, but earn income in another state, you have to pay New York state income taxes on out of state earned income.

We’ve been told once our foreclosure is finalized, we may owe taxes on that as well.

What happened to our country?

It is so sad to see what is happening to America.

Things are so hard out there for so many millions of American families right now.

But the truth is that things are much better at the moment than they will be in a few years.

So what is America going to look like when there is no doubt that the economy has collapsed and people have no hope at all?