40 Facts That Prove That America’s Moral Collapse Is Spinning Wildly Out Of Control

According to a brand new survey that was just conducted by the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of all Americans are either “very worried” or “fairly worried” about America’s moral health.  Of course the truth is that we should all be deeply concerned, because we can see evidence of the cancerous moral decay that is eating away at the foundations of our society all around us.  In life, each one of us gets to make choices, and some of those choices can lead to very bad outcomes.  We all have old friends that “got on the wrong path”, and their lives ended up becoming cautionary tales.  Well, the same principle applies to nations as a whole.  America has been given very clear choices between good and evil, life and death, blessings and curses over and over again, and we have consistently made the wrong choices.  If we stay on this road, there is only one result that will be possible.

As long as we are drawing breath, there is always an opportunity to turn things around.  That is true for individuals, and it is also true for our entire nation.  But if we continue running toward evil, it is only a matter of time before exceedingly painful consequences overtake us.

The following are 40 facts that prove that America’s moral collapse is spinning wildly out of control…

#1 America has killed more than 60 million children since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.  The federal government endorses this activity by heavily funding the country’s leading abortion provider, and after that abortion provider harvests the organs of the dead children, the federal government also heavily funds the research that is conducted on those harvested organs.

#2 According to a Quinnipiac University poll from last year, 63 percent of all Americans want to keep Roe v. Wade in place.

#3 America is a global leader in sexual depravity.  If you doubt this, just check out what is going on in Cleveland at the end of this month.

#4 Americans are now more likely to die from an opioid overdose than they are from a car accident.

#5 In the city of Baltimore, approximately one out of every four babies is born as an opioid addict.

#6 Overdosing on drugs has now become the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50.

#7 McDonalds feeds approximately 70 million people a day globally. Pornhub gets more than 78 million visits a day.

#8 The teen birth rate in the United States is higher “than in any other industrialized country in the world”.

#9 According to the CDC, approximately 110 million Americans have a sexually-transmitted disease right now.

#10 The CDC also tells us that there are approximately 20 million new sexually transmitted disease cases in the U.S. every single year.

#11 The number of married couples with children in the U.S. just reached a 56 year low.

#12 According to the United Nations Population Fund, 40 percent of all births in the U.S. now happen outside of marriage. But if you go back to 1970, that figure was sitting at just 10 percent.

#13 At this point, approximately one out of every three children in the United States lives in a home without a father.

#14 Approximately one-fourth of the entire global prison population is in the United States.

#15 By the time an American child reaches the age of 18, that child will have seen approximately 40,000 murders on television.

#16 According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug.  An astounding 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.

#17 According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, doctors in the United States write more than 250 million prescriptions for antidepressants each year.

#18 Over half a million people are homeless in the United States right now, but more cities than ever are passing laws making it illegal to feed them.

#19 One recent study found that the average American spends 86 hours a month on a cell phone.

#20 A different study found that one-third of all American teenagers haven’t read a single book in the past year.

#21 Americans are obsessed with material things and are willing to go deep into debt to get what they want.  At this point, 480 million credit cards are in circulation in this country. That number has risen by nearly 13 percent since 2015.

#22 37 million credit card accounts in the U.S. are “seriously delinquent” at this moment.

#23 According to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately two-thirds of all Americans in the 15 to 24-year-old age bracket have engaged in oral sex.

#24 It has been reported that one out of every four teen girls in the U.S. has at least one sexually transmitted disease.

#25 It has been estimated that 30 percent of all Internet traffic now goes to adult websites.

#26 According to the Pentagon, 71 percent of our young adults are ineligible to serve in the U.S. military because they are either too dumb, too fat or have a criminal background.

#27 The city of San Francisco handed out a total of 5.8 million free syringes to drug addicts in 2018.

#28 During one seven day stretch last summer, a total of 16,000 official complaints were submitted to the city of San Francisco about piles of human feces littering the streets.

#29 When you include unfunded liabilities, the true size of our national debt is 222 trillion dollars.  What we are doing to future generations of Americans is beyond criminal.

#30 The suicide rate in the United States is up 34 percent since the year 2000.

#31 Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for Americans from age 15 to age 24.

#32 We are literally destroying the planet that we have been given.  It is being projected that the total amount of plastic in the oceans of the world will exceed the total weight of all fish by the year 2050.

#33 There are more than 850,000 registered sex offenders in the United States today.

#34 The number of American babies killed by abortion each year is roughly equal to the number of U.S. military deaths that have occurred in all of the wars that the United States has ever been involved in combined.

#35 About one-third of all American women will have had an abortion by the age of 45.

#36 Approximately 3,000 Americans lost their lives as a result of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11.  Every single day, more than 3,000 American babies are killed by abortion when you include all forms of abortion.

#37 One very shocking study found that 86 percent of all abortions are done for the sake of convenience.

#38 An average of more than 100 churches are dying in the United States every single week.

#39 Only about 27 percent of all U.S. Millennials currently attend church on a regular basis.

#40 The number of Americans with “no religion” has increased by 266 percent over the last three decades.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Thousands Flee Chicago For Safer Areas Of The Country As America’s Third Largest City Becomes A Gang-Infested Wasteland

Did you know that the number of murders increased by almost 60 percent in the city of Chicago last year?  And as you will see below, this year gang violence in the Windy City has risen to a new level of viciousness.  A staggering 9.5 million people live in the Chicago metropolitan area, and it was once known primarily for great pizza, bitter cold and some of the best sports fans on the entire planet.  But now the number one thing that comes to mind for many when they think about the city of Chicago is gang violence.  As it becomes clear that things are not going to turn around any time soon, thousands of residents are leaving the city for safer areas of the nation.  In fact, Cook County lost more people than any other county in America last year by a very wide margin.

When your murder rate goes up by double digits in a single year, you have got a problem.

But when it goes up by close to 60 percent, you have got a catastrophe on your hands

In 2016, the number of murders in the city jumped nearly 60 percent to over 760, more than New York and Los Angeles combined. There were more than 4,300 shooting victims in the city last year, according to police.

Of course we aren’t supposed to talk about the fact that this is quietly happening in communities all over America.  This is one of the reasons why there is such a disparity in real estate prices these days.  The wealthy are willing to pay a substantial premium to live with other wealthy people in areas that are far away from all the violence.

And the gang violence in Chicago continues to escalate.  For example, check out what happened just yesterday

Two people were killed and eight others were wounded in an attack at the site of a memorial for a man who was slain earlier Sunday in the Brighton Park neighborhood, police said.

Chicago police First Deputy Superintendent Kevin Navarro told reporters at the Southwest Side scene in the 2600 block of West 46th Place that the attack was “another brazen act of gang violence.”

Navarro said the victims, a mix of men and women, were taking part in a memorial for a man, identified by the Cook County medical examiner’s office as Daniel Cardova, who had been killed at that location earlier in the day when two people fired rifles from a nearby alleyway.

Would you want to raise your children in an area where this was going on?

Thanks to decades of open borders and unrestrained illegal immigration, gang membership has been absolutely soaring in major cities such as Chicago.  Five years ago the Chicago Crime Commission estimated that there were 150,000 gang members living in the metropolitan area, and by this point that number is certainly far higher.

According to Wikipedia, there are currently only 12,244 police officers in Chicago.  That means that the police are outnumbered by at least a 12 to 1 margin.

And according to an article published by the Chicago Sun-Times, some of these gangs have agreed to start using automatic weapons against the police…

The meeting took place Thursday between higher-ups from the Vice Lords, Black Disciples and Four Corner Hustlers, according to an alert issued to department members the day after the meeting.

The Four Corner Hustlers “provided guns” and have “a sniper in place” though authorities do not know where, according to the alert. The Four Corner Hustlers also are supplying the other two gangs with automatic weapons, which all three factions also have agreed to use against police, the alert states.

No wonder the police suicide rate in Chicago is 60 percent higher than the national average.

If I was living in the Chicago metropolitan area, I would be making every effort to relocate, and apparently there are lots and lots of people that see things the same way that I do.

In fact, net domestic migration for the Chicago metropolitan area was a staggering -89,000 during 2016…

One particularly stunning figure: net domestic migration, with an estimated 89,000 more people moving from the Chicago area to other portions of the country in the past year than those who moved in.

Liz Schuh, principal policy analyst for the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, said the figures are “of concern for the region’s continued economic success.”

“Residents often choose to stay in or migrate to a region because of economic opportunity and quality of life,” she added.

In particular, wealthy people are living the city in droves.  It has been reported that 3,000 millionaires left the city of Chicago in 2015 alone.  Certainly the ridiculously high taxes are one factor why so many wealthy people are leaving, but of course gang violence is also a major reason for the mass exodus.

If violence in our major cities is starting to spiral out of control while the economy is still relatively stable, what are things going to look like when a complete economic meltdown happens?

It is only a matter of time before widespread rioting, looting and civil unrest becomes commonplace in major cities all over the country.  With Donald Trump in the White House, the deep frustration that has been simmering in our inner cities is now reaching a boiling point.  It certainly isn’t going to take much of a spark to set off a tremendous explosion.

In anticipation of what is coming, large numbers of Americans have already been relocating to less populated portions of the country.  And the good news is that there are lots of areas to pick from.  According to Survival Dan, about half of the U.S. population lives in just 146 counties…

Recent U.S. census data indicates that out of the 3000 counties in the United States, fully 50% of the population lives in just 146. If you want to have any chance of surviving a widespread catastrophic event by avoiding the hordes that will be searching for critical resources in its aftermath, then check out the following map to get a visual reference of the areas you want to stay away from.

Of course it can be quite difficult to find a good job in an area that is not heavily populated, and there are a lot of expenses involved in relocating to a totally different part of the country.

And there is certainly a lot to consider when picking out a new place to live, and so you would want to do a lot of research before making such a move.

But my wife and I did step out in faith and made a decision to relocate to a new area nearly six years ago, and it was one of the best decisions that we have ever made.

What Is Going On In Charlotte Is Far More Important Than Brad Pitt And Angelina Jolie’s Divorce

brad-pitt-and-angelina-jolie-photo-by-georges-biardWhile one of America’s largest cities is being ripped in two, most Americans appear to be far more interested in the drama surrounding Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s divorce.  As Charlotte braces for a third night of rioting and violence, the mainstream media is full of headlines such as “Welp, the Jolie-Pitt Divorce Got Real Depressing Real Fast” and “Even the Dalai Lama has something to say about Brangelina’s divorce“.  Yes, the “Brangelina divorce” is an important cultural moment that illustrates our ongoing moral and social decay, but what is going on in Charlotte is far more important.  Trust in our most important institutions is deeply broken, and Americans are increasingly choosing chaos and violence over peaceful discourse.  For a very long time I have been warning that these kinds of riots were coming, and the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted every day is starting to rapidly disappear.

There had been hope that things would settle down after the first couple of nights of chaos in Charlotte, but as I write this article protesters have already massed downtown despite a midnight curfew imposed by Mayor Jennifer Roberts…

Demonstrators chanted “release the tape” while briefly blocking an intersection near Bank of America headquarters in the heart of the city’s business district. They then continued marching as police officers watched. Members of the National Guard carrying rifles were also deployed in front of office buildings to head off another night of violence in this city on edge.

Mayor Jennifer Roberts has signed a curfew order from midnight until 6 a.m., despite Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney saying he saw no need for a curfew.

Personally, I can definitely understand why a curfew was imposed.  Nobody should want to see a repeat of the senseless violence of the past two nights.  At one point on Wednesday night, enraged protesters actually attempted to toss a news photographer into a roaring fire

Among the many reports of violence from the Charlotte, North Carolina unrest Wednesday night was one particular shocking example: rioters tried to throw a news photographer into a burning fire.

Local CW affiliate WCCB was on the scene and tweeted out images of the fire and their initial report.

If you are protesting for justice, you sure aren’t going to get it by trying to burn people alive.  I don’t know how anyone out there can possibly justify the kinds of things that we have been seeing in Charlotte.

In addition to trying to throw an innocent photographer into a fire, the “protesters” have also engaged in other forms of violence that are extremely alarming.  The following summary originally comes from Paul Joseph Watson

  • Stealing and looting cash registers from local businesses is not a legitimate form of protest
  • A “protester” shooting another “protester” is not a legitimate form of protest.
  • Physically attacking reporters is not a legitimate form of protest.
  • Throwing rocks off bridges at passing vehicles full of families is not a legitimate form of protest
  • Beating up innocent people in parking lots because they’re white is not a legitimate form of protest.
  • Smashing up apartment windows where black people live to “protest” in favor of ‘Black Lives Matter’ is not a legitimate form of protest.
  • Trashing your own neighborhood is not a legitimate form of protest.
  • Looting the Charlotte Hornets team store so you can steal basketball merchandise is not a legitimate form of protest
  • Attempting to hijack cars and terrify their innocent occupants is not a legitimate form of protest.

These sorts of things are not supposed to happen in Charlotte.

We have already seen major rioting in impoverished cities such as Baltimore, Ferguson, Milwaukee and Baton Rouge.  But Charlotte is supposed to be different.  Over the past decade, Charlotte has been one of the more prosperous major cities in America.  Just check out this excerpt from an NBC News editorial

Charlotte isn’t a crumbling urban ghetto. Charlotte is the place you move when you want sunshine, and a shiny new house in a sparkling new subdivision. Charlotte is a prosperous city where you not only can get a job in the bustling and very clean Uptown area, but that job affords you wonderful weekend getaways to a cozy cabin in the Appalachian mountains but an hour away, or to the sandy shores of the Atlantic, also an easy drive from the Queen City. Charlotte is a magnet for the young and old alike and it’s growth is the envy of not a few urban mayors.

It matters that Charlotte has been celebrated by U.S. News and World Reports as one of the best places to live in the entire nation. It filled Charlotte’s residents with pride when other media outlets heralded their city as one of the very best places to raise a family in the entire state of North Carolina.

If rioting like this could happen in Charlotte, then it could happen just about anywhere.

Now is a time when we need to forgive, come together and learn to work with one another again.  I really like what Donald Trump had to say about this…

We all have to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes and see things through their eyes, and then get to work fixing our very wounded country,” Trump said.

Pointing to the violent protests over a police-involved shooting in Charlotte, N.C., Trump said, “Our country looks bad to the world, especially when we are supposed to be the world’s leader. How can we lead when we can’t even control our own cities?” he asked.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of calls for love and forgiveness.

Instead, most of the discussion is focused on anger, hatred, strife and discord.

A house divided cannot stand, and America is more divided today than I have ever seen it in my entire lifetime.

As I stated yesterday, a lot more chaos and violence are coming.  As a society we have been going down the wrong road for decades, and now we are reaping a very bitter harvest.

Donald Trump’s Convention Speech Highlighted The Truth About America’s Decline

American Dream - Public DomainAmerica is in decline.  There are some that still attempt to deny this, but the reason why Donald Trump’s campaign slogan has so strongly resonated with the American people is because deep inside most of us realize that America is not as great as it used to be.  Our economy is a mess, we are 19 trillion dollars in debt, our infrastructure is crumbling, crime is on the rise, moral decay is all around us, other countries don’t respect us as much anymore, and our nation is the most divided that it has been in decades.  Anyone that believes that America is better than it has ever been in 2016 is either completely delusional or simply has not been paying attention.

As I write this article, the prepared text of Trump’s speech has already been released to the press.  So the following remarks may differ slightly from how he actually delivered them, but the differences are not likely to be too great.  At one point during his speech, Trump highlighted the rising crime and violence in our cities, and the numbers that he had to share were more than just a little bit alarming…

Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this Administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement. Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s fifty largest cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s capital, killings have risen by 50 percent. They are up nearly 60% in nearby Baltimore.

In the President’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the victims of shootings this year alone. And more than 3,600 have been killed in the Chicago area since he took office.

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50% compared to this point last year. Nearly 180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.

And it is really hard to argue with Trump about this.  We have all seen what just happened in Orlando, in Dallas and in Baton Rouge.  As I have said so many times before, a spirit of violence and civil unrest is rising in America.

Donald Trump thinks that he can fix this.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that any politician will be able to do that at this point.

Our long-term economic decline is another puzzle that our national leaders have been unable to solve.  Gallup’s U.S. economic confidence index just hit the lowest level so far this year, and poverty levels continue to rise all over the country.  The following is another excerpt from the text of Trump’s speech…

Nearly 4-in-10 African-American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African-American youth are not employed. Two million more Latinos are in poverty today than when the President took his oath of office less than eight years ago. Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.

Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000. Our manufacturing trade deficit has reached an all-time high – nearly $800 billion in a single year.

The budget is no better. President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing.

Yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World condition, and forty-three million Americans are on food stamps.

Even during Obama’s so-called “economic recovery”, the middle class has continued to shrink.  Right now, 62 percent of all Americans have less than $1,000 in savings, and millions upon millions of ordinary families find themselves desperately clawing and scratching as they try to survive from month to month.

One very frustrated mother recently shared her feelings about her family’s ongoing financial struggles on scarymommy.com

I’m tired of my stomach flipping inside when my son mentions he’d like to take a computer class after school. Or when my other son wants to enroll in swim lessons, take an art class, or buy a new bicycle. I’m tired of wondering where on earth we’ll come up with the cash for our children to pursue their interests.

I’m tired of never, ever going on vacations that don’t involve someone flying us out to see them or crashing at someone’s house for free.

I’m tired of wondering how on earth we’ll be able to send our kids to college.

I’m tired of renting, and the almost certain feeling I have that we’ll never be able to afford to buy a house.

I’m tired of having to pretend I’m not worried about it all.

I’m tired of my kids overhearing our worries, of knowing that money is a constant struggle for us.

Before I wrap up this article, I want to share one more stunning example of America’s decline.

Under Barack Obama, corruption and incompetence has spread throughout every part of our government.  Sadly, that even includes the Secret Service.

Secret Service agents are supposed to be “the best of the best”, and they are charged with protecting our most important national leaders.

But instead of doing their jobs with seriousness and professionalism, they have been acting like wild animals.  Documents that have just been made public reveal that the Secret Service has become an absolute disgrace in recent years…

They highlight incidents in which agents had sexual encounters with underage girls, married agents took part in ‘wheels up, rings off’ parties, and a manager who sexually harassed female subordinates dubbed the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) the ‘Nice **** and *** Club.’

The documents contain a report about “a male agent who had his gun stolen by a male prostitute he solicited using his government computer in Puerto Rico“, and they also detail the behavior of one agency manager in particular that deserves to be immediately fired

The report says the manager kept alcohol in his office and forced employees to drink ‘so he could trust them.’

‘He sexually harassed every female subordinate,’ the report says.

The manager would ‘publicly’ male employees: ‘Where are my little whores/*******? Have you slept with them yet?’

If this is what is happening in the Secret Service, can you imagine what is going on in other federal agencies behind closed doors?

America is a complete and total mess, and Donald Trump is completely correct when he talks about the need to make America great again.

But is that even possible, and if so, what would that look like?

Please feel free to tell us what you think by posting a comment below…

I Am Mourning For America

Mourning - Public DomainI am mourning for America, because she is dying.  I am mourning for a nation that once knew such greatness but that has now fallen to depths that were once unimaginable.  I am mourning for the death and destruction that are coming, and I am mourning for a future that our children and our grandchildren will never get to see.  I am mourning for a nation that has refused to listen to the warnings and that now stands on the precipice of judgment.  I am mourning for games that will never be played, for books that will never be finished, for family vacations that will never get to happen and for memories that will never be made.  I am mourning for the economic depression that is coming, for the horror and suffering that friends and family will endure, and for the coming death of the country where I drew my first breath.

To many, these words will seem “over the top” and overly dramatic.  After all, despite the thousands of problems facing this nation, things still seem very “normal” at this moment.  Well, if you don’t “get” what I am saying right now, just bookmark this page and come back to it later.  Eventually it will make sense to you.

Last week, I was invited to be a guest on a major television show that is beamed into the homes of millions of people in the United States and Canada.  If you get a chance to view the shows that are being aired this week, you will notice that I wore all black.

I wasn’t just making a fashion statement.  I was doing it because I am in mourning for America.  Unlike so many that talk about the horrible things that are ahead for this country, I actually love the United States.  I truly wish that this nation had become everything that it could have become.  I love the part of the country where I currently live, I love the amazing people that I am constantly meeting, and I love the things that I have been able to experience just because I am an American.

Unfortunately, everything is about to change.

There are many out there that believe that America is still a great nation.  Well, great nations do not murder tens of millions of their own children.  As Dr. Chuck Missler has pointed out, the most dangerous place to be in America today is in a mother’s womb.

Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, more than 56 million babies have been purposely destroyed in this country.

What does a nation that has murdered 56 million of its own children deserve?

I believe that we have just come out of a season of time when America has been shown exactly why it is about to be judged.

It is no accident that the undercover Planned Parenthood videos were released when they were.  Now the entire world knows that we slaughter our babies, harvest their organs and sell them off to the highest bidder.

So what has the response of the American people been to the revelation of this great evil?

Yes, a small minority of Americans have gotten upset, but most people have been completely unmoved by this news.

Our government gives Planned Parenthood hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and that isn’t going to change.  Planned Parenthood is just going to keep doing what they do, and the American people are just going to go back to ignoring the unprecedented holocaust that is happening behind closed doors all over the nation.

This past summer we also witnessed what I believe is the perfect bookend for the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973.  The institution of marriage was permanently altered in all 50 states, and most of the nation greatly rejoiced.

The White House was lit up with rainbow colors to honor what the Supreme Court did.  The rainbow is a symbol of God’s covenant with Noah, and in the book of Revelation there is a rainbow around the throne of God.  They have taken this symbol that belongs to God, and they are using it as a symbol of their defiance.

Of course these things that I have just mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg.  The truth is that evil is growing in this nation in thousands of different ways.  Every year there are 20 million new cases of sexually transmitted disease in the United States, we have the highest divorce rate in the entire industrialized world, and nearly one out of every five American women say that they have been raped at some point in their lives.  In the United States today, there are 60 million people that abuse alcohol and there are 22 million people that use illegal drugs.  America produces more pornography than the rest of the world combined, and surveys have found that Christian men use it at just about the same rate as everyone else.

I will not be publishing an article tomorrow.  In a few hours, Yom Kippur will begin where I live.  It is the most solemn of all the holidays described in the Bible, and it is a time of repentance.  I will be praying for myself, my family, my community and my nation.

If America had repented as a nation and had turned from her wicked ways, we would not have to go through the things that we are about to go through.

I believe that the time of grace that the United States has been given to repent is ending.

I know that this is very different from my usual format.  Is it okay if I just share what is on my heart from time to time?  On Thursday I will get back to sharing the facts, figures and hard information that you all have come to expect from me.  But today when I woke up I just felt that I should share these things with you.

Very shortly, things are going to start changing in a major way.

America is dying, and the hardest times that any of us have ever seen are right in front of us.

10 Examples Of The Social Decay That Is Eating Away At America Like Cancer

Social Decay - Public DomainIt isn’t just our economy that is crumbling.  Something is happening to America that no amount of money will be able to fix.  Everywhere around us we can see evidence of the social decay that is systematically eating away at the foundations of our society.  It can be found on the streets of our inner cities, in dark basements in extremely rural communities, in the most prestigious boardrooms on Wall Street, and definitely in the halls of power in Washington.   Bringing in an entirely different crop of politicians or printing gigantic mountains of money is not going to solve this problem, because it exists in the hearts of millions of ordinary men and women.  The truth is that we really need to take a good, long look at ourselves in the mirror, because we need to take a 180 degree turn as a nation.  What we are doing now is clearly not working, and the longer that we take to address this problem the worse it is going to get.  The following are 10 examples of the social decay that is eating away at America like cancer.  Individually, they could be dismissed as isolated incidents.  But I could have easily listed 100 examples or 1000 examples.  Every single day, we are inundated with reports like these.  The symptoms of the decay of our society are all around us.  We just have to be willing to look at them…

#1 It seems like many of the most horrific crimes these days are happening in middle America.  For example, a woman was recently hit over the head, raped and set on fire in a park in Wichita Kansas

Wichita police say a woman was sexually assaulted, hit on the head, and set on fire Monday night in Fairmount Park.

According to police, the woman was on the ground, almost in a crawl, barely moving, and naked.

The woman was helped by a neighbor – Johnnye Marshall woke up her boyfriend Deon McPherson when she heard somebody scream for help.

“What if that was my daughter?  I’d want somebody to go in and get her,” McPherson told The Wichita Eagle.  “Where there wasn’t blood, there was a burn.”

The flames from the fire were about 2 to 4 feet high.  McPherson stayed with the woman until firefighters arrived.

#2 I have repeatedly written about how the United States is the most obese of all the major industrialized nations.  Well, now we are using our extreme obesity to try to hide things that we have stolen

A 350-pound Wal-mart shopper was arrested yesterday after he was found sitting atop five stolen rib eye steaks in the seat of a motorized scooter that he was riding around the South Carolina store.

Rodney Fowler, 43, was spotted Tuesday afternoon placing the steaks in his scooter by a Walmart loss prevention officer, according to a police report.

“Suspect sat on the steaks and exited the store passing all points of sale, without attempting to pay for said merchandise,” cops noted.

The 5’ 5” Fowler was then confronted by the Walmart worker and escorted back into the store, where he was later arrested by police for shoplifting. “Due to his size, the suspect was cuffed using two pairs of cuffs,” investigators noted.

#3 What would you do if a police officer pulled you over for a traffic stop and exposed his private parts to you when he came up to your vehicle?  Well, this actually has been happening in New Jersey

A Newton police officer was arrested Monday on accusations that he unzipped his pants and exposed himself to young male drivers during “numerous” traffic stops.

Jason R. Miller, 37, of Hampton Township, a patrolman since 2001, turned himself in at the Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office and has been indefinitely suspended without pay pending the outcome of the criminal case, according to a statement issued by Sussex County Prosecutor Francis Koch and Newton Police Chief Michael Richards.

Miller was charged with two counts of official misconduct, one count of a pattern of official misconduct and one count of lewdness, the statement said.

Miller would expose his genitals to motorists “to satisfy his prurient interests” and then let them leave without issuing traffic summonses, according to a police complaint.

#4 If someone was planning to “accidentally” kill his wealthy wife, you would think that he would be smart enough not to put an “X” on the map where he planned to do it.  But that is apparently precisely what one man in Colorado foolishly did…

A suburban Denver man charged with pushing his wife to her death off a cliff in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park could not explain to investigators why he had a park map with an “X” drawn at the spot where she fell.

Newly unsealed court documents say Harold Henthorn denied using the map during the deadly September 29, 2012, hike.

But he told friends that he scouted out the park’s steep and craggy terrain at least six times, trying to find the perfect place to take Toni to celebrate their 12th year of marriage.

It also turns out that his first wife died in a “freak accident” too.

Some coincidence, eh?

#5 It is one thing to kill someone.  It is another thing to hack the dead body up with a saw and cook it.  I don’t know what in the world has happened to the state of Florida, but a lot of really weird stuff has been going on down there lately…

Angela Stoldt told officials she took a hacksaw to her neighbor’s body last year and tried to cook away evidence of James Sheaffer.

One leg went in the oven. Other parts went into pots.

Stoldt’s house in Deltona smelled of burning flesh, but she assured her daughter it was just a rat broiling in the oven, according to details made public last week after a grand jury charged her with first-degree murder.

“Thursday is when I was cooking him,” Stoldt told investigators. “Friday is when I was dumping him.”

The 42-year-old Deltona woman is accused of killing Sheaffer, 36, a limousine driver, in April 2013.

#6 In recent years, it seems like there has been a constant stream of news stories about twisted men locking up women in their basements and forcing them to be sex slaves.  The latest example comes from Cincinnati

A man pleaded guilty Friday to locking multiple women in his Cincinnati home and forcing them into prostitution.

Christopher Hisle, 45, was arrested on April 8, 2014, in Louisville, Kentucky after authorities said he drove a young woman from Cincinnati to Louisville to engage in prostitution at a nearby Red Roof Inn.

An FBI investigation later revealed Hisle was involved in forcing and compelling the women to engage in commercial sex for at least two years. He held the women at his Avondale home at 908 Lexington Ave., documents state .

It is unknown how many women Hisle held at one time and what their ages were. Authorities said at least 12 women are victims of his human trafficking operation.

#7 Why would a grown woman want to have sex with a 10-year-old boy?  You would have to be incredibly sick to try to do such a thing, but that is reportedly what one 25-year-old babysitter in Connecticut is charged with doing.  In fact, she is accused of doing this multiple times

A babysitter has been accused of repeatedly having sex with her friend’s 10-year-old son while she was looking after him and his other siblings.

Marybeth Rataic is facing 10 felony charges after allegedly having sex three times with the boy at his home in Meriden, Connecticut.

Police say that in one instance, the 25-year-old from Willimantic, had sex with the boy while his siblings slept in the room after creeping into the child’s room, which he shared with his brothers.

She is also accused of having sex with the 10-year-old while his mother was giving birth in hospital.

#8  A minor scuffle between two girls at a California high school erupted into a melee when a 400 pound police officer slammed his fist into the face of one of the girls.   Other students began to swarm the officer, and at that point things got wildly out of control

A lunchtime fight at a Central California high school Wednesday ended with police swarming onto campus, closing the school and putting six students under arrest, authorities said.

However, Ernest Righetti High School students say the initial fight was relatively minor, and that it was a Sheriff’s deputy striking one of the girls involved in the brawl that sparked the mass violence on campus.

That shocking moment was filmed by a bystander and has since been posted online by the Santa Maria Times.

The video shows the officer trying to break up a fight between two girls, only to hit one of the young women and drag her away. Students watching the altercation appear outraged by the act, and start to swarm the officer.

#9 When I was growing up, it seemed like almost everyone watched the Cosby Show on Thursday night.  Bill Cosby was “America’s Dad”, and he was universally respected.  Well, it turns out that now he is being accused of rape by 15 different women.  How is it possible that such horrific crimes could be covered up for so long, and what does that say about our society?  The following comes from Time Magazine

In Cosby’s story we find accusations of women being silenced for decades by threats, lawyers, fear and a generally defensive public, who until now were uninterested in being awakened from sweet dreams of their TV father.

The NPR audio interview released last week showcases Cosby’s clearly pre-determined response to the softest, almost nervous questions about the rape allegations: deafening silence.

This should not be viewed as the mature response of a well respected, integrity filled man (and in the case of his wife, a beloved, regal woman) attempting to maintain dignity and stay above the fray. It should be seen as what it is: A power move by a someone so arrogant that he thinks he shouldn’t even be asked about the fact that 15 women are accusing him of a horrific crime.

#10 As I have written about previously, the violence that we have seen in Ferguson, Missouri this year is a perfect example of how the streets of America can descend into chaos.  And now the upcoming grand jury decision threatens to rekindle that violence.

Instead of sober deliberation about this case and sincere attempts at peaceful reconciliation, both sides are preparing for mass civil unrest.  If the grand jury reaches “the wrong decision” we could see even more rioting, looting, violence and police brutality than we saw the first time around.

And this time, it may not be limited to Ferguson.  As the Daily Sheeple has pointed out, protest organizers have put up a Tumblr page for something called “The Ferguson National Response Network“.  According to that page,  “planned responses” are being organized in 82 cities throughout the United States.  In addition, protest organizers have released a list of 19 “Proposed Rules of Engagement” for confrontations with law enforcement authorities.  Needless to say, all of this sounds quite ominous.  The following are the 82 cities where “planned responses” are currently being organized…

Albany, NY
Albuquerque, NM
Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Baltimore, MD
Bangor, ME
Beavercreek, OH
Blacksburg, VA
Boston, MA
Buffalo, NY
Carbondale, IL
Chapel Hill, NC
Chattanooga, TN
Chicago, IL
Cleveland, OH
Columbia, MO
Columbus, OH
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Des Moines, IA
Detroit, MI
Durham, NC
Ferguson, MO
Gainesville, FL
Grand Rapids, MI
Greensboro, NC
Greenville, NC
Grinnell, IA
Houston, TX
Indianapolis, IN
Iowa City, IA
Jackson, MI
Kansas City, MO
Kennesaw, GA
Lawrence, KS
Lexington, KY
Longview, TX
Los Angeles, CA
Louisville, KY
Meadville, PA
Memphis, TN
Milwaukee, WI
Minneapolis, MN
Mobile, AL
Monpelier, VT
Monroeville, OH
Nashville, TN
New London, CT
New Orleans, LA
Newark, NJ
Northampton, MA
NYC, NY
Oak Ridge, TN
Oakland, CA
Olympia, WA
Oshkosh, WI
Phoenix, AZ
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Portland, OR
Providence, RI
Raleigh, NC
Rochester, NY
Rocky Mount, NC
San Diego, CA
Santa Barbara, CA
Seattle, WA
South Hadley, MA
Spring Valley, NY
Springfield, MA
St. Paul, MN
St. Petersburg, FL
Stroudsberg, PA
Tallahassee, FL
Tampa, FL
Toledo, OH
Toronto, Canada
Tucson, AZ
Washington, D.C.
West Hartford, CT
West Palm Beach, FL
Williamsburg, VA
Worcester, MA

Police in Ferguson are warning citizens that they better buy guns because they “will not be able to protect you or your family“.  And
CNN is reporting that gun sales in Ferguson are indeed surging.

Hopefully this grand jury decision will come and go and peace will prevail in Ferguson and elsewhere.

But without a doubt, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis is disappearing.

The foundations of our society are steadily rotting and decaying, and our underlying problems are getting worse with each passing day.

How long will our nation be able to remain stable if this continues?

221 Percent Increase In One Year? Why Are So Many People Renouncing American Citizenship?

American FlagThe number of Americans that renounced their citizenship was 221 percent higher in 2013 than it was in 2012.  That is a staggering figure, and it is symptomatic of a larger trend.  In recent years, a lot of really good people with very deep roots in this country have made the difficult decision to say goodbye to the United States permanently.  A few actually go to the trouble to renounce their citizenship, and that is mostly done for tax purposes.  But most willingly choose to leave America for other reasons.  Some were very serious when they said they would leave the U.S. if Barack Obama got a second term, some (such as Jesse Ventura) are dismayed at how our freedoms and liberties are eroding and are alarmed at the rise of the Big Brother police state, some are absolutely disgusted by the social and moral decay that is eating away at the foundations of our society, and there are yet others that consider “the grass to be greener” on the other side of the planet.  Personally, I have a number of friends that have made the very hard decision to relocate their families thousands of miles away because they see what is coming to America and they believe that there isn’t any hope of turning things around at this point.  I also have a lot of friends that are determined to stay in the United States no matter what.  When it comes to the future of America, almost everyone has a very strong opinion, and these are discussions that we need to start having.

Once upon a time, the United States was seen as “the land of opportunity” all over the globe and it seemed like everyone wanted to come here.

But now that is all changing.  As we have abandoned the principles that this country was founded upon, our economy has gone steadily downhill.

As I wrote about the other day, the middle class in America is slowly dying.  As millions of good paying jobs have been shipped out of the country, the competition for the remaining jobs has become quite intense.  At this point, there is even tremendous competition for minimum wage jobs.

Compared to exactly six years ago, 1,154,000 fewer Americans have jobs.  Meanwhile, our population has gotten significantly larger since then.  There simply are not enough jobs for everyone, and we continue to fall even farther behind.  In January, the economy only added 113,000 jobs and in December the economy only added 75,000 jobs.  Both of those figures are well below what we need just to keep up with population growth.

Looking ahead, things look even more troubling.

The number of “planned job cuts” in January was 12 percent higher than 12 months earlier, and it was actually 47 percent higher than in December.

The competition for jobs has also resulted in an extended period of declining incomes in the United States.

As I mention frequently, median household income in the United States has fallen for five years in a row, and the rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row.

Those that read my articles regularly probably have those facts memorized by now.

In addition, a study that just came out has shown that the number of “low-wage breadwinners” in the United States is at an all-time high

A staggering number of American households are relying on low-wage jobs as their leading or sole source of income.

Meet the low-wage breadwinner. There were about 21 million of them in the United States in 2011, according to a forthcoming study by University of Massachusetts Boston economists Randy Albelda and Michael Carr.

Unlike other studies which often focus just on low-wage workers, the researchers looked at those who also live in low-income households. This way, they were able to strip out the teenager making $8 an hour flipping burgers but still living comfortably with his parents. Or the mom who works a part-time job in retail to supplement her husband’s otherwise ample salary.

For tens of millions of average American families, there simply is not enough money left at the end of each month.

That is why many of them turn to debt to try to make up the difference.  Consumer credit is increasing at an alarming pace once again, and when the next great economic shock arrives many of those families are going to be in for a tremendous amount of financial pain.

In this type of economic environment, it should not be a surprise that anger, frustration and desperation are rising to very dangerous levels.

It was desperation and a fear of losing everything that he had ever worked for that drove one 80-year-old man to become a methamphetamine courier.

It was intense anger and frustration that drove a 58-year-old military veteran to package up cat feces and send it to employers that had turned him down

Rather than simply grumble to himself or complain to others, a St. Louis man aggrieved by a company’s failure to hire him took another approach.

Jevons Brown packaged up cat feces and sent it through the mail.

Brown, 58, was sentenced Friday to two years of probation after pleading guilty in August to a misdemeanor charge of mailing injurious articles.

The plea says Brown, a veteran, became frustrated with his lack of employment opportunities and lashed out at employees of companies that failed to hire him.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

In the years ahead, we are going to see much, much worse.

And if you do lose everything, don’t expect anyone to care very much.  There is already a frightening lack of compassion for those that are down on their luck in the United States today.  For example, in Pensacola, Florida it is actually illegal for homeless people to use blankets or cardboard boxes to shield themselves from the cold…

So there I was with my wife and three kids, all of us huddled under blankets with the fireplace roaring, watching the temperature continue to drop from a comfortable 65 degrees down to 45. But outside it was 17 degrees and raining and sleeting, and if you were homeless, you had to consider that if you used a blanket to shield yourself from the elements, that you might be hauled off to jail for a violation of a local ordinance prohibiting using blankets, cardboard, or newspaper to cover yourself.

Once you lose everything, society just wants you to go away.

And this lack of compassion is going to get a whole lot worse during the very hard times that are coming.

So it is easy to understand why many Americans would want to get out of this country while they still can.

However, the truth is that the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side.

For instance, you may be dreaming of moving to a tropical paradise where you can enjoy the sand and the sun every single day.

In the past, many Americans considered Puerto Rico a good place to relocate to.  After all, it is a United States territory and if you only speak English you can still get around pretty well.

But you wouldn’t want to move down to Puerto Rico these days.  Right now it is in the middle of a full-blown economic collapse

Puerto Rico’s slow-motion economic crisis skidded to a new low last week when both Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s downgraded its debt to junk status, brushing aside a series of austerity measures taken by the new governor, including increasing taxes and rebalancing pensions. But that is only the latest in a sharp decline leading to widespread fears about Puerto Rico’s future. In the past eight years, Puerto Rico’s ticker tape of woes has stretched unabated: $70 billion in debt, a 15.4 percent unemployment rate, a soaring cost of living, pervasive crime, crumbling schools and a worrisome exodus of professionals and middle-class Puerto Ricans who have moved to places like Florida and Texas.

In fact, Puerto Rico is a preview of the kind of societal chaos that we could be seeing inside the United States in just a few years

Schools sit shuttered either because of disrepair or because of a dwindling number of students. In this typically convivial capital, communities have erected gates and bars to help thwart carjackers and home invaders. Illegal drugs, including high-level narcotrafficking, are one of the few growth industries.

Well, what about South America?

In recent years, South America has been an extremely popular destination for those wishing to leave the United States.

Unfortunately, many areas of South America are experiencing full-blown economic collapse right now as well.  As I wrote about recently, deteriorating economic conditions have resulted in widespread crime, looting, violence, blackouts, shortages of basic supplies, and runs on the banks in Argentina and Venezuela.  The following is an excerpt from a recent interview with Fernando Aguirre who actually lives down in Argentina

Chris Martenson:  Okay. Bring us up to date. What is happening in Argentina right now with respect to its currency, the peso?

Fernando Aguirre:  Well, actually pretty recently, January 22, the peso lost 15% of its value. It has devalued quite a bit. It ended up losing 20% of its value that week, and it has been pretty crazy since then. Inflation has been rampant in some sectors, going up to 100% in food, grocery stores 20%, 30% in some cases. So it has been pretty complicated. Lots of stores don’t want to be selling stuff until they get updated prices. Suppliers holding on, waiting to see how things go, which is something that we are familiar with because that happened back in 2001 when everything went down as we know it did.

Chris Martenson:  So 100%, 20% inflation; are those yearly numbers?

Fernando Aguirre:  Those are our numbers in a matter of days. In just one day, for example, cement in Balcarce, one of the towns in Southern Argentina, went up 100% overnight, doubling in price. Grocery stores in Córdoba, even in Buenos Aires, people are talking about increase of prices of 20, 30% just these days. I actually have family in Argentina that are telling me that they go to a hardware store and they aren’t even able to buy stuff from there because stores want to hold on and see how prices unfold in the following days.

Well, what about Europe?

Isn’t Europe a lot more stable?

Unfortunately, that is not necessarily true.  In recent years we have seen rioting, civil unrest and Depression-like conditions in Ukraine, Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

And now you can add Bosnia to that list…

More than 150 people were wounded in Bosnia on Friday in the worst civil unrest in the country since the 1992-95 war as anger over the dire state of the economy and political inertia boiled over.

Angry protesters set fire to part of the presidential palace in Sarajevo in protests over unemployment and corruption, as well as government buildings in the capital Sarajevo, Tuzla and Zenica.

Just because you move out of the United States does not necessarily mean that you will avoid what is coming.

We are heading for a global economic collapse, and the pain is going to be felt to the farthest corners of the planet.

But of course there are many that will end up leaving the United States and will ultimately thrive.

So what do you think?

Is now a time for people to consider leaving the United States permanently?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

American Flag

83 Numbers From 2013 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

83 SignsDuring 2013, America continued to steadily march down a self-destructive path toward oblivion.  As a society, our debt levels are completely and totally out of control.  Our financial system has been transformed into the largest casino on the entire planet and our big banks are behaving even more recklessly than they did just before the last financial crisis.  We continue to see thousands of businesses and millions of jobs get shipped out of the United States, and the middle class is being absolutely eviscerated.  Due to the lack of decent jobs, poverty is absolutely exploding.  Government dependence is at an all-time high and crime is rising.  Evidence of social and moral decay is seemingly everywhere, and our government appears to be going insane.  If we are going to have any hope of solving these problems, the American people need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and finally admit how bad things have actually become.  If we all just blindly have faith that “everything is going to be okay”, the consequences of decades of incredibly foolish decisions are going to absolutely blindside us and we will be absolutely devastated by the great crisis that is rapidly approaching.  The United States is in a massive amount of trouble, and it is time that we all started facing the truth.  The following are 83 numbers from 2013 that are almost too crazy to believe…

#1 Most people that hear this statistic do not believe that it is actually true, but right now an all-time record 102 million working age Americans do not have a job.  That number has risen by about 27 million since the year 2000.

#2 Because of the lack of jobs, poverty is spreading like wildfire in the United States.  According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49.2 percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month.

#3 As society breaks down, the government feels a greater need than ever before to watch, monitor and track the population.  For example, every single day the NSA intercepts and permanently stores close to 2 billion emails and phone calls in addition to a whole host of other data.

#4 The Bank for International Settlements says that total public and private debt levels around the globe are now 30 percent higher than they were back during the financial crisis of 2008.

#5 According to a recent World Bank report, private domestic debt in China has grown from 9 trillion dollars in 2008 to 23 trillion dollars today.

#6 In 1985, there were more than 18,000 banks in the United States.  Today, there are only 6,891 left.

#7 The six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively gotten 37 percent larger over the past five years.

#8 The U.S. banking system has 14.4 trillion dollars in total assets.  The six largest banks now account for 67 percent of those assets and all of the other banks account for only 33 percent of those assets.

#9 JPMorgan Chase is roughly the size of the entire British economy.

#10 The five largest banks now account for 42 percent of all loans in the United States.

#11 Right now, four of the “too big to fail” banks each have total exposure to derivatives that is well in excess of 40 trillion dollars.

#12 The total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts is more than 381 times greater than their total assets.

#13 According to the Bank for International Settlements, the global financial system has a total of 441 trillion dollars worth of exposure to interest rate derivatives.

#14 Through the end of November, approximately 365,000 Americans had signed up for Obamacare but approximately 4 million Americans had already lost their current health insurance policies because of Obamacare.

#15 It is being projected that up to 100 million more Americans could have their health insurance policies canceled by the time Obamacare is fully rolled out.

#16 At this point, 82.4 million Americans live in a home where at least one person is enrolled in the Medicaid program.

#17 It is has been estimated that Obamacare will add 21 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#18 It is being projected that health insurance premiums for healthy 30-year-old men will rise by an average of 260 percent under Obamacare.

#19 One couple down in Texas received a letter from their health insurance company that informed them that they were being hit with a 539 percent rate increase because of Obamacare.

#20 Back in 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance.  Today, only 54.9 percent of all Americans are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#21 The U.S. government has spent an astounding 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs over the past five years.

#22 Incredibly, 74 percent of all the wealth in the United States is owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans.

#23 According to Consumer Reports, the number of children in the United States taking antipsychotic drugs has nearly tripled over the past 15 years.

#24 The marriage rate in the United States has fallen to an all-time low.  Right now it is sitting at a yearly rate of just 6.8 marriages per 1000 people.

#25 According to a shocking new study, the average American that turned 65 this year will receive $327,500 more in federal benefits than they paid in taxes over the course of their lifetimes.

#26 In just one week in December, a combined total of more than 2000 new cold temperature and snowfall records were set in the United States.

#27 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States has fallen for five years in a row.

#28 The rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row.

#29 Only 47 percent of all adults in America have a full-time job at this point.

#30 The unemployment rate in the eurozone recently hit a new all-time high of 12.2 percent.

#31 If you assume that the labor force participation rate in the U.S. is at the long-term average, the unemployment rate in the United States would actually be 11.5 percent instead of 7 percent.

#32 In November 2000, 64.3 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  When Barack Obama first entered the White House, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  Today, only 58.6 percent of all working age Americans have a job.

#33 There are 1,148,000 fewer Americans working today than there was in November 2006.  Meanwhile, our population has grown by more than 16 million people during that time frame.

#34 Only 19 percent of all Americans believe that the job market is better than it was a year ago.

#35 Just 14 percent of all Americans believe that the stock market will rise next year.

#36 According to CNBC, Pinterest is currently valued at more than 3 billion dollars even though it has never earned a profit.

#37 Twitter is a seven-year-old company that has never made a profit.  It actually lost 64.6 million dollars last quarter.  But according to the financial markets it is currently worth about 22 billion dollars.

#38 Right now, Facebook is trading at a valuation that is equivalent to approximately 100 years of earnings, and it is currently supposedly worth about 115 billion dollars.

#39 Total consumer credit has risen by a whopping 22 percent over the past three years.

#40 Student loans are up by an astounding 61 percent over the past three years.

#41 At this moment, there are 6 million Americans in the 16 to 24-year-old age group that are neither in school or working.

#42 The “inactivity rate” for men in their prime working years (25 to 54) has just hit a brand new all-time record high.

#43 It is hard to believe, but in America today one out of every ten jobs is now filled by a temp agency.

#44 Middle-wage jobs accounted for 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession, but they have accounted for only 22 percent of the jobs created since then.

#45 According to the Social Security Administration, 40 percent of all U.S. workers make less than $20,000 a year.

#46 Approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.

#47 After accounting for inflation, 40 percent of all U.S. workers are making less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.

#48 When Barack Obama took office, the average duration of unemployment in this country was 19.8 weeks.  Today, it is 37.2 weeks.

#49 Investors pulled an astounding 72 billion dollars out of bond mutual funds in 2013.  It was the worst year for bond funds ever.

#50 Small business is rapidly dying in America.  At this point, only about 7 percent of all non-farm workers in the United States are self-employed.  That is an all-time record low.

#51 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined.

#52 Once January 1st hits, it will officially be illegal to manufacture or import traditional incandescent light bulbs in the United States.  It is being projected that millions of Americans will attempt to stock up on the old light bulbs before they are totally gone from store shelves.

#53 The Japanese government has estimated that approximately 300 tons of highly radioactive water is being released into the Pacific Ocean from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear facility every single day.

#54 Back in 1967, the U.S. military had more than 31,000 strategic nuclear warheads.  That number is already being cut down to 1,550, and now Barack Obama wants to reduce it to only about 1,000.

#55 As you read this, 60 percent of all children in Detroit are living in poverty and there are approximately 78,000 abandoned homes in the city.

#56 Wal-Mart recently opened up two new stores in Washington D.C., and more than 23,000 people applied for just 600 positions.  That means that only about 2.6 percent of the applicants were ultimately hired.  In comparison, Harvard offers admission to 6.1 percent of their applicants.

#57 At this point, almost half of all public school students in America come from low income homes.

#58 Tragically, there are 1.2 million students that attend public schools in the United States that are homeless.  That number has risen by 72 percent since the start of the last recession.

#59 According to a Gallup poll that was recently released, 20.0 percent of all Americans did not have enough money to buy food that they or their families needed at some point over the past year.  That is just under the all-time record of 20.4 percent that was set back in November 2008.

#60 The number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 17 million in the year 2000 to more than 47 million today.

#61 Right now, one out of every five households in the United States is on food stamps.

#62 The U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas.

#63 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#64 According to one survey, approximately 75 percent of all American women do not have any interest in dating unemployed men.

#65 China exports 4 billion pounds of food to the United States every year.

#66 Overall, the United States has run a trade deficit of more than 8 trillion dollars with the rest of the world since 1975.

#67 The number of Americans on Social Security Disability now exceeds the entire population of Greece, and the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.

#68 It is being projected that the number of Americans on Social Security will rise from 57 million today to more than 100 million in 25 years.

#69 Back in 1970, the total amount of debt in the United States (government debt + business debt + consumer debt, etc.) was less than 2 trillion dollars.  Today it is over 56 trillion dollars.

#70 Back on September 30th, 2012 our national debt was sitting at a total of 16.1 trillion dollars.  Today, it is up to 17.2 trillion dollars.

#71 The U.S. government “rolled over” more than 7.5 trillion dollars of existing debt in fiscal 2013.

#72 If the U.S. national debt was reduced to a stack of one dollar bills it would circle the earth at the equator 45 times.

#73 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent.  Today, it is up to 101 percent.

#74 The U.S. national debt is on pace to more than double during the eight years of the Obama administration.  In other words, under Barack Obama the U.S. government will accumulate more debt than it did under all of the other presidents in U.S. history combined.

#75 The federal government is borrowing (stealing) roughly 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day.

#76 At this point, the U.S. already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.

#77 Japan now has a debt to GDP ratio of more than 211 percent.

#78 As of December 5th, 83 volcanic eruptions had been recorded around the planet so far this year.  That is a new all-time record high.

#79 53 percent of all Americans do not have a 3 day supply of nonperishable food and water in their homes.

#80 Violent crime in the United States was up 15 percent last year.

#81 According to a very surprising survey that was recently conducted, 68 percent of all Americans believe that the country is currently on the wrong track.

#82 Back in 1972, 46 percent of all Americans believed that “most people can be trusted”.  Today, only 32 percent of all Americans believe that “most people can be trusted”.

#83 According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 19 percent of all Americans trust the government.   Back in 1958, 73 percent of all Americans trusted the government.

So do you have any numbers from 2013 that you would add to this list?  If so, please feel free to share them by posting a comment below…