Politics

U.S. National Debt 2010

So just how big is the U.S. national debt in 2010?  Well, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, on June 1st the U.S. National Debt was $13,050,826,460,886.97.  For those not used to seeing such big numbers, that is over 13 trillion dollars.  To give you an idea of just how much a trillion dollars is, if you had started spending one million dollars every single day when Christ was born, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.  And yet somehow the U.S. government has accumulated a debt of over 13 trillion dollars.  This is a debt that we have callously placed on the backs of future generations of Americans.  Somehow we have the gall to expect our progeny to pay off the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  What we have done to future generations is beyond sickening.

But hey, if you are feeling especially generous today, the federal government is actually taking online donations that will go towards paying off the national debt.

Yes, it is true.

Please try to resist the urge to laugh.

This request comes from the same government that spent $2.6 million tax dollars to study the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes and $400,000 tax dollars to pay researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires, Argentina to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior when drunk.

Perhaps they should not hold their breath while waiting for our donations to show up.

Or perhaps they should get their own house in order before expecting donations.

But the truth is that they continue to recklessly spend our money as if they have not learned anything.

This year, it is projected that the U.S. government will issue nearly as much new debt as the rest of the governments of the world combined.

Yes, getting into debt is another thing that we Americans dominate the rest of the world in.

It is estimated that the U.S. government will have a budget deficit of approximately 1.6 trillion dollars in 2010.

Now remember, when Ronald Reagan took office, the U.S. national debt was only about 1 trillion dollars.

So, from the founding of the United States until Reagan took office we accumulated a total of about 1 trillion dollars in debt.

In just the last 30 years we have accumulated 12 trillion dollars more.

You know, the truth is that it is really, really hard to even spend one trillion dollars.

If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

Hopefully that gives you an idea just how fast the U.S. government is getting us into debt.

And now we are officially in the danger zone.

According to Dr. Jerome Corsi,  the U.S. national debt is now equal to 90 percent of gross domestic product.

Most economists consider a level of 100 percent debt to GDP to be an absolute nightmare scenario.

But things look even worse when you total up all forms of debt in the United States.

The total of all government, corporate and consumer debt in the United States is now equal to 360 percent of GDP.

That is far greater than at any point during the Great Depression.

Yes, we are in a LOT of trouble.

So can we just raise taxes on everybody just a little bit and get rid of this budget deficit?

Well, unfortunately no.

According to the Tax Foundation’s Microsimulation Model, to erase the U.S. budget deficit for 2010, the U.S. Congress would have to multiply the tax rate for every American by 2.4.

That would mean that the 10 percent tax rate would become 24 percent, the 15 percent tax rate would become 36 percent, and the 35 percent tax rate would have to be 85 percent.

Would you like to pay 85 percent of your income in taxes?

And that would not reduce the national debt one penny – all that would do is eliminate the U.S. budget deficit for this year.

The truth is that it is simply not possible to pay off the national debt.  Most economists realize this and speak of more realistic goals such as getting our debt growth down to a level that is “sustainable”.

But the reality is that we are way beyond being able to get this debt under control.  If the U.S. government cut spending enough to make a real difference it would crush the economy and tax revenue would take a sharp nosedive.  If the U.S. government borrows even more money and increases government spending even more it will help the economy in the short-term, but it will make our long-term problems even worse.

No, the truth is that we have created an economic nightmare from which there simply is no escape under the current system.  The national debt will never be repaid and the never ending spiral of debt and paper money that we have created is doomed to failure.

So what will happen someday when the current economic system does collapse?

That will be for the American people to decide.  Hopefully they will learn from our mistakes and will return to our constitutional roots and devise a financial system based on solid economic principles.

How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It

Insider Trading Is Perfectly Legal – But Only For Members Of The U.S. Congress

Did you know that insider trading is perfectly legal in the United States?  Well, not for 99.9% of the population.  It is actually only a very small percentage of the population that can legally indulge in insider trading – the members of the United States Congress.  In fact, a law that would ban insider trading by members of Congress has been stalled for years on Capitol Hill.  So why wouldn’t lawmakers in Washington D.C. want to apply the same rules to themselves that apply to the rest of us?  After all, how are we supposed to respect the integrity of those “serving” in Congress when they are playing by an entirely different set of rules?  The American people aren’t stupid.  They can see what is going on.  The truth is that there is a reason why approval ratings for Congress are at an all-time low.

The sad thing is that this issue has gotten very little attention in the mainstream media.  Nobody seems really that upset about it.  But it is a travesty that our lawmakers can legally make trades in the open market based on inside information that they have gained by being in positions of authority.  As the Wall Street Journal recently explained, they can generally make all the money they want off of insider information without any fear of prosecution because “insider-trading laws generally do not apply to lawmakers, leaving them free to trade on nonpublic information.”

But members of the U.S. Congress are generally in a greater position to influence the fortunes of individual companies than almost anyone else.  For example, certain members of the U.S. Congress may know that certain legislation is going to be introduced that would have a dramatic impact on the economic fortunes of a particular industry or corporation.  What would stop those members of Congress from making very profitable trades in the marketplace based on that information?

Nothing.  Nothing at all.

So, is there any evidence that members of Congress have been involved in this sort of activity?

Well, there is at least one study that seems to indicate that members of the U.S. Congress have been much more successful in the stock market than members of the general public….

A 2004 study of the results of stock trading by United States Senators during the 1990s found that that senators on average beat the market by 12% a year. In sharp contrast, U.S. households on average underperformed the market by 1.4% a year and even corporate insiders on average beat the market by only about 6% a year during that period. A reasonable inference is that some Senators had access to – and were using – material nonpublic information about the companies in whose stock they trade.

Of course Congress could stop all of this by simply passing a law that bans insider trading by our lawmakers.

But they refuse to do it.

Instead, it is likely that our “leaders” will continue to make millions of dollars by betting against the U.S. economy and very few people will even raise an objection.

In the upcoming Wall Street sequel, Gordon Gekko makes a statement that seems very appropriate for the world in which we now live….

“Someone reminded me I once said ‘Greed is good’ – now it seems it’s legal”

Fed Up

Do you ever get to the point where you are just fed up with the way that things are headed?  There are times when it seems as if we are all stuck in some kind of horrific nightmare that we can’t wake up from.  Day after day we get the privilege of watching our esteemed leaders down in Washington D.C. wreck the U.S. economy, push us towards socialism and globalism, and slowly erode our constitutional freedoms.  Day after day we get the privilege of watching corruption and greed run wild down on Wall Street.  Day after day those of us who are awake to what is going on find ourselves increasingly frustrated with the vast majority of Americans who are either too dazed, too drugged or too asleep to even care that the great nation that their forefathers built is in the process of crumbling all around them.  Not that there aren’t some promising signs out there.  Certainly Rand Paul’s recent victory in Kentucky shows that the American people are not automatically going to vote for the candidates backed by the establishment anymore.  But it seems like every piece of good news these days is accompanied by a dozen news stories that are so bad that they make you want to scream.  It is incredibly frustrating that tens of millions of Americans who bust their backs working incredibly long hours, who try to do what is right, and who truly do love their country are going to pay the price for the errors of a bunch of idiots down in Washington D.C. and New York.  The America that so many of us grew up in love with (the once great Republic with the greatest free enterprise system in the world) is being strangled out of existence by a horde of globalists, socialists and elitists.  Well, there are millions of us who are fed up.  I am fed up.  So today you are going to get an “editorial”.  Actually what you are going to get is an old-fashioned rant.  But the truth is that we live during times when ranting is appropriate.  Feel free to express your agreement or disagreement with the various things I am going to rant about below.  Hopefully if enough people start talking about these things, the American people will wake up and start taking their country back.

So exactly what am I fed up about?   

I’m fed up with politicians in Washington D.C. who prance around and talk about what a good job they are doing while they pile up the biggest debt in the history of the world.  We are stealing trillions of dollars from future generations, and if they get the chance they will curse us for the horrific debt that we have left them. 

I’m fed up with an unelected, privately-owned central bank issuing and controlling the currency of the United States.  Nobody but the U.S. government should be issuing U.S. dollars.  The reality is that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is, and the international bankers have used it for decades to transfer the wealth of the nation into their own pockets.

I’m fed up with being told that the money I have worked so hard to earn needs to be “redistributed” to people who wouldn’t know a hard day of work if it came up and bit them on the rear.

I’m fed up with Tea Party activists who believe in the Constitution and who desperately want to see a return to the ideals that the American republic was founded upon being labeled as “extremists” by the media while those who are pushing a socialism and globalism on America are referred to as “centrist” and “mainstream”.

I’m fed up with anyone who suggests that it is a good idea for the government to get to look at an image of our naked bodies before we are allowed to get on an airplane.

I’m fed up with hearing that there are banks that are “too big to fail” and that it is necessary for tax money taken from me to be used to bail them out.

I’m fed up with a financial system that is so rigged that four of the biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup) can have a “perfect quarter” with zero days of trading losses during the first quarter of 2010.

I’m fed up with a financial system where the Dow can plunge nearly 1000 points in a single hour and nobody can seem to be able to figure out what happened.

I’m fed up with being told that I need to reduce my “carbon footprint” when carbon dioxide does not cause global warming and over 95% of total carbon dioxide emissions would occur even if humans were not present on Earth.

I’m fed up with people telling me that we should be glad to pay all the new taxes in the “health care reform” law because socialized medicine is such a good idea.   

I’m fed up with the open manipulation of the gold and silver markets right under the noses of the federal government.

I’m fed up with politicians that spend money in order to get votes without any concern for the financial future of this nation whatsoever.

I’m fed up with a government that can protect the South Korean border so well that not a single person gets through illegally for decades, and yet has done such a bad job of protecting our own border that Phoenix, Arizona has become the car theft capital of the world.

I’m fed up with a government that is so embarrassed by the recent anti-illegal immigration law passed in Arizona that they apologize to the communist Chinese for it.

I’m fed up with yuppies who went out and bought McMansions that they could not possibly afford whining and crying now that they are losing their houses.

I’m fed up with politicians shipping our manufacturing base to the third world and then pretending that it is our fault when we can’t get jobs.

I’m fed up with people telling me how wonderful “free trade” and “the global economy” are while our once great manufacturing cities such as Detroit turn into rusted-out war zones.

I’m fed up with international organizations such as the IMF and the WHO telling us that they want the American people to start paying global taxes.

I’m fed up with politicians being treated like celebrities and rock stars when they are actually leading American right into the toilet.

I’m fed up with a president and a Congress that are rapidly dismantling the strategic nuclear arsenal that has helped keep America safe for decades.

I’m fed up with politicians who run over to China and beg them to keep buying even more of our debt.

I’m fed up with the United Nations and members of the U.S. government claiming that there are far too many people in the world and that we need to promote population control measures all over the globe.

I’m fed up with a Supreme Court that has absolutely no respect at all for the personal property rights of ordinary Americans.

I’m fed up with a government that insists that freakishly-altered genetically modified crops are good for us, and that allows companies like Monsanto to ruthlessly push these “Frankenfoods” on to dinner tables all across the United States.

I’m fed up with a public that is far more interested in the death of Michael Jackson and in what is going on with Jon & Kate than in the absolutely crucial economic and political issues that directly affect them and their families. 

I’m fed up with a government that is so incompetent when it comes to foreign policy that Russia and China are literally running circles around them.

I’m fed up with a government that allows nearly a million innocent babies to be killed year in and year out.

I’m fed up with watching Wall Street bankers rake in record-setting bonuses while nearly 40 million Americans are on food stamps.

I’m fed up with a national debt that is impossible to pay off, a dollar that has lost over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created and a financial system that is designed to fail.

If you don’t understand why the U.S. economic system is doomed, you should check out the video posted below.  The inevitable collapse of the U.S. financial system is beautifully illustrated in this brand new documentary entitled “Meltup”.  It is one of the best videos on the economic crisis that America is facing that has ever been posted on YouTube.  This video is likely to make you very mad, but after watching it you will have a much greater understanding of the economic nightmare that the United States is now facing….

So are you fed up too? Please feel free to leave a comment telling us what you are upset about….

Created Out Of Thin Air – That Is Where The Federal Reserve Got The 1.3 Trillion Dollars That It Bought All Of Those Mortgage Backed Securities With

When the mainstream media told the American people that the Federal Reserve was going to “help” the housing industry by buying up hundreds of billions of dollars worth of toxic mortgage backed securities, very few people probably even stopped to wonder where all of that money was going to come from.  Well, the truth is that it did not come from anywhere.  It was made up out of thin air.  In fact, a total of 1.3 trillion dollars was just “printed into existence” so that the Fed could soak up these problematic securities (and help their buddies down on Wall Street in the process who were desperate to dump them).  During a recent Joint Economic Committee hearing on Capital Hill, U.S. Representative Ron Paul directly confronted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke about this 1.3 trillion dollars.  As Ron Paul described how this 1.3 trillion was just created out of thin air, all Bernanke could do was nod his head.  Why?  Because it was the truth.

Of course we all know that the Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air all the time, so that is not new, but what is new is the recklessness and openness with which they are going about doing it.

Need to help your buddies down on Wall Street by buying up a tsunami of bad mortgage securities?

Just zap another trillion dollars into existence!

Need to bail out the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Just get the magic money printing machine ready!

Wouldn’t it be nice if the rest of us could create money out of thin air?  It would make life so much easier.

A video clip of the exchange between Ron Paul and Bernanke at this hearing is posted below.

The key moment comes when Ron Paul makes this statement….

“Well, where did you get the money? You created this money. So you did monetize debt, and that went into the banking system.”

As you watch this video, you will notice that at that moment Bernanke nods his head up and down repeatedly….

So who does all of this money printing benefit?

Well, it benefits the Federal Reserve and the big financial institutions on Wall Street that have financial ties to the Federal Reserve.

It certainly does not benefit the rest of us.

No, in fact Bernanke says that the rest of us need to get ready to pay higher taxes and have a lower standard of living in order to pay for the big financial mess that our politicians and the Fed have gotten us into.

So while there are lots of smiles going around in Washington D.C. and on Wall Street these days, the same cannot be said for the rest of the good ole U.S.A. as the following video illustrates….

The reality is that the United States is a nation that does not even have control over its own currency.  If the United States government wants more money, it has to go ask the Federal Reserve to create it.  Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve does not also create the interest that will ultimately be paid on that new money that is being created.  So where will the money come from to pay the interest?  Well, by creating even more money (debt) in the future.  It sounds like insanity, but that is the U.S. financial system.  It is a perpetual debt machine that was created to have an ever expanding national debt that is mathematically impossible to pay off.

Just because the folks down on Wall Street do not dress up in gang colors or try to sell drugs to our children does not mean that they are not corrupt or that they are not criminals.  In fact, the truth is that the corruption in our financial system is hitting unprecedented levels.

But most Americans have no idea what in the world is going on in the financial system.  All most of them know is that things are getting bad and they want somebody to “fix” the problems.

Unfortunately, the folks that the American people are expecting to “fix” things are the very same ones who got us into this mess in the first place.

“Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.”
-Senator Barry Goldwater

“A great industrial nation is controlled by it’s system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world–no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.”
-President Woodrow Wilson

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.”
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.”
-Abraham Lincoln

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws”
-Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild

Revealed!

Taxed Enough Already!

When you talk to most Americans about taxes, primarily what they think about is the U.S. government and the federal income tax.  But while that may be the biggest tax that most Americans pay, the reality is that the truly insidious nature of the tax system in the United States is how it sucks money out of us in dozens of different ways until we don’t even feel it anymore.  Instead of having one or two big tax bills, U.S. taxpayers face a “death by a thousand cuts” as tax after tax after tax just keeps coming.  Most Americans don’t even realize how many kinds of taxes they pay.  Before reading the rest of this article, try to estimate how many different kinds of taxes that Americans pay each year.  Five?  Ten?  Twenty?  Well, below we have listed over 50 different kinds of taxes that Americans pay.  It is no wonder the Tea Party movement is growing so fast!  People are sick and tired of constantly being financially drained by tax after tax.  But even as you read this, members of the White House panel charged with reducing the U.S. national debt are considering recommending the adoption of a “European-style” Value Added Tax as a way for the U.S. government to bring in even more money.

Well, the truth is that millions upon millions of Americans are quite sick of being taxed into financial oblivion and they have one giant message for those who want to tax us some more….

“We Are Being Taxed Enough Already!”

Just consider the following list of the various types of taxes that Americans have to pay each and every year…..

Accounts Receivable Tax

Building Permit Tax

Capital Gains Tax

CDL license Tax

Cigarette Tax

Corporate Income Tax

Court Fines (indirect taxes)

Dog License Tax

Federal Income Tax

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

Fishing License Tax

Food License Tax

Fuel permit tax

Gasoline Tax

Gift Tax

Hunting License Tax

Inheritance Tax

Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)

IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

Liquor Tax

Local Income Tax

Luxury Taxes

Marriage License Tax

Medicare Tax

Payroll Taxes

Property Tax

Real Estate Tax

Recreational Vehicle Tax

Road Toll Booth Taxes

Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)

Sales Taxes

School Tax

Septic Permit Tax

Service Charge Taxes

Social Security Tax

State Income Tax

State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)

Telephone federal excise tax

Telephone federal universal service fee tax

Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes

Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax

Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax

Telephone state and local tax

Telephone usage charge tax

Toll Bridge Taxes

Toll Tunnel Taxes

Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)

Trailer registration tax

Utility Taxes

Vehicle License Registration Tax

Vehicle Sales Tax

Watercraft registration Tax

Well Permit Tax

Workers Compensation Tax

When you add all the taxes together, a significant percentage of Americans end up paying well over 50 percent of their income in taxes of one form or another.

And the list above does not even include all of the new taxes that are in the new health care law that was just rammed down the throats of the American people.

When you add up all the taxes in that bill, it amounts to the largest tax increase in the history of the United States.

But if you enjoy being taxed until you are dry then none of this should bother you.

Sadly, according to an official U.S. government report, even with all of this taxation rapidly growing interest costs on the national debt together with spending on major entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare will absorb approximately 92 cents of every dollar of federal revenue by the year 2019.  That is before a penny will be spent on anything else.  Because of our reckless financial insanity, the U.S. government is now facing a financial crisis of unprecedented magnitude. 

But whatever we end up giving to the federal government just never seems to be enough.  It’s voracious appetite for spending just seems to multiply the bigger it gets.

The really tragic thing is that the U.S. federal government is not just spending our money.  It is spending the money of our children and our grandchildren and of our great grandchildren.

We are being taxed into oblivion and yet the U.S. government apparently has no shame in stealing increasing amounts of money from future generations year after year after year.

Do you think that the U.S. federal government will one day wake up and decide that we are being taxed enough already? 

No.

The truth is that unless we vote out all of the Republicans and all of the Democrats that have been taxing us to death, they will keep right on doing it.

We deserve better and future generations deserve better.

It’s The Economy Stupid – Nearly 80 Percent Of Americans Say They Don’t Trust The Government

Back during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid” was a phrase that Clinton campaign officials used to keep the focus on the troubled U.S. economy.  The truth is that Americans as a whole care about very few things more than their own economic well being, and by keeping the debate focused on economic issues, Clinton was able to defeat George H. W. Bush.  Nearly 20 years later, that slogan is as true today as it ever has been.  The American people care dearly about their own wallets and bank accounts.  With the economy tanking badly and with unemployment at very high levels, dissatisfaction with the U.S. government is at record highs.  In fact, acccording to a newly released poll byPew Research Center, just 22% of Americans believe that they can trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time.  Nearly half of the respondents said that the government has a negative effect on their daily lives.  Only 25% of those responding expressed a favorable opinion of Congress, which was the lowest favorable rating for Congress in a quarter century of Pew Research Center surveys.

So why are the American people so angry and frustrated with their government?

It’s the economy, stupid.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes, and millions more Americans are on the verge of losing their jobs and homes.

There are approximately 5.5 unemployed Americans for every job opening.  RealtyTrac projects that there will be 4.5 million home foreclosures in 2010.  The economic nightmare just keeps going from bad to worse.

The result is a massive horde of pissed off American voters.

As long as Americans are fat and happy and their wallets are full, most of them really could care less how involved the government is in their lives.  But when things go bad economically, all of a sudden the government becomes a major annoyance.

And this is not a Republican v. Democrat thing either.  The truth is that both parties have been radically expanding the size of the U.S. government for decades.  Both parties have been spending taxpayer money like there is no tomorrow.  Both parties have mortgaged the future of America to please their constituents.  Now average Americans from both parties are alarmed at how large the government has become and how badly it is screwing things up.  Just consider the following quote from USAToday.com….

“The government’s been lying to people for years. Politicians make promises to get elected, and when they get elected, they don’t follow through,” says Cindy Wanto, 57, a registered Democrat from Pennsylvania who joined several thousand for a rally in Washington on April 15 — the tax filing deadline. “There’s too much government in my business. It was a problem before Obama, but he’s certainly not helping fix it.”

If he wants to get re-elected, the best thing that Barack Obama could do to get votes would be to get the U.S. government to spend as much money as humanly possible in a last ditch attempt to stimulate the U.S. economy with a flood of paper money.  That might work just long enough to get re-elected and buy himself another four years in the White House.  Of course that strategy would also likely create hyperinflation and would make the long-term financial problems of the U.S. government far, far worse.

But unless the American people start feeling a lot better about the economy, they are not going to look too kindly on anyone who is currently holding office either in 2010 or in 2012.

Meanwhile, playing politics is more profitable than it ever has been.

Barack Obama and his wife Michelle raked in a cool 5.5 million dollars in 2009.

Sarah Palin has earned approximately 12 million dollars since last July.

According to Forbes magazine, Glenn Beck made 32 million dollars in the 12 months ending March 1st.

Politicians may not be very popular these days, but it sure is a profitable racket if you can get into the club.

Republicans make a ton of money convincing millions of Americans that the Democrats are the cause of all the problems that they are experiencing.  Democrats make a ton of money convincing millions of Americans that that Republicans are the cause of all the problems that they are experiencing.  Meanwhile, both parties continue to pile up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world and continue to sell out the future of our children and our grandchildren.

Neither party seems interested in addressing the root causes of our national financial nightmare.  Instead, politicians from both parties seem to think that they can keep making all kinds of promises to get elected and then never delivering on them.

Well, the American people are starting to wake up to all of this nonsense.  Tens of millions of Americans are experiencing extreme financial pain and they are looking for answers.

Unfortunately, the U.S. economy is going to get a whole lot worse, and very few of the politicians in Washington have the guts to tell the American people the truth.

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If The U.S. Economy Goes Into The Toilet Will It Result In A Complete And Total Collapse Of Society?

If the United States experiences a horrifying economic collapse (and it most definitely will), will that cause a complete and total collapse of society?  Will we experience crime, violence, riots and social unrest on a scale that is unprecedented in U.S. history?  Before you dismiss such notions as utter foolishness dreamed up by a few bloggers with too much time on their hands, perhaps you should consider what one of the biggest credit rating organizations in the world is saying.  According to a report on sovereign debt by Moody’s, the world’s five biggest AAA-rated countries (including the United States) are all at risk of soaring debt costs and will have to implement austerity plans that threaten “social cohesion”.  In case you are wondering what happens when “social cohesion” starts to break down due to economic factors, just check out the recent examples in Iceland and Greece.  If even Moody’s is warning that there is a realistic possibility that “social cohesion” in the United States may break down due to economic factors, perhaps we should all start listening.

Or if you will not listen to Moody’s, then perhaps you will listen to the man who has been called the top trends researcher in the entire world.  Gerald Celente is the CEO of Trends Research Institute, and he is convinced that we are heading into what he calls “The Greatest Depression”.  The picture that he paints of the future of America is extremely alarming and extremely sobering.  It would be easy to dismiss his forecasts as just the ramblings of another useless “talking head”, but unfortunately Celente has been dead-on accurate time after time after time in the past.  Considering his exemplary track record, what Celente says is coming next for America is incredibly frightening….

At this point you may be tempted to think that America has been through extremely tough economic times before (The Great Depression for example) and came through them okay.

So what is so different now?

Well, the truth is that the character of the American people is dramatically different.  At the time of the Great Depression, the American people were tough, self-sufficient people who knew how to live off the land.  Today, most Americans are weak, spoiled little children who will throw a temper tantrum whenever anyone tries to take their toys away.  The character of the American people has been decaying for decades, and there is no way that the current crop of Americans has any chance of weathering a horrible economic depression the way Americans back in the 1930s did.

Already we are seeing early signs of what the rest of America could soon be like.  The city of Detroit is a rotting, crime-ridden war zone that has a “real” unemployment rate of somewhere around 40 to 50 percent.  The state of California has become a cesspool of gang violence, rampant unemployment, rising foreclosures, unchecked drug dealing, and depressing economic decline.  Even in New York City we are seeing early signs of what is ahead.  Residents are quite alarmed about the dramatic rise in violent crime that is happening throughout the city.  Many New Yorkers were convinced that the days of “The Rotten Apple” were behind them, but economic problems are going to cause an increase in crime in just about any city.

But it just isn’t crime that is on the rise.  Millions of normal, law-abiding Americans are angry.  This anger is coming out in various ways – including the Tea Party protests that are sweeping the nation.  The majority of the American people are frankly disgusted with the government, and the approval ratings for both major parties continue to hover around record lows.  As things continue to get worse for the U.S. economy, the anger of the American people is going to continue to rise.

All of this is causing many in the U.S. government to view “troublemakers” inside the United States as one of the greatest threats to national security.  In fact, according to FBI Director Robert Mueller, “homegrown terrorists” represent as big a threat as al-Qaeda.

As big a threat as al-Qaeda?

For a top U.S. government official to come right out and make a statement like that is absolutely mind blowing.

Not only that, but now former U.S. President Bill Clinton is comparing Tea Party members to Timothy McVeigh.

Considering the fact that Timothy McVeigh received the death penalty, that is a very frightening parallel for Clinton to draw.

Does Clinton actually believe that Tea Party protesters should receive the same treatment as McVeigh?

Even more alarming is new legislation being pushed in the U.S. Senate.  A new bill introduced by Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman would allow the U.S. military to round up large numbers of Americans and detain them indefinitely without a trial if they “pose a threat” or if they have “potential intelligence value” or for any other reason the President of the United States “considers appropriate”.

The reality is that as “necessary” as bills like that may seem to many as we edge ever closer to the breakdown of society, the reality is that the United States is quickly becoming just like so many of the other horrific totalitarian regimes that we have seen rise throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

In fact a time may soon be coming when authorities in the U.S. may soon be able to legally utter this bone chilling phrase: “Your Papers Please!”  Lawmakers in Washington D.C. working to create a new immigration “reform” bill have decided on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card that all American workers would be required to obtain.

Can you imagine being forced to carry around a national identification card?

Or worse?

A startup company developing “chipless RFID ink” has already tested its product on cattle and laboratory rats.

Could one day we all be required to sport an “RFID tatoo” to prove our identity to authorities?

Let’s hope not.

But many of us never thought that the day would come when we would see things such as the Patriot Act, “no fly” lists, the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, DNA databases, Guantanamo Bay or full-body scanners at airports that reveal the graphic details of our naked bodies either.

America is quickly changing.  The next Great Depression is coming, and society is not going to be able to handle it.  How the U.S. government (and governments around the world) handle the coming social problems is going to be very interesting to watch.  Let’s hope that all of this does not degenerate into the absolute societal nightmare that many are projecting that it could be.

NASA To Preppers: “You’re Right. 13 Months Till D-Day” Watch Video!

12 Reasons Why Millions Of Americans Are Incredibly Angry About The State Of The U.S. Economy

We have reached a very interesting turning point in American history.  More than at any other point in modern times, Americans are deeply angry about the state of the economy.  In fact, it is no stretch to say that millions of U.S. citizens are hopping mad about the economic situation.  Most of them don’t know exactly what is wrong, and even fewer of them have any idea about how to go about fixing things, but they do know one thing.  They know that they are mad.  As Americans, we were raised with the belief that our overwhelmingly powerful economic machine would always provide good jobs and prosperity for all of us as long as we worked hard.  But we have come to learn that is not true.  We have come to learn that our politicians and our leaders have squandered the great inheritance that our forefathers left for us.  We have come to learn that the financial future of our nation is beyond bleak.  We have come to learn that our government has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  Now the foolish decisions of the past several decades are catching up with us.  The U.S. economy is experiencing structural failure, and the American people are angry.  They want answers.  They want someone to fix things.  They want things to go back to the way they used to be.

But that isn’t going to happen.  Once the American people truly start realizing that, the anger that will erupt will dwarf what we are seeing now.

Not that they are aren’t already incredibly steamed.  The following are 12 reasons why many Americans are absolutely furious about the state of the U.S. economy….

#1) There simply are not enough jobs for everyone.  The number of unemployed Americans per job opening has started to increase again, hitting 5.5 in February.  Even many of those who are able to get some work find themselves only able to obtain part-time employment.  Gallup’s underemployment measure hit 20.0% on March 15th.  This was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year.

#2) More Americans than ever find themselves having to rely on the U.S. government just to survive.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 39.4 million Americans, a new all-time record, received food stamps in January.  This was up 22% from a year earlier.  In fact, the number of Americans on food stamps has hit all-time records for 14 consecutive months.

#3) Foreclosures continue to set records across the United States.  RealtyTrac, the California-based authority on property trends and valuations, projects that there will be 4.5 million home foreclosures before the end of this year.  If you figure 4 people per household, that is another 18 million people that will be forced out of their homes.

#4) As unemployment and foreclosures continue to soar, “tent slums” have started popping up all over the United States.  Is this why our founding fathers fought and died?  So we could all live in “tent slums” as the big fat cats on Wall Street roll around in their bailout cash?

#5) But even with all of these economic problems, the price of food is going up.  Rising demand and reduced supply drove supermarket prices for 16 basic foods up 6.2% in the first quarter of 2010.

#6) Due to the exploding government debt, the American people are going to be confronted with some tough choices.  According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the United States will soon have to make difficult choices between higher taxes and reduced social spending.  Either alternative will slow down the U.S. economy.

#7) Meanwhile, corruption in the financial system is running rampant.  The CEOs of bailed-out regional banks are actually getting big raises.  The guy who helped bring down AIG is going to get off scott-free and will be able to keep the millions in profits that he made in the process.

#8) But the biggest fraud is being committed by the boys at the top of the food chain.  A whistle blower has come forward with “smoking gun” evidence of price manipulation by major financial institutions in the precious metals markets.  The scope of this fraud is in the trillions of dollars.  The American people can’t stomach much more of this type of thing.

#9) Almost all financial experts agree that the era of super cheap money is over and that interest rates are about to rise significantly.  This is going to make it much more expensive for most Americans to borrow money to buy a home, to buy a car, to buy things with their credit cards or to borrow money for education.  Those who already have adjustable loans are going to find a much larger portion of their income going to pay interest.  Needless to say, this is going to cause the U.S. economy to experience a significant slowdown.

#10) One of the biggest things that the American people are upset about is the “health care reform” bill that was just rammed down their throats.  It turns out that “health care reform” is actually going to be the biggest tax increase in American history.  Not only that, but because of taxes and mandates imposed upon health insurance companies by the legislation, health insurance premiums are also about to increase substantially.  So where will the average American family get the money to pay for these increases?

#11) In addition, the new health care law that was supposed to give all of us much better health care is actually going to force the cancellation of at least 60 doctor-owned hospitals that were scheduled to be opened according to the executive director of Physician Hospitals of America.  Why?  Well, it turns out that the new law singles out physician-owned hospitals, making new physician-owned projects ineligible to receive payments for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

#12) The reality is that Americans are increasingly becoming disenchanted with the lack of leadership in both political parties.  Approval ratings for leaders in both parties are extremely low, and anger at politicians is at an all-time high.  The Tea Party movement is just one symptom of the seething anger many Americans are feeling.  While many Americans are gathering together at large protest rallies to demonstrate against the policies of the government, others are expressing their displeasure on blogs and websites.  There has never been a moment in modern times when Americans have been so disenchanted with their political leadership.

This anger is not going to go away.  It could be soothed a bit if the U.S. economy was fully fixed and things went back to the way they used to be.  But as noted previously, that just is not going to happen.  Harder times are ahead.  Americans are going to get angrier and angrier.

But there is not much that can be done to prevent that anger.  The politicians who are in office when things really hit the fan are going to take the brunt of the anger, but it won’t be their fault.  The truth is that this economic collapse has been building for decades.  The American people are just not going to understand that the financial system cannot be fixed overnight.

Dark times are coming.  It is not going to be pretty.  There is going to be a lot of anger and a lot of hate.  But all of these economic problems could be seen well ahead of time and there have been those who have been screaming and yelling about them for decades.

But very few people wanted to listen.

Austin Coins

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