There are a whole lot of things about the U.S. economy that don’t make any sense whatsoever. Sadly, most adults have been so programmed to accept the way that things are by years and years of relentless propaganda that they don’t even bother to question the status quo any longer. But little kids are different. Many little kids are not afraid to say the darnedest things or ask really embarrassing questions. Have you ever been in a situation where a child asks an obvious question that did not even occur to any of the adults? That happens so often because the minds of little kids have not been completely warped by the world we live in yet. They are able to see things with honesty and innocence and with fresh eyes. Well, perhaps all of us should start looking at our economy and our financial system through the eyes of little children. There are a lot of things that we have been programmed to accept that we really should be asking some hard “why questions” about.
Do you remember the fairy tale entitled “The Emperor’s New Clothes“? All of the adults were telling the emperor how wonderful his clothes looked as he strutted about. It took a little child to proclaim that the emperor was really running around naked.
Well, things are very similar today. Our politicians, our media, the big corporations, the big Wall Street banks and our entire education system all tell us that everything is just fine. They promise that any downturns are just temporary and that things will soon be better than ever.
But are they telling us the truth?
Perhaps it is time for someone to step forward and point out that the emperor does not have any clothes on.
The following are 30 questions that children should be asking their parents about the U.S. economy….
#1 Why has this generation spent 14 trillion dollars that belong to future generations?
#2 Why was the Federal Reserve allowed to make 16 trillion dollars in secret loans to their friends during the financial crisis and nobody is holding them accountable?
#3 Why is the Federal Reserve paying banks not to make loans?
#4 If the Federal Reserve is constantly devaluing our money, then why should anyone save money? Won’t it be worth a lot less in future years?
#5 If the United States has the greatest economy on earth, then why were only 58.1% of Americans over the age of 16 employed last month?
#6 Should we be alarmed that the largest bank in the United States, Bank of America, is laying off 3,500 more workers and that we are seeing substantial layoffs all over Wall Street?
#7 Why does the federal government buy food for almost 46 million Americans every single month? Isn’t this a sign of an economic system that is deeply broken?
#8 Why do some Americans have to give more than half of all the money that they make to the government?
#9 If our founding fathers intended to set up a limited central government, then why does the federal government just continue to get bigger and bigger?
#10 Why are middle class families taxed into oblivion while the big oil companies receive about $4.4 billion in specialized tax breaks a year from the federal government?
#11 Will Americans ever learn to stay away from credit card debt? In May, the number of credit cards issued by banks was 27% higher than one year earlier.
#12 Why are large groups of young people invading retail stores and stealing whatever they want?
#13 If the producer price index has increased at an annual rate of at least 7.0% for the last three months in a row, then how can Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke claim that inflation is still very low?
#14 Why does hardly anyone seem concerned that global food prices are 33 percent higher than they were a year ago?
#15 If low income jobs now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States, then how are we going to continue to have a vibrant middle class?
#16 If only 66.8% of American men had a job last year, then how are the rest of them supposed to support their families?
#17 If it costs tens of billions of dollars to take care of all of the illegal immigrants that are already in this country, why did the Obama administration go around Congress and grant “backdoor amnesty” to the vast majority of them? Won’t that just encourage millions more to come in illegally?
#18 Shouldn’t we be alarmed that 59 percent of all Americans now receive money from the federal government in one form or another, and that U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes? Didn’t our founding fathers try to warn us about this sort of thing?
#19 If homes sales continue to drop even with mortgage rates near record lows, then what in the world is going to happen to the real estate industry once interest rates start going up?
#20 Why has the cost of college tuition in the United States gone up by over 900 percent since 1978? Has the quality of a college education gone up by 900 percent?
#21 If the new health care law is so great, then why has the Obama administration granted 1,472 waivers to companies and organizations so far?
#22 Why is the percentage of millionaires in Congress more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population?
#23 If the debt ceiling deal was such a big deal to the Republicans, then why did they agree to a deal that only included a measly 25 billion dollars in savings prior to the next presidential election?
#24 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States. If allowing the federal government and the big corporations to run everything results in a massive concentration of wealth at the very top and leaves so many others barely able to survive, then why do we continue to run things this way? Isn’t capitalism supposed to be about empowering individuals and small businesses?
#25 If we are in an “economic recovery”, then why are thousands upon thousands of people lining up just to get into a job fair?
#26 If millions of our jobs have already been shipped out of the country, then why is Barack Obama trying to get Congress to agree to even more free trade agreements with countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages?
#27 Why has the United States had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976?
#28 If the United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, then why don’t our politicians do something about it?
#29 Why was the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall made in China? Wasn’t there anyone in America that could make it?
#30 If 78 percent of the American people are dissatisfied “with the way this country’s political system is working”, then why won’t the politicians change the way that they are doing things?