Once upon a time, private industry was the engine of the great American economic machine. From coast to coast, expanding industries spawned massive cities filled with optimistic Americans who were able to achieve middle class lifestyles on the good jobs that American companies were providing for them. The largest middle class in the history of the world had been created and it seemed possible for just about everyone to live the American Dream. But today all of that has changed. The private sector is being dominated by gigantic global corporations that have shown absolutely no hesitation to ship jobs overseas. Millions upon millions of good jobs have been sent to China, India and the third world and they are never coming back. Pay and benefits for middle class Americans working in private industry have been slowly eroding and are now at dangerously low levels. Meanwhile, working as a “government servant” has never been more rewarding. Today, the average government worker makes far more than the average worker in the private sector does. (Read More...)
An Increasing Number Of Americans Are Living In Their Homes With The Water And The Power Turned Off
The U.S. economy is literally collapsing right in front of our eyes. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes. Others are trying to hang on any way that they can. As more Americans than ever switch over to “survival mode”, some strange new phenomenons are occurring. For example, an increasing number of Americans are now living in their homes with the electricity and water turned off. That’s right – they are camping out in their own homes without any power and without any running water. In the “richest nation on earth”, millions of Americans can no longer afford electricity and water. Utility shut-offs have been rapidly increasing as more Americans than ever before find themselves simply unable to pay their debts. So is this what the American Dream has come to? Sitting in our homes with the water and power turned off? (Read More...)
An Unemployment Chart Almost Too Depressing To Look At
If you are currently unemployed, you might not want to look at the chart I am about to show you. In fact, even those who have jobs are likely to get quite depressed after looking at it. Why? Well, because it shows that long-term unemployment in the United States continues to get much worse. Millions of middle class Americans have been dumped out of their jobs over the past two or three years, and they can’t seem to find equivalent jobs no matter how hard they try. Millions have given up on finding something that will pay about the same and have resorted to flipping burgers or greeting customers down at the local “big box” store. Millions of others can’t seem to get hired anywhere. The truth is that there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone anymore. Today, there are about 6 unemployed Americans for every single job opening in the United States. It is almost as if tens of millions of American workers have been forced into a very sick version of musical chairs where there are not nearly enough chairs for everyone. Unfortunately, the losers in this game are likely to lose their homes, their dignity and any chance at achieving the American Dream. The truth is that things are getting really bad out there. According to one disturbing new survey, 28% of all U.S. households have at least one member that is looking for a full-time job. That is not just a problem – that is a national crisis. (Read More...)
Why Are The American People Mad? Maybe It Is Because Millions Of Their Jobs Have Been Lost To Outsourcing And They Aren’t Coming Back
As you read this, there are tens of millions of people in China, India and dozens of third world nations who would love to do your job for one-tenth the pay. They are willing to work 12 hours a day. They don’t expect a benefits plan or a pension package. They aren’t going to waste countless hours chatting on their cell phones or updating their Facebook profiles. All they want is a chance. And increasingly, the big global corporations that dominate the world economy are giving it to them. It is called outsourcing, and if you don’t believe that it can happen to your job, you might want to think again. It is not just Americans who are chasing after the American Dream these days. We now live in a global economy with a global workforce and the rules of the game have fundamentally changed. (Read More...)
10 Reasons Why We Might Not See Anything Less Than A Trillion Dollar Deficit For Decades To Come
Do you know how enormous one trillion dollars is? If you were alive when Christ was born, and on that day you started spending a million dollars every single day, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you over 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars. A trillion $1 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 38 times. That is how big one trillion dollars is. But right now, if the U.S. government could actually reduce the federal budget deficit to one trillion dollars that would be a major victory. In 2009, the U.S. government ran a budget deficit of more than 1.4 trillion dollars. The U.S. government will run a budget deficit of more than 1.4 trillion dollars in 2010. Not only that, the Obama administration is already admitting that the budget deficit will be over 1.4 trillion dollars again in 2011. In fact, the truth of it is that we are looking at trillion dollars deficits for as far as the eye can see. In the process we are piling up the biggest mountain of debt the world has ever seen. What we are doing to future generations is unfathomable. Servicing this monolithic debt is going to devastate the U.S. economy and is going to absolutely crush the American Dream for future generations of Americans. But we can’t seem to help ourselves. We just keep spending. (Read More...)
BP Caught Exploiting Cheap Prison Labor To Clean Up The Oil Spill
BP has been caught red-handed using dirt cheap prison labor to clean up the oil spill along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico as thousands upon thousands of non-inmates beg for work. So why would BP use prison labor when there are so many others who would gladly do the work? Well, prison labor costs far, far less of course. As bad as this is for BP’s public image, the truth is that we should not be too hard on them. After all, exploiting cheap labor around the world has become an obsession for the big global corporations that dominate our economy. To these gigantic global predators, the American Dream is not about providing good jobs so that middle class Americans can buy homes and send their kids to college. No, to these behemoths the goal is to find the closest thing to slave labor that they can so that they can dramatically increase their profits. (Read More...)
As The U.S. Economy Implodes, Should We Ditch Our Debt Or Is Paying Off Our Debts The Morally Right Thing To Do?
As the U.S. economy implodes, a lot of American families are being faced with some incredibly heartbreaking choices. Many of them piled up massive amounts of debt during the good times as they chased the American Dream, but now that hard times have arrived they find that they just can’t handle the huge mountain of debt that they have accumulated. Other Americans are looking at the crumbling economy and are trying to prioritize where to spend their money. They wonder whether they should pay off their debts or whether that money would be better spent on stocking up on necessities for the incredibly hard times that are ahead. The truth is that this article is going to raise a lot of questions but not provide a lot of answers. In the end, each person has to make their own choices. In addition, some of the viewpoints in this article are going to be controversial to many of you. It is okay if you disagree. In fact, if you find something that you disagree with, please leave a comment. This is a topic that hits home with a lot of Americans, and a lot of people have some incredibly strong opinions about paying off debt. (Read More...)
10 Incredible Statistics About America’s Coming Retirement Crisis That Will Blow Your Mind
America is facing a retirement crisis that is so colossal that it threatens to collapse the entire financial system. Millions upon millions of Baby Boomers are preparing to retire, but when you take a close look at the numbers it quickly becomes clear that it is mathematically impossible for us to keep the financial promises that we have made to them. The truth is that the days when tens of millions of elderly Americans could enjoy a very comfortable retirement are rapidly drawing to a close. Why? Well, because there is no money. The U.S. government is supposed to have 2.5 trillion dollars in the Social Security trust fund for all of these retiring Baby Boomers, but they “borrowed” all of that money over the past 30 years to pay other bills. Hundreds of other government and corporate pension programs across the United States are either severely underfunded or are not funded at all. Meanwhile, American workers have been contributing pitifully small amounts to their own retirement funds. Americans have been too busy drowning in debt as the pursue the American Dream to worry about putting away anything for the future. So where does all of that leave us? It leaves us with a complete and total financial nightmare on our hands. (Read More...)
Only 23 Percent Of Americans Believe That The Federal Government Has The Consent Of The Governed
Have you ever noticed that no matter what political party is in power in America nothing really seems to change that much? Sure, a lot of the faces change and there are some small shifts in ideology here and there, but more or less the policies of the U.S. government have been remarkably consistent over the last 40 years. Have you ever wondered why that is? Well, the truth is that America’s “ruling class” has an absolute stranglehold on both political parties. You see, the little lie that we were told that “anyone can grow up and be president” simply is not true. Living the American Dream takes connections. Without the backing of the “establishment”, you simply are not going to go very far in politics. In fact, without the “establishment” you aren’t going to go very far in law, the corporate world, the media or in the highest levels of education either. Sure you might experience some success on the lower levels, but without fully becoming “connected” to the establishment to at least some degree you just are not going to advance to become one of the elite in any of those fields. (Read More...)