If you only watch the “economic pundits” on television, it can be very confusing to figure out exactly what is happening with the U.S. economy. One pundit will pull out a couple statistics that got a little bit better over the past month and claim that we have entered a time of solid recovery. Another pundit will pull out a couple statistics that got a little worse over the past month and claim that we are headed for trouble. So what is the truth? Well, if you really want to get a clear idea of what is really going on you have to look at the long-term trends. There are some economic trends which just keep getting worse year after year after year, and it is those trends that tell the real story of the decline of our economic system. (Read More...)
The New American Dream: Sprawling Tent Cities Filled With Tents Made In China
What would you do if you had your job suddenly ripped away from you and you ended up losing your home? Well, that is exactly what hundreds of thousands of families across America have found themselves facing during this economic downturn. So what would you do? Would you move in with relatives? Would you join the ranks of those living in the tent cities that are popping up all over the nation? Would you live in a van down by the river? The truth is that with each passing month even more Americans find themselves pushed to the brink of absolute desperation. For many of our fellow citizens, the American Dream has been reduced to finding some way to keep the rain off of them each night and finding someone who will be kind enough to give them some food during the day. (Read More...)
The 99ers
How much have things changed in America when we have to invent a new word to describe the hordes of Americans that have exhausted two years of unemployment benefits and yet still have not been able to find a new job? In America today, there are at least 1.5 million “99ers” – American workers that have completely exhausted all of their long-term unemployment benefits and that still do not have jobs. Some say that the true number of 99ers is actually much higher than that. In any event, almost everyone agrees that we have a huge problem on our hands. Unfortunately for the 99ers, the tax cut deal that Barack Obama has reached with the Republicans only extends the existing structure of long-term unemployment benefits. It does not include additional weeks of benefits for the 99ers. (Read More...)
U.S. Military Spending Is Out Of Control: 12 Facts That Show That We Cannot Afford To Be The Police Of The World
Today, the United States has become the police of the world. The U.S. military has a total of over 700 military bases in 130 countries around the world. Total military spending by the U.S. government is nearly equal to the combined military spending of the rest of the globe. Meanwhile, the federal government is literally drowning in debt. So if we make some significant cuts to military spending will we fix the national debt problem? Of course not. In fact, it would only put a small dent in it. But at least it would help. The truth is that we cannot afford to be the police of the world and the Pentagon wastes so much money that it is almost incomprehensible. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once publicly admitted that the Pentagon lost track of 2.3 trillion dollars and cannot tell us how it was spent. Just imagine how your boss would react if you lost track of just 2.3 thousand dollars. So why wasn’t there more of an uproar about losing track of 2.3 trillion dollars? Have we become so accustomed to military waste that we don’t even care anymore? (Read More...)
China #1, United States #2? 25 Facts That Prove The Transition Is Really Happening
On a recent episode of The Office, Michael Scott spent much of the show bemoaning the fact that China could soon become the number one economic superpower. Of course by the end of the episode everyone had concluded that the United States would continue to be number one indefinitely, but in the real world things are not so simple. Sadly, the cold, hard facts reveal that China is on the rise and the United States is experiencing a dramatic economic decline. The world is changing and China is projected to become the largest economy in the world at some point during the next decade. Americans have been taught from birth that “the U.S. is number one”, but the transition is really happening. China is passing the United States even in quite a few high tech industries and in many areas of scientific research. The numbers that you are going to read below are absolutely staggering. It is getting really hard to deny that the Chinese are wiping the floor with us economically. In fact, they are beating us so badly that it is hard to put into words. (Read More...)
24 Signs That All Of America Is Becoming Just Like Detroit – A Rotting, Post-Industrial, Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland
For years, people have been laughing at the horrific economic decline of Detroit. Well, guess what? The same thing that happened to Detroit is now happening to dozens of other communities across the United States. From coast to coast there are formerly great manufacturing cities that have turned into rotting, post-industrial war zones. In particular, in America’s “rust belt” you can drive through town after town after town that resemble little more than post-apocalyptic wastelands. In many U.S. cities, the “real” rate of unemployment is over 30 percent. There are some communities that will start depressing you almost the moment you drive into them. It is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of those communities. (Read More...)
12 Simple Things You Can Start Doing Right Now To Prepare For The Coming Financial Apocalypse
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the U.S. economy is heading for complete and total disaster. State and local governments across the nation are uncontrollably bleeding red ink. The federal government has accumulated the largest debt in world history. Every year we buy hundreds of billions of dollars more from the rest of the world than they buy from us. That means that we are getting hundreds of billions of dollars poorer as a nation every single year. Meanwhile, thousands of factories and millions of jobs continue to be sent overseas as American cities turn into post-industrial wastelands. Incomes are down, unemployment remains at depressingly high levels and very few of our politicians seem to have any idea how to fix things. Yes, things are really, really bad. So what are some things that we can all be doing to prepare for the coming financial apocalypse? (Read More...)