14 Pieces Of Really Bad News For The U.S. Economy

Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh told an audience on Friday that the U.S. economy is in the midst of a cyclical recovery and that there are “encouraging” signs of improvement in financial markets.  Many other governmental and media talking heads have uttered similar pronouncements about a “recovery” which will put the U.S. economy back on track.  But are we really experiencing a recovery?  If so, then why are foreclosures still hitting record levels?  Why is unemployment so high?  Why are so many cities and states on the verge of bankruptcy?  Why are so many average Americans hurting so much?  The truth is that what we are experiencing now is a period of stabilization before the “second dip” of the double-dip recession so many economists have been talking about hits.  What the U.S. economy is actually in the midst of is a complete and total structural failure.  The American Dream is going to permanently die for millions of American families.  Millions more are going to lose their jobs and millions more are going to lose their homes.  This is what we get for piling up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world and outsourcing much of our manufacturing and industry to places like China and India.  Now we are an aging, bloated dinosaur trying to survive on a service economy and the biggest debt bubble of all time. (Read More...)

If The U.S. Economy Is Experiencing A Recovery Why Does It Seem Like Things Keep Getting Worse?

The talking heads on all the major news shows keep telling us that the U.S. economy is experiencing a recovery.  Usually the term “recovery” is accompanied by a qualifier such as “jobless”, but they continue to use the word recovery anyway.  We are told that the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression is behind us and that the great American economic machine is roaring back to life and everything will be back to normal soon.  So why does it seem like things keep getting worse?  Why does it seem like the American Dream is out of reach for more Americans than ever?  Why does it seem like economic pain is spreading to more families and more businesses? (Read More...)

Executives At Bailed Out Firms Receive Record Bonuses As Millions Of Average Americans Suffer

Even as sales of new homes in the United States plunge to the lowest level on record and even as confidence among U.S. consumers falls to dramatic new lows, it is coming out that bonuses for Wall Street executives and Fortune 500 CEOs are larger than ever.  In fact, it is at some of the firms that received the most U.S. government assistance during the bailouts that executives are getting some of the biggest bailouts.  So exactly how are the rest of us supposed to feel when millions of Americans are desperately suffering financially while executives at firms that were bailed out by the U.S. government are swimming in bonus cash?  Should we be glad that at least a few fatcats are enjoying the American Dream while the rest of us suffer? (Read More...)

Has The American Dream Been Outsourced?

For decades, politicians in Washington D.C. insisted that “globalism” and “free trade” would be good for us.  Well, it turns out that “globalism” and “free trade” were good for the wealthy because they could pay someone in a foreign nation 1 dollar an hour when they used to have to pay an American 20 dollars an hour to do the same job.  Globalism and free trade were also good for American consumers because they could go down to Wal-Mart and pay 20 cents less for plastic crap made in China than for similar stuff made in the United States.  But “globalism” and “free trade” have turned out to be an absolute disaster for hard working middle class Americans.  Tens of millions of really good jobs have been sent overseas and they are simply not going to come back.  This is causing many Americans to start asking this question: Has the American Dream been outsourced? (Read More...)