Interest rates have nowhere to go but up. Interest rates will rise during the second half of 2010, and they will continue to rise during 2011. This is going to cause a lot of pain for the U.S. economy and for American consumers. Unfortunately, this is not just the opinion of a handful of half-baked Internet nutjobs. This is the assessment of the New York Times and of the highly respected economists that they interviewed. It seems that virtually everyone in the financial community agrees that it is inevitable that interest rates are going to rise. And that is really bad news for the U.S. economy. (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...)
The Health Care Bill Is Great For American Taxpayers – If You Like Being Punched In The Groin
Thanks to the health care “reform” bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Barack Obama, American taxpayers are about to be hit with the largest tax increase in the history of the United States. According to an analysis by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation the health care bill will generate $409.2 billion in additional taxes by 2019. But there are also heavy fines for those who refuse to buy the health insurance mandated by the bill. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the health care bill imposes approximately $69 billion in penalties for individuals and businesses who don’t meet mandates to purchase health insurance. This will be the first time in the history of the United States that the federal government has ordered Americans citizens to buy a good or service. But it is not just a small amount of money that the U.S. government is requiring all of us to spend. In fact, the federal government will be mandating that ordinary Americans pay almost as much to private insurance companies as they do in federal taxes. (Read More...)
43 Percent Of Americans Have Less Than 10,000 Dollars Saved For Retirement
The United States financial system is facing a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude in the coming years. Social Security and Medicare are both on the verge of collapse, and both private and public pension funds all over America are massively underfunded. Now new data is revealing that the number of Americans who have virtually nothing saved up for retirement continues to grow at a rapid pace. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s annual Retirement Confidence Survey, the percentage of American workers who have less than $10,000 saved for retirement has grown to 43%. The number of American workers who say that they have less than $1,000 saved for retirement has grown to 27%. But perhaps this should be no surprise considering the fact that tens of millions of Americans are just trying to figure out how to get through each month financially. After all, it is really hard to plan for retirement when you can barely pay your mortgage. (Read More...)
Will The Coming 21% Cut In Medicare Payments Force Doctors To Boycott Medicare Patients?
Will the 21 percent cut in Medicare payments coming this month force many doctors to boycott Medicare patients in order to survive? That is a question that thousands of American doctors are pondering as the U.S. Congress deliberates whether or not to allow a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments to go into effect. In fact, the cuts were already supposed to go into effect, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has put a hold for 10 business days on physician Medicare claims, thus giving the U.S. Congress a little bit more time to act. It is thought the the U.S. Congress simply cannot allow these cuts to go into effect, but so far they have not acted. (Read More...)
15 Reasons Why The U.S. Economic Crisis Is Really An Economic Consolidation By The Elite Banking Powers
Is the United States experiencing an “economic crisis” or an “economic consolidation”? Did the financial problems of the last several years “happen on their own”, or are they part of a broader plan to consolidate financial power in the United States? Before you dismiss that possibility, just remember what happened back during the Great Depression. During that era, the big financial powers cut off the flow of credit, hoarded cash and reduced the money supply. Suddenly nobody had any money and the economy tanked. The big financial powers were then able to swoop back in and buy up valuable assets and real estate for pennies on the dollar. So are there signs that such a financial consolidation is happening again? (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...)