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...)
The Debt
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...)
Americans Are Willing To Trample One Another To Get Their Hands On Cheap Foreign-Made Plastic Crap Even As The United States Turns Into A Post-Industrial Wasteland
As this latest Black Friday clearly demonstrated, Americans are literally willing to trample one another to get the best deals on cheap foreign-made plastic crap. Meanwhile, as thousands of factories and millions of jobs continue to get shipped overseas, the United States is rapidly turning into a post-industrial wasteland. Once great manufacturing cities such as Camden, New Jersey have become crime-ridden, gang-infested hellholes. In some U.S. cities, the “real” unemployment rate is around 30 or 40 percent. The American people desperately need jobs, but the American people are also showing no signs that they plan to give up their addiction to cheap foreign goods. Our politicians keep insisting that the American people just need “more education” and “more skills” in order to compete, but they don’t ever seem to explain how more education and more skills are going to make new jobs pop into existence out of thin air. The truth is that the American Dream is rapidly becoming the American Nightmare and there is not much hope that any of this is going to turn around any time soon. (Read More...)
Vladimir Putin’s Vision Of A Socialist European Free Trade Zone That Stretches From The Atlantic To The Pacific
Back during the Cold War, one of the great fears was that the Soviet Union would invade western Europe and absorb it into their socialist empire. But now could essentially that exact same thing happen in the name of free trade? Over the past couple of decades, the European Union has gone from being just a “free trade area” to a highly repressive socialist regime run by a bunch of control freaks. As many in Europe have correctly noted, the European Union is highly centralized, deeply corrupt and almost entirely undemocratic – just like the former Soviet Union. Now Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is publicly proposing that all of Europe should join with Russia to create an absolutely gigantic “free trade zone” that would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. (Read More...)
Home Sales Drop Once Again
Existing home sales in the U.S. are down again. New home sales in the U.S. are down again. What else is new? The U.S. housing industry just cannot seem to bounce back. Mortgage lenders have really, really tightened up lending standards and so now there are a lot fewer qualified buyers than there used to be. It is as if the big financial institutions have nearly shut off the flow of credit. But without credit, the vast majority of American families don’t have a prayer of achieving the American Dream of owning a home. Even with mortgage rates close to record lows the housing market is still languishing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how low mortgage rates are if American families can’t get home loans approved. With unemployment still staggeringly high and with incomes still declining, it appears that the U.S. housing market is going to continue to suffer for some time to come. (Read More...)
22 Incredibly Revealing Quotes About Enhanced Pat Downs And TSA Groping
At what point will Americans finally stop losing more liberty and freedom? With each passing year, the iron grip of the government gets even tighter, and each time it does we are told that it is either for “our safety” or for “national security”. One can only imagine what is going to happen the next time there is any kind of “terror incident” on an airplane. They are going to point to all those Americans who are complaining about “enhanced pat downs” and TSA groping as the reason why security is not tough enough. So where does all this end? Will we eventually all have to go through a body cavity search just to get on an airplane? Will they start groping us at school, at work and at sporting events? Are we going to have to “lock down” America from coast to coast to ensure that no terrorist ever is able to harm any American? (Read More...)
Will TSA Groping Destroy Tourism In The United States?
One of the things that has not been considered in the debate over the horrific new TSA security procedures is the economic impact that all of this is going to have. The rest of the world is watching what is going on, and millions of people are going to decide that they simply do not want to go through the hassle of flying to the United States. There are some cultures where allowing a strange person to touch your private areas is unthinkable. In 2009, 54.9 million tourists visited the United States, and those tourists spent approximately 93 billion dollars. That doesn’t even count all of the internal tourism in the United States which is far greater. Tourism is the first, second or third biggest employer in 29 U.S. states. So what happens if a significant chunk of tourists decide that they are simply not going to fly because of the new full body scanners and the new “enhanced pat-downs”? (Read More...)