The Way It Really Is...

[Warph]

               
Every single year, Americans take the day off on July 4th and they celebrate everything that is good about America.  We tend to be very proud of our achievements and we generally are not shy about talking about them.  For example, today CNN is running a piece entitled "100 great things about America".  And you know what?  There are a lot of great things about this country.  I am not afraid to say that I love America.  In many ways it has been a great light for the rest of the world since it was founded.  

However, things have changed.  The United States has greatly fallen from where it once was.  The truth is that America is rotting and decaying in thousands of different ways.  We need to repent and go back to doing the things that once made this country great.  The road that we are currently on is a path that leads to national suicide.  So to be honest now is not really the time for happy celebrations.  Rather, now is the time for weeping, mourning and deep reflection.  We need to turn from our profligate ways and we need to return to the fundamental principles that the early Americans understood so well.  As a nation we need to look into the mirror and understand just how bad our decline has been.  We are a complete and total mess, and it is time to admit that.

The following are a few reasons to mourn for America....

1. Most Americans know much more about Kim Kardashian than they do about the Federal Reserve.

2. The way that the TSA abuses travelers is a national embarrassment.  One TSA agent recently sifted her finger through the ashes of someone's dead grandfather and then spilled his ashes all over the airport floor.

3. Many young people in America are willing to wait in line to pay a 400% markup on new Kanye West sneakers, but most of those same young people cannot even tell you how many members of Congress there are.

4. Many Americans seem to be far more interested in American Idol and Dancing With The Stars than they are in dealing with the very serious economic, political and moral problems facing this nation.

5. A recent survey found that 61 percent of all Americans believe that "paying your fair share of taxes" is being patriotic.

6. We currently have the worst president in U.S. history, and there is a chance that we may have to endure another 4 years of his insanity.

7. We have a Supreme Court that appears to have very little respect for the U.S. Constitution.

8. The financial center of our country, Wall Street, is full of psychopaths.

9. America has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world by a very wide margin.

10. The highways of America are rapidly being turned into a high tech prison grid.

11. American children today are very spoiled, very undisciplined and most of them wouldn't know a day of hard work if it came up and bit them on the behind.

12. Today, approximately 25 million American adults are still living with their parents.

13. Back in 1962, only 13 percent of all Americans were obese.  Today, approximately 36 percent of all Americans are obese.

14. Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese.  Mexico is in second place.

15. According to one recent survey, only 25 percent of all Americans have 6 months of emergency savings stored up.

16. The United States leads the world in credit card fraud.

17. You know that things are bad in America when even the U.S. Secret Service has developed "an Animal House reputation" for partying wildly while guarding Barack Obama during his vacations on Martha's Vineyard.

18. In many areas of the country crime is getting worse and thieves are stealing just about anything that is not bolted down.

19. One recent poll found that only 70 percent of Americans agree with the Declaration of Independence.

20. The average American watches 28 hours of television every week.

21. There are more school shootings in America than anywhere else in the world.

22. Authorities are warning that ATM thefts are on the rise again.

23. Incredibly, 85 percent of the stuff sold at the biggest retailer in the United States is made outside of the country.

24. The average American drinks more than 600 sodas every single year.  That is by far the most in the world.

25. The United States has the most lawyers per capita in the entire world.

26. Approximately 50 million babies have been slaughtered in hospitals and abortion clinics in America since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

27. The media is now trying to convince us that killing off our elderly grandparents when they get sick is the "right thing" to do.

28. According to one survey, 50 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 cannot find the state of New York on a blank map.

29. Americans take more prescription drugs than anyone else on the planet.

30. The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.

31. The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use in the entire world.

32. Faith in almost every major American institution is near an all-time low.

33. The U.S. healthcare system is a complete and total mess, and now Obamacare is going to make things much, much worse.

34. Our food is rapidly being transformed into absolute garbage.  As I wrote about the other day, at this point more than 70 percent of all processed foods sold in the U.S. contain at least one ingredient that has been genetically modified.

35. More people have been diagnosed with mental disorders in America than anywhere else on earth.

36. Our federal government refuses to secure our borders and has decided that most illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay inside the country.

37. Our public schools have become horribly repressive indoctrination centers.

38. The United States produces more pornography by far than any other nation in the world does.

39. According to the Pew Research Center, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married.  Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.

40. The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world by a very wide margin.

41. American families are rapidly getting poorer.  According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of families in the United States declined "from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010".

42. According to one study, one out of every four teen girls in the United States has at least one sexually transmitted disease.

43. The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate on the entire globe.

44. The United States leads the world in eating disorder deaths.

45. Nobody has more airport security thugs groping women and children than America does.

46. Many Republicans still believe that George W. Bush was a "conservative" and that he was a "good president".

47. The Obama administration is considering plans to unilaterally slash the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal by up to 80 percent.

48. The United States has the most complicated tax system on the entire planet.

49. All over the United States, chaplains are being banned from praying in the name of Jesus.

50. The United States exports more arms to other countries than anyone else in the world.

51. The United States has the highest child abuse death rate on the entire globe.

52. Every single year, the United States has the largest trade deficit in the world by far.

53. The United States was once ranked #1 in the world in GDP per capita.  Today we have slipped to #12.

54. One of the most popular movies in America right now is about men dancing around and taking their clothes off.

55. Americans spend more time sitting in traffic than anyone else in the world.

56. According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.

57. The percentage of Americans that consider the Bible to be important continues to fall.

58. Some schools in America have decided to start using RFID tracking chips to monitor the movement of their students.

59. Society is starting to collapse all around us and it seems like the number of psychos in America is multiplying.

60. The poverty rate for children living in the United States is now 22 percent.

61. Nobody in the world gets more plastic surgery done than Americans do.

62. Many young people in America today are not afraid to viciously verbally abuse those that are elderly.

63. Today, 53.6 percent of all children in the city Detroit are living in poverty and 47 percent of all people living in the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.

64. The U.S. government wastes more money than any other government on earth does by far.

65. All over America, people are being attacked by mobs simply because of the color of their skin.

66. Today, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.

67. America has pushed God out of every corner of public life and now we are really starting to really feel the consequences of that.

68. In Colorado, many people returned home after the recent wildfires only to find that their homes had been looted.

69. There is more hate and division in America today than at any other time in recent memory.

70. The U.S. national debt is rapidly approaching 16 trillion dollars and the total amount of debt in the country is rapidly approaching 55 trillion dollars.

Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it.  So what do you think about the current state of America?

[Warph]

         

The U.S. economy is in a massive amount of trouble.  There aren't enough jobs.  There isn't enough money to go around. 

Business activity is slowing down again.  Household wealth has been falling.  Food prices have been rising.  Many state and local governments all over the country are flat broke and are drowning in debt. 

The federal government has been rolling up unprecedented amounts of debt in an attempt to keep things going, but everyone knows that kind of borrowing is simply unsustainable.  So where do we go from here?  We consume far more than we produce and we use debt to make up the difference. 

40 years ago the total amount of debt in America (government, business and consumer) was less than 2 trillion dollars.  Today it is nearly 55 trillion dollars. 

How in the world did we let the total amount of debt in the United States grow more than 27 times larger over the past 40 years?  Our economic system is fundamentally broken, but most Americans don't realize it yet because times are still relatively good.

However, the next great economic crisis is going to wake a whole lot of Americans up.

And when they realize what has happened to our future, they are going to be really, really angry.

Enjoy the good times while they last.  The next recession is rapidly approaching, and it will not be pleasant.

The following are 20 signs that all point to the exact same thing....

#1 The unemployment rate in the U.S. has been above 8 percent for 40 months in a row, and 42 percent of all unemployed Americans have been out of work for at least half a year.  As I wrote about recently, there are never going to be enough jobs in America ever again.  As bad as things are right now, they are about to get even worse.  So what is our country going to look like once the unemployment rate starts shooting up rapidly once again?

#2 35 percent of all unemployed workers have had to dip into retirement savings in order to make ends meet over the past year.

#3 Since 2008, the U.S. economy has lost 1.3 million jobs while at the same time 3.6 million more Americans have been added to Social Security's disability insurance program.

#4 A recent survey conducted by the National Association for Business Economics found that only 23 percent of all U.S. companies plan to hire more workers over the next 6 months.  When the same question was asked a few months ago that number was at 39 percent.

#5 An important measure of U.S. manufacturing activity has fallen to its lowest level since June 2009.

#6 Hundreds of thousands of federal jobs at civilian agencies will likely be lost if Congress allows the automatic federal budget cuts to go into effect next year.  The following is from a recent article posted on federalnewsradio.com....

A report released Tuesday suggests that several hundred thousand federal jobs at civilian agencies would be on the chopping block within the next year if Congress lets the automatic budget cutting process known as sequestration go into effect.

The study, authored by George Mason University professor Stephen Fuller, adds a new dimension to a budget debate that's so far been centered on sequestration's effects on the military...

#7 The teen unemployment rate in Washington D.C. right now is 51.7 percent.

#8 Gallup's U.S. Economic Confidence Index is now the lowest that it has been since January.

#9 The median net worth of U.S. households in 2007 was $126,400.  By 2010, it had fallen to just $77,300.

#10 Pensions at S&P 500 companies are more under-funded than they have ever been before.

#11 According to the New York Times, state and local governments across America "shortchanged their pension plans by more than $50 billion" between 2007 and 2011.

#12 The city of Compton, California is evaluating whether or not it should declare bankruptcy.  If it did, it would become the fourth California city to declare bankruptcy this year.

#13 The percentage of U.S. households that are spending more than half their incomes on housing is at an all-time high.

#14 For the first time in modern history, Canadian households are wealthier than American households are.

#15 One recent poll found that 42 percent of all Americans believe that China is the leading economic power in the world while only 36 percent believe that the U.S. is still the leading economic power in the world.

#16 According to the federal government, the price of food rose much faster than the general rate of inflation did during 2011.  Just check out these rates of food inflation for 2012....

Beef: +10.2%
Pork: +8.5%
Fish: +7.1%
Eggs: +9.2%
Dairy: +6.8%
Oils and Fats: +9.3%
If that happened during a somewhat "normal year", what will food prices look like after we are done with the drought of 2012?

#17 The price of a bushel of corn has risen by 54 percent since mid-June.

#18 According to one survey, 42 percent of all American workers are living paycheck to paycheck.

#19 A different survey found that 28 percent of all Americans have absolutely no emergency savings at all right now.

#20 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made the following statement to Congress on Tuesday: "At this point we don't see a double dip recession. We see continued moderate growth."

Do you remember that old Seinfeld episode when George Costanza decided that he would "do the opposite" of everything that his instincts were telling him to do and everything started working out great for him?

Well, when it comes to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the key is to "believe the opposite" of everything that he says.

And since Bernanke does not believe that a double dip recession is going to happen, that probably means that we are about to hit another recession.

If you doubt this theory about Bernanke, check out his track record.

Okay, so if our economy is in big trouble shouldn't our leaders be doing something about it?

Well, it is election season now so I wouldn't expect anything from Barack Obuma.  He is too busy raising money in France and in China.

I wouldn't expect anything from Obuma's economic advisers either.  In fact, Obuma's much-ballyhooed "jobs council" has not even met in six months.

Not that the "jobs council" was ever going to do anything substantive anyway.

The truth is that it was just for show and most of the CEOs on the council have been sending jobs overseas anyway.

Well, what about the SEC?

Shouldn't they be doing something to fix the financial system?

No, they are too busy investigating the Amish.

It looks like we are on our own.

Soon, even more parts of the country will start looking like Detroit or Baltimore or Cleveland.

This country is rapidly falling apart, and the federal government is not going to save us.

That is why we need to focus on preparing to weather the coming storm on a family and community level.

There is hope in being prepared.  The coming economic crisis will wipe out many Americans because they will never even see it coming.  But that does not have to happen to you.

If you work really hard right now to prepare your family for the storm that is on the horizon, then you will have a much better chance of making it through to the other side.

[Warph]

                     

The U.S. government has stolen $15,915,986,645,132.66 from future generations of Americans, and we continue to add well over a hundred million dollars to that total every single day day.  The 15 trillion dollar binge that we have been on over the past 30 years has fueled the greatest standard of living the world has ever seen, but this wonderful prosperity that we have been enjoying has been a lie.  

It isn't real.  

We have been living way above our means for so long that we do not have any idea of what "normal" actually is anymore.  

But every debt addict hits "the wall" eventually, and the same thing is going to happen to us as a nation.  At some point the weight of our national debt is going to cause our financial system to implode, and every American will feel the pain of that collapse.  

Under our current system, there is no mathematical way that this debt can ever be paid back.  The road that we are on will either lead to default or to hyperinflation.  

We have piled up the biggest debt in the history of the world, and if there are future generations of Americans they will look back and curse us for what we did to them.  We like to think of ourselves as much wiser than previous generations of Americans, but the truth is that we have been so foolish that it is hard to put it into words.

Whenever I do an article about the national debt, Democrats leave comments blaming the Republicans and Republicans leave comments blaming the Democrats.

Well you know what?

Both parties are to blame.  Both of them get a failing grade.

If the Republicans really wanted to stop the federal government from running up all this debt they could have done it.

If the Democrats really wanted to stop the federal government from running up all this debt they could have done it.

So let's not pretend that one of the political parties is "the hero" in this little drama.

The damage has been done, and both parties will go down in history as being grossly negligent on fiscal issues during this period of American history.

Sadly, neither party is showing any signs of changing their ways.

Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney is promising to eliminate the federal budget deficit in 2013.  They both talk about how the budget will be balanced "someday", but as we have seen so many times in the past, "someday" never comes.

I didn't mean to get all political in this article, but the truth is that the national debt threatens to destroy everything that previous generations have built, and our politicians continue to give us nothing but excuses.


The following are 27 things that every American should know about the national debt....

#1 It took more than 200 years for the U.S. national debt to reach 1 trillion dollars.  In 1986, the U.S. national debt reached 2 trillion dollars.  In 1992, the U.S. national debt reached 4 trillion dollars.  In 2005, the U.S. national debt doubled again and reached 8 trillion dollars.  Now the U.S. national debt is about to cross the 16 trillion dollar mark.  How long can this kind of exponential growth go on?

#2 If the average interest rate on U.S. government debt rises to just 7 percent, the U.S. government will find itself spending more than a trillion dollars per year just on interest on the national debt.

#3 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#4 Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the U.S. national debt has increased by an average of more than $64,000 per taxpayer.

#5 Barack Obama will become the first president to run deficits of more than a trillion dollars during each of his first four years in office.

#6 If you were alive when Jesus Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

#7 The U.S. national debt has increased by more than 1.6 trillion dollars since the Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives.  So far, this Congress has added more to the national debt than the first 97 Congresses combined.

#8 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more new debt than it did from the time that George Washington became president to the time that Bill Clinton became president.

#9 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

#10 As Bill Whittle has shown, you could take every single penny that every American earns above $250,000 and it would only fund about 38 percent of the federal budget.

#11 Today, the government debt to GDP ratio in the United States is well over 100 percent.

#12 A recently revised IMF policy paper entitled "An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?" projects that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year 2050.

#13 The United States already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain does.

#14 At this point, the United States government is responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.

#15 The amount of U.S. government debt held by foreigners is about 5 times larger than it was just a decade ago.

#16 The U.S. national debt is now more than 22 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.

#17 It is being projected that the U.S. national debt will surpass 23 trillion dollars in 2015.

#18 Mandatory federal spending surpassed total federal revenue for the first time ever in fiscal 2011.  That was not supposed to happen until 50 years from now.

#19 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.

#20 The U.S. government has total assets of 2.7 trillion dollars and has total liabilities of 17.5 trillion dollars.  The liabilities do not even count 4.7 trillion dollars of intragovernmental debt that is currently outstanding.

#21 U.S. households are now actually receiving more money directly from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

#22 The U.S. government is wasting your money on some of the stupidest things imaginable.  For example, in 2011 the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.

#23 If the federal government used GAAP accounting standards like publicly traded corporations do, the real federal budget deficit for last year would have been 5 trillion dollars instead of 1.3 trillion dollars.

#24 The Federal Reserve purchased approximately 61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during 2011.

#25 At this point, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was first created.

#26 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 480,000 years to completely pay off the national debt.

#27 The official government debt figure does not even account for massive unfunded liabilities that the U.S. government will be hit with in the years ahead.  According to Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, the U.S. government is facing a future "fiscal gap" of more than 200 trillion dollars.


As the U.S. economy continues to crumble, even more Americans are going to become financially dependent on the federal government.

For example, spending on food stamps has doubled since 2008.  Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and have needed some assistance from the government.  Since Obama became president the number of Americans on food stamps has gone from 32 million to 46 million.

But the Obama administration believes that a lot more Americans should be enrolled in the food stamp program.  The Obama administration is now spending millions of dollars on ads that urge even more people to sign up for food stamps.

I'm all for helping those that cannot feed themselves, but do we really need to run ads urging more people to become dependent on the government?

Of course Obamacare is going to cause our debt to balloon in size as well.  It is being projected that Obamacare will add more than 2.6 trillion dollars to the U.S. national debt over the first decade alone.

So where are we going to get all this money?

We can't keep spending money that we do not have.  We have got to prioritize.  Every single category of government spending needs to be cut.

But instead we feel like we can keep ripping off future generations of Americans and that we will always be able to get away with it.

What we have done to our children and our grandchildren is beyond criminal.

The truth is that we should have listened to the warnings of our founding fathers about government debt.  For example, Thomas Jefferson once said that if he could add just one more amendment to the U.S. Constitution it would be a complete ban on all borrowing by the federal government....

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing." ...Thomas Jefferson

Where would we be today if we had taken the advice of Thomas Jefferson?

That is something to think about.

[Warph]

     

Every single day more Americans fall into poverty.  This should deeply alarm you no matter what political party you belong to and no matter what your personal economic philosophy is.  Right now, approximately 100 million Americans are either "poor" or "near poor".  For a lot of people "poverty" can be a nebulous concept, so let's define it.  

The poverty level as defined by the federal government in 2010 was $11,139 for an individual and $22,314 for a family of four.  

Could you take care of a family of four on less than $2000 a month?  Millions upon millions of families are experiencing a tremendous amount of pain in this economy, and no matter what "solutions" we think are correct, the reality is that we all should have compassion on them.  

Sadly, things are about to get even worse.  The next major economic downturn is rapidly approaching, and when it hits the statistics posted below are going to look even more horrendous.

When it comes to poverty, most Americans immediately want to get into debates about tax rates and wealth redistribution and things like that.

But the truth is that they are missing the main point.

The way we slice up the pie is not going to solve our problems, because the pie is constantly getting smaller.

Our economic infrastructure is being absolutely gutted, the U.S. dollar is slowly losing its status as the reserve currency of the world and we are steadily getting poorer as a nation.

Don't be fooled by the government statistics that show a very small amount of "economic growth".  Those figures do not account for inflation.

After accounting for inflation, our economic growth has actually been negative all the way back into the middle of the last decade.

According to numbers compiled by John Williams of shadowstats.com, our "real GDP" has continually been negative since 2005.

So that means we are getting poorer as a nation.

Meanwhile, we have been piling up astounding amounts of debt.

40 years ago the total amount of debt in the United States (government, business and consumer) was less than 2 trillion dollars.

Today it is nearly 55 trillion dollars.

So we have a massive problem.

Our economic pie is shrinking and millions of Americans have been falling out of the middle class.  Meanwhile, we have been piling up staggering amounts of debt in order to maintain our vastly inflated standard of living.  As our economic problems get even worse, those trends are going to accelerate even more.

So don't look down on the poor.  You might be joining them a lot sooner than you might think.


The following are 40 facts about poverty in America that will blow your mind....

#1 In the United States today, somewhere around 100 million Americans are considered to be either "poor" or "near poor".

#2 It is being projected that when the final numbers come out later this year that the U.S. poverty rate will be the highest that it has been in almost 50 years.

#3 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either "low income" or impoverished.

#4 Today, one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the poverty level.

#5 According to the Wall Street Journal, 49.1 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial benefits from the government.  Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.

#6 It is projected that about half of all American adults will spend at least some time living below the poverty line before they turn 65.

#7 Today, there are approximately 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

#8 During 2010, 2.6 million more Americans fell into poverty.  That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.

#9 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of "very poor" rose in 300 out of the 360 largest metropolitan areas during 2010.

#10 Since Barack Obama became president, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen by 6 million and the number of Americans on food stamps has risen by 14 million.

#11 Right now, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#12 It is projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years of age.

#13 The poverty rate for children living in the United States is 22 percent, although when the new numbers are released in the fall that number is expected to go even higher.

#14 One university study estimates that child poverty costs the U.S. economy 500 billion dollars a year.

#15 Households that are led by a single mother have a 31.6% poverty rate.

#16 In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps.

#17 According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4 percent of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1 percent of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6 percent of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6 percent of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.

#18 Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.

#19 Child homelessness in the United States has risen by 33 percent since 2007.

#20 There are 314 counties in the United States where at least 30% of the children are facing food insecurity.

#21 More than 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry.

#22 A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7 percent) than has ever been measured before.

#23 If you can believe it, 37 percent of all U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than zero.

#24 A lot of younger Americans have found that they cannot make it on their own in this economy.  Today, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

#25 Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.

#26 Amazingly, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

#27 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.

#28 At this point, the poorest 50% of all Americans now control just 2.5% of all of the wealth in this country.

#29 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs.  Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.

#30 Right now, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.

#31 Half of all American workers earn $505 or less per week.

#32 In 1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods".  By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods".

#33 Federal housing assistance outlays increased by a whopping 42 percent between 2006 and 2010.

#34 Approximately 50 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all right now.

#35 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#36 It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#37 Back in 1990, the federal government accounted for 32 percent of all health care spending in America.  Today, that figure is up to 45 percent and it is projected to surpass 50 percent very shortly.

#38 Overall, the amount of money that the federal government gives directly to the American people has risen by 32 percent since Barack Obama entered the White House.

#39 It was recently reported that 1.5 million American families live on less than two dollars a day (before counting government benefits).

#40 The unemployment rate in the U.S. has been above 8 percent for 40 months in a row, and 42 percent of all unemployed Americans have been out of work for at least half a year.


There will never be enough jobs in the United States ever again.

That means that a whole lot of Americans are not going to be able to take care of themselves.

As our economy gets even worse, there is going to be a tremendous need for more love, compassion and generosity all over the country.

Don't be afraid to lend a helping hand, because someday you may need one yourself.

[Warph]

                           


Does Barack Obama Expect The Upcoming Election To Spark Rampant Civil Unrest?


What is Barack Obama preparing for?  What does Barack Obama actually expect to happen in November?  Does he believe that the upcoming election could actually spark rampant civil unrest inside the United States?  The conditions are certainly ripe for civil unrest in this country. 

A multitude of recent polls and surveys have shown that Americans are angrier and more frustrated than ever.  Sadly, we are taking a lot of that anger and frustration out on each other. 

America is more divided today than at any other time since the Civil War era. 

The left absolutely hates Mitt Romney the Republicans, and the right absolutely hates Barack Obama and the Democrats.  If you doubt this, just surf political blogs for a few hours and read the comments that people leave.  This country is a boiling cauldron of hatred and anger and all it is going to take is just the right "spark" to cause all of this hatred and anger to absolutely explode.  This upcoming election season is likely to be one of the most heated and divisive election seasons in U.S. history, and if there is not a clear winner on election night there is the potential that chaos could be unleashed that would be far, far worse than anything we saw during the Bush/Gore debacle of 2000.

Right now, the polls tell us that this is likely to be a very, very tight election.  If you doubt this, just check out the daily Gallup tracking poll.

As I write this, Obama and Romney are tied at 46 percent.

In 2008, a wave of positive emotion helped Obama secure a solid victory on election night where there was no doubt about the outcome.

But this time there is not going to be the same wave of positive emotion behind Obama, and that means that the election is likely to be much, much closer.

One thing that set off alarm bells for me is when various news stories starting discussing the "legion of lawyers" that Barack Obama was recruiting for this election.  The following is from a recent article in the Huffington Post....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/obama-campaign-lawyers-legal-team_n_1628013.html

"President Barack Obama's campaign has recruited a legion of lawyers to be on standby for this year's election as legal disputes surrounding the voting process escalate. Thousands of attorneys and support staffers have agreed to aid in the effort, providing a mass of legal support that appears to be unrivaled by Republicans or precedent."

Did you catch that?

Obama's "unprecedented" legion of lawyers is definitely getting prepared for something.

In a tightly contested race, would Obama use every legal angle that he possibly could to take the election away from Mitt Romney?

Would Mitt Romney potentially do the same to Obama?

How would the rest of America respond to another huge legal struggle over the presidency?

Let us hope that we never find out the answers to any of those questions.

But fighting in court is not the only avenue that Barack Obama could potentially use to keep his spot in the White House.

There is also the possibility that Barack Obama could use his executive powers to influence the outcome of the election.

This year, Obama has issued a whole series of very strange executive orders.http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/do_obamas_executive_orders_reveal_a_pattern.html

Many have been wondering what the true purpose of these executive orders really is.

For example, EO 13603 enables Barack Obama to take total control over all food, all energy, all health resources and all transportation resources with the stroke of a pen.

The following is from an article about this executive order by Jim Garrison in the Huffington Post....

"President Obama's National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order of March 16 does to the country as a whole what the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act did to the Constitution in particular -- completely eviscerates any due process or judicial oversight for any action by the Government deemed in the interest of "national security." Like the NDAA, the new Executive Order puts the government completely above the law, which, in a democracy, is never supposed to happen."

Later in that same article, he detailed some of the extraordinary powers that the executive branch would be given if Barack Obama decided that "national security" required it....


• The Secretary of Defense has power over all water resources;
• The Secretary of Commerce has power over all material services and facilities, including construction materials;
• The Secretary of Transportation has power over all forms of civilian transportation;
• The Secretary of Agriculture has power over food resources and facilities, livestock plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment;
• The Secretary of Health and Human Services has power over all health resources;
• The Secretary of Energy has power over all forms of energy.

According to this executive order, a "national emergency" is not even required to activate these powers.  If Barack Obama decides that there is a threat to "national security" (or to his job security) he could activate these powers at any time.

Another executive order, EO 13618, would potentially give Obama power over all communication resources in the United States.

So does that mean that Obama could potentially pull the plug on the Internet during a crisis?

That is a very good question.

Overall, Obama has issued 130 executive orders during his time as president.  The amount of power that he now claims to possess is absolutely mind blowing.   http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/obama.html

So will he ever actually attempt to use the powers that he has granted himself under these executive orders?

Let's hope not.

In addition, it appears that the Department of Homeland Security is gearing up for something.
An article posted on RT the other day entitled "DHS gears up for civil unrest prior to presidential elections" detailed some of the purchases that the Department of Homeland Security is looking to make....
http://rt.com/usa/news/dhs-unrest-gear-283/

     

The DHS submitted a rushed solicitation to the Federal Business Opportunities site on Wednesday, which is a portal for Federal government procurement requisitions over $25,000. The request gave the potential suppliers only one day to submit their proposals and a 15-day delivery requirement to Alexandria, Virginia.

As the brief explains, "the objective of this effort is to procure riot gear to prepare for the 2012 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the 2013 Presidential Inauguration and other future similar activities."

The total amount ordered is about 150 sets of riot helmets, thigh and groin protectors, hard-shell shin guards and other riot gear.

Specifically, DHS is looking to obtain:

- "147 riot helmets" with "adjustable tactical face shield with liquid seal"

- "147 sets of upper body and shoulder protection"

- "152 sets of thigh and groin protection"

- "147 hard-shell shin guards" with "substantial protection from flying debris, non-ballistic weapons, and blows to the leg" and "optimized protective design for severe riot control or tactical situations."

- "156 forearm protectors"

- "147 pairs of tactical gloves"

The riot gear will be worn by Federal Protective Service agents who are tasked with protecting property, grounds and buildings owned by the federal government.

You can find the DHS solicitation right here:
https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=dabe33998a35e613c0a2ed438e5966f7&tab=core&_cview=0

FEMA posted a solicitation for a large number of pre-packaged meals.  According to the solicitation, the maximum number of meals that would be provided to FEMA under the contract would be 17.5 million meals.  The following is from the FEMA solicitation document....

As referred to in paragraph (b) of FAR Clause 52.216-22, "Indefinite Quantity" of this contract, the guaranteed contract minimum is 21,000 packaged meals to include the base and option periods.  The contract ceiling amount shall not exceed 17,500,000 packaged meals.
https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=398316b1ac7e80bcfef798b34c055619&tab=core&_cview=0

So do those solicitations mean anything special or are they just part of normal government operations?

That is a good question.

But what we do know is that U.S. military personnel are going to be deployed at the Democratic and Republican national conventions in support of U.S. Secret Service personnel.  The following is from a recent Stars and Stripes article....

"During the Democratic/Republican National Conventions, Department of Defense personnel will support the U.S. Secret Service," a Northern Command spokesman said in an email.

"For operational security reasons we do not discuss the numbers of military personnel and resources that are involved," U.S. Navy Lt. Cdr. William G. Lewis said. "Additionally, we do not share our operational plans."
Could the same forces be deployed to quell civil unrest sparked by a controversial election result in November?

Let us hope that this upcoming election season is not as bitter and divisive as many are projecting and let us hope that there is a clear winner in November.

The conditions are definitely right for America to be absolutely torn apart if the "perfect controversy" comes rolling along.

At this moment, Americans are incredibly frustrated.  Our economy has been in the dumps for quite a few years, and now it look like another recession is starting.  The patience of the American people is running out.

Over much of the western United States things are so hot and dry right now that just a single spark is often enough to set off a forest fire that can burn for weeks. 

Well, the same thing can be said for the political climate in the United States right now.

The American people are so hot and so angry that it would not take much to set off a raging political fire.

Let us hope that cooler heads prevail, because a single spark could set this country ablaze.

[Warph]

    


Are we rapidly approaching a moment of reckoning for the global financial system?  

August is likely to be a relatively slow month as most of Europe is on vacation, but after that we will be moving into a "danger zone" where just about anything could happen.  Historically, a financial crisis has been more likely to happen in the fall than during any other time, and this fall is shaping up to be a doozy.  Much of the focus of the financial world is on whether or not the euro is going to break up, but even if the authorities in Europe are able to keep the euro together we are still facing massive problems.  Countries such as Greece and Spain are already experiencing depression-like conditions, and much of the rest of the globe is sliding into recession.  Unemployment has already risen to record levels in some parts of Europe, major banks all over Europe are teetering on the brink of insolvency, and the flow of credit is freezing up all over the planet.  If things take a really bad turn, this crisis could become much worse than the financial crisis of 2008 very quickly.

All over the world people are starting to write about the possibility of a major economic crisis starting this fall.

For example, a recent article in the International Business Times discussed how some economists around the globe are fearing the worst for the coming months....

The consensus? The world economy has entered a final countdown with three months left, and investors should pencil in a collapse in either August or September.

Citing a theory he has been espousing since 2010 that predicts "a future lack of policy flexibility from the monetary and fiscal side," Jim Reid, a strategist at Deutsche Bank, wrote a note Tuesday that gloated "it feels like Europe has proved us right."

"The U.S. has the ability to disprove the universal nature of our theory," Reid wrote, but "if this U.S. cycle is of completely average length as seen using the last 158 years of history (33 cycles), then the next recession should start by the end of August."

The global financial system is so complex and there are so many thousands of moving parts that it is always difficult to put an exact date on anything.  In fact, history is littered with economists that have ended up looking rather foolish by putting a particular date on a prediction.

But without a doubt we are starting to see storm clouds gather for this fall.

The following are 11 more signs that time is quickly running out for the global financial system....

#1 A number of very important events regarding the financial future of Europe are going to happen in the month of September.  The following is from a recent Reuters article that detailed many of the key things that are currently slated to occur during that month....

"In that month a German court makes a ruling that could neuter the new euro zone rescue fund, the anti-bailout Dutch vote in elections just as Greece tries to renegotiate its financial lifeline, and decisions need to be made on whether taxpayers suffer huge losses on state loans to Athens.

On top of that, the euro zone has to figure out how to help its next wobbling dominoes, Spain and Italy - or what do if one or both were to topple."

#2 Reuters is reporting that Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos has suggested that Spain may need a 300 billion euro bailout.

#3 Spain continues to slide deeper into recession.  The Spanish economy contracted 0.4 percent during the second quarter of 2012 after contracting 0.3 percent during the first quarter.

#4 The unemployment rate in Spain is now up to 24.6 percent.

#5 According to the Wall Street Journal, a new 30 billion euro hole has been discovered in the financial rescue plan for Greece.

#6 Morgan Stanley is projecting that the unemployment rate in Greece will exceed 25 percent in 2013.

#7 It is now being projected that the Greek economy will shrink by a total of 7 percent during 2012.

#8 German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble says that the rest of Europe will not be making any more concessions for Greece.

#9 The UK economy has now plunged into a deep recession.  During the second quarter of 2012 alone, the UK economy contracted by 0.7 percent.

#10 The Dallas Fed index of general business activity fell dramatically to -13.2 in July.  This was a huge surprise and it is yet another indication that the U.S. economy is rapidly heading into a recession.

#11 As I have written about previously, a banking crisis is more likely to happen in the fall than at any other time during the year.  The global financial system will enter a "danger zone" starting in September, and none of us need to be reminded that the crashes of 1929, 1987 and 2008 all happened during the second half of the year.

So is there any hope on the horizon?

European leaders have tried short-term solution after short-term solution and none of them have worked.

Now countries all over Europe are sliding into depression and the authorities in Europe seem to be all out of answers.  The following is what one eurozone diplomat said recently....

"For two years we've been pumping up the life raft, taking decisions that fill it with just enough air to keep it afloat even though it has a leak," the diplomat said. "But now the leak has got so big that we can't pump air into the raft quickly enough to keep it afloat."

The boat is filling up with water faster than they can bail it out.

So what is the solution?

Well, some of the top names in economics on both sides of the Atlantic are urging authorities to keep the debt bubble pumped up by printing lots and lots more money.

For example, even though the U.S. government is already running trillion dollar deficits New York Times "economist" Paul Krugman is boldly proclaiming that now is the time to print and borrow even more money.  He is proud to be a Keynesian, and he says that "you should be a Keynesian, too."

Across the pond, the International Business Editor of the Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, is strongly urging the ECB to print more money....

Needless to say, I will be advocating 1933 monetary stimulus à l'outrance, or trillions of asset purchases through old fashioned open-market operations through the quantity of money effect (NOT INTEREST RATE 'CREDITISM') to avert deflation – and continue doing so until nominal GDP is restored to its trend line, at which point the stimulus can be withdrawn again.
But is more money and more debt really the solution to anything?

In the United States, M2 recent surpassed the 10 trillion dollar mark for the first time ever.  It has increased in size by more than 5 times over the past 30 years.

Unfortunately, our debt has been growing much faster than GDP has over that time period.

For example, during the second quarter of 2012 U.S. government debt grew by 274.3 billion dollars but U.S. GDP only grew by 117.6 billion dollars.

Our problem is not that there is not enough money floating around.

Our problem is that there is way, way too much debt.

But this is how things always go with fiat currencies.

There is always the temptation to print more.

That is one of the big reasons why every single fiat currency in history has eventually collapsed.

Printing more money will not solve our problems.  It will just cause our problems to take a different form.

In the end, nothing that the authorities can do will be able to avert the crisis that is coming.

A lot of people are starting to realize this, and that is one reason why we are seeing so much economic pessimism right now.

For example, according to a new Rasmussen poll only 14 percent of all Americans believe that children in America today will be "better off" than their parents.

That is an absolutely stunning figure, but it just shows us where we are at.

Our economy has been in decline for a long time, and now we are rapidly approaching another major downturn.

You better buckle up, because this downturn is not going to be pleasant at all.

[Warph]

"The Department of Homeland Security today announced details of the application and approval process for the DREAM Act-like program, outlining specific eligibility requirements and a $465 fee. It will begin Aug. 15.

Illegal immigrants younger than 30 who came to the United States before age 16, have lived here for at least five years continuously, attend or have graduated from high school or college, and have no criminal convictions are eligible to submit requests for so-called deferred action (legalese for an official exemption from deportation).

The administration said documentation provided by each applicant will be reviewed individually on a case-by-case basis at one of four service centers run by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.  It's unclear how long each review will take, but some immigrants are expected to receive temporary legal status before Election Day.

While the "dreamers" will not obtain a path to citizenship or the right to vote, Obama's policy shift – circumventing Congress with executive action – has been widely seen as a politically motivated nod to Hispanics who have long sought the change."

In the creation of this country, Founding Father John Adams declared that America must be a "nation of laws, not of men."  But like most things "American," Obuma just doesn't get that or seeks to forever undermine it.

Obuma knows he needs to squeeze out every single vote.  If a voter is illegal, he will try to find a way to make him or her legal.  If it hurts the country, so what? It's all about him, not the country.

If Hispanics tended to vote Republican, the Dems would have a border fence.  Electrified.  Mined.  And backed up with snipers.
If the underclass tended to vote Republican, the Dems would be demanding three picture ID's.  Plus the voter's full legal name, address, signature, and thumbprint on every ballot.

There would be no same-day registration.  Instead, every registering voter would have to produce full ID, and be interviewed, 30 days before the election, in person, by a Dem government official.  A union official.  Who would be sure to send a couple of buddies by the voter's home to be sure the voter knew exactly whom he or she was supposed to vote for.

...Warph