http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=25965F12-6D1A-11E0-8CAB-00212804637C
Only government can take a perfectly useful commodity such as paper, print a few numbers on it and make it worthless . . .
American Economy Facing
Death by 10,000 Cuts
It's too early to calculate if the recent International Monetary Fund's projection (see link above) that the "Age of America" will end in five years when the Chinese Economy surpasses America's is accurate. However, you don’t have to be a gypsy fortune-teller to read-between-the-lines well enough to see that the American economy is dying the death by ten thousand cuts. Of course, many (if not most) of our fearless leaders in Congress and the White House are proclaiming an ongoing recovery. We’re not talking the Mississippi here, but de-Nile, deep, deep denial. Until we’re willing to face up to the truth, no solutions are possible. The progressive leadership in this country over the last forty-eight years (only Ronald Reagan is exempt among presidents and both chambers of every single congress has been guilty with the verdict still out on our present House of Representatives) have destroyed the greatest economic machinery the world has ever known and substantially weakened and corrupted the greatest and freest society ever known.
Except for producing reality TV series and useless TV networks, we almost don’t create or build anything any more . . . we certainly don’t create jobs. The American Dollar whose original symbol was a capital “U” with a capital “S” atop it has been led to a slow death. Thanks to our leaders we are almost literally drowning in debt: $14.3 TRillion officially; plus $115 TRillion in UNfunded liabilities (Social Security; Medicare; the federal side of Medicaid) or a total of almost $130 TRillion we purposefully ignore discussing; plus, oh yes, that Welfare State that just got Obamacare added onto it . . . .
www.prisonplanet.com/24-signs-of-economic-decline-in-america.html
www.prisonplanet.com/24-signs-of-economic-decline-in-america.html
In a recent article the Prison Planet website told a sad story . . . when we’re through examining their cataloging of the situation . . . besides some parenthetical comments you’ll see immediately after each item, Rajjpuut has three shocking insights to add to the picture, Prison Planet said . . . .
The Economic Collapse: 24 signs of economic decline in America
#1 Standard & Poor’s just altered its outlook on U.S. government debt from “stable” to “negative” and warned the U.S. that it could very soon lose its AAA rating (the last time this happened was during the three months following the December 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor).
#2 China has announced that they are going to reduce their holdings of U.S. dollars (China, Brazil, Russia, and several other countries have openly called for elimination of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and China, Russia, Brazil and India have been moving out of Greenbacks into gold and silver).
#3 Hedge fund manager Dennis Gartman says that “panic dollar selling is setting in” and that the U.S. dollar could be in for a huge decline (the dollar has lost 24% of its value this last decade).
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now short-selling U.S. government bonds.
#5 This cruel economy is causing “ghost towns” and “ghost neighborhoods” to appear all across the United States. There are quite a few counties across the nation that now have home vacancy rates of over 50% (Las Vegas, Nevada has one of the highest home vacancy rates in the nation . . . it’s so bad there that there’s a mini-construction “boom” going on . . . what? why? because rather than clients moving into the ghost neighborhoods for a bargain price they prefer to get into whole new sub-divisions with other people nearby rather than a seedy area over-run by kangaroo rats).
#6 There are now about 7.25 million fewer jobs in America than when the recession began back in October, 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time right now. Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. The last time the employment level was that low was back in 1983.
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.
#9 The average large company’s CEO made 343 times more money than the average American worker did last year.
#10 Gas prices reached five dollars per gallon at a gas station in Washington, DC on April 19th, 2011. Could we see $6 gas soon?
#11 Over the past 12 months the average price of gasoline in the United States has gone up by about 30%.
#12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during the first quarter of 2011.
#13 U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.
#14 Approximately one out of every four dollars that the U.S. government borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt.
#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#16 Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
#17 Average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income. In China, average household debt is only 17% of average household income (1/8 as high a percentage on a lot less earnings).
#18 The average American now spends approximately 23 percent of his or her income on just two items food and gasoline (forty years ago that number was about 7%).
#19 In a recent survey conducted by Deloitte Consulting, 74 percent of Americans said that they planned to slow down their spending in coming months due to rising prices.
#20 Over 59 percent of all Americans now receive money from the federal government in one form or another.
#21 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average length of UNemployment in the U.S. is now an all-time record 39 weeks.
#22 As the economy continues to collapse, frustration among young people will continue to grow and we will see more seemingly “random acts of violence”. One shocking example of this happened on a Metropolitan Atlanta Mass Transit Area (MARTA) vehicle recently. The following is how a local Atlanta newspaper described the attack . . . .
Roughly two dozen teens, chanting the name of a well-known Atlanta gang, brought mob rule to
MARTA early Sunday morning, overwhelming nervous passengers and assaulting two Delta flight attendants.
MARTA early Sunday morning, overwhelming nervous passengers and assaulting two Delta flight attendants.
#23 Some Americans have become so desperate for cash that they are literally popping the gold teeth right out of their mouths and selling them to pawn shops.
#24 As the economy has declined, the American people have been gobbling up larger and larger amounts of antidepressants and other prescription drugs. In fact, the American people spent 60 billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.
To understand the full picture, consider this: Barack Obama’s puppet-master, George Soros (the “man who broke the Bank of England” and owner of some 52 progressive-foundations that have been working to undermine the U.S. economy for the last nine years as well as funding Barack Obama’s campaigns) is openly calling for the Chinese Yuan to replace the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Soros, who has been called responsible for the destruction of at least six other currencies, is now heavily invested in the Dollar’s destruction. Every day that we refuse to emulate the British and adopt severe austerity measures, the closer Mr. Soros gets to adding another few hundred billion dollars worth of profit to his net worth. However, it’s not likely that Barack Obama will cut his own strings and act for the good of the American people against George Soros.
To understand the full picture, consider this: Barack Obama’s puppet-master, George Soros (the “man who broke the Bank of England” and owner of some 52 progressive-foundations that have been working to undermine the U.S. economy for the last nine years as well as funding Barack Obama’s campaigns) is openly calling for the Chinese Yuan to replace the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Soros, who has been called responsible for the destruction of at least six other currencies, is now heavily invested in the Dollar’s destruction. Every day that we refuse to emulate the British and adopt severe austerity measures, the closer Mr. Soros gets to adding another few hundred billion dollars worth of profit to his net worth. However, it’s not likely that Barack Obama will cut his own strings and act for the good of the American people against George Soros.
Real money, such as gold or silver, does not change in value over time although because of supply and demand considerations and new inventions, etc. it may be used to buy more or buy less of certain commodities. Paper money which is NOT backed by gold or silver (fiat money) always becomes worth less over time and eventually worthless. Right now Americans are shocked that the dollar has officially lost 24% of its value in a decade . . . but that’s only the official figure. The Federal Reserve Bankers under Fed Chief Ben Bernanke have not so much been “printing money” but merely creating it electronically. If the official figures took into account all Mr. Bernanke’s shenanigans and the world valued the Dollar accordingly then the 2011 dollar would be worth between 3-4 pennies from the 2001 DOLLAR. Leave it to government to take a perfectly useful commodity such as paper, print a few numbers on it and make it absolutely worthless . . . by the way, gold prices have risen 45% in the last eighteen months; silver has risen 58% in the last four months as people and nations are abandoning paper currencies like the Dollar, Euro and Yen.
The combined U.S. National Debt and UNfunded liabilities and Welfare responsibilities of the American government right now is equal to about three and one-half times the Gross Domestic Product ($57 TRillion) of the entire world . . . and yet the highly visible film-maker Michael Moore, all the unions, and the Progressives in congress from both parties claim there is “plenty of money” and refuse to cut spending and are debating when and how and how much to increase the debt ceiling right now. They’re counting on higher taxes upon “the rich” (those married couples earning a combined $250,000 or more who create all our small business jobs) to solve all our problems while continuing to create higher deficits, the one thing NOT on their agenda: spending cutbacks.
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
