|
|
Post by glowplug on Jul 31, 2011 16:14:34 GMT -5
Yeah, I slightly altered the title to avoid a db51 copyright issue. And if he wants, I'll let him hawk his db51 SuperLube to all who are going to get bent over and shafted. Think gloom and doom, guys..........we're so screwed. www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-q2-gdp-numbers-dont-addI'm sure my fellow doom and gloomers will have additions to post here. glowplug |
|
|
|
Post by linsal on Jul 31, 2011 17:18:10 GMT -5
Thanks Glowplug for starting this thread....here are some contributions...
Broke! 10 Facts About The Financial Condition Of American Families That Will Blow Your Mind
The crumbling U.S. economy is putting an extraordinary amount of financial stress on American families. For many Americans, "flat broke" has become a permanent condition. Today, over half of all American families live paycheck to paycheck. Unemployment is rampant and those that do actually have jobs are finding that their wages are rising much more slowly than prices are. The financial condition of average American families continues to decline and this is showing up in all of the recent surveys. For example, according to a new Gallup poll, "lack of money/low wages" is the number one financial concern for American families. To make ends meet, many American families are going into even more debt and more American families than ever are turning to government assistance. Right now, more Americans than at any other point since World War II are flat broke and have lost hope. Until this changes, the frustration level in this country is going to continue to grow.
The following are 10 facts about the financial condition of American families that will blow your mind.....
#1 Only 58 percent of Americans have a job right now.
#2 Only 56 percent of Americans are currently covered by employer-provided health insurance.
#3 The median yearly wage in the United States is $26,261.
#4 The average American household is carrying $75,600 in debt.
#5 Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
#6 At this point, American families are approximately 7.7 trillion dollars poorer than they were back in early 2007.
#7 The poorest 50% of all Americans now own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
#8 According to one study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States were living below the poverty line in 2010.
#9 Today, there are more than 44 million Americans on food stamps, and nearly half of them are children.
#10 According to Newsweek, close to 20 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 54 do not have a job at the moment.
So what is causing all of this?
Where in the world did all of the good jobs go?
Well, the truth is that millions of them have been shipped overseas.
Our politicians promised us that merging our economy with the economies of other nations where it is legal to pay slave labor wages to workers would not create more unemployment inside America.
They were dead wrong.
Now we are being told that we just need to accept a lower standard of living.
For example, billionaire Howard Marks says that it is time for all of us to just accept that the standard of living of American workers is inevitably going to decline to the level of the rest of the world....
"In addition to balancing the budget and growing the economy, I think we have to accept that the coming decades are likely to see U.S. standards of living decline relative to the rest of the world. Unless our goods offer a better cost/benefit bargain, there’s no reason why American workers should continue to enjoy the same lifestyle advantage over workers in other countries. I just don’t expect to hear many politicians own up to this reality on the stump."
Are you willing to accept that?
Well, most Americans appear to be willing to accept this "new reality" because they keep sending most of the exact same bozos back to Washington D.C.
Meanwhile, the job losses continue to get worse. As I wrote about the other day, as the U.S. economy has started to slow down again we are starting to see another huge wave of layoffs all over America.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out where all of our jobs are going. But unfortunately, most Americans don't understand what is happening because neither the mainstream media nor our politicians are telling them the truth.
For much more on how millions of our good jobs are being shipped out of the country, please see another article I recently published entitled "How Globalism Has Destroyed Our Jobs, Businesses And National Wealth In 10 Easy Steps".
But it is not just the globalization of the economy that is destroying our jobs.
The federal government bureaucracy has become so oppressive that it is amazing that anyone is still willing to hire workers in this day and age.
Hiring workers has become so complicated and so expensive that many small business owners want to avoid it at all cost.
For example, a small business owner identified as "007" recently left the following comment on one of my recent articles....
Speaking as a small employer, I would rather have a root canal than another employee. Let’s see. You first have to hire someone you trust without some labor lawyer suing you for some type of discrimination. Then you have OSHA to make sure your work place is safe. Then you have workmans compensation insurance, unemployment taxes, health insurance, liability insurance, now Obamacare. Oh be careful not to be deemed to have a “hostile work environment”. Then you have to negotiate the labor laws. The Department of Labor is constantly cranking out regulation.
Then you get the pleasure of paying payroll taxes both state and federal along with the required filing of a multitude of payroll forms. Miss filing or paying these taxes and you will be crushed with interest and penalties.
Of course, you are competing with businesses that can hire at a fraction of the cost of American Labor and with very little regulations. In this economy, no one in their right mind is hiring into this unstable and declining economy.
If business turns down all you have to worry about is laying off workers. Of course your unemployment insurance tax will go up 200% for years. Then you only have to then worry about a wrongful termination law suit.
The entire system is stacked against American workers.
If you are a blue collar worker, you should give up hope that things are going to get better. The system has failed you.
You can stop waiting for the "good jobs" to come back.
They aren't coming back.
That is one reason why I try to encourage everyone to become more independent of the system.
As our economic system continues to degenerate, Americans are going to become increasingly desperate.
Sadly, desperate people do desperate things. Already we are starting to see signs that the fabric of American society is starting to be ripped to shreds.
So what is going to happen if the economy gets even worse?
There is a limit to how many people we can actually put in prison. The reality is that the number of Americans in prison has nearly tripled since 1987.
Our prisons are already dangerously overcrowded. As society falls apart, many communities will simply not be able to shove more people behind bars.
Even with our prisons stuffed to the gills, many of our largest cities continue to be transformed into absolute hellholes.
Detroit is now the 3rd most dangerous city on the entire planet and New Orleans is now the 9th most dangerous city on the entire planet.
So what are our leaders doing about all of this?
Well, they appear to be too busy fighting with each other and cheating on their wives to do much about our problems.
According to Politico, U.S. Representative David Wu is the latest member of Congress to be accused of a sex scandal....
Rep. David Wu has been accused of an “unwanted sexual encounter” with the teenage daughter of a longtime friend, the latest scandal to engulf the troubled Oregon Democrat.
This country is a complete and total mess. Tens of millions of American families are flat broke and are about to slip into poverty. Meanwhile, our politicians continue to prove that they are some of the most corrupt on the planet.
There are many out there that still believe that America has a bright future ahead.
It is getting really hard to see why anyone could possibly believe that.
|
|
|
|
Post by linsal on Jul 31, 2011 17:20:53 GMT -5
Layoffs, Layoffs Everywhere You Look There Are Layoffs
The competition for jobs in the United States is absolutely brutal right now, and it is about to get worse. A new wave of layoffs is sweeping across America. During tough economic times, Wall Street favors companies that are able to cut costs, and the fastest way to "cut costs" is to eliminate employees. After a period of relative stability, the employment picture in the U.S. is starting to get bleaker again. New applications for unemployment benefits have now been above 400,000 for 15 straight weeks. Finding a good job is kind of like winning the lottery in this economy. Our federal government and the state governments have made it incredibly complicated and extremely expensive to have employees on the payroll. It is getting harder and harder to get a large enough return to justify the time and expense that hiring employees requires. So many firms now find themselves trying to do more with the employees that they already have. Other companies are turning to temp agencies as a way to reduce costs and increase workplace flexibility. A lot of the big corporations are sending as much work as they can overseas where the wages are far lower and where the regulatory environment is much simpler. All of this is really bad news for American workers that just want good jobs that will enable them to provide for their families.
When we first started seeing huge numbers of layoffs a few years ago, I encouraged people to look into government jobs because I thought that they would be a lot more stable in this economic environment.
But today that is no longer true. In fact, state and local governments all over the United States are responding to massive budget problems by slashing payrolls in an unprecedented fashion.
Sadly, the reality is that the number of "secure jobs" is rapidly declining in America. If you have a "job" ("just over broke") right now, you might not have it for long. That is one reason why everyone should be trying to become more independent of the system.
Once upon a time the U.S. economy produced a seemingly endless supply of good jobs. This helped us develop the largest and most vibrant middle class in modern world history.
But now employees are regarded as "costly liabilities", and businesses and governments alike are trying to reduce those "liabilities" as much as they can.
This summer the pace of layoffs seems to be accelerating all over the nation. Just check out what has been happening over the past few weeks....
-Lockheed Martin has made "voluntary layoff offers" to 6,500 employees.
-Detroit is losing even more jobs. American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings has told the remaining 300 workers at its manufacturing facility in Detroit that their jobs will be ending in early 2012.
-Layoff notices have been sent to 519 employees of Milwaukee Public Schools, and more than 400 open positions are going to go unfilled.
-The Gap has announced that up to 200 stores will be closed over the next two years.
-Cisco has announced plans to lay off 9 percent of their total workforce.
-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says that 625 city employees will be losing their jobs as a result of cutbacks.
-Pharmaceutical giant Merck recently dumped 51 workers from an office in Raleigh, North Carolina.
-Perkins has revealed that they will be closing 58 restaurants.
-This week, Goldman Sachs announced that they will be eliminating 1,000 jobs.
-Cracker Barrel is rapidly reducing staff at its headquarters.
-Telecommunications and web marketing firm Crexendo has announced that it will be laying off about 30 percent of its workforce.
-Borders has announced that they will be shutting down their remaining 399 stores and that 10,700 employees will lose their jobs.
-Now that the space shuttle program has ended, thousands of NASA employees will be losing their jobs.
Sadly, there are hundreds of more examples of recent layoffs and job losses. One website that tracks these layoffs daily is Daily Job Cuts. It is pretty sad when there are entire websites that are devoted to chronicling how fast our economy is bleeding jobs.
What is worse is that it looks like the pace of layoffs is going to keep increasing.
One report that was recently released found that the number of job cuts being planned by U.S. employers increased by 11.6% in June.
That is not good news.
Things don't look good for employees of state and local governments either.
State and local governments have eliminated approximately 142,000 jobs so far this year.
That is bad, but this is just the beginning.
UBS Investment Research is projecting that state and local governments in the U.S. will combine to slash a whopping 450,000 jobs by the end of next year.
Ouch.
Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke keep trying to tell us that the economy is improving, but that simply is not the case. Yes, some of the largest corporations have announced big earnings, but that is not translating into lots of jobs for American workers.
Today, most large corporations only want to have as many U.S. workers as absolutely necessary. In a world where labor has been globalized, it just doesn't make sense for corporations to shell out massive amounts of money to American workers when they can legally get away with paying slave labor wages to workers on the other side of the globe.
So if it seems like it is far harder to get a good job in America today than it used to be, the truth is that you are not imagining things.
Our entire system discourages job creation inside the United States. Every single year, even more ridiculous job-killing regulations are being passed on the federal and state levels. It has become extremely expensive and ridiculously complicated to hire people.
So how are American families surviving? Those that still do have jobs are finding that wages are not going up but the cost of living rapidly is. Many American families are making up the difference by using their credit cards more.
In June, credit card purchases in the U.S. increased by 10.7 percent compared to the same month a year ago.
It looks like a whole lot of people have not learned their lessons about how bad credit card debt is.
Millions of other American families have fallen out of the middle class completely. Today, one out of every six Americans is enrolled in at least one government anti-poverty program. The level of economic suffering in this country continues to soar.
In fact, the number of Americans that are now sleeping in their cars or living in tent cities remains at staggering levels.
What we are witnessing in this country is not just a "recession" or an "economic downturn". What we are witnessing are fundamental economic changes.
Until there are fundamental policy changes in the United States, there will continue to be huge waves of layoffs and millions of jobs will continue to be shipped out of the country.
In the old days, one could go to college, get a good job with one company for 30 years and retire with a big, fat pension.
Now, that way of doing things is completely and totally dead.
Today, there is virtually no loyalty out there. It doesn't matter how long you have been working at a particular job. When it becomes financially expedient to get rid of you, that is exactly what is going to happen.
It is a cold, cruel world out there right now. Don't assume that you will always have a good job. The world is rapidly changing.
Don't get caught in the trap of believing that the way that things were is the way that things are always going to be in the future.
|
|
|
|
Post by linsal on Jul 31, 2011 17:28:51 GMT -5
It was 2017. Clans were governing America.
Clans organized around families and individuals who possessed stocks of food, bullion, guns and ammunition.
The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives’ war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable.
As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.
The dollar had collapsed as world reserve currency in 2012 when the worsening economic depression made it clear to Washington’s creditors that the federal budget deficit was too large to be financed except by the printing of money.
With the dollar’s demise, import prices skyrocketed. As Americans were unable to afford foreign-made goods, the transnational corporations that were producing offshore for US markets were bankrupted, further eroding the government’s revenue base.
The government was forced to print money in order to pay its bills, causing domestic prices to rise rapidly. Faced with hyperinflation, Washington took recourse in terminating Social Security and Medicare and followed up by confiscating the remnants of private pensions. This provided a one-year respite, but with no more resources to confiscate, money creation and hyperinflation resumed.
Organized food deliveries broke down when the government fought hyperinflation with fixed prices and the mandate that all purchases and sales had to be in US paper currency. Unwilling to trade appreciating goods for depreciating paper, goods disappeared from stores.
Washington responded as Lenin had done during the “war communism” period of Soviet history. The government sent troops to confiscate goods for distribution in kind to the population. This was a temporary stop-gap until existing stocks were depleted, as future production was discouraged. Much of the confiscated stocks became the property of the troops who seized the goods.
Goods reappeared in markets under the protection of local warlords. Transactions were conducted in barter and in gold, silver, and copper coins.
Other clans organized around families and individuals who possessed stocks of food, bullion, guns and ammunition. Uneasy alliances formed to balance differences in clan strengths. Betrayals quickly made loyalty a necessary trait for survival.
Large scale food and other production broke down as local militias taxed distribution as goods moved across local territories. Washington seized domestic oil production and refineries, but much of the government’s gasoline was paid for safe passage across clan territories.
Most of the troops in Washington’s overseas bases were abandoned. As their resource stocks were drawn down, the abandoned soldiers were forced into alliances with those with whom they had been fighting.
Washington found it increasingly difficult to maintain itself. As it lost control over the country, Washington was less able to secure supplies from abroad as tribute from those Washington threatened with nuclear attack. Gradually other nuclear powers realized that the only target in America was Washington. The more astute saw the writing on the wall and slipped away from the former capital city.
When Rome began her empire, Rome’s currency consisted of gold and silver coinage. Rome was well organized with efficient institutions and the ability to supply troops in the field so that campaigns could continue indefinitely, a monopoly in the world of Rome’s time.
When hubris sent America in pursuit of overseas empire, the venture coincided with the offshoring of American manufacturing, industrial, and professional service jobs and the corresponding erosion of the government’s tax base, with the advent of massive budget and trade deficits, with the erosion of the fiat paper currency’s value, and with America’s dependence on foreign creditors and puppet rulers.
The Roman Empire lasted for centuries. The American one collapsed overnight.
Rome’s corruption became the strength of her enemies, and the Western Empire was overrun.
America’s collapse occurred when government ceased to represent the people and became the instrument of a private oligarchy. Decisions were made in behalf of short-term profits for the few at the expense of unmanageable liabilities for the many.
Overwhelmed by liabilities, the government collapsed.
Globalism had run its course. Life reformed on a local basis.
|
|
|
|
Post by 4430 on Jul 31, 2011 17:32:28 GMT -5
Thanks Glowplug for starting this thread....here are some contributions... Broke! 10 Facts About The Financial Condition Of American Families That Will Blow Your Mind linsal I gave ya karma would have given ya more but it won't let me good posts  |
|
|
|
Post by linsal on Jul 31, 2011 17:35:48 GMT -5
Thaks for the karma 4430...given where this country appears to be headed, I need all I can get!
|
|
|
|
Post by 4430 on Jul 31, 2011 17:36:14 GMT -5
Yeah, I slightly altered the title to avoid a db51 copyright issue. glowplug No one can hold a candle to db51 when it comes to gloom and doom ;D |
|
|
|
Post by linsal on Jul 31, 2011 18:19:32 GMT -5
I don't know how to copy the pics from this link...but this should scare the bejeebers out of rational thinking human beings... usdebt.kleptocracy.us/ |
|
|
|
Post by glowplug on Aug 1, 2011 7:58:32 GMT -5
America’s trade deficit is growing and one reason for that is our crippling dependence on imported oil. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, our appetite for foreign oil accounted for 60 percent of the nation’s $50 billion trade deficit.
“As Congress debates how much money the federal government can borrow, America continues to take out loans from China to buy oil from Venezuela. This is insanity, especially when domestic alternatives to imported oil like ethanol exist,” said Renewable Fuels Association Vice President for Research and Analysis Geoff Cooper. "America’s financial house is in disarray and yet members of Congress still defend generous taxpayer handouts to oil companies that feed this nation’s addiction to imported oil."
Currently, domestic ethanol production is equivalent to the amount of gasoline refined from more than 450 million barrels of imported oil a year – a volume greater than what we import each year from Saudi Arabia. In 2010, ethanol accounted for 25 percent—one out of every four gallons—of the fuel produced from domestic sources that was consumed by our nation’s gasoline vehicles. The livestock feed coproduct component of ethanol production, known as distillers grains or DDGS, is a growing export opportunity for the U.S. with 2010 volumes of DDGS exports approaching 9 million metric tons valued at more than $1 billion dollars. Finally, because domestic ethanol markets are artificially constrained, U.S. fuel ethanol exports to Brazil, Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere are growing and helping to offset America’s growing trade imbalance.
============Fact is we can't produce enough ethanol to do much more at this point. We need to drill for more of our own oil. If we don't, the US is dooooooooomed.
Glowplug
|
|
|
|
Post by glowplug on Aug 1, 2011 13:32:57 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by glowplug on Aug 1, 2011 20:21:22 GMT -5
Here's some after supper DOOM, with a chaser. From the current Pretender In Chief going back through all the POTUSes serving in my lifetime..........
Barack Obama, 1.2% annual G.D.P. growth rate (previously 1.5%)
George W. Bush, 1.6% (previously 1.7%)
George H.W. Bush, 2.1%
Gerald Ford, 2.2%
Dwight Eisenhower, 2.5%
Richard Nixon, 3.0%
Jimmy Carter, 3.2%
Ronald Reagan, 3.5%
Bill Clinton, 3.8%
Lyndon B. Johnson, 5.0%
John F. Kennedy, 5.4%
|
|
|
|
Post by linsal on Aug 1, 2011 21:20:18 GMT -5
It’s a deal!
As expected…the papers are announcing that the Repubs and Demos have made an historic deal. With the solemnity and gravitas that the occasion calls for, they have come together, after great and profound debate, to join hands…
E Pluribus Unum, they said… We may have different ideas on the subject, but when it comes to the interests of the whole country, we can nevertheless work as one body, with one heart, and one digestive system…
…and so they crossed aisles…and clenched hands…and slapped backs…
…and the brightest and best…the leading statesmen, leading scholars, leading orators and rhetoricians of the world’s greatest hegemon, all came together at the last minute…
…and agreed to continue debasing the currency and credit of the United States of America.
Hallelujah.. Hallelujah… We are saved!
All over the world, shouts of Hosannah go up…along with stock prices.
And the US economy sinks…
“Great Recession Even Deeper than Thought,” says a headline at MarketWatch.
Than WHO thought? Not our Dear Readers. We knew there was no recovery…and that what we’re dealing with is a correction of epoch scope and power. The article continues…
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. recession was even deeper than previously thought, a new government report showed on Friday.
As part of an annual revision of data on U.S. gross domestic product, the Commerce Department said that the economy contracted by 5.1% between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2009, more than the 4.1% previously estimated.
It ranks as the most severe recession in the post-World War II era. As a result of the revision, GDP is now still below the pre-recession peak, economists said.
Before the revision, it was hard to square an unemployment rate above 9% with the economy’s growth rate.
Under the revised data, the U.S. economy declined 0.3% in 2008, weaker than the prior estimate of a flat reading.
The contraction in GDP for 2009 was revised to 3.5%, much weaker than the previous estimate of a 2.6% decline.
The real story is worse than that. Almost all the “growth” since ’07 has not been growth at all…but just the result of US government transfer payments. The private sector – which is where real wealth is created – continues to sink.
Also, we know we’re in a powerful correction. But we still don’t know exactly what this correction is correcting. Stay tuned…
Regards,
Bill Bonner [1],
for The Daily Reckoning [2]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
Post by glowplug on Aug 1, 2011 22:17:36 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Dave-ECIA on Aug 1, 2011 22:35:19 GMT -5
Holy Christ you guys, I wanna end it all now after reading that... You grawlixers really know how to cheer up a guy.
|
|
|
|
Post by glowplug on Aug 1, 2011 23:00:41 GMT -5
Dave, it's a Doom Thread tradition to find the very, very worst news out there (db51 was using it to hawk his SuperLube product line....BOHICA = bend over here it comes again). And under this Pretender In Chief, there's an abundance of worst and ever worser news. Here, this is your next car: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAqPMJFaEdYGlowplug |
|
