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Money Problems That Never Seem To End: 25 Reasons To Be Absolutely Disgusted With The U.S. Economy
Money Problems That Never Seem To End: 25 Reasons To Be Absolutely Disgusted With The U.S. Economy
Courtesy of Michael Snyder of Economic Collapse
It seems like wherever you turn there is bad news for the U.S. economy. Unemployment is rampant, the cost of gasoline is going up, the cost of food is going up and American families are getting poorer. Millions of jobs continue to leave the country and everyone is wondering why it seems like the "American Dream" is dying.
American consumers are absolutely swamped with staggering levels of credit card debt, student loan debt and mortgage debt and each year the consumer debt crisis only seems to get worse. For millions of American families the money problems never seem to end. Meanwhile, our politicians are doing next to nothing to fix our horrific national debt problem. So yes, there are a whole lot of reasons to be absolutely disgusted with the U.S. economy. We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and anyone with half a brain can see that we are heading for complete and total disaster.
A lot of Americans do not like to read about economics, but what has been going on over the last few years has been nothing short of extraordinary. The Federal Reserve has basically tripled the adjusted monetary base. We have now been conditioned to accept that trillion dollar deficits are "normal". The U.S. dollar is being systematically destroyed right in front of our eyes and most Americans don't even seem alarmed about it.
Our entire financial system is coming apart.
The signs are everywhere.
The following are 25 reasons to be absolutely disgusted with the U.S. economy....
#1 There are now 6.4 million fewer jobs in America than there were when the recession began.
#2 In Southern California, the average price of a gallon of gasoline is $1.00 higher than it was at this time last year.
#3 The average price of gasoline in the United States has jumped about 20 cents in just the last two weeks.
#4 Over the past 12 months the average price of gasoline in the United States has gone up by about 30%.
#5 In the 8 days leading up to the "historic" $38.5 billion budget deal, the U.S. national debt increased by $54.1 billion dollars.
#6 The $38.5 billion in budget cuts that the Republicans and the Democrats have agreed to represent approximately one percent of the federal budget.
#7 During the 2010 campaign, the Republicans promised voters they would cut $100 billion from the budget for 2011. Instead, they gave in when the Democrats offered just $38.5 billion.
#8 The Obama administration had been estimating that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 2011 would be approximately 1.6 trillion dollars. Now it will likely be somewhere around 1.55 trillion dollars which will still be an all-time record.
#9 According to numbers released by Deloitte Consulting, a whopping 875,000 Americans were "medical tourists" in 2010?.
#10 The median pay for CEOs increased by 27 percent during 2010.
#11 Thanks to globalism, U.S. workers now must directly compete for jobs with workers in places such as Indonesia. In Indonesia, full-time workers make as little as two dollars a day. So how are Americans supposed to compete with that?
#12 Last week, the price of gold set a new all-time record on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday and on Friday.
#13 The price of silver rose almost 7 percent last week alone.
#14 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#15 According to the Economic Policy Institute, almost 25 percent of U.S. households now have zero net worth or negative net worth. Back in 2007, that number was just 18.6 percent.
#16 Americans now owe more than $903 billion on student loans.
#17 According to the New York Times, as of 2009 the wealthiest 5 percent of all Americans had 63.5 percent of all the wealth in America. Meanwhile, the bottom 80 percent had just 12.8 percent of all the wealth.
#18 According to a recent report from the National Employment Law Project, higher wage industries accounted for 40 percent of the job losses over the past 12 months but only 14 percent of the job growth. Lower wage industries accounted for just 23 percent of the job losses over the past 12 months and a whopping 49 percent of the job growth.
#19 The first week of air strikes in Libya cost the U.S. government about 600 million dollars.
#20 The price of corn has more than doubled over the past year.
#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 Back in the 1950s, corporate taxes accounted for about 30 percent of all federal revenue. Today they account for less than 7 percent of all federal revenue.
#23 If the U.S. government eliminated all discretionary spending and all defense spending it would still not balance the budget.
#24 It is being projected that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year 2050.
#25 Americans spend approximately 27.7 billion dollars a year preparing their tax returns.
That last statistic really gets me. During the month of April the American people are going to be spending massive amounts of time and money to prepare their taxes.
But what do Americans get in return for their taxes?
What they get is a government that is completely and totally incompetent. Our "leaders" are running the greatest economy in the history of the world into the ground, but unfortunately most Americans have no idea what is happening.
Why are Americans so clueless?
Well, the truth is that over time we have been turned into a nation of idiots and morons.
To get an idea of just how "dumbed down" we have become as a nation, just check out this Harvard entrance exam from 1869.
I wouldn't have a prayer of passing that exam.
What about you?
Thanks to the slothfulness of society, the deficiencies in our education system and the toxins in our food, air and water it has become hard for most of us to think clearly.
Most of us are fat, dumb and totally clueless. The entire economic system is being shredded and most of us just drool and turn up the television a little louder.
If we have money problems, most of us just run out and apply for another credit card. If our state and local governments run into financial problems they just borrow even more money.
Of course the biggest offender of all is the federal government. What our politicians are doing to future generations is not just criminal. It is beyond criminal. It is absolutely unconscionable.
So please excuse me if I am absolutely disgusted with the U.S. economy.
We took the greatest economy in the history of the world and we wrecked it.
How in the world are we going to explain this to our children and our grandchildren?
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Thanks Ilene,
We think we're so God damn sophisticated. That Harvard entrance test really puts our ignorance into perspective. There's an Early American museum near me and every time I'm there it astounds me how much people needed to know in order to survive.
What Wall Street and Washington are doing is unconscionable, absolutely.
The American individual and household are the scapegoats.
If not for foodstamps, WIC, and easy money and consumerism a responsible Wall Street and Washington would = a responsible nation.
Ooooooops.
Rapacious greed wins again.
"...turn up the television louder."....remind me of a Ray Bradbury short story...where people just stay in their homes and all one could see on a walk late at night was the flicker of black and white...think American Idol and all the other crap on TV to keep the sheep entertasined. Welcome to America 2011...it is no wonder why those in command today are where they are.
"We took the greatest economy in the history of the world and we wrecked it."
What exactly do you mean by "we", kemosabe?
Sooner or later more people are going to figure out that the population is not monolithic. There really is no "we".
America is not even close to pure capitalism and already the flaws have damaged the entire system:
1) tendency to form anti-competitive monopolies
2) concentration of capital into the hands of the few
3) luck and inheritance has equal value as merit
many more...
With regard to owning a Senator; I prefer Silver bullion, because it stays bought. So hard to find "reliable" Senators nowadays.
I think #1 is a bit off with 15 million jobs having been offshored, and those 22 million jobs creation predicted by in 1999 did actually occur --- overseas. But it gets worse, as this item from an old online buddy sent to me recently, culled to one page but sourced from thousands of referenced documents:
FORENSIC ECONOMICS 101
Private equity firms/leveraged buyout firms manage and oversee the bulk of the largest pension funds (superannuation funds) out there, including most union funds. They leverage these funds to destroy unions and future union employment, while structuring them with credit derivatives which profit themselves but end up destroying those funds.
With the destruction of those funds, which must either be bailed out or allowed to default, comes the further destruction of local governments as they are usually heavily invested (through their bond issues) in those pension funds. Thus allowing the super-rich to go in and pick up new assets at bargain basement values.
This would be considered the optimal asset stripping.
U.S. foreign aid (US taxpayer assisted) is well known to be directed to countries which will then purchase weapons systems from defense contractors, but what is less known is what the greater slice of that foreign aid goes to.
The bulk of it is managed and manipulated by American-based multinationals to build foreign factories, production facilities, R&D labs, worker training, etc., to which the multinationals then offshore American jobs to, and create new jobs at. Extreme examples of this were the two “free trade agreements” supported and passed during the Bush administration, lobbied on behalf of by former president, Bill Clinton (in the pay of the jobs offshoring industry), involving Jordan and Oman.
Foreign aid established factories in those two countries, which then imported the cheapest labor they could from Bangladesh and the Philippines, chiefly benefitting the American-based multinationals who exported those jobs to the factories, and the small number of wealthy and connected managers and owners in Jordan and Oman who managed those factories.
The co-opting of the conservation lobby (Nature Conservancy, League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, etc.) and the environmental lobby (those entities duped into supporting cap-and-trade) by Wall Street (corporate and individual land monopolists and oil/energy corporations).
For example, when a volunteer group works to set aside a tract of land for conservation purposes, etc., and they don’t continuously track the final result, they are unaware that some, or all, of the tract is eventually sold for pennies on the dollar to foreign corporations, either in a quid pro quo deal, or which is owned through circuitously laddered holding companies by an American-based multinational.
Also, various conservation groups will lobby on behalf of tax cuts and benefits for set aside lands, unaware they are working – for free – on behalf of those super-rich land monopolists.
The controlled, compromised and highly manipulated tax code which chiefly exists to benefit the one percent, the speculator class.
A traditionally popular example of this is the “Louis B. Mayer clause” dating back to 1954, where Mayer’s tax attorneys bribed the usual congressmen to insert a special clause in the tax section to allow Mayer to avoid paying taxes on his fortune when he retired. This clause specified that only the special pre-existing tax situation (i.e., exactly targeting only Mayer’s situation) existing prior to the date of that clause was allowed – the complete antithesis of all legal foundation, i.e., a law is normally passed to be in effect which affects everyone after the passage of said law!
A recent example is the “Blackstone Group clause” – essentially the Blackstone Group bought some congress critters to allow them to continue paying the same capital gains tax rate after they went public, when by law they should have begun paying the higher corporate tax rate. Some law professors (Davidoff comes readily to mind) would claim this was “deft tax law.”
No, it is simply absolute corruption.
“All money is hierarchically controlled as an asset to private sector institutions and elite capital holders who have the ability to call in their chips, i.e., your bank digits, where as it’s an interest-bearing debt to governments and the people.” --- Damon Vrabel
“A good investment is to own a senator, but a great investment is to own the US Treasury.” --- Anon
If our state and local governments run into financial problems they just borrow even more money...
This is the crux of the matter.
The US government buys foreign currency from the fed and pays tribute for the privelege of doing so in direct conflict with our representative's mandate. Tribute is to be collected by the government by these institutions for the privilege of conducting commerce with the sovereign citizenry.
The government should in no way Ever be in a position of paying tribute to any person, organization or nation for anything. The interest on timmy bills is the epitome of treason. For all intents and purposes our Declaration of Independence is a menstral rag.
The fed, irs and bis are the root cause of the decay of this nation's spirit of freedom and as long as they continue to influence our elected officials all the griping and complaining in the world will continue to have as much affect as this article and my diatribe.
None!
How are we going to explain this?
Easy. We are going to do exactly what you and every other Zerohedge reader does and will do: Blame the other guy.
Problem solved.
What was the issue again?
+100
Methinks it's an affliction of message boards across ALL of the interwebs.
Says the guy that has spent his afternoon posting on ZH how this is EVERYONE'S fault (but not his...oh, no, he recognized our economy for what is was and is therefore non-complicit).
You're a douche.
We are all complicit.
For that to be true you would have to stretch the common language definition of the term 'complicit' well beyond its bounds.
All good points yet the sheeple just don't seem concerned about it; heck, baseball season is here as well as the NBA playoffs, new contestants on AI and DWTS. How does one awaken such a population of robots? Wide and repetitive exposure of the same simple sound bite message is the tried and true technique used by all media to influence people's thinking. For example: if every car had a bumper sticker saying "Know your govt or know bankruptcy" or "Govt spending causes poverty" or "GE pays less taxes than you", etc., one could reach a critical mass of people willing to take the next steps such as demanding full transparency and accountability in govt and simplification to a 9th grade reading comprehension level of all laws, policies, decisions, etc. Once people begin to really understand what is happening, "knowledge really does become power"!
These things take time to permeate the general subconscious. A key concept in econometric analysis is the 'time-lag' variable, and I would assume you could apply it to social organization as well. Large industrialized societies cannot exist without some form of a hierarchical structure, and those structures, like an individual, have a sense of self-preservation as a high priority. When the structure becomes defunct, the aforementioned time lag exists between inception and general realization of 'defunctness'.
But as you mention, which such distractions as 1000-channel telescreens, that time lag seems to extend beyond a reasonable, or natural, lifespan.
"Large industrialized societies cannot exist without some form of a hierarchical structure"
While an oligarchy cannot exist without a hierarchical structure I cannot think of any a priori reason why a large industrialized society requires such a social power strucuture.
I found this article interesting and chilling, its pretty close to the mark. It begins like this:
Las Vegas is a city with a warning for America. Empty suburbs, exposed ribs of unfinished mega-casinos, and a desert reclaiming lost territory for coyotes and barrel cacti. It’s a stark reminder of what threatens America’s other big cities. What happened in Vegas isn’t staying in Vegas.
Las Vegas used to be synonymous with hope. It is literally an oasis in the desert. It was a place dreams were made and fantasies came true. During the boom years, almost anything seemed possible. Two-hundred-and-forty-foot Bellagio fountains? Soaring Stratosphere hotel? Even the Eiffel Tower and the Great Pyramids? It’s got them all—to the soundtrack of coins crashing and neon lights flashing. It was paradise for the escapist.
Unfortunately, it was all unaffordable—in more ways than one.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/?q=8176.6818.0.0
The republicans and democrats have destroyed America's economy for a little money and some temporary power. They are complete cowards and unprincipled in front of the money power that own them lock, stock and barrel. How much more pathetic can the political system be for such trivial rewards for corruption and avarice?
You got it right Joe. Investing in stock market is supposed to lead to efficient use of capital. Today it is mostly an attempt to game the system with exotic instruments and computer programs which leads to draining capital for unearned enrichment. No wonder America is in decline
um....no offense ZH'ers, but a lot of YOU are the reason why America is such a shithole. For thirty years all anyone cared about was making money off the stock market and whatever horrific financial insturments could be made. Everyone wanted to just sit at their Bloomberg Terminal all day long, sipping their coffee in their robes, clicking here and there, moving electronic numbers from one place to another.
Somewhere along the line that became the only thing that mattered. We wanted to be a nation of day-traders. Let the third world bother with actually making things. YOU all wanted a nation of high finance. YOU thought your money could make your money in some sort of retarted loop forever and ever.
So uh, yeah we have a gov't full of gutless dweebs, but they're just a byproduct of the "high finance uptopia" we all were dreaming of back in 1989. Wtg.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a higher standard of living (I understand there are many ways to define the standard, as a matter of VALUE, it is completely subjective). A higher standard of living as most conceive it needs to be paid for. So if you are starting out you look at what are the ways to do that. Have you ever run a business? Have you tried to start one? If you actually adhered to all of the rules laid down by various rulemaking authorities, you would find that it is very difficult. Unless your idea is large and you are skilled at attracting the kind of capital that can make a business with sufficient scale, you are likely to be suffocated. One area you can make the kind of money that pays for a high standard of living is trading. Hence it is attractive, if difficult. Unless you advocate unshackling the economy from the do-gooders, you should get off your high horse.
Most Americans wanted to be really productive and proud of what they did. However, since 1974, many a man could no longer support a wife, so women began to work.
I saw the system being "financialized" as early as 1976. Then wages did not keep up, so now the elites are selling you loans on your home and things via credit card debt. Only those who were not into consumption or debt would find their own way in the trap set for them.
Now what is the result? Those of us who saved enough for retirement have capital that is unemployed, a devalued USD, no interest payments, and only theft of our savings and theft of our future.
The only choice is risk.
Staying in predatory America is not a good choice for some.
While I somewhat agree, I'll take the other side of this just for argument sake.
The reason is not day-traders or investing or making a buck at all. These are legal means of income that some people learned. I'll completely agree that they don't add to the nation, there is no wealth created through labor, land or material, but they are legally endeavoring to trade.
The problem came when bankers realized they could keep people with money from making money by keeping interest rates low. They keep millions of people on unemployment and make money distributing money and handouts to them. This money comes from gov't, which means they stole if from you and me. They subsidized themselves because they are too important to be 'little' people, so they steal from us again. They go to war around the world for decades to defend the power of a unified cabal of bankers called the Federal Reserve Bank. They create a government so bloated and unresponsive that we all depend on federal input for some portion of our income. They twist and corrupt the schools from kindergarten to graduate levels to make sure we know how to be PC, understand the almighty influence of the govt and forget the independence that brought all the finer things America knows today. They convince us the path to wealth is to work hard and be the best employee you can and get the biggest 401(k) possible (that they will control for you) and create tax laws and credit routes that work against entrepreneurs and the self employed, who in reality create the wealth and make America move. They tell us that having a loan on a big house and boat where we can pay interest to someone and have everything our parents had at 55 when we are 30 is a right of Americans. They convince us that daycare can raise our kids because they are professionals, while we need to be successful and get a big 401(k) for them to play with. Our family structure is so completely broken that we can’t even see that it’s the cancer that is killing the nation. We even blame the cancer on day traders as if everything would be better without them.
Day traders found a way to ride the coat-tails of a breaking system, they didn’t create it.
Also, I'd guess there are a lot of individuals in the market managing their own funds in hopes of increasing/building their savings. They're not all professional day-traders, and certainly not GS (etc.) employees with giant house accounts. The money at the bank is earning no interest, and at least over the last two years stocks and commodities have been going up. So traders may be riding coat-tails, but also are attempting to manage their own funds so as not to be at the mercy of banking elite/the fed, which is debasing the Dollar and causing price inflation in necessities. Many traders/investors have small accounts, cannot move the markets (e.g. via using large amounts of trading capital, and the media), have no insider information, and have not engaged in criminal activities backed by the government to make their profits.
Your logic is cyclical. You can't justify operating within a criminal system simply because YOU didn't create it. Operating within it only reinforces the continuation of the criminal system itself. Which means it's okay to operate in it, which in turn reinforces it.
MY logic is cyclical? You can say that day traders created a beast by participating in it and MY logic is cyclical?
I don't think anyone is going out of their way to justify the system, in fact most people here purchased silver in an attempt to crash the system. Does that sound like a bunch of leeches who simply want to get rich on the corruption? I'd bet at least 80% of the people here understand the market crash they are trying to bring about. It won't be pretty, but without it our children have NOTHING.
Sorry, the common investor is not to blame for anything more than being suckered into a corrupt system. We let our families suffer and destroyed the world for our selfishness, the blame is for our priorities and the corruption of bankers and the legal system. Not day-traders for being day-traders.
Wrong. Some people wanted what you state but the vast majority of people did not want that crap. No one voted for globalism, deregulation and free trade except for the decepticons in politics and the lobbyists corrupting them.
I agree. But there is the german aphorism:
"der Teufel immer auf den größten Haufen scheißt"
which literally translates to "the Devil always shits on the biggest pile." Meaning, when the markets were topping, no one bothered to speak up and say 'you know what, this is kind of fucked. Maybe we should look into where all this prosperity is coming from.'
But we didn't, so we were ALL complicit in this crime. Don't get pithy and say 'but I didn't want globalization, deregulation, and free trade' when all of us spent years reaping the benefits from it. But now that the facade is crumbling, inflation is rampant, and the fraud is in our faces, NOW we claim we don't want it. Bullshit. You can't be a victim in hindsight.
Face your shit. We all bought the lie for so long, and bought it hard. Now it's time to get over it and evolve into the next paradigm (whatever that may be). That should be the focus of our discourse here....not bitching, but trying to figure out what should come next.
Isn't that exactly what we do here WRT the ponzi economy?
No, what should come next is prosecution of financial crime to the fullest extent of the law.
In parallel, those left standing are, naturally, in a position to decide what should come next.
Regardless, I find your line of reasoning a bit disturbing in that you insist that victims have no recourse should they involuntarily, and without their concurrence, find they also benefited from said fraud in some way. What a load of bullshit. So you're telling me that I should just shut up and suck it up since I supposedly profited from this Ponzi economy. Are you kidding? I have NEVER been in a position to make one bit of difference. You know it, I know it...even my dog knows it. Voting for the best candidate? Whatever, what a waste of time. None of it makes a lick of difference.
You look at this far too simply. I am facing my shit. However, I didn't ask for ANY of this. And I don't see why now it's my responsibility to deal with the consequences. In your mind, I'm guilty by association. Well, again, I didn't choose to associate myself with any of these contrived social systems. Fuck you for blaming me.
Here Hussman explains what it takes to reduce the Feds balance sheet, and how a very small change in interest rates spills through to the economy.
Tis the same in the ocean as on land ----survival of the fittest. We eat each other for sustinance, propigate and die. Only difference is human beings make a subtle attempt at social justice and order on earth, not knowing what to expect in the afterlife. This dilemma is demonstrated in the pull and tug between capitalism and socialism as well as the tug between spending for today ar saving for tomorrow. Obviously competetive greed under capitalism is winning out without a comensurate gain for humanity. It is called canabalism and destruction of the species.
We in Canada know all about drones. We have them all along our border and I suppose their purpose is to find terrorists. Our border is so thick now, that we don't know where it starts nor where it ends!
(When you reply, don't be mean!)
One thing a few may miss, as like the natural economy of things. I was discussing this with my father the other day and it alluded to that a forest can support life to the extent that is this. We have both witnessed in our lifes severe stress that when one to many deer forages from inclemate realities the herd all dies at times, later life returns from other regions.
Cold as it may be to witness greater mercy was exercisized when the tipping point was averted. Now apply to .gov on how there study's indicate all is well with the herd under there wise eye and to incarcerate violators of there natural so called law. If they are not deemed life or property at this point they need to be dismissed until the local reality is uprighted. Simply to many are not needed and the division of labor uprighted since the entitled are destoying the true nature of things. We can observe the last 100 or so years very easy. Who is paddling there own canoe? Left or right provides it own path which any man can see. They simply burden my family since they wish not to work. I am not a perfect man and have made many mistakes as all, but I paid for it and no one else. Currently we are very very low debt ratio and all my children are now years into work and pay as you go in there education. Two are in medical and another in engineering study. I am convinced more than ever this will linger for decades for many from yes some bad luck but more pointedly from policies which are derived to collapse the forrest for there so called wisdom.
A difficult treatise to read, but you make many valid points. The future is as murky as the last coffee left in the pot at 5 pm, but trends are obvious and its currently obvious that the battle is "the world" versus "the bankers" and so far the bankers are winning.
How do we cause the bankers to commit suicide again using their own greed as in the 2008 economic collapse? - and how do we keep the bankers in the government from bailing out their brethren?
We have no kings to hang, but bankers will do just fine. Goldman Sachs has been getting gun permits for their employees, perhaps theys see how things will end?
Once AGAIN: The disUnited States is too Big.
No offense to the men and wimmin who would 'lead' us, but you are all out of your fucking minds to think that a country this huge with all the diversity incumbent upon it, and the fact that a great many of our 320,000,000 simply don't care much about one another is 'leadable'.
Then there is the vast majority of the population itself, rushing headlong into hedonism, avarice, amusement, obesity, willful ignorance, and self-gratification on a level only seen during the waning days of Empire.
You expect too much from our so-called 'leadership' to govern an entire country bent on self-destruction. Our politicians are as little people, corrupt as anyone on the planet, achieving power because they look good on TV. Their arrogance, hubris, and God-like self regard is enough to make us sick and yet, our media treat them like princes and kings for some trivial thing that they do.
Lowered expectations and a huge dose of pioneer energy, spirit, and "just do it", will take those who wish it a hell of a lot further than depending on 535 rotating human animals. And that means, if you must, moving out to communities or founding them that are independent in every way they can manage.
good post anony +1
Good points Downtoolong and Whatta.
I would like to see some statistics on how long the average person stays in a job after they find one. In other words, how rapidly are we approaching the point where it takes longer to find a job than to keep it?
As long as we have a two party government we will get nothing new. ..a sloshing back and forth from "conservative" to less conservative.
On one side you have the feces-flinging band of monkeys known as the Democrats, on the other side the band of Hyenas, laying low and waiting for the kill to move in and take the booty...aka, the Repubs.
Until we have a new party...The Grown Ups...that realize that we cannot sustain on Ponzi Economics and vote buying entitlements, and that GDP shouldn't be The metric to measure health of the nation...we are fuct.
Ending lobbying, in all its forms, would be a good place to start. I would love to see a candidate talk about accomplishing nothing else.
...A second reading suggestion: 'Post Intellectualism and the Decline of Democracy; The Failure of Reason and Responsibility in the Twentieth Century' by Donald N Wood. Written in 1996 and quite prescient.
One look at what we once expected of an education via the Harvard Entrance Exam of 1869 and I would like to shoot myself.
I graduated highschool in 2000 and I can say, though I dont need to, that just from when I went to school the education was horrible. But now, I can only imagine what sort of garbage our "Educational" Department is dumping into the minds of our children.
This understanding, in itself, is enough to convey that this country has finally heard it's death bell.
I explain our economic devastation simply to my family:
"we are all the victims of a world-wide, reverse bank robbery."
In Soviet Amerika, the bank robs you.
haha yeah. How about reverse Robin Hood.
Not disgusted with lucky #13
Me neither.
We are taught to be politically correct.
One problem among many. Add to that several generations of people who feel entitled. When you tell these people that the world owes them nothing, you are the "bad" guy. None of this ends well, all you can do is hedge accordingly.