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You Know That Your City Has Become A Hellhole When….
Did Michael Snyder overlook any examples of Life in the Big Hellhole? I get the feeling this list is only the beginning. ~ Ilene
You Know That Your City Has Become A Hellhole When….
Courtesy of Michael Snyder of Economic Collapse
All across America there are cities and towns that were once prosperous and beautiful that are being transformed into absolute hellholes. The scars left by the long-term economic decline of the United States are getting deeper and more gruesome. The tax base in many areas of the nation has been absolutely devastated as millions of jobs have left this country. Hundreds of cities are drowning in debt and are desperately trying to survive.
Last year, city government revenues in the United States fell by another 2.3 percent. That was the fifth year in a row that we have seen a decline. Meanwhile, costs associated with health care, pensions and virtually everything else continue to explode. So what are cities doing to make ends meet? Well, one big trend that we are now witnessing is that many U.S. cities have been getting rid of huge numbers of employees. If you can believe it, 72 percent of all U.S. cities are laying workers off this year. Social services and essential infrastructure programs are also being savagely cut back in many areas of the country. The cold, hard truth is that most of our cities are flat broke and things are going to get even worse in the years ahead.
So how do you know if your own city has become a hellhole?
Well, a few potential "red flags" are posted below....
You know that your city has become a hellhole when most of the street lights get repossessed because of unpaid electric bills.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when it announces that it will no longer prosecute domestic violence cases in order to save money.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when it simply stops sending out pension checks to retired workers.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when it rips up asphalt roads and replaces them with gravel because gravel is cheaper to maintain.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when nearly half of all the people living there can't read.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when one out of every ten homes sells for under $10,000.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when you can literally buy a house for one dollar.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when you have hundreds of people living in the tunnels underneath your streets.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when three of your past five mayors have been sent to prison for corruption.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when nearly half of the public schools in the city get shut down because of a lack of money.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when you have dozens of young people rampaging in the streets that are thirsty for revenge and that are armed with bats, pipes and guns.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when it is considered to be one of the 10 most dangerous cities in the world. [Note: Capetown came in first, Detroit came in third, and New Orleans came in ninth. - ed.]
You know that your city has become a hellhole when thieves defecate in the back seat after they have broken into your car and taken your things.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when prostitution and drug dealing are two of the only viable businesses that remain in the city.
You know that your city has become a hellhole when the police chief announces that the police department will no longer respond to calls about burglary and identity theft due to very deep budget cuts.
Many of the examples above may seem humorous at first glance, but the truth is that they reveal just how deeply tragic our economic decline really is.
This is one of the reasons why I write about our trade deficit over and over and over. Every single month, tens of billions of dollars more wealth goes out of the United States than enters it. Every single month, we are getting poorer as a nation. Every single month, we lose more jobs and businesses.
Any politician that tells you that he or she can solve our economic problems without fundamentally addressing our horrific trade imbalance is lying to you. That means that there are a whole lot of liars in both political parties.
If the number of good jobs continues to decline, the plight of the average American family is going to continue to get worse. Home sales will continue to hover around record lows. The American people will continue to become increasingly frustrated with the economy.
The signs of decline are all around us.
Quit listening to the politicians and just open up your eyes and look.
So do any of you have any additional signs that a city has become a hellhole to add to the list above? Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below....
Second picture credit: Jak's View From Vancouver
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USA spends $1.40 for each $1 in revenue.
You want 40 cents less spending and I want 40 cents more revenue. I know, why don't we compromise and cut some fat like corporate welfare and interest on the debt and reforme healthcare, so spending drops in a rational way, and tax loopholes for corporations and the rich end so revenues rise slightly.
COMPROMISE? Says the reichwing, go fuck yourself and the fairy you rode in on they will say.
OK, I reply, then we can just wait till America has entirely collapsed and rebuild from scratch, but I assure you when we do you will wish you had compromised when you had the chance.
Those are the Feds...wait until the local boys get averaged in and see what happens.
In New Jersey Camden ,Newark and Asbury Park spends about 17.00 for every 1 dollar they take in ,with the other towns of N.J (property taxpayers) footing the bill !
exactly - good ol' fashioned wealth transfer brought to you by the NJ State Supreme Court.
It takes between $25,000 and $32,000 per year to educate a child in those towns. Those costs are paid for by state income taxes, and the towns that don't get thier share of income tax money end up raising property tax levels to absurd rates.
If this issue were "fixed" then NJ would be attracting businesses and workers from all over the northeast. I'm going out on a limb, but IMHO, NJ local government is more efficient that NY, on average.
How THE FUCK does it take $30k to educate a kid??? That number should be about 80% lower. 20 kids per class, pay a teacher $50k, and $50k overhead adds up to $5k per kid. Public education is a fucking racket.
You "left out" the administrators, principal, board of ed, groundskeepers, lawyers, buses, books, school nurse, breakfast program, lunch program, special needs programs, police officers in the schools, metal detectors, drug sniffing canines, achievement testing, football, basketball, baseball, art supplies... shall I go on?
Also the mandates from the federal and state departments of Ed. About 12 years ago I did a HS project where the auto shops were demolished and replaced with dance and art studios. I asked the board member why... he stated that the dance and art were new state mandates, but they came without funding, and the auto shop was not a requirement. Since there was no $ to replace the auto shops they were gone.
Useful skills replaced by spray paint and goosing butterflies.
Public school should be considered a form of child abuse, and is an absolute fucking waste. Teaches kids to be good little sheeple...I still have that pic of the sheep in the headlights as my background on my laptop.
Homeschool instead...sure it takes effort from the family, and we spend about $5000 a year on supplies for our four kids, but it beats the hell out of them getting indoctrinated in the government schools.
Oh wait, that takes actual sacrifice. My wife, with her MEd can't get the gov't job. Me and my PhD have to spend time with the kiddos in my subjects. And we have to give two shits about their future. Maybe if we were collecting welfare and food stamps wewouldn't care about them as anything else other than income generators for the family. Who is gonna rule the world? Likely not the public school flunkies we get. Anyone see the piece about having a higher grad rate by giving kids credit for FAILING classes?
Be sure to call me when we get back to the 1950s and the man alone can earn enough money to provide for an entire family, would you? Oh, right, that'd require some SACRIFICE from "entrepeneurs" to not send jobs to China or gamble on financial instruments.
We do it. A family of six on my meager prof job plus the money that I can squeeze out of the market. Sure I drive a 1996 Honda Accord that needs a paint job. Sure we don't eat out much, have cable, or a flat screen plasma. Our furniture is mostly inherited from dead relatives (and some of that is a ton nicer than the new crap made out of OSB). But it can be done if you decide not to fall into the consumer trap.
Hell, we spent a cople of months in France last year by using grant money and a contract for my next textbook. You just have to decide what is important. And American cities NEVER made that decision. That's why their ventilation services look so shitty.
Professors at even the state universtiy I graduated from make at least double what most public employees do (also, your textbook windfall is subsidized by skyrocketing education costs and textbook monopolies). Seriously, I drive a Pontiac as old as your Accord, don't have cable for my CRT TV, and inherited half of my furniture from dead relatives. I wouldn't even think of bringing a child into the kind of financial situation this country is trending towards. Great that it's working out for you though.
Popped on Zerohedge for a little insomnia check. This article will not help me get back to sleep!
I recommend y'all see the series "Prohibition" that Ken Burns produced for PBS. Fascinating.
Thanks Ilene.
It's well done, a little preachy though.
he did say it was done by ken burns...
@topic
you know that your city has become a hellhole when the citizens are made to bailout the banksters who robbed you all in the first place
Bullshit, it's the politicians not the bankers.
another bullshit ... it is the sheep that put the politicans in place and power and reelects the same parties = crocks = thiefs over and over again ... it's the damned sheeps - they are the only one which can end this - but the sheep prefer pocorn, coke, tv, games, porn, mtv etc. .... almost none of the sheep care about what is going on out there - so you get what you elect.
It's that simple.
"Hope and Change" is when the peons get around to rolling out the guillotines. Only until that time, it is just rinse and repeat.
And in addition to term limits, how about a little blurb on nepotism. Just might put an end to our dynasties.
The people? I am 53 and never once have I had the right or ability to cast an actual vote for a contested congressional seat. Sure there were usually two people running for the office but never has the opposition candidate had more than snowball's chance of winning, and in some cases the incumbent was not even challenged because they had a "safe seat." This is entirely due to gerrymandered districts and corporate graft. I the voter never had any say in it. And both of those causes have been signed, sealed, and approved by the right wing of the supreme court which legalized bribery when they determined that corporate donations are free speech, even as they upheld limits on private citizen political contributions.
You accuse Americans of being lazy and apathetic when the reality is there is NO MORE POLITICAL CHOICE in America. It is now a cycle of bankers jerking off politicians with million dollar hand jobs for political campaigns, and politicians paying trillions in our collective futures to the bankers for the happy ending. The people have not been relevant in the process since John Kennedy was elected. And even then were already in the process of being marginalized. That is why I hold such hope for the OWS movement, though the longer they go without violence the less likely it will ever amount to anything. As opposed to violence as I am we are just about finished as a nation.
I have said all my adult life that we will not be the USA again till we do a few things, end gerrymandered districting, end all money in politics, strict limit of two terms for any elected office, one man one vote in every election all of which need to be done by secret ballot, every state has a primary by secret ballot on the same day 90 days before the general election, make election day a national holiday but require a person to vote to get the day off with pay. And I favor changing election day to mid October, nobody but the federal government and banks take Columbus Day off anymore, it is not even politically correct if you like, why not change that holiday to election day? Every state would have a secret ballot primary on the corresponding Tuesday in July. If we do these things, so that American people are back in control and we are still fucked up THEN you can blame them, till then sheep they might be, but sheep in chains that cannot do anything legal about their sheering. I for one do not plan to go up alone against a highly mechanized and well armed federal government with all of it's technology, carrying only a stick and yelling slogans for reform. And if you think your bankster owners are going to cheerfully step aside and LET you change their dynastic ambitions for the sake of "democracy" you will be the first to go home in a body bag.
We could to all that and things would improve somewhat, but it's window dressing on a burning house, the rot would still be there. Kill the central banks. They'll crash the economy before they go, but that may be the nail in their coffin. Is there a nation on earth that explicitly bans fiat? After this there may be. This cycle is a chance to bury them for good, if only because of the unprecedented suffering that is likely coming, and people's unprecedented access to information.
Removing money and corporate bribery from the political process might not be the entire answer without other actions being taken as well, but no changes for the better can happen BEFORE these things are done. There can be such sweeping change to restore fairness and sanity without violence, at least in theory, I think many here are far too quick to fashion a noose. That said I am not optimistic either with or without violence because I also believe our owners would rather see every single one of us slaves dead and the world burned down to the dirt before they give up their wealth and power. And they have the means to do it too. Still, no matter the reality it is always wise to save the most stringent rhetoric for last, even the founders seeking seperation from Britain did not advocate war until the Boston Massacre and the attacks of Lexington and Concord. If it eventually comes to war/revolution by the people then so be it, but advocating war before it is necessary can be viewed as sedition by DHS and our owners.
For those that believe they still have freedom of speech please Wiki it.
Imminent lawless action is a term used in the United States Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) to define the limits of constitutionally protected speech. The rule overturned the decision of the earlier Schenck v. United States (1917), which had established "clear and present danger" as the constitutional limit for speech. Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely. While the precise meaning of "imminent" may be ambiguous in some cases, the court provided later clarification in Hess v. Indiana (1973). In this case, the court found that Hess's words did not fall outside the limits of protected speech, in part, because his speech "amounted to nothing more than advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future time,"[1] and therefore did not meet the imminence requirement.
Criminal anarchy in the United States is the doctrine that organized government should be overthrown by force or violence, or by assassination of the executive head or of any of the executive officials of government, or by any unlawful means. The advocacy of such doctrine either by word of mouth or writing is a felony in many U.S. states.
Seditious speech is speech directed at the overthrow of government. It includes speech attacking basic institutions of government, including particular governmental leaders.
Threatening terrorism against the United States is a class C felony punishable by 10 years imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 2332b(c)(1)(g). The elements of the offense are that someone willfully threatens to commit a crime that will result in death or great bodily harm; the threat is made with the specific intent that it be taken as a threat; the threat is so unequivocal, unconditional, and specific as to convey a gravity of purpose and immediate prospect of execution; the threat actually causes fear in the victim; and the fear is reasonable.[1] Laws governing such threats were passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The law was amended by the Terrorist Hoax Improvements Act of 2007.[2] False information and hoaxes pertaining to attacks on U.S. officials, government buildings, airplanes, etc. are also punishable under 18 U.S.C. § 1038 as a class D felony, punishable by 5 years imprisonment.
If you think those that you wish to see dethroned are enjoying your words or for a single breath not taking them seriously I suggest you cogitate a bit longer about it and start to think before you keyboard. At least adopt more sophisticated wording.
Not bullshit at all. The bankers pull the strings of ther employees in D.C. & the Supreme Court said it's OK to keep on buying the legislation you want. Don't you understand? It's the 'Merican way.
You fucking clown. Sound like a socialist at Occupy Wallstreet.
The government is the ultimate power, and the corporate bankers simply go to them to get favors. That synergistic relationship exists BECAUSE there is a corrupt government.
You had it backwards.
Fiat allows massive corrupt government to exist. It allows long-term wealth extraction that would never be tolerated as taxes.
Glad you find me amusing, Man0fBliss.
I am reminded of an old saying....Ignorance is bliss.
Chicken or the egg?
We have a bloated, out-of-control federal gov't that got hijacked by bankers in 1913. Reduce the size and scope of fedgov by 95% and you will take the bat out of the bankers hands...
You have a pathetically shallow understanding of both politics and finance.
Most of the trade imbalance is our dollars going overseas to buy oil. Eliminate the need to buy foreign oil and the trade imbalance will quickly reverse. The Alaskan Pipeline was built from 74 to 77 during some incredibly rough economic times. Thousands of unemployed went to Alaska to work and make a small fortune. If we had more energy development here in the US to replace foreign oil, tens of thousands of new jobs and possibly more would open up and from that new small businesses to support the energy development would be created. Everything from developing oil fields, natural gas fields and building nuclear plants would help bring our country back on to its feet. It would also end our need to be in places like Middle East fighting wars. Let China be dependent on foreign oil. We should do everything possible to ween ourselves off the the oil teets of foreign nations.
"Eliminate the need to buy foreign oil and the trade imbalance will quickly reverse."
So, if we end petro-dollars all will be well? And those oil-producing countries then stop buying US Treasuries? Clearly you've not thought this out very well.
Sure, the US WILL cut its imports, but don't believe that it'll do so via some central mandate (yeah, I'm sure it'll be tried), OR that it'll allow the US to magically prosper: again, there's the issue of the rest of the world, and given that the US owes a shitload to it/them and they will suffer from reduction in their ability to purchase US goods (in addition to US Treasuries), well, the picture is a bit more complicated than you might suggest.
As soon as you (or anyone else) can say how our/a/any economy can operate with ZERO growth is when I would say that we've stabilized. Reality is is that everything that we base our economies on is predicated on infinite growth: this is bad planning, especially on a finite planet.
_This_ economic system can't be sustained on zero growth, that's part of the problem. It's more simple than -you- think. End the siphoning of MOST of the wealth, let it remain in the hands of people who produce wealth (with hard money), and high growth rates aren't necessary. Growth of debt and the ability to service it is the central focus of a debt based money system. You seem really hung up on resource depletion. What's better: a monetary system that bends the entire planet toward ever greater resource use - much of it grossly misallocated - in order to service the top, or a system that can keep chugging along, redardless of circumstances?
No, I have never, nor will I ever, suggest that our current system is capable of dealing with anything other than a growth environment.
"You seem really hung up on resource depletion. What's better: a monetary system that bends the entire planet toward ever greater resource use - much of it grossly misallocated - in order to service the top, or a system that can keep chugging along, redardless of circumstances?"
Straw-man argument. I'm not in FAVOR of ANY system that's predicated on growth: because I tend to side with physics- can't have perpetual growth on a finite planet.
Please read what you wrote: "a system that can keep chugging along, redardless of circumstances"
"Regardless" means WITHOUT EXCEPTION. You may think that I'm a fool (not that you'd be alone), but I'm not That big of a fool. This is a complete failure in logic you've got going there. Unless you can define EVERY possible condition you cannot make such an absolute statement (well, you can make the statement, it's just that it cannot hold water).
Those that have been around here for a while should be pretty familiar with my positions (perhaps you are new?). The ONLY "system" that is balanced is nature, and as a whole it's the ONLY BIG system that works.
"End the siphoning of MOST of the wealth, let it remain in the hands of people who produce wealth (with hard money), and high growth rates aren't necessary."
MOST? Who is going to define how much that is, let alone what constitutes wealth itself?
High growth rates are NOT sustainable- PERIOD! Further, ANY growth rate is NOT sustainable. Feel free to prove this mathematically.
Sorry, but your posting sounds little different than Jamie Diamond's "doing god's work" rationalizing.
" The ONLY "system" that is balanced is nature, and as a whole it's the ONLY BIG system that works."
(too precious to pass up)
'Works' means what? You mean reality continues? Gravity and other forces persist? Because for 99% of species which have lived, nature didn't 'work'. They were part of nature, they're gone. The 'balance' seems to work against most species, given enough time.
If nature works on its own, without life, whoopee! Who cares? Life changes the equation, particularly when intelligence is involved. Nature - reality itself - only has meaning when life can experience it.
This is Zerohedge. You're new here. You are Andy DuFresne in Shawshank Redemption listening to Morgan Freeman's speech about how "hope" is a dangerous thing. Stick around long enough and you'll come over to the dark side, the black hole where everything is sucked up allowing not even light---or anything remotely positive---to escape. Soon enough you'll be linking to Alex Jones, Webster Tarpley and Rense, joining ae911, stacking PMs, putting a small statue of Ron Paul on your dashboard, and rattling off names like Lizard people, 33rd degree Freemasons, Illuminati and Bilderbergers, tattooing "<1913" on your bicep, and peppering your posts with "bitchez" and "cui bono". When you are absolutely certain you know the real story behind an event about which you haven't yet finished your first reading, you'll know you've arrived. You'll belong.
ZH be selling some strong motherfuckin red pills up in here -- DAMN this is sum strong shit.. yo can we smoke them pills too?? freebase em?
Your absolutism is pointless. I am new, and I don't like your yelling.
We're not talking about a technical truth here, more about a philosophy. Your math argument is really about the bounds of reality itself - yes, wow, nothing _can_ grow larger than what contains it. Oooh, it's mathematical. But we are not bound by the earth (go ahead with your list of reasons why we'll never get off planet, Negative Nelly).
The fact is that you and the rest of us can only guess what our energy and growth future look like, in the long term. If there's a decade of contraction boomarked by centuries of growth, is that not growth? Or a century bookmarked by milllenia?
You sit on your throne of absolutism and declare an end of things, based on part BS, part reality, and part panicky whining. At least qualify your statements - you're wallowing in the never never land where the sun burns out eventually and we exhaust every available piece of matter. We'll worry about it then. Until then, unbunch your britches a bit and relax.
BTW, my REGARDLESS statement was spot on. I didn't say it would keep growing, but that it was sustainable. Over ten billion years? Maybe not, but first the solar system, then the oort cloud, then the rest. Until someone tougher than us tells us otherwise and makes us accept it, the universe is humanity's to do with as we wish.
We do not have that option. Period. Not Bakken. Not ANWR. Not anywhere.
We need to be free of dependency on foreign oil, but we can't do that with domestic oil alone.
Maybe not based on US proven reserves, but the hemisphere is swimming in the stuff. Venezuela's got more (heavy) than the Saudis. And today's workable crude was yesteryears garbage. Are we really close to a maximum sustainable extraction rate? How can that be the case, when much of it is fenced off?
Sustainable depletion rate? Do you know how oxymoronic that sounds?
How this is any more oxymoronic than "recapitalizing the banks will solve our economic problems" I don't know.
Strength through exhaustion.
Sigh, too many examples proving that our educational system has in fact failed... (logic, not to mention simple math, is totally lacking in our populace)
The banks can go away overnight and the economy can still function. We have a multitrillion dollar infrastructure built on a declining resource. Every resource is declining. I think you misread my comment, snarkenstein.
No, I didn't misread your comment, thanks for asking.
NOTE: promoting the unsustainable is, well, like selling snake oil. Remove your so-called "fences" and when things are drained there, then what? This is a multi-dimensional world; just tired of all the two-dimensional thinking (like "drill baby drill" and "strength through exhaustion").
I know oil is a big one, but everything I buy seems to be made you know were. Even or government hires Chinese companies to build the big bridges (they say the USA has not enough welders that can do the job ABC news). We will never have enough welders if the Chinese keep getting all the work. I'm still waiting for Obama to say buy American. He talks around it, but does not say those words. OWS
Follow the money...
http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/uen_1200_bk_buyam.html
Buy American, War on Drugs, Fighting Terrorism, I've had enough big business + govt BS. The only thing that keeps me sane is that I KNOW that it'll all go away (in time).
As long as we're wasting all our resources to pay for a bloated military and a bloated financial sector, things will only get worse. The value these sectors suck in has to come from somewhere.
Of course, without our bloated military, we'll lose the petrodollar, and things will only get worse. Hmmm.
"Of course, without our bloated military, we'll lose the petrodollar, and things will only get worse. Hmmm."
13 thumbs up, 0 down. I'd say that you're on target!
Surely this should point out the impossibility of our/the world's predicament. It all boils down to a collapse in growth, the elephant in the room. Nature/Our Mother/God is now in control (seeing as we cannot act like adults and figure a way out), hedge accordingly...
I'd like to see some police laid off because we have ridiculously too many police here for a population of 3000. They've laid off many workers here, but I don't think they've laid off any police. Six of them surrounded my husband in our driveway, with 3 cars blocking our street with their lights on the other day because his friend's car had the licence plate light burned out.
Interesting point Dolly.
Is all the spending on the enforcers essentially creating the conditions they are trying to prevent? Will the local governments spend so much on new equipment, officers, pensions, support staff etc. that they will eventually bankrupt themselves?
But we NEED those enforcers of law! Without them large swathes of the population would almost certainly start doing whatever they wanted, like smoking the 'wrong' kind of plant.
I'm willing to pay most of my income to ensure my neighbour doesn't fall into this trap. My leaders tell me I am (they were voted in, weren't they?) so who am I to argue.
Rest assured, they'll soon start promoting their necessity in guaranteeing that your property rights are protected. Ah, the libertarian's conundrum: how to have minimal govt while still having Their rights protected (all the while looking to pay ZERO taxes)- yeah, I like this dream too, but...
I'm perfectly happy to pay everone else (ie, the state) a fee to be granted a monopoly on a portion of the earth's resources (ie, land tax), and for some of that fee to go towards maintaining a police force that ensure my monopoly rights are respected.
That's rather different to being coercively forced to surrender value to ensure my neighbour doesn't enjoy himself (at no cost to others) as he sees fit.