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Guest Post: The Corruption Of America
Submitted by Porter Stansberry of Stansberry Research
The Corruption of America
The numbers tell us America is in decline... if not outright collapse.
I say "the numbers tell us" because I've become very sensitive to the impact this kind of statement has on people. When I warned about the impending bankruptcy of General Motors in 2006 and 2007, readers actually blamed me for the company's problems – as if my warnings to the public were the real problem, rather than GM's $400 billion in debt.
The claim was absurd. But the resentment my work engendered was real.
So please... before you read this issue, which makes several arresting claims about the future of our country... understand I am only writing about the facts as I find them today. I am only drawing conclusions based on the situation as it stands. I am not saying that these conditions can't improve. Or that they won't improve.
The truth is, I am optimistic. I believe our country is heading into a crisis. But I also believe that... sooner or later... Americans will make the right choices and put our country back on sound footing.
Please pay careful attention to the data I cite. And please send me corrections to the facts. I will happily publish any correction that can be substantiated. But please don't send me threats, accusations against my character, or baseless claims about my lack of patriotism. If I didn't love our country, none of these facts would bother me. I wouldn't have bothered writing this letter.
I know this is a politically charged and emotional issue. My conclusions will not be easy for most readers to accept. Likewise, many of the things I am writing about this month will challenge my subscribers to re-examine what they believe about their country. The facts about America today tell a painful story about a country in a steep decline, beset by problems of its own making.
One last point, before we begin... I realize that this kind of macro-economic/political analysis is not, primarily, what you pay me for.
You rightly expect me to provide you with investment opportunities – whether bull market, bear market, or total societal collapse. And that's what I've done every month for more than 15 years.
But that's not what I've done this month. You won't find any investment ideas at all in these pages. This issue is unlike any other I have ever written.
I'm sure it will spark a wave of cancellations – costing me hundreds of thousands of dollars. I fear it will spark a tremendous amount of controversy. Many people will surely accuse me of deliberately writing inflammatory things in order to stir the pot and gain attention. That's not my intention. The truth is, I've gone to great lengths throughout my career to protect my privacy.
I am speaking out now because I believe someone must. And I have the resources to do it. I am sharing these ideas with my subscribers because I know we have arrived at the moment of a long-brewing crisis.
Our political leaders, our business leaders, and our cultural leaders have made a series of catastrophic choices. The result has been a long decline in America's standard of living.
For decades, we have papered over these problems with massive amounts of borrowing. But now, our debts total close to 400% of GDP, and America is the world's largest borrower (after being the world's largest creditor only 40 years ago)... And the holes in our society can no longer be hidden...
We've reached the point where we will have to fix what lies at the heart of America's decline... or be satisfied with a vastly lower standard of living in the future.
How do I know? How do I statistically define the decline of America?
The broadest measure of national wealth is per-capita gross domestic product (GDP). Economists use this figure to judge standards of living around the world. It shows the value of the country's annual production divided by the number of its citizens. No, the production isn't actually divided among all the citizens, but this measure provides us with a fair benchmark to compare different economies around the world. Likewise, this measure shows the growth (or the decline) in wealth in societies across time.
So... is America growing richer or poorer based on per-capita GDP? Seems like a simple enough question, doesn't it? Is our economy growing faster than our population? Are we, as individuals, becoming more affluent? Or is the pie, measured on a per-person basis, growing smaller?
This is the most fundamental measure of the success or the failure of any political system or culture. Are the legal and social rules we live under aiding our economic development or holding us back? What do the numbers say?
Unfortunately, it's a harder question to answer than it should be. The problem is, we don't have a sound currency with which to measure GDP through time. Until 1971, the U.S. dollar was defined as a certain amount of gold. And the price of gold was fixed by international agreement. It didn't actually begin to trade freely until 1975. Therefore, the value of the U.S. dollar (and thus the value of U.S. production, which is measured in dollars) was manipulated higher for many years.
Even today, our government's nominal GDP figures are greatly influenced by inflation. The influence of inflation is particularly pernicious in GDP studies. You see, inflation, which actually reduces our standard of living, drives up the amount of nominal GDP. So it creates the appearance of a wealthier country... while the nation is actually getting poorer.
The only real way to accurately measure per-capita GDP is to build our own model. The need to build our own tools tells you something important – the government doesn't want anyone to know the answer to this question. It could easily publish data far more accurate than the indexes it puts out. But government doesn't want anyone to know. And it wants to be able to say "those aren't the real data" when studies like ours produce bad news.
So pay attention to how we built our charts. You can see for yourself that our data are far more accurate than the government's figures. Our data are based on the real purchasing power of the currency, not the nominal numbers, which are completely meaningless in the real world.
The question we are trying to answer is: What would per-capita GDP numbers look like, if we used a real-world currency, like gold, or a basket of commodity prices, instead of the paper-based U.S. dollar? What would the figures be if we measured GDP in sound money instead of the government's funny money?
Here's how we figured it out. We took the government numbers for nominal GDP and measured them first against commodity prices, and later (after it began to trade freely) gold. We used a standard commodity index (the CRB) up to 1975 and gold post-1975. The result of this analysis shows you the real trend in U.S. per-capita GDP, as measured on a real-world purchasing power basis.
Our analysis shows you what's actually happened to our real standard of living. The results, we suspect, will surprise even the most bearish among you.
America is in a steep decline.
Americans Are Getting Poorer – Fast
Let me anticipate the "official" criticism of our study. Many people will claim that our numbers aren't "real." They will say that we "mined" the data to produce a chart that showed a steep decline.
That's simply not so. All we've done is convert the government's nominal GDP stats into a fixed currency value that's based on real-world purchasing power. The fact is, our data are far more accurate than the government's because they represent the real-world experience.
That's why our data are far more closely correlated to other real-world studies of wealth in America.
Consider, for example, annual sales of automobiles. Auto sales peaked in 1985 (11 million) and have been declining at a fairly steady rate since 1999. In 2009, Americans bought just 5.4 million passenger cars. As a result, the median age of a registered vehicle in the U.S. is almost 10 years.
Our data shows that real per-capita wealth peaked in the late 1960s. Guess when we find the absolutely lowest median age of the U.S. fleet? In 1969. At the end of the 1960s, the median age of all the cars on the road in the U.S. was only 5.1 years. Even as recently as 1990, the median age was only 6.5 years.
Rich people buy new cars. Poor people do not.
Most important, our data "proves" something I know many of you have felt or perceived for many years. You've seen the decline of your neighborhoods. You've gone years without being able to earn more money in your job. Or you've seen your purchasing power decrease to the point where you're now substituting lower-quality products on your grocery list for the brand-name products you used to buy.
You can see how much harder it is on your children to find good jobs, to buy good housing or a new car. As a result, few people under the age of 40 have the same kind of "life story" as their parents.
And because they can't "make it," many have decided to "fake it." The average college student now graduates with $24,000 in debt... and by his late 20s has racked up more than $6,000 in credit card debt. Meanwhile, median earnings for Americans aged 25-34 equals $34,000-$38,000. (Source: Demos.org, "The Economic State of Young America," November 2011.)
Can you imagine starting your life out as an adult with a personal debt-to-income level at close to 100%? What does this say about the state of our economy? What does this say about the state of our culture?
Who Suffers Most
It's not only the young that are having trouble in America. It is also the old.
Debt levels among households headed by people older than 62 have been rising for two decades. The average mortgage size for this population is now $71,000 – five times larger than it was in 1987 (adjusted for inflation), according to William Apgar of Harvard's Joint
Center for Housing Studies.
Older Americans are also more reliant on credit card debt than ever before... credit card debt. From 1992 through 2007 (which is the latest data available) older Americans took on credit card debt at a faster pace than the population as a whole. According to USA Today, lower- and middle-income Americans aged 65 and older now carry an average of more than $10,000 in credit card debt, up 26% since only 2005.
Given average interest rates of 20% for these debts, it's a fair bet that these obligations will never be repaid. But they will have a terrible impact on the standard of living of these older Americans.
What in the heck is going on? Don't Americans pay off their mortgages before they retire? Don't they work hard during their careers, save, and invest, so they can move to Florida and spend their retirement in comfort?
Older Americans living with credit card debt! This doesn't sound like America, does it? Or maybe it does.
My bet is that most of my subscribers know that something has gone terribly wrong with America. It's not easy to figure out how all of this happened... but you know from your own experiences that these numbers aren't wrong. It might not be pleasant to think about... but these figures paint a sad but accurate picture: America is not the country it was 40 years ago. These changes are warping our economy, politics, and culture.
In this month's issue, I'd like to try to define a few of the core reasons we're in this situation. I can't possibly analyze all the factors that have led to this decline. But I want to document the growth of graft in politics. I want to demonstrate – with real facts and examples – how public company leadership has deteriorated. And I want to document some of the things that are occurring in the broader society, all of which I believe are linked to this fundamental decline in our standard of living.
You see, I believe the decline of our country is primarily a decline of our culture.
We have lost our sense of honor, humility, and the dedication to personal responsibility that, for more than 200 years, made our country the greatest hope for mankind. I want to detail some of the factors that gave rise to the current entitlement society. We have become a country of people who believe their well-being is someone else's responsibility.
I've labeled these problems: The Corruption of America.
These problems manifest themselves in different ways across institutions in all parts of our society. But at their root, they are simply facets of the same stone. They are all part of the same essential problem.
The corruption of America isn't happening in one part of our country... or in one type of institution. It is happening across the landscape of our society, in almost every institution. It's a kind of moral decay... a kind of greed... a kind of desperate grasp for power... And it's destroying our nation.
The Ethos of 'Getting Yours'
Americans know, in their bones, that something terrible is happening. Maybe you can't articulate it. Maybe you don't have the statistics to understand exactly what's going on. But my bet is, you think about it a lot.
For me, a poignant moment of recognition came this month.
Bloomberg news published an article based on confidential sources about how Henry Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and the Republican U.S. Treasury secretary during the financial crisis, held a secret meeting with the top 20 hedge-fund managers in New York City in late July 2008. This was about two weeks after he testified to Congress that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "well-capitalized."
I knew for a fact that what Paulson told Congress wasn't true. I wrote my entire June 2008 newsletter detailing exactly why Fannie and Freddie certainly had billions in losses that they had not yet revealed to investors – $500 billion in losses, at least. There was no question in my mind, both companies were insolvent – "zeros," as I explained.
And yet, in front of Congress, the U.S. Treasury secretary was saying exactly the opposite. Either I was a liar... or he was.
Then... only a few days later... what did Paulson tell those hedge-fund managers?
He told them the same thing I had written in my newsletter. He told them the opposite of what he'd said publicly to Congress. He told these billionaire investors that Fannie and Freddie were a disaster... They would require an enormous, multibillion-dollar bailout... The U.S. government would have to take them over... And their shareholders would be completely wiped out.
Here you had a high-government official, explicitly lying to Congress (and by extension, the general public), while giving the real facts to a group of people who represented the financial interests of the world's wealthiest folks. The story didn't come to the public's attention for two years.
This was the most outrageous example of graft and corruption I have ever seen. Certainly it involves more billions of dollars in misappropriated value than any other similar story I can recall. These managers had the risk-free ability to make tens of billions of dollars, if not hundreds of billions, by using derivatives to capitalize on what they knew was the imminent collapse of the world's largest mortgage bank. Who picked up the tab? You know perfectly well. It was you and me, the taxpayers.
(One of the investment managers present at this meeting was Steve Rattner, who by that point was already deeply involved in another bit of graft, his efforts to bribe New York state pension-fund managers for large investments into his hedge fund, from which he earned perhaps as much as $100 million. He later settled the charges for a mere $10 million shortly after Andrew Cuomo was elected governor of New York.)
The Bloomberg story... about a crooked Treasury secretary handing a room full of crooked billionaires inside information worth billions of dollars... hardly caused a ripple. As far as I know, no actions are being planned against Henry Paulson or any of the hedge-fund managers involved. No other major media outlet picked up the story. I saw nothing about it from the Department of Justice or the Securities and Exchange Commission.
What does that say about our country when even the most egregious kind of corruption – involving hundreds of billions of dollars – is simply ignored?
It seems like everyone in our country has lost his moral bearing, from the highest government officials and senior corporate leaders all the way down to schoolteachers and local community leaders. The ethos of my fellow Americans seems to have changed from one of personal integrity and responsibility to "getting yours" – the all-out attempt, by any means possible, to get the most amount of benefits with the least amount of work.
You can see this in everything from the lowering of school standards (revising the SAT) to the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional, college, and high school sports. Cheating has become a way of life in America.
I have an idea about how this happened... about the root cause of this kind of corruption and why it was inevitable, given some of the basic facts regarding how we've organized our government and our corporations.
Let me show you the numbers – the hard facts – behind what's happened to our country...
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There are tons of positive externalities that are not incorporated in this report. If you want to follow the same logic, we should get rid of all US born children because they are a HUGE net cost - after all they don't pay taxes and we have to pay for their school! Actually, if you think about it most of the American population is a NET COST to the country (ie they pay less in taxes than they receive in government services). Let's just kick the basically 50% of Americans that don't pay federal income taxes out of the country because they cost the government BILLIONS!
My program for Full Employment:
1. Expel all the immigrants.
2. Smash all of our machinery.
3. Tie our hands behind our backs.
4. Using one hand, pull each other around in carts.
So full of winning.
Illegals get ENDLESS benefits including SS disability, food stamps, welfare, Section 8 housing, free healthcare and the list goes on and on. You have no clue. Working class Americans pay for it twice and three times over. You are liar.
As I have lerned the hard way via an ever growing list of "ex-friends" and family members that would rather not be in the same room with me, the sad truth is that most Americans simply do not give a flying fuck about facts or the truth if it in any way interferes with their delusion that "all is well, our government is good and America is exceptional".
To try to point out any negative economic indicators get you branded "a negative person". If one dares to challenge the MSM spin on any given geopolitical event, or heaven forbid you question the official 9/11 story, you are a "conspiracy theorist".
I'm tired. I'm fucking sick of it. I'm sick of people. I, quite simply no longer give a fuck what happens to this country or the people in it. What ever happens, they deserve it. and the worse it is the better because a nation this stupid needs to cease to be influential for the sake of the rest of humanity.
I've made an early new years resolution. The next "friend" that tells me I'm "too negative" or a "conspiracy theorist"...I'm not going to argue with them. I'm just gonna crack a bottle over their fucking heads and piss on them.
I feel your pain alien-iq. I'm tired of tired of trying to explain it to every "friend" who calls me a conspiracy nut. Fuckem. I'm done. Let it burn.
They are retards who watch TV and are brainwashed daily by their prized HD brainwashing flat screen. ALL TV is sh*t and the idiots who switch in on enjoy being serfs and enpowering their overlords by viewing.
If you've never heard this Leonard Cohen song alien-IQ, I think you'll like it. Maybe you're already a fan, as I am. It seems to me to be the theme of the times. Anyhow, this goes out to you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUfS8LyeUyM&feature=youtu.be
Take a deep breath when you encounter someone who is ignorant and wants to stay that way. You will talk yourself blue in the face and you won't change their views. As for yourself, what has been seen cannot be unseen and that is a strength and an advantage. Think of it as a sort of "Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience" thing and realize that is how people are and what life is.
And try not to do anything for which you'll end up in jail.
Absolutely, bitch, moan, blog, protest, and implore as needed, but not to the point that cuffs are involved.
Even Jesus did not expect to save or even be heard by everyone.
As the Indonesian tsunami prepared to hit, some ventured out toward sea as the water pulled back. All they saw and understood was a bigger beach. Remote native groups, handing down verbal history from generation to generation, moved to higher ground and were relatively unaffected by the tragedy.
The couple first-hand Great Depression survivors I know have a sense that a repeat is near. They don't know HFT from MBS from CDS, but they understand the motivations, maneuvers, frailties, and emotions.
Nobody knows how long extend and pretend can delay the inevitable. Be careful of being correct so early that being correct does not matter. Until that first over-printed bill is rejected, the presses are creating what looks and feels somewhat normal. Playing along is a reasonable response, so take it easy on the ones that choose that response. If this goes on for several more years, that response will have been the better choice than a strident, alarmist one.
Take it from the GD survivors. They hated living through it, hated leaders that let it happen, hated those that profited from others' misfortune, but cherish having weathered the struggle with friends and family.
You and I are the same, sir
words/mouth
I'll second that!
I hear you brother, but don't be too hard on the ignorant. They've been conditioned for years by the MSM. Watch a children's show sometime and see how often the scene changes. It's every three to five seconds. This is a great technique for shortening the attention span of a child and from their school test scores, it's working great, because they can hardly concentrate on anything at all!
And take the new paradigm of digital everything for the young'un's. The Detroit school system recently spent millions of dollars on computers hoping to bump up the level of thinking of those young minds, but it is a waste! The view that paper books (not talking about text books, that's a whole scam unto itself!), are unnecessary is another way to soften their little jello brains. A real book takes discipline to read!
Your friends and relatives get their entire world view from NBC, CNBC, CNN and a host of other, mega-media controlled outlets that tell you what they think you should know. They don't know any different. The parallels with "The Matrix", 1984, Brave New World and other stories is well known (as we know it).
Educate when you can, as you'd want to be educated. My wife told me that she heard on the news that some idiot commentator said that Ron Paul wants to be friends with Iran! And she believed it, because it came out of the box! So I educated her and told her what Ron Paul's views are on foreign policy. No more Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan or any other shit-hole POS country that's not worth bothering with. Let them slaughter each other. Who gives a flying rats ass about the starving children in all these third world countries? I don't! Don't have kids you can't feed, Stupid! Unless you're in California, then we'll give you $50K a year to stay home.
in the main they have kids so as to have 1 or 2 survive since they will need them to take care of the parents in their old age.
Some of you people never get out of the trailer park and it really shows.
I am well aware of the custom of large familial units providing for the elderly and frankly it doesn't make me care much more..
LOL! Wait till those people who live in trailer parks come for your stuff. I just wish I had a beer and a chair to sit there for the show. Let me tell you - these "trailer park red necks" will be much better armed and more skilled than you are. A lot them will know a lot more about .223 and .308 than you do. Many will be able to drop you at 300 yards +.
These dumb hicks will know redneck skills like reloading.
BTW - more thn a few of the "trailers" on my street are $5 to 6 million and this is after the bust. Never put down Americans who have a lower economic status than you have. Be grateful for what you have. Oh and while you are at it - Go FY.
there I was agreeing with you about the TeeVee & ADD stuffs, and then you had to go all mainstream with your assessment of
for fucks sake dude, humans! they are humans, trying to survive amidst the grinding of the machine extracting the "resources" from beneath their feet, while simultaneously poisoning them with Depleted Uranium and other war filth! can you even imagine the stress related illness of having to live in a continuous war zone, knowing full well that it will always continue??? perpetual war.
that is so full of MAINSTREAM I can smell the shit over here! do you HONESTLY believe the amrkn WAR MACHINE is saving starving children?? or intervening in a little in-fighting??
ahh fuck it, *shakes head*
That's exactly right. The humility of hitting rock bottom has a way of clearing a mind of bullshit. One quickly realizes what really matters or else dies. Most Americans alive today have never experienced this clarity. They will.
like many others have said, been there. I think most of these folks are motivated by fear. Seems ironic that as the evidence gets clearer and clearer, they get more stubborn, even aggressive in their position. It's just a defense mechanism. It makes no logical but a great deal of psychological sense. Like the military mother, the 911 family, or the upstanding father accused of incest. The truth is so frightening and ugly, denial feels like an easier route for everyone around. The bad guys knows this and almost dare anyone to make such outrageous accusations. And now, when the accuser can't be proven wrong, they are captured, held indefinitely, & transferred to military jurisdiction.
I feel your pain brother... I also reposted your quote [via screenshot] to my facebook. Powerful summary IMO.
*lifting a bottle of titos*
Cheers Alien
I just quit talking to most everyone, as their belief systems are too hard-wired to be undone. I've got a few nephews though, that might still be reachable, especially when I give them another Silver Eagle for Christmas, and remind them how it is "worth" 4 times as many Fed notes as the first one I gave them nearly ten years ago.
Can't give this post enough +1s
the writer evidently does not read "Seaking Alpha" and the theory of Dystopian economic growth, whereby income spreads are the salt and pepper of future growth; it affirms that the middle class mantra, the horizontal "american dream" never really existed, that verticality is the driving force in society. Having 10-15 % unemployment is a sign of economic health. THe more billionaires we have, whose economic uber-wealth is "inevitable", as so brilliantly scripted by MAnckiewicz in the Barefoot Contessa, the better off we are as CIVILIZATION. Wow, now that!...does not breathe corruption, it breathes, well, you tell me.
Never mind those who live and die in their tents all over the land, alone and abandoned, they are the new Apache. The fact that they have been thrown out of the economic cycle for reasons beyond their control, just like the APache of old, is besides the point. This America is not about them, its about those who have clout, lots of it, and irrespective of what the law says. Maybe they should take down that Lady who stands with her torch upright inviting the poor and the deprived to join the melting pot of New York, to live their irrepressible urge in the pursuit of happiness; what the founding fathers saw as vision for all.
...From one who owes so much to the makers of the american dream as seen on that one and only flickering screen, invention of the seventh art of humanity. Prost! Santé!
You really have a gift for writing, but it's your logic and reasoning that make your posts worth reading.
Appreciated. My offering to you as appetiser : http://www.falakpema.com/buythebook.html
Its my personal star trek into history in form of novel (Tome 1).
Merry xmas!
Is that some new Disney movie? The Sea King?
-Spelling Nazi.
There have been many prior periods of rampant corruption in the U.S. If we adjust them for inflation, they might be even larger than today's corruption....we always like to think of ourselves as unique people living in a unique period....Teapot Dome or the rip-off by the railroads of public land, the robber baron era come to mind
"Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere, the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
William Butler Yeats
great poet
I've been thinking of these lines
I think it better that in times like these
A poet's mouth be silent, for in truth
We have no gift to set a statesman right
Today successful auction Spain, ECB lending facility gives relief and better new home sales in the US. #WhatCrisis/Collapse?
The median car age in 1969 was 5 years because there were many more one car families.
And, cars then were not nearly as well made. 100k miles was the absolute limit, later on in the 70's it was closer to 75k. Today, those rides are just getting broken in. There's no need for newer cars.
A more appropriate metric would be the average odometer reading, both then and now.
Jesus Tapdancing Christ!... Why bother with all the histrionics on cars at all (age or mileage)?...
If we were REALLY better off, we'd have figured out a way to be beyond all of that by now...
depends , maybe being better off is still having cars that most all can afford.
You never think it can be worse but................
Look at the vast increase in drivers and all the below poverty have cads and jags and shinning spinners. What , no progress. bilge.
that was because the OD was turned back 3 or 4 times so yeah the "mileage" never got very high on the old cars.
Of course given all the insane gvt regs it's a wonder that the new cars run so long according to your experience. How could that happen. more regs better vehicles.
Houston we have a problem.
Correlation something something causation.
Err... The citizenry of the west is enthralled to Rothschild/BIS Inc. The big play is on for the east my friends.
Why is it zh hardly covers the house of red shield? The apex of apex's
You are all well read in these matters, you know what is coming.
Only the actual death of the Rothschild Inc will prevent what is to come, yeah right...they have military/water/food/energy & of course economic/politico paid for ages ago.
Ok, so the economic & hard war which will depopulate us shortly is almost 100 years in the making & we sit like sheep waiting, immobile with ignorance????
...baarhhhhh
Peace
it is indeed. too many people on ZH, gun nuts think because they own guns there will be a "war"- a war fought wolverine style like in (my fav) Red dawn - taking pot shots at these "evildoers" from whatever rural haven your family owns that you think will save you. you will die before you make it that far.
they (not rothschilds in partic, but central planners) are far outnumbered. all of the tanks planes bombs they have wouldnt stand a chance against an armed populace, they know that. all it will take is an avian flu mutation (lab created) dropped in a few airports that will spread quickly to every major city, and from there, wipe out the majority of the population. no shots even have to be fired. they will be far, far away on some remote island waiting for a few years while everyone else dies or kills eachother off. they come back to a much less crowded US, holding all the property, all the water rights - and have a nice fresh slate to start from. much easier to supress 30million people than 330 million.
the means of dispersal is already in place, wherever planes fly they now also create fine threads of poison that filters down daily. . . those with compromised "breathing problems" can attest to this, as do the stats indicating pulmonary deaths, childhood asthma, COPD, bronchitis, pnuemonia, etc.
the old, those with compromised immune systems, children - they will go first, but at any given time, the canisters can be filled with any mixture they like.
http://rt.com/news/bird-flu-killer-strain-119/
the science boys don't give a shit about anything but their funding - so, who funds them?
The standard of living not just of America, but the whole industrial world is declining. Asia is doing well only because they had fallen so behind, and now are catching up. Soon they'll stagnate and Africa will start to rise until it won't. But don't blame politicians / financiers etc. for the decline of living standard of the masses. Blame the progress of science. As we understand the physics/ chemistry/math of this universe better, we're able to imitate those laws and make robots which do all the cruder forms of work, hitherto peroformed by the masses. No politician or no party will be able to stop this progress. It isn't as if this hasn't happened earlier. In the dawn of industrial era, jobs of artisans, craftsmen and small time farmers all but disappered. The devastation it wrought wasn't apparent in the West, because those jobs were replaced by manufacturing. However look what happened to countries like China and India. In about a century they went from super-wealthy to pauperhood. Of course we may have huge setbacks in the form of revolutions and wars. Or sudden climate change will wipe out our species. Otherwise, march of science will go on. And only those with very high IQ will be able to survive and procreate. That probably is Nature's intent anyway. Natural selection for our species. Unless of-course Nature has other plans. Who knows.
technology and efficiencies could be a net gain for whole population, if we figured was to make sure all benefitted, but with technology and global wage competition, it is inevitable that a few will concentrate assets and the many will starve, even when overall resource production more than keeps up with population increase.
Look at US, our GDP per capita is far better than most countries, and yet our middle class is far worse off the France, Germany, Japan, and we have loads more desperately poor people than those countries.
Even in the 50s and 60s in the US, when there was much more need for low-skilled admin and manufacturing jobs, many jobs, via union bargaining, were sort of make work. Like, hey kid, dont sweep the floor around your station, that is somebodies job, you dont want them to lose that job. So the power of big labor extracted some of the wealth that would have otherwise gone to big corporation coffers, and tilted more to already wealth pockets. Instead, the wealth was more evenly distributed to the middle class, to the point a male high school grad could walk out of HS, get a job in a factory just by showing up every day, and raise a family of four or five easily, put a roof over them, send them to good schools, by a new car every few years, have a pension in retirement, and still save lots of money. But the requirement was to show up to a job 40 hours a week, when really, they probably only needed some of those people 20-30 hours a week.
Why not just reduce the work week further, to 30 hours a week, while still insuring wages allowed you to support a famliy with basic needs. Why the charade of a 40 hour job. Who decided 40 hours anyways? Why not 50 or 70 or 20? Or how about we do 40 hours a week, but have 3 months a year off? Do this on a global level, and a fat middle class will arise. It takes very little work to create food and manufactured goods anymore, how ever, service/labor intensive goods/services will go up in price, but so too will wages to pay for them.
That way, everyone has to earn they way, and still someone with talent, luck, smarts, pluck can still get rich, but we dont bother "making" work, people will be engaged and productive when they are at work, doing needed things that add value, like fixing the robots, writing software etc. adn they have lots of leisure. If they want to work all the time, grab two jobs, but then two jobs will mean income from second job is all gravy, extra, more than is need to pay for house, car, food, clothes.
Math isn't your strong point, is it?
Nor logic. Using violence to force even distribution of technological benefits is no way to provide benefits to anyone. But damn if we shouldn't do it anyway!
"Violence for good," the bane of statists since... well... like... forever.
Here's a clue, moneymutt. There's no such thing as a necessary evil. There is only evil. If something is necessary, then people should be allowed the freedom to pursue it. Do that one simple thing, and all the other social problems you mention fall by the wayside.
>As we understand the physics/ chemistry/math of this universe better, we're able to imitate those laws and make robots which do all the cruder forms of work
And yet there are still tons of idling factories, unused land, and material factors of production waiting to be transformed into economic goods.
>That probably is Nature's intent anyway. Natural selection for our species. Unless of-course Nature has other plans. Who knows.
"Nature" has no intent. Because it has no mind.
You do a nice job of channeling Rothbard and Mises, BTW.
I always enjoy walking people through the logic of the scarcity of the factors of production, especially the labor aspect of it, vs. the infinite demand of humans, as it's one of the few areas of AE that you can actually see people grasp once they come to the conclusion that there are always unmet human needs fighting over scarce resources. I've even gotten so far as to have some realize how the pricing mechanism itself is not evil, but the best way to determine the most efficient use of these resources in meeting human needs.
While that may not be enough to get them into a totally freedom-oriented paradigm, it's enough to cause them to reconsider their beliefs about the free-market. Then I can start deconstructing the corporatism they've confused with capitalism.
As our famous scum Hank The Stank Paulsen says and says it often to the Congressman from Florida,
"YOU BETCHA"! as he stumbles and mumbles.
"What does that say about our country when even the most egregious kind of corruption – involving hundreds of billions of dollars – is simply ignored?"
I don't think it was ignored by most people who heard of this. This is part of what OWS is about. The people who ignored it and could do something about it is the US Congress. Unfortunately 47% or congress is made up of millionaires and almost every single one of them (both millionaires and non millionaires), with the exception perhaps of Bernie Standers (I-VT), is beholden to Wall Street for past and present campaign donations and future job opportunities. This is a very bad state of affairs especially when paired with the Citizens United decision that allows corporations to donate as much as they please to federal elections.
So yes, there is massive corruption in our hallowed halls of Congress. But how do we get these folks to "bite off the hand that feeds them" so to speak? Wiston Churchill said it best "Americans will always do the right thing after they've exhausted all the other possibilities" Or put another way, when the shit hits the fan and there is NO OTHER OPTION, congress will do the right thing. They will despise having to do it, but their only other choice will be to get burned out of their homes.
August 24, 1814 -- Did you say burn out congress?
The Pentagon-enforced US global petrodollar extortion racket eventually pushes everyone down, including the US.
Pushing everyone else down only gives a false appearance of pulling oneself up for so long.
http://kingdomecon.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/americas-economic-hegemony-has-become-rather-immoral-why-is-this-so/
An office chair that smells like butt is an affront to all.
Brodsky at QBAMCO nailed it several weeks ago when he said recent events have clearly revealed that there are 30 central banks which are the true sovereigns in the world. They are unelected, unaccountable, and move unilaterally lording over the politicians and individuals of the planet. TBTS = too big to stop.
"Until I hear it from the Sugar Plum Fairy I'm keeping my head firmly planted in my super-sized ass." - Joe Sixpack
Time to cancel War on Drugs, and divert the money to a War on Fraud. Lock em up, first battle front, Wall Street.
"Steal a little and they throw you in jail,steal a lot and they make you king." -- Bob Dylan
The Steve Rattner case exemplifies the whole thing in a nutshell. Here was the guy who was rich enough to be paying the bribes and he got to pay a fine and get out of going to prison. Alan Hevesi, the State Comptroller who took the bribes, went to jail. And Andy Cuomo, by making an "example" out of Stevie had a lot of finance guys donating to his campaign after that...smart-- all the way around.
http://www.thenakedemperor.com/oligarch/steve-rattner
Niggerized...that's what we've become...so sad.
step up for most of you mongrels actually.
yeah, you must be bad off, you need to spew offensive racist negative hostile crap to feel good...cant feel good all on your own, got attack someone else, bring someone else down?
how about considering yourself in league with the travails of other people not excatly like yourself and joining with them, in good faith to make the world better?
naw...you rather hate on other people, I'm sure that makes you feel real good, hostility flowing thru your veins
That graph looks about right to me. We're fucked ducks.
The large Depressions always reshape the thinking and actions. We will go into a thrifty thinking mode for a while and then back to the Roaring Twenties/Nineties. Then back to a Depression. It is not different this time, only bigger. Big money wins in all situations. Financial and political Crime becomes more complex and convoluted for camouflage.
Round and round. EXCEPT, this time we have limited/decreasing natural resources and a greatly diminishing need for manpower. The aging population not only in the USA but in other Countries is also a newer phenomenon. As the US looks at the impossible ability to hire and work the growing younger population and attend to the needs of the aging generation, as well as having destroyed its own manufacturing sector, it is difficult to understand how this will all end well.
There may be a few givens for us.
It is unfortunate that the US Citizen appears to be not educated and informed enough to participate in the manner needed to save this Nation of ours. It may be possible to change that to save America. It may be that leadership in DC will not save the day. It may be that we are going to have to save ourselves as well as the USA.
IF-- by the People and for the People, This land is your land, is real. Caution, in that it could become past tense. history shows that to be true--------------- get involved and Vote Smart this time, then keep after them
I disagree somewhat. In 2008, millions of people voted for 'change' and got nothing of the kind. What has really happened is that instead of letting some steam out, they've clamped the lid on the pot ever tighter. I happen to think that despite our neo police state we now enjoy, if the grocery stores go bare, it will be 10 days at the most before this country loses its collective head. THEN, the masters of the universe had better tremble.
Nine meals away from anarchy
they're already passing the laws to disappear / lock up people, so I'm guessing the time is arriving soon on their timeline.
Faith in Votes will lock your shackles. This system that we now have is corrupt beyond repair, especially when the repair efforts are confined by the same boundaries that made the corruption possible to begin with.
Let it fall. Let it burn. Survive the chaos. Salvage the usable. Rebuild and remember the lessons.
The author makes excellent points and knows what he is talking about, but he speaks of an America the younger may never have experienced and don't believe. One where the people had a representative government (superficially) that seemed to do what their constituents wanted by majority. Laws were passed where television was used to promote consumption and corporate interests in the 1960's, and it has been getting worse every year. Americans used to all be part libertarian and call ourselves D/R/I/ and other things. The older among us recognize what Rep. Paul says because it was a part of our lives. It was basic decency and respect for others points of view and the 1st amendment. There used to be political debates where the issues were discussed that actually mattered. Now it is a circus designed by MTV where most candidates wear wireless earpieces to get the statements from their producer because they are mentally equivalent to a fencepost. You can see that some do not, Paul and Perry. One is brilliant, one is too stupid to wear the electric brain because it would confuse him. Our presidents have been puppets after Ike, JFK and Johnson. They all acted independently of their handlers, which probably hasn't happened since. We have had a couple that could talk to people honestly since, they were voted out for doing so. Go back and read a Lincoln/Douglas debate sometime and see what discourse is. Even Kennedy/Nixon still shows signs of a real debate.
This turmoil was designed by the folks that gamed our system to "get theirs". They have been doing a great job tranquilizing the nation as they stole the assets. Children don't have to learn anything, and aren't allowed to study what interests them where they could become journeyman specialists with a valuable trade if they aren't going to be teachers or scientists. But we don't have jobs for them. Ask a teacher what they think about the absolute shit they have to teach every student so no child is left behind, and where every child is then guaranteed to be left behind.
The acceptance of personal responsibility and end of insurance will cause a lot of changes. Certain folks might be considered disturbers of the peace. We know who some are, and need to learn who all of them are. If we don't, we die.
I remember the 80s as being the last time America was anything like you speak about. The old culture still had alot of inertia, but the decline had begun. It accelerated in the 90s and went haywire in the 00s. It's basically complete now.
Vote for Buddy Roemer
gave up after10 paragraphs of verbal hamburger-helper. Where's the beef, Porter? Or, in your case, the porterhouse steak?
Soooo, you have ADD so that means he's serving hamburger helper?
I know it's late but he's not a blogger but an investment advisor, no?
Worth putting in the effort? Yeah?
Do you think you're entitled to have your brain force fed to you like a widdle birdie needs to have his mommie force feed worms into his widdle mowf?
Dick breath.
Not sure what Raymond's problem was with your comment, from a comment that's only about 20 words long he diagnosed you as having attention deficit disorder & being intellectually spoiled or lazy. And added in "dick breath" in case you were still unclear about his opinion.
I'm a fast reader & even I found the article overly long & full of itself.
Porter Stansberry is a criminal. Shame on you Tyler!
Can we get rid of govt and take our chances with roving gangs?
fuck you , banksters don't roam bitch!
In Mexico (or China, Guatemala, Vietnam and so on) people work for $1 an hour, so it will hard for America to keep up when we pay assembly line workers $60 a hour, lifeguards $150,000 a year and bonus bankers $50 million a year.
Sad for some, but it's Simple Mathematics. As Friendman said, the world is flat. We all see the problems but few propose a realistic solution.
What would US GDP be if average worker in US earned a $1/hr? How about $1 Trillion. Therein lies the proof that most posters here carry their asses on the shoulders and their heads below their legs. But that's only 5500% Debt/GDP ratio.
100 years of slow brainwashing and America is finally in the proximity of the "end game." Congradulations NWO, job well done. Even our collapse is being 'marketed.' I am not sure if America as we know it will recover, but I guarantee there will be an accounting in the heavenly realms for what has been done. Beware if you are on the wrong side of this equation, and find yourself accountable to God for squandering the freedoms won by the blood of noble and righteous men. That is, if the NWO reader can even tolerate believing that the terms 'noble' and 'righteous' actually have meaning, and are not just archaic concepts to be scorned.
I am sure "heaven" would forgive you giving up your own freedom, but I don't think you will be as well treated when you take away others lives and freedom to prop up your right to a 60inch plasma web enabled of course.
still people, especially those in positions of power and influence just never learn, or maybe the eugenics conspiracies are real-
US asks journals to censor bird flu studiesthey asked scientific journals to censor articles regarding a lab created, weaponized version of the bird flu.
one that does not require direct contact with a infected bird to contract, but can jump from human to human much like the normal flu or cold... except the bird flu is lethal and has a very high mortality rate.
pardon my french, but are these people fucking insane?
this is some very real stephen king the stand project blue shit, if this gets out intentionally or otherwise we will have no further need to concern ourselves with wall street, economic collapses, jobs, stocks, bonds or which teleprompter wins the next presidential election seeing as most of us will be dead.
this is the problem with humanity, has been since we discovered large rocks and sharp sticks or learned how to unzip the atom, that somebody would even think to weaponize something like this just says all you need to know about the direction our future is taking.
this bio-engineering of "bird flu" has been ongoing for at least a decade now, as they introduce more "strains" to their mix. . .
I'd love to know who funds this "research" and why - but it really doesn't matter now. . . the white robes of the Science Priests will compete to find the most deadly toxins for the biowarfare machine, the same way they do with weaponry, or corporate GMO waste products.
and few will question their "wisdom" as we continue to die off. . .
We are faced with 2 very different choices of law. The choices are so opposed to each other, that the conflict between them comes out in this discussion. If I encounter someone whose choice of law is Privaqte Administrative Law, there is no conversation beyond initial disagreement. I test for that choice of law. I pull out a Federal Reserve note, asking if it is money. If the answer is yes, it is likely to be a very short conversation.
In reading this article, we must ask ourselves who's law we are subject to. As I wrote in "Two Masters", that decision goes beyond the issues of this life, and beyond this world. It is encouraging to see that someone will still state the facts of the matter and give account for why things are the way they bare. Private Administrative Law doesn't want to hear the solution to the problem, to this point. I didn't want to hear such things either, until I admitted to myself that I had inherited lies from my fathers, that were of no profit. I can only make my personal choice of law. I know who I serve.
http://georgesblogforum.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/the-daily-climb-2/
George, bolding everything does not an argument make.
Makes it easy for me to spot and scroll past, though.
If only things could be so simple.
IOW....Vote RON PAUL 2012
Your numbers in this chart are ridiculous! It shows that relative, measured per capita GDP in the early 1970s was nearing $200,000 per capita. I was around in the early 1970s and trust me, this was not the case by any measure.
If you are going to use numbers and charts to support your qualitative commentary, at least make them remotely believable. For me, it just called into question the validity of every subsequent figure and comment you presented. You sir are a tool.
If your the 1% why fix anything? Record profits and things couldn't be better. More profits please, and more and more and more. Even if it takes knocking who's left in the middle class down into the lower class.
I'm in the 1% and have donated more money to charity in the last month than 50% of the country has paid in income taxes for the year.
How 'bout the bottom 50% pay something (anything)
(I came from poverty and worked myself to the bone my entire life)
Bob, I'm giving you a big fat junk for being sanctimonius about charity, especially at this time of year. Count your blessings and STFU
Junk this [grabbing crotch]
given some of your past hijinks detailed by others here, I call bullshit on your life history, past-present-and future.
I would argue that all or nothing, white or black, is not what is best for us. If we get a winner (the one who has ALL the wealth), then they would now be king. They and their descendents will rule America for ever. They get to make all the laws, and with that no one will ever be able to unseat them. We are getting a taste of that now. The upper ten percent don't want any changes to the game that does not help them. The rest be enslaved. We are at a tipping point, where Americans will be ether rich or poor.
The OP's chart shows a GDP of 40K in 1981 and 120K in 2001. Anyone else here an adult in both those years? Did you actually have the feeling real GDP tripled in that 20 year period?
No. I agree. But who was the GDP tripling too? That's the question. He makes a good argument about the stats. The questions are similar to today and finance. The money supply is tied up in rehypothocated paper. Inflation is a ghost in the wings and real income has declined. There's been a swap of value in paper money for the hedge the financials have created and the two are about to meet.
I say this same stuff in every other post; I'm assuming it has to be parroted enough times before there's an uptake.
so repeat repeat repeat.
Absolutely asinine to try to rationalize his economic conclusions by contending that the shorter ownership period of cars in the 60's compared to today means a fucking thing.
Today's cars are driven for ten years because they are BUILT to last that long. The 60's cars were in every conceivable manner vastly inferior to today's cars, and the life expectancy of cars in the 60's was far shorter. Automobiles in the 60's were invariably mechanically unsound pieces of shit.
Ruins an otherwise okay article by using that absurdly idiotic analogy.
But they were loved, adored and restored even, and priced so you could afford one at least every three years, or as long as they would last. Now, if you really had to, and the grid don't go down, you could live in one; you know, listening to your MP3's, talkin with your heavy buds on your hands free, looking for a place to park overnight to sleep. But who's got $30,000 and a good enough rating to actually buy one. Winnebago, here I come!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7IvLEpjPmc&feature=g-all-f&context=G2ef3...
Police State Now!
It's probably just me, but does anyone else feel like they're constantly getting the "hard sell" in just about every area of life these days? On the rare occassions I go out to buy a good or service anymore I feel like I'm dealing with a store full of used car salesmen at every stop.
Well, if it works on K St. and Wall St., why not Main St.?
Honestly, I can't blame anyone for selling the sizzle, because that's all that's left!
perhaps many people have been downsized to "commission only" work. . .
What?!
Bush had an IQ?
Who knew?
Helliconia Winter, bitchez. Its begun.
http://briandeer.com/vaxgen/stansberry-fraud.htm
A young man trying to impress beyond his abilities. Too much spice. Too many notes
His point about Paulson and Ratner is spot on. WTF
Blatant corruption. Not a peep.
Next stop, pitchforks and torches.
Hank, can you see us coming through the privet......
The prospects for the American world empire, the most powerful nation in world history have never looked better. The economic prospects and freedom of Americans will decline but that isn't the point. The two things have to be seperated. America will solidify it's world domination during this century. Partly militarily and partly by being the home of all the worlds great corporations.
The individual is nothing and measures of American decline have nothing to do with individual Americans. Please get that through your head. Once you do then all this silly America in decline stuff can be put to rest. There is only one true America. That is the powerful nation. The airy fairy America of individualism and individual freedom is a silly fairy tale. You may not like it, tough luck. Deal with it.
Maybe in 1776. We're a tad along from there.
"The numbers tell us America is in decline... if not outright collapse."...
Well yeah, running a country based on fraud, deceit and perpetual wars is not just unsustainable but it's flat out wrong.
hule i think it is cherry picking to compare gdp to gold,the author is correct in many of his conclusions.if you elminate the top %10 of earners real median household income is unchanged in 30 years.If you you furter adjust for the the fact that wives are working more than evere ,then real median household income is unchanged in the last 40 years.Among the problems ,but certainly not the oly one is the huge maldistribution in incomes.Another is the the way that the tax code and subsidies are manipulated by the multi national companies. these multinationals have shipped millions of jobs overseas , so that they can maximize their incomes.What do you think would happen to the head of Chineses comapny ,who proposed the same thing.
Yes, but costs, inflationary and other wise have risen to outstrip the wage. Healthcare, food, energy, and the list goes on. So you're correct. We're just paying more for the same stuff.
First, I would love to believe that people can re-acquire their humanity, their honor and integrity. It seems unlikely, given the attitudes of self-righteous and self-important oligarchs.
If not then I would like to have an incorruptable judge who is capable of "casting the first stone" and who would relinquish all power save punishing the corrupted and evil by taking away EVERYTHING they have every gained through their corruption, not petty wrist slaps negotiated in a corrupt legal system. That is God's job.
It is apparent that the system cannot be fixed from within the system because the system as it has been corrupted for the benefit of the few, who believe themselves such superior beings, is essential to maintaining their power and superior position. The system cannot be managed for incremental cosmetic changes because that solves nothing.
And yet, failing God's intervention, they system MUST be radically changed to fix the problem.
Tell me, what exactly is the benefit to society of a fund manager? They create nothing and gain their welfare through their support of a corrupt system. We all need to look in the mirror.
And become day traders?
America has but one problem, unlawful money 12USC411 says it all. It is unlawful and can be created at will therefore robbing savers of its value. They can steal your "money" through inflation with no intrusion and no trespass whatsoever. They make bad bets whole at the people's expense. Without money from nothing, there would be no $14 trillion debt, no endless wars, no income tax (it was declared unconstitutional in 1895 on lawful money, but not on private credit). Fiat currencies historically have ALWAYS collapsed and that is where we are heading. First we are making it happen to the Euro to preserve the oil dollar, but eventually it comes here too. Ron Paul is the only timely answer.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30016.htm
Plan B – How to Loot Nations and Their Banks Legally
By David Malone
.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8632.htm
The Myth of American Exceptionalism
By Howard Zinn
( video lost? )
.
http://maxkeiser.com/
[KR255] Keiser Report: Victims of Banking Terrorists
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCu3fpg83TY
Money As Debt II-Promises Unleashed-Full Length Documentary
.
America is a police state soon to be banana republic. Nothing new in this report.
So this is what Rome felt like when the end began. Interesting. Scary. Like The proverbial frog in the boiling water, once we all fully realize what's happening it will be far too late.....
"The bank(st)ers broke no laws."
I am Obama of Wall Street, and I approve this message.
Obama said on 60 minutes that there was no illegal actions leading up to the 2008 collapse -- just bad judgements within the law. (paraphrased) I couldn't believe my effing ears.
Wow Porter!! I see you made over 1 million is just one "Hot Tip" from suckers that subscribed to your "New Letter". Have you finished paying the SEC fines yet?
You should change your name again and try to reestablish a reputation as something other that a scam artist.
http://patriotportal.yolasite.com/resources/CrisisControllAssessPotentialThreatViolence.pdf
anti terrorism manual...........isn't that sweet?
Bankers have been more successful at loading Americans from the age of 18 until old age with debt. Also Americans have been conditioned to spend everything they make. That should be a plus for retailers. Finally when Americans are elderly bankers can take what's left with a reverse mortgage.
the terrorism university release ...
Alarm as Dutch lab creates highly contagious killer flu
Fear of terrorism as university prepares to publish key details
Steve Connor
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/alarm-as-dutch-lab-creates-hig...
Tuesday 20 December 2011
.
"A deadly strain of bird flu with the potential to infect and kill millions of people has been created in a laboratory by European scientists – who now want to publish full details of how they did it.
The discovery has prompted fears within the US Government that the knowledge will fall into the hands of terrorists wanting to use it as a bio-weapon of mass destruction."
...
I'm sorry, but I just don't accept that chart showing $200K/person GDP in the early 70's vs. around $20K now. I was alive in the early 70's and we were not rolling in wealth back then. Houses were smaller, cars were more powerful but of lower quality and they didn't have things like power windows, CD/DVD players, GPS, etc. Medical care was a lot cheaper, but not as good. And there were no personal computers, smartphones, satellite TV, HDTVs, computer games, etc.
In short, I think the chart is total BS. There is no way that people were living 10X better in the early 70s.
That said, I don't think things have improved a lot since the 70s. Some things (like electronics) are much better, while other things like education and medical care have gotten a lot more expensive and haven't really improved much.
True, life was not much better then. Life was probably a little bit better in the mid 90's than now, before the advent of the police state.
Still, as we keep adding technology to our lives, we are, as a consequence, becoming dumber, because we lose physical vitality, sharp senses, the ability to make decisions on the fly, etc.
There are a few who are able to utilize technology to make themselves better informed and protected against the idiocracy.
@BigBen. That's Gross Domestic Product per capita, not wages. I too was eeking by back then (1970). I was in sales and turned about $80 to 110K in sales per year for $11,500 salary. Think about the auto workers who were making x # of cars per shift. How many cars did an (1) auto worker make in a year V. what it cost him to live and his wages? That's GDP!
I was alive in the early 70s as well and lived just fine on $10,000 a year. None of the gadgets we have today but gadgets enough. Medical care worse? Don't know; didn't much need it. But didn't know what debt was anymore than anyone else did.
Someone had closed the gold window in '71, however, and soon everything started to change.
It came to be known as the Great Moderation.
But it was really just the Great Leveraging.
Which is ending as I write.
Check please.
Oh, and then how come in the 70s one solid middle class income could comfortably support a family with 2 children, including paying off a house in a lot less then 30 years time?
There also were gadgets back then, SLR cameras became popular, and my father took Super-8 films of us. Hifi stereo took off, and Quadraphonic systems were introduced and flopped.
People were out of debt then, compared to now. It's easy to afford all the toys you mention if you borrow the money to buy them. Oddly enough, somehow millions of people had lives without personal computers, smartphones, satellite TV, HDTVs, computer games, etc
Having lived through the era myself I can guarantee you that the general feeling in the country after the Vietnam war ended was a lot more positive than today. Today seems like everyone in the country is pissed off.
My first thought is that the minimum wage is a joke and I am certain that no one can live off $7-$8/hr working full-time, and probably requires a second job AND a roommate just "to make ends meet". Wealthier Americans are prospering on the backs of the working poor here and around the globe and it makes me ill just thinkiing about it. Paying a living wage doesn't sound appealing to a business owner but maybe there's a moral responsibility to assuring the welfare of our citizens. I don't enjoy seeing store clerks working their butts off all day and knowing full well that they can't hardly rub 2 quarters together, all in the name of profits and keeping labor costs low, so that I, as a consumer, can buy cheap(er) goods at their demise. Unless and until people realize that this country can't be GREAT without taking some social and moral responsibility for our working poor, we will continue down the path of greed and selfishness. We complain about the top 1% and their greediness and corruptful ways but yet we are just as guilty everytime we make a purchase either foreign or U.S. made, for someone is probably taking it in the teeth.
+100 from me Michelle but you must surely be an evil socialist to think such things.
This poll from WSJ of 3900 people showed 85% thought the Euro going down through end of year. So only 15% think that the USD would be up by end of year, and thus 85% think that Santa will not show up to the party, and 85% think that the financial industry will be happy with smaller bonuses this year, rather than launch a ramp job.
Makes you say....hmmmmmm
http://oahutrading.blogspot.com/
Faribault Mill - woolen mill (1865),
Stormy Kromer, Bollman Hat Co., Pierrepont Hicks, Etsy
Well Spent, Made in USA challenge, Things Made in America,
Made in USA certified, American Made Matters, these were
all listed on CNN's website today in a story about buying American
Selling fewer cars each year would hopefully mean auto companies stopped making "designed obsolescence " automobiles.
"The truth is, I am optimistic. I believe our country is heading into a crisis. But I also believe that... sooner or later... Americans will make the right choices and put our country back on sound footing."
That is called "wishful thinking." Who is going to restore American values? The foreigners who have been flooding the country and taking over? The zillionaires who continue running the country into the ground for their own profit?
How about the geniuses going through our skool system? By test, Americans have been getting stupider every year for decades. Honesty and motivation is certainly at an all-time low. I saw a report recently that showed Americans are the most drugged-up people ever, something like 20% - 25% are using mind/mood altering drugs regularly.
People tend to get the kind of government they deserve. Be very afraid.
apparently "American values" were a fiction, and we're getting to the end of the novel.
clue: it's not the "foreigners" who are at fault, and the "zillionaires" have been doing their business for centuries.
We're headed for a real holocaust.
Of white people.
The difference between good and evil is marksmanship.
Who is John Galt?
Peter Schiff exposed Stansberry as a fraud on youtube not long ago.....check the video on youtube yourself. I forgot the link.
I knew from the past that he was a fraud....His predictions are too stupid & beyond the realm of common sense.
What in the World Are They Spraying?
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/what-in-the-world-are-they-spraying/
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The Myth of American Exceptionalism
By Howard Zinn
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8632.htm
Every once in a while an article is reproduced on ZH that results in a stream of comments like the ones here today, clearly showing how sick America truly is.
Thank you Mr. Stanbury for fighting the good fight. A man like you is rare today.
Nothing in this article is news. The real issue is that, the American goverment sold their soul to the Goldman Sachs Jews and the Jews have again bankrupt another country. They did the same in Germany in the 1930's and history has permeited this group of gangsters to do it again. So my real quetsion to all is, where the fuck is the outrage and when do you plan to wake up and vote for someone who undestands these people and their tribal memebers at the Federal reserve?
Where did you find this ranter? Really, we were 4x richer in terms of per caita GDp half way through the George W era? And ~10x richer during the glory days of Nixon? Since the writer is light on details and heavy on assertion that chart is completely meaningless and so is this post.
Yossarian; You are spewing a myth. It only appears that we are x times richer, when in reality, all of this is the result of INFLATION. On a inflation adjusted basis, we have continually lost ground since 1929. In a sense, we really never recovered from the Great Depression. All that happened, was that WW2 reset the world economy, at the expense of tens of millions of lives, destroyed economies {only the USA and USSR came out better than they went in} and the creation of the military industrail complex. We also got Bretton Woods, which assured the american empire for decades, until the creation of the "petro-dollar" took it's place. Credit that you can't pay back does not make you rich. It makes you a slave. All of this was the result of unsustainable credit indebtness, that is now unwinding globally. We are seeing it in real time, but in slow motion. Death by a thousand cuts.
If you believe it's not your job to tell everyone around you what to do, you might come down on the same side as Porter…
If you believe that it's not your job to financially support your neighbor, you might come down on the same side as Porter…
If you think paying 50% of your annual income to various federal, state, and local government entities is onerous taxation (after all, the Almighty gets by on just 10% a year), you might come down on the same side as Porter…If you believe one of the greatest joys a human being can have is learning how to take care of himself, and engage in productive achievement, rather than depend on strangers for his wellbeing, you might come down on the same side as Porter.
On the other hand…If you're a public employee who makes more than $100,000 per year doing the same job private-sector employees are paid $75,000 to perform, you'll probably hate Porter's ideas…
If you're among the congressmen who made millions of dollars over the past decade trading stocks based on insider information, you'll probably hate Porter's ideas…If you're a career professor, lobbyist, and politician who has never held a job in the private sector or managed a business… whose greatest joy is accumulating political power… you'll probably hate Porter's ideas…
If you're one of the hedge-fund managers who made millions of dollars trading on the illegal "tip" provided to you by former Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman Sachs CEO) Henry "Hank" Paulson, during the 2008 credit crisis, you'll probably hate Porter's ideas…
Does this mean that none of you are in on this equity rally?
Let's make some confetti for the big end of America party.
Think what you will about Porter as an annalist or as a person,but I think Newbee hit the nail on the head.
Amen
People should do all you suggest but above all place your spirtual house in order!
Repent and Accept Christ
John 3:16
My country's problems began when the people "took the bait", and believed they could get something for nothing. Moral decline ALWAYS is the forerunner to declines in all the other measures. History bears this out. No fault divorce, the false interpetation of Seperation of Church and State and abortion have destroyed our family structure that was the glue that held us together. I am old enough to see first hand the result of this transformation over the past sixty years. Drug addiction is rampant. Single parent homes are the new norm. Despair is everywhere. This country has turned it's back on all that made it great. I am not so optimistic there will be a turn around, allthough it is possible. Too many people's heart are hardned. The mere mention of the word "God" brings rabid attacks and laughter directed at the speaker. Perversity is now an accepted alternative lifestyle, complete with federal protections. The economic crisis' we are experiencing are just a symptom of a much bigger problem. Is there any will of the masses to do what is necessary to turn back? I don't see it on the scale necessary to avert disaster. Imperial Germany and Imperial Russia had the highest number of church attendees in all the world, second and third only to the USA, which was #1. Look what became of them in less than a generation! We as a nation are following in their footsteps. The blueprint that those two nations followed, laid out for them by the illuminatti, is what lies ahead of us unless we repent. Let the attacks begin.
Should we physically fight this?
I am heading to the mountains to raise goats and grow coffee, sugarcane, taro, bananas & plantains.
This helped me understand what is going to happen:
Should Christians physically fight with flesh and blood to "take America back" from the moral, political and legal corruption it is now falling into? Should we fight with the government and conspirators or is there a purpose in this? God told me that the Scriptural understanding of this would save the lives of many Christians. The Word shows us that a civil war is coming to America and that Christians will get the blame when the right-wing loses. Great persecution is coming. Make sure it's not your fault.
This will give you great peace to know that God is in control of the evil conspirators and that He will use them for great revival.
South Korean activists, defectors launch giant balloons to send propaganda leaflets into North #Korea. http://apne.ws/w0mvRh -MM
Kim Jong Il would have sent roses back. As his revisionist historian, I can say that he was a humanitarian and a sentimentalist who was misunderstood by the world
Here I’ll write something that I dare say, no doubt undeservedly, might be wisdom. On the other hand, it might be just capitulation rationalized as wisdom. Regardless, I think this is why articles like this---and the constant attempts to “enlighten”---are pointless, or nearly so:
1) You might be wrong.
2) Nobody wants your advice.
3) If you turn out right, everyone will blame you.
Optimism is a hope and a salve, perhaps even a form of denial. Gloom is an old time religion, and its believers are wont to proselytize. Gloomers are irritations the same way a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon approaching your front door is an irritant. Gloomers cannot consider that they might be wrong, since they can “prove” everything, which is even more irritating to the proselytizee than the message itself. That self-righteous certainty is a turn-off. People avoid Gloomers like the plague, because often they are the plague, or almost as bad. The world always will end tomorrow, but (for you aficionados of old Arabic sayings) bukra f’il mesh mesh.
Everyone who tries to “educate” should first consider how he might welcome a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Mormon, or a Wahabi Islamist, or Pat Robertson, or (insert your own favorite disbelief here). Anyone who would not welcome such “education” should not impose his own brand on anyone else. To put it in terms anyone on ZH can understand, imagine being locked in a room for all eternity with Bob Pisani.
If one insists on teaching, teach by example (clearly something this "moral decline" Mr. Stansberry has failed to do). Anyone curious enough to care will ask, just as anyone who cares can read Zerohedge or Kyle Bass. Lay clerics in the Church of Our Perpetual Coming Maelstrom might convert one in a thousand, but at the cost of 999 friends and family members. That’s not value for money. It’s much better for the soul, as well as the neighborhood, to find a place of worship that appeals, and if preaching need be done, preach to the choir. And dig deep when the plate is passed.