FedUpUSA

Archive for October 12th, 2011

I was skeptical that the protests were serious.

I suspected they were yet another “demonstration” – the sort where people come, they wave signs, they complain, maybe even they riot a bit, and then they leave.

In 2008, in fact, on August 26th of that year, I said the following:

In short, once again, fraud.  Legal, but fraud nonetheless.  You, America, seem to think this is just great as your grocery and gas budgets get squeezed.

You must think its great for your budget and lifestyle to get reamed, since I’ve yet to see a groundswell of people in Washington DC protesting or our city streets swarming with people who refuse to leave and shut down commerce.

And I amplified the point with:

Let me know when y’all get mad enough to do something about all this nonsense….. (funny how during the Democratic Convention last night the buzz was all about the second round of sore loserman with Hillary delegates rather than the outright theft and fraud from the people that the party supposedly claims to be most-closely aligned with!)

I guess that time has arrived.

Even CNBC has been effectively forced to recognize that this is not just a bunch of Soros-funded hippies.  Oh sure, they’re there; so is the SEIU, so are the other “usual suspects.”  And why not – they’re always “there” when there’s a good flag to be waved and a movement to try to co-opt, exactly as was the Tea Party, exactly as was “9/12″, exactly as were the Tax Day protests (two of which I have spoken at locally.)

But then they went home.  The streets were empty, the signs and people gone.

This time it’s different.

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000050634

This time support is coming from surprising places.  Like former corporate activist (and buyer of companies!) Asher Edelman.

Here’s the problem for the “powers that be” who have been trying to ignore this movement: They erroneously believed, as did many others (myself included), that this would be like the Tea Party (which was de-fanged and turned into a fraudulent shell of what it began as) or the other “movements” such as the “protests” at G-20 meetings.  That is, people would show up, they’d wave signs, a few would commit random acts of violence and guarantee severe negative billing on the local TV and then they’d all go home and wash the tear gas out of their eyes.

But something different happened this time.

The people came.  They didn’t throw molotov cocktails, sticks and bombs.  They did wave signs, but then they didn’t go home.  They did what I said would have to be done – in 2008 – in order to make a difference: THEY STAYED.

There’s been plenty of detractors spewing about the “Progressive Stack”; I have not witnessed it, and if it’s true that actual discrimination is being practiced, then we have a problem, as the fact remains that representative government demands that justice be color and gender-blind.  If it’s not, and the allegation is being made that it is not, then gentlemen, we have a problem – a serious problem.

But I won’t throw bombs on this issue until I know.  And toward that end, this weekend I will be attending one of the local protests.  With a bullhorn.  With others.  With people in the political sphere.  I am going both to talk to those who want to listen (if there are such people) and to listen and observe myself, and will take pictures while there.

Yes, at the end of that day I will go home.  But some others may not.  In fact, many others may not.

Here’s the thing: Even today, CNBC is still talking about “recapitalizing the banks.”  What’s “recapitalize” mean?  It means steal from you.  See, the reason you need to “recapitalize” these firms is that they pissed away their own capital by doing dangerous, risky, even fraudulent things.

The corporate media and politicians are still claiming that “we made a profit from TARP” and that “everything was repaid.”

This is a bald lie.  AIG didn’t repay their money.  Neither did GM.  Money was shuffled around in a complex shell game to appear that all was repaid but in fact what happened was that you, the taxpayer, were looted.

You were looted through higher prices at the gas pump, higher prices at the grocery store, lower wages and at the same time zero interest rates so those of you who were prudent got fucked THREE TIMES instead of twice!

Representative government?  Where?  By anywhere from 100:1 to 300:1 the people demanded that TARP NOT pass.  That the banks that did foolish and in some cases criminal things be forced to eat the consequences. 

Again, as I’ve said for four years: We need a banking system because we do indeed need a way to clear payments so you can pay a bill or buy gasoline and food – so commerce can flow.  We do not need these banks that committed these acts.

But rather than do the right thing, our politicians were bought and paid for on both sides of the aisle.  It’s particularly telling – and galling – that when allegedly being “grilled” by Hank Paulson in 2008 the banksters left the meeting smiling and yucking it up.

First they fucked you, then the government paid them to fuck you again.

Now, finally, it appears that the people have awoken.  A day of ineffectual sign-waving isn’t enough any more.  Oh sure, that’s part of it, but the part the media is ignoring – for now – is what’s happening after the “able to be ignored political rally” is over.

The people are organizing a Congress – a real one – in the public square.

They’re passing around ideas.

They’re debating.

They’re arguing.

And then they’re VOTING.

It’s self-organized.  It’s real.  And while the crooners in the mainstream media are trying to ignore what’s actually happening, they’re not stopping it – and in fact, they probably can’t stop it at this point.

Washington  – and Wall Street – now have an issue.  One that may not be able to dispelled or dispersed any longer.  One that may have now taken root and grown beyond the ability of the various factions in our government to either ignore it or stomp it out.

The people have, for four years, demanded that the foundational principle of representative government be followed: One citizen, one vote.

They didn’t get that.

There are many confused people at “Occupy Wall Street.”  They know they were robbed, financially raped and serially abused by banksters and politicians, but they’re not exactly sure how it happened.  I’ve written over 4,000 columns and a book – due out in a couple of weeks in hardback form – that details all of it, and Leverage details a path forward that I believe will address the problems on a permanent basis.

But that few of the OWS folks understand how it all happened doesn’t mean they don’t understand what happened.  After all, it’s not difficult to figure out that your job got offshored to China and you’re standing in the street after you are foreclosed upon.  You might not understand exactly why it is that your home went down in value by half or more, but you sure understand that you’re broke.  You may not understand that you’ve been promised things like Medicare from politicians like Jeff Miller and Steve Southerland, along with Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and of course Harry Reid that there is no mathematical way for you to actually receive ten or twenty years hence, but you do understand that you’re 50, unemployed, that nobody will hire you and while they won’t say it (because it’s illegal to “discriminate” on this basis) you have a stinking suspicion it’s because the embedded cost of your medical insurance is $2,000 a month and the company you applied to can’t afford it.  You may not understand exactly how you, the 20-something college graduate got ripped off to the tune of $100,000 by your “alma mater” for a worthless degree (proof of which is that you’re unemployed) but you sure as hell do know that the debt collectors are harassing you on a daily basis!

And let’s not kid ourselves – there were plenty of felonies committed here and both political parties are responsible for them, either as principals or accessories.  100,000 perjured affidavits in foreclosure cases?  That’s all ok?  Appraisal fraud that was rampant for nearly a decade – blacklisting appraisers that were honest and refused to play along so the bubble could be further inflated?  That’s ok too?  How about making loans that the lender knows can’t be paid (a business decision) but then marketing them as good loans to others when selling them on (fraudulent misrepresentation) – is that ok?  How about intentionally arming Mexican drug gangs who then shoot both Mexican and American citizens with the apparent full knowledge of the US Attorney General? Is that ok?  How about letting a major bank have a pass on criminal prosecution for money laundering for those very same drug cartels?  For a more “home grown” example how about the Jefferson County Alabama residents that have seen their sewer bills go up by something like a factor of five over the last few years due to a corrupt project that was rife with graft and tricky financial deals – and while some of the politicians and others went to jail in Alabama, not one bankster who works for the major financial institutions that were involved in the scheme was even indicted, say much less imprisoned. Or, if you prefer, half a billion taxpayer dollars “invested” in a company that, it appears, the government knew was going to fail. There are dozens, even hundreds of other examples of rank corruption within our political system.

Since our bought and paid-for politicians won’t lock up the fraudsters and do what has to be done to dismantle the looting of the American citizen they’re being literally replaced wholesale.

Yes, right now this is “local government” with a small “l” and a small “g”.  But make no mistake, this is representative government.  It is people hashing out what they want and how to obtain it from a process of debate and discussion.  Ideas are being circulated, argued, discussed and then voted upon.

That’s government folks.  You’re seeing it.

What comes next?

Well, that depends on whether the denizens in Washington DC pay attention and wake the hell up.  Whether they decide to STOP THE LOOTING AND START PROSECUTING.  Whether they stand and demand that the frauds and the schemes not only end but those responsible are held to account.  We tried it their way – “we must move on” – and the behavior didn’t change.  The swilling banksters not only didn’t go to jail, they didn’t stop looting either.  They stand on their 30th floor balconies sipping champagne and jeer at the “hoi polloi” below who are being literally bled dry by their schemes and scams.

The fact of the matter is that the cabal of looters, including Bernanke who is stealing from Granny each and every day with his “zero interest  rates” in a puerile and outrageous attempt to prevent those who ripped her off with “home equity loans” and 30% interest on credit cards from having to face the music for their idiocy, still haven’t repudiated their failed policies and faced the mathematics: What they’re doing can’t work; the victims of this vampiric attack have been sucked dry and have no more blood to “donate” by force!

There is only one question left to answer: How serious are these folks in the various cities?

If the people have truly awakened then the government had no option but to STOP THE LOOTING AND START PROSECUTING.  To deflate the odious and unpayable debt rather than try to build the pyramid higher.  To cease deficit spending.  To accept that the contraction that must come will come, but to refuse at the same time to protect those who did idiotic and even criminal things from the just deserts of their acts.

Yes, such a path forward will bring more economic pain in the short term.  But the bulk of that pain should fall on the over-levered individual (who will be forced into bankruptcy) and the fat-cat banksters who intentionally lent money they did not have and knew couldn’t be paid as agreed, who will also go bankrupt and join the ranks of the destitute.

There are members of the “1%” who got there through honest industry.  But they’re damn few in number.  Those who exploited offshore labor – kids and near-literal slaves, along with poisoning the air and water in China to make billions (e.g: all the “darling” companies people know and love) are not innocent capitalists.  They’re rapacious bastards, just as guilty as are the predatory lenders bilking people on serial refinances and University Reagents who built ivory-tower bullshit predicated on outrageously-abusive “lending” peddling worthless “degrees.”  Then there’s the medical “industry” that rips you off for $20 for a dick pill in America while a Canadian – hardly a poor nation – can pop the same pill for $2.  It’s all part of the same racket, and it’s time to tear the away special privileges that have allowed these people to literally steal your future and that of the youth of this nation.

I suspect that this movement will not go away.  Indeed, should the power of the government be abused further to try to stamp it out with violence there is a very real risk of revolution.  This is the fear I’ve voiced before; history says that for every 1 George Washington you get 10 Hitlers or Pol Pots.  The odds suck should the people decide they’re not going to stand for it, which is why in The Declaration the following appears:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

The Colonists more than 200 years ago knew the risks.  There were certainly many examples of attempts to form a more-perfect union that had failed in the past, resulting in totalitarian states.  Most of the Colonists came from one or another – they knew what bondage was!

No, I do not wish to see violence.  I do not wish to see Revolution.  I fear it, because I have read history, I have studied history, and I know the odds.  The odds suck ladies and gentlemen, but these odds are known to the Washington elite as well.

I therefore hope – indeed, pray – that instead we will see contemplation in our seats of political power.  That we will see the government do the right thing and respond to the will of the people, not the will of the looter.  The looters are not the people in the parks waving signs – they’re the ones in the balconies.  They’re infesting The Federal Reserve and indeed Congress as well.

There remains time for reform.  To level with the American people: You were made political promises that are mathematically impossible to keep.  The political machinery of this nation and indeed of other nations as well built edifices that ensconced and protected frauds, both legal and illegal.  These edifices must come down.  Those who did criminal things must be and will be punished, those who did stupid things must and will be exposed to the natural outcomes of foolish acts.

No, you cannot have the pension you were promised: Those who promised it to you lied.  8% compounded growth forever is impossible.

9% growth in medical costs cannot be sustained forever either.  Drug and device companies, along with the medical industry generally, lobbied furiously for special protections so they could literally loot the economy, more than doubling the share of economic activity they plundered from you.

The education industry is just as bad.  College costs have gone up some 500% over the last 30 years.  This too was driven by two fraudulent edifices: The claim that “everyone should go to college” along with “free” money lent to everyone to attend, even though those doing the lending knew damn well that a huge percentage could not pay and would not find employment.  We know this is true because these lenders lobbied for, and received, special protection to prevent students from going bankrupt and discharging their debt!

The housing industry lied as well.  10% growth projections in price trumpeted by many were a knowing lie.  That too is mathematically impossible on an indefinite forward basis; hell, even on a 30 year (duration of a mortgage) basis it’s impossible.  The $150,000 house turns into a $2.4 million one if you believe those numbers.  Yet this is what you were “sold” and worse, the financiers enabled it by “selling” you money to chase that which they knew would blow up.  They just didn’t know when it would.

We still hear people talking about “investing for the next 20 years” in companies that tout 5-year expected earnings growth of 20-25% annualized.  One such company, were this to prove up over 20 years, would have revenues of more than $2 trillion by that time.  Not billion, trillion   That clearly isn’t going to happen, yet that same claim was made in the 1990s and virtually every one of those firms collapsed – they were ultimately a zero!

Removing the artificial supports that propped up these schemes, scams and frauds will cause the economy to go into freefall.  That’s a fact.  But we can mitigate some of these harms, and we must.

We must stop believing in “globalization” where what it really means is offshoring labor to places with 1/30th of our labor cost as they employ children and near slaves, literally having to place nets around the buildings so the workers can’t commit suicide.

We must stop allowing people to come into this county as “migrants” when in fact the reason businesses want them here is that they’re undocumented, cheap to employ, cost-shift their education and health care to everyone else and are being literally abused as if slaves here in the United States.  No instead these people must leave – and those jobs must go to Americans.

We must recognize that the consequence of ramping inflationary impacts on assets -  including “home prices” – must be allowed to correct.  If you support widespread homeownership why is it that basically nobody actually owns a house?  You don’t own something if the bank has the title nor do you own something that you must pay taxes on every week, month or year.  I own my computer; it’s paid for and there is no continuing payment to government or a bank for it.  I do not own my house; while I have no mortgage to a bank I sure have one to my local county, don’t I?  We must stop lying to the people about what is really going on, have the debate on what we want, and how we’re going to pay for it.

In short the schemes, scams and frauds have to end.  I recognize that there is short-term pain involved in doing this but it doesn’t matter – it has to happen and it will.  Our only option lies in choosing to do it on our terms rather than through societal and political collapse.  For those interested in justice not only will ending the scams mean prosecution for those who deserve it, it will mean bankruptcy for many of those “Fat cats” who really aren’t rich – they’re living large on the same leverage that the common people were during the housing bubble years, and when it collapses they will be rendered broke as well.

We can either face facts in this nation or the nascent beginning of a potential replacement of our current government will grow, as will the risks.  History says that the people are usually ignored by the looters right up until a substantial fraction have lost everything and therefore have nothing to lose.  When that group become of sufficient size and decide to organize, the game’s over and the outcome is usually very undesirable.

Do not hope or pray for revolution my friends.  Down that road lies terrible risk and poor odds.  Instead, pray for wisdom and change by our elected and appointed officials, that they choose the path of sanity rather than compounding insanity.

The time to do the right thing is running out.

FedUpUSA, April 2008

 

FedUpUSA, April 2008

FedUpUSA, April 2008

FedUpUSA, April 2008

Same location; same message:  STOP THE LOOTING & START PROSECUTING!

  We’re all aware (at least those of us who care, and thus are worth two cents) of our ballooning national debt. As of this writing –latest Treasury figures dated Oct. 6 — Total Public Debt stands at $14.836776T dollars. That is, rounded to the nearest million (chump change) 14 trillion, 836 billion, 776 million dollars. That figure is what the (in)famous debt ceiling applies to. Such a sum is hard to visualize, but remember the succession of “-illions” goes by factors of one thousand. A billion is a thousand million, and a trillion is a thousand billion, one million million. An astronomical sum.

But it turns out that Total Public Debt consists of two components. One component is known as “Debt Held by the Public”, which is sort of easy to confuse with “Total Public Debt”, but the two are different things. Debt Held by the Public stands, again as of Oct. 6 at  $10.126447T, 10 trillion, 126 billion, 447 million dollars, again rounded the nearest million. Debt Held by the Public represents “real money” that the federal government has borrowed, the form of Treasury securities, from the “public”, which consists of Americans as well as foreign governments and central banks. All the money we owe China is included in this component.

But what of the rest, the other component, which is known as “Intragovernmental Holdings”, which as of Oct 6. stands at $4.710329T, 4 trillion, 710 billion, 329 million? What is this? Well, it turns out this really something of an accounting scam, something that would make Enron and Bernie Madoff proud. What they did was illegal, however what the governement does is completely legal, because the law not only allows, but creates the whole thing.

Let’s consider a married couple. The husband is a spendthrift ne’er do well whose pockets quickly have holes burned in them by money. He blows everything he makes on booze, strip joints, and similiar. His poor wife works, making a salary of her won, yet she is responsible. She wants to put away savings to handle their retirement as well as their future medical care and the general rainy day that might come. That is, she wants to invest it.

Her husband makes her a deal. “Hey Honey, why don’t you invest your money with me”, he suggests. “I’ll even pay you interest, more interest than you’d make at the bank!”. And so she takes him up on it. She hands her paycheck, less current needs for groceries, and he writes he IOUs. She puts those IOUs in a  “lockbox” and counts those as her nest egg retirement investment. Hubbie just takes the money and blows it on more booze, hookers, and everything else. Every six months, he pays his wife interest just as he promised.

He pays those with more of those IOUs, of course, which the wife dutifully puts in her lockbox. On paper, she’s doing good. Her “investment” with her husband is paying her a nice interest rate and her little “trust fund” in her lockbox is doing well. On paper.

Now, even with his own salary, and his wife’s, the husband is still spending more than he takes in. He runs up the difference on the credit card. Let’s consider the household debt in the situation. The household owes the outside world the credit card balance. But the IOUs in the lockbox are something the husband owes the wife, a type of “intrahousehold debt” we might call it. One part of the household owes the other part.

Now is this arrangement between our husband and wife here worth anything? It’s a scam, a joke, you say, and there’s  no way the wife can consider those IOUs to be worth anything. And that’s true.  The only way the wife can get her money back is from the husband. And where will he get it? He’ll either have to somehow increase his own income or borrow it from the credit cards to pay her back. Are those IOUs any sort of real asset the wife  could sell to someone else for cash? Hell no. No one in their right minds would take those IOUs.

The whole thing is just a little Ponzi scheme the husband is running on his wife, blowing her money and tricking her into thinking it’s an investment. This is what Bernie Madoff did of course.

Who is this couple running this Ponzi finance scheme? Well, they’re relatives of ours, turns out. The husband is an uncle of ours, Uncle Sam to be exact, and the poor naive wife is Social Security, Medicare, military and federal civil service pension funds, and some other stuff.

This is exactly how the “trust funds” of Social Security, Medicare, and the rest are financed. The payroll taxes that come in are put in the general fund and spent, with Uncle Sam writing IOUs to the trust funds for the difference between what they had to pay out and what they took in. He makes interest payments every six months on these IOUs, in the form of yet more IOUs.

This is that intragovernmental debt. It is where the “lockbox” for Social Security and Medicare and the rest all live accounting wise. It is debt one part of the government owes another part. You may protest, surely that can’t be. The trust funds claim they hold US Treasury bonds, the “safest investment in the world”.  Well, they are called Treasury bonds, but a “special” kind, called Government Account Series (GAS).

These GAS bonds are only for the purpose of government accounts, and are non-marketable, which means they can’t be sold on the open market. Just like our wife above can’t sell her pile of IOUs, so Social Security and the other trust funds can’t sell any of their GAS bonds. Thus they are nothing but IOUs as worthless as the sorry husband wrote his wife.

So Debt Held by the Public is like the credit card debt the husband has run up, and Intragovernmental debt is the pile of IOUs he wrote to his wife.

The only way those GAS bonds can be made good is to be redeemed by the US Treasury. But where is it going to get the money? Only by borrowing from the public or raising tax, or both, (or worse printing money to pay for it).

There are no “trust funds”, just a pile of IOUs with fancy names. And the only funding for those trust funds going foward is the federal government’s ability to tax and borrow from the open market.

And incidently, something even more Enronish has been going on with the trust funds the last couple of years. Remember the payroll tax cuts which were part of the various stimulus bills that were supposed to be the medicine our economy needed and which failed miserably? Well, that’s like our sorry husband asking the wife take a pay cut. But he says he’ll make up the difference and pay her back he lost pay. How does he pay her back? Well, as I’m sure you guessed now that you’re wise to the game, he pays her back with more of the same IOUs.

Publius-SC - FedUpUSA

Discussion (registration required to post)

The U.S. economy is dying and most American voters have no idea why it is happening.  Unfortunately, the mainstream media and most of our politicians are not telling the truth about the collapse of the economy.  This generation was handed the keys to the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen, and we have completely wrecked it.  Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have left us drowning in an ocean of corruption, greed and bad debt.  Thousands of businesses and millions of jobs have left the country and poverty is exploding from coast to coast.  We are literally becoming a joke to the rest of the world.  It is absolutely imperative that we educate America about what is happening.  Until the American people truly understand the problems that we are facing, they will not be willing to implement the solutions that are necessary.

The following are the top 100 statistics about the collapse of the economy that every American voter should know….

#100 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits.  Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.

#99 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.

#98 Since Barack Obama was sworn in, the share of the national debt per household has increased by $35,835.

#97 The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.

#96 It is being projected that the U.S. national debt will hit 344% of GDP by the year 2050 if we continue on our current course.

#95 The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that U.S. government debt held by the public will reach a staggering 716 percent of GDP by the year 2080.

#94 In 2010, the U.S. government paid $413 billion in interest on the national debt.  That is projected to at least double over the next decade.

#93 According to one new survey, one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.

#92 State and local government debt has reached an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP.

#91 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income.  Today, government transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.

#90 U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

#89 According to a new study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.

#88 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#87 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980.  Today they account for approximately 16.3%.

#86 The cost of a health insurance policy for the average American family rose by a whopping 9 percent last year, and according to a report put out by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, the average family health insurance policy now costs over $15,000 a year.

#85 One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

#84 An all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all at this point, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.

#83 According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States.  Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.

#82 Average yearly tuition at U.S. private universities is now up to $27,293.

#81 The cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent since 1978.

#80 In America today, approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loans.

#79 In 2010, the average college graduate had accumulated approximately $25,000 in student loan debt by graduation day.

#78 The total amount of student loan debt in the United States now exceeds the total amount of credit card debt in the United States.

#77 One-third of all college graduates end up taking jobs that don’t even require college degrees.

#76 In the United States today, there are more than 100,000 janitors that have college degrees.

#75 In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.

#74 In the United States today, approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.

#73 It is being projected that for the first time ever, the OPEC nations are going to bring in over a trillion dollars from exporting oil this year.  Their biggest customer is the United States.

#72 U.S. oil companies will bring in about $200 billion in pre-tax profits this year.  They will also receive about $4.4 billion in specialized tax breaks from the U.S. government.

#71 The United States has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976, and since that time the United States has run a total trade deficit of more than 7.5 trillion dollars with the rest of the world.

#70 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#69 The U.S. trade deficit with China is now 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#68 Today, the United States spends more than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.

#67 China has surpassed the United States and is now the largest PC market in the entire world.

#66 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in “advanced technology products” of $16 billion with the rest of the world.  In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.

#65 In 2010, the number one U.S. export to China was “scrap and trash”.

#64 Do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe?  Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.

#63 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#62 If you can believe it, more than 42,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been closed down since 2001.

#61 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.

#60 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.

#59 According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades.

#58 If you gathered together all of the workers that are “officially” unemployed in the United States today, they would constitute the 68th largest country in the world.

#57 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States right now than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.

#56 Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job.  In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.

#55 Only 55.3% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 were employed last year.  That was the lowest level that we have seen since World War II.

#54 Today, there are 5.9 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 that are living with their parents.

#53 The economic downturn has been particularly tough on men.  According to Census data, men are twice as likely to live with their parents as women are.

#52 According to one recent survey, only 14 percent of all Americans that are 28 or 29 years old are optimistic about their financial futures.

#51 Incredibly, less than 30 percent of all U.S. teens had a job this summer.

#50 According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.

#49 Since the year 2000, we have lost approximately 10% of our middle class jobs.  In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.

#48 In 1980, 52 percent of all jobs in the United States were middle income jobs.  Today, only 42 percent of all jobs are middle income jobs.

#47 Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs.  Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.

#46 According to Paul Osterman, a professor of economics at MIT, approximately 20 percent of all employed Americans are making $10.65 an hour or less.

#45 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.

#44 Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.

#43 New home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.

#42 The all-time record for fewest number of new homes sold in the United States was broken in 2009.  Then it was broken again in 2010.  It is on pace to be broken once again in 2011.

#41 At one point this year, U.S. home prices had fallen a whopping 33% from where they were at during the peak of the housing bubble.

#40 U.S. home values have fallen approximately 6 trillion dollars since the housing crisis first began.

#39 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant.  That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.

#38 Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5 percent.  Today, it is up around 4.5 percent.

#37 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, at least 8 million Americans are currently at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.

#36 According to a Harris Interactive survey taken near the end of last year, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.  In 2007, the same survey found that only 43 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck.

#35 Starting on January 1st, 2011 the Baby Boomers began to hit retirement age.  From now on, every single day more than 10,000 Baby Boomers will reach the age of 65.  That is going to keep happening every single day for the next 19 years.

#34 According to a new poll by Americans for Secure Retirement, 88 percent of all Americans are worried about “maintaining a comfortable standard of living in retirement”.  Last year, that figure was at 73 percent.

#33 One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.

#32 In 1950, each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers.  According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now only 1.75 full-time private sector workers for each person that is receiving Social Security benefits in the United States.

#31 According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security system paid out more in benefits than it received in payroll taxes in 2010.  That was not supposed to happen until at least 2016.

#30 The U.S. government now says that the Medicare trust fund will run out five years faster than they were projecting just last year.

#29 According to one study, the 50 U.S. state governments are collectively 3.2 trillion dollars short of what they need to meet their pension obligations.

#28 A different study has shown that individual Americans are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire comfortably.

#27 Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.

#26 According to a shocking AARP survey of Baby Boomers that are still in the workforce, 40 percent of them plan to work “until they drop”.

#25 Last year, 2.6 million more Americans dropped into poverty.  That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.

#24 Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty.  Today, 15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty.

#23 More than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid.  Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#22 More than 45 million Americans are now on food stamps.

#21 The number of Americans on food stamps has increased 74% since 2007.

#20 Approximately one-third of the entire population of the state of Alabama is now on food stamps.

#19 Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#18 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.

#17 The poverty rate for children living in the United States increased to 22% in 2010.

#16 There are 314 counties in the United States where at least 30% of the children are facing food insecurity.

#15 In Washington D.C., the “child food insecurity rate” is 32.3%.

#14 More than 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry.

#13 It is estimated that up to half a million children may currently be homeless in the United States.

#12 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.

#11 According to a recent report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.

#10 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own more than a third of all the wealth in the United States.

#9 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#8 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.

#7 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006.  Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.

#6 According to one recent poll, 90 percent of the American people believe that economic conditions in the United States are “poor”.  To put this in perspective, only 11 percent of Americans rated economic conditions in the U.S. as “poor” back in January of 1999.

#5 According to another recent poll, 80 percent of the American people believe that we are actually in a recession right now.

#4 Our dollar is being systematically destroyed by the Federal Reserve.  An item that cost $20.00 in 1970 will cost you $116.78 today.  An item that cost $20.00 in 1913 will cost you $457.67 today.

#3 The Federal Reserve made $16.1 trillion in secret loans to their friends during the last financial crisis.

#2 The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine.  Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 4700 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.

#1 According to a new CNN/ORC International Poll, 27 percent of all Americans have never even heard of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

We need to educate America.

Please share this with as many people as you can.  Time is running out for America, and 2012 is going to be an absolutely pivotal year in the history of this nation.

We are in the midst of a long-term economic decline that is rapidly accelerating.  If dramatic changes are not made very quickly, we will soon witness a full-blown collapse of the economy.

Wake up as many people as you can.

We are running out of time.

The Economic Collapse

Asher Edelman went down to Occupy Wall Street to try to help educate people about what really happened to our economy.  He should know better than most.  From Wiki:

“Asher Edelman began his career on Wall Street in 1961. In 1969 he formed Mack, Bushnell and Edelman where he was CEO.[1] Edelman’s Wall Street businesses included Investment Banking, Money Management, and Derivatives Trading.”

‘There are many educated people down here….they all want to know why no one has been prosecuted; why no one has gone to jail.’

‘Well, the answer to that is very simple: these are the same people who pay to put the politicians in office.’

Well, there you have it. You’re being looted. In broad daylight.

STOP THE LOOTING & START PROSECUTING!

DEMAND IT! NOW!