Thursday, July 18, 2013
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, July 18, 2013
Just finished up "Two Graves" by Preston and Child. An excellent read, as are all the authors' novels - whether written jointly or separately!
Next up... "Stranger in Paradise" by the late Robert B. Parker; part of the Jesse Stone crime/mystery series.
(Yep... I'll start "Stranger" when I get to swim club later... after a refreshing dip!)
Anyway... time for a bit of newsbiting...
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323993804578613350309766768.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
* THE HEADLINE:
Stocks Reach New Highs: Dow industrials, S&P 500 Hit Fresh Intraday Peaks
* MY REACTION...?
(*SNORT*)
(*SNICKER*)
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
(*SPITTING ON THE FLOOR*)
* FOLKS... WE'RE LIVING IN WONDERLAND.
http://www.npr.org/2013/07/18/202744981/part-time-workers-say-schedules-are-getting-more-erratic
The ranks of people working part time because they can't find full-time jobs have roughly doubled since the summer of 2007, from about 4.3 million to 8.2 million.
* AND, YET... WALL STREET IS ON A BULL RUN! WELCOME TO WONDERLAND!
(*SNORT*)
"There has been a surge in part-time work," says , an economist at the American Enterprise Institute. The change reflects business owners' reluctance to hire full-time workers while they still have so many worries about the strength of the recovery and the cost of the , Mathur says. "You want to maintain flexibility so you can respond to the economy" without having to carry the costs of hiring and firing full-time employees, she says.
* UPWARD AND ONWARD VIA WALL STREET!
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
In the 1980s, a popular fast-food commercial touted chicken-breast sandwiches — and mocked chicken nuggets sold by competitors. In the ad, a competitor's doofus clerk explains nuggets. "All the parts are crammed into one big part," he said. "And parts is parts."
Today, clerks may believe that catchphrase could apply to them as regular full-time schedules disappear.
For many workers, hours are not only short, but increasingly erratic as managers scramble to cover shifts without the steadying influence of experienced full-time employees. "It's ridiculous," says Amere Graham, an 18-year-old high school graduate who works at a McDonald's in Milwaukee. "My schedule is all over the place. It's completely unpredictable."
* CHANT IT WITH ME, FOLKS... "WALL STREET! WALL STREET! WALL STREET!"
(*SNICKER*)
In a study of retail working conditions, conducted in the fall of 2011 in New York, only 17% of retail workers said they have a set schedule.
"Workers can get called in at any time, and sometimes you only get a couple of hours of notice before you have to start work," says Michael Wilder, coordinator at Wisconsin Jobs Now, a union-supported group that advocates for low-wage workers. "That makes it harder to deal with child care," as well as with transportation, doctor appointments and so on, he says.
* AS WALL STREET GOES MARCHING ON!
Graham says the chaotic scheduling also complicates any plans for attending college classes or taking a second job. "It's pretty much impossible to work two jobs or try to move up," he says. An employer's inconsistent scheduling "is unfair because it entraps you," he adds.
(*SIGH*)
* FOLKS... AS YOU READ NEWSBITES I HOPE TO HELL THAT YOU'RE CONNECTING THE DOTS. IT'S THE TOTALITY OF NEWSBITES WHICH SHOULD TELL YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/17/former-gop-senate-candidate-christine-odonnell-tol/
More than two years after her upstart Senate campaign rocked the Delaware political world, Christine O'Donnell got an unexpected contact from a U.S. Treasury Department agent warning that her private tax records "may have been breached."
For Ms. O'Donnell, the message immediately raised red flags.
On March 9, 2010, the day she revealed her plan to run for the Senate in a press release, a tax lien was placed on a house purported to be hers and publicized.
The problem was she no longer owned the house. The IRS eventually blamed the lien on a computer glitch and withdrew it.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Now Mr. Martel, a criminal investigator for the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, was telling her that an official in Delaware state government had improperly accessed her records on that very same day.
* ON THAT VERY SAME DAY.
Beyond that, Ms. O'Donnell and Senate investigators who have tried to help her have run into a wall of silence, leaving more questions than answers about whether abuses of the IRS system extend to private individuals and not just the tax-exempt groups already identified as victims.
Investigators for Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, an influential Republican who serves on the Finance and Judiciary committees, have uncovered one key issue: a backdoor system in which state officials can access Americans’ private tax records in the name of investigating with little oversight or accountability.
* WITH LITTLE OVERSIGHT OR ACCOUNTABILITY.
The Treasury Department’s tax watchdog has informed Mr. Grassley that at least four politicians or political donors have had their personal tax records improperly accessed through that system since 2006, including one case in which a willful violation of federal law was identified.
* AND...???
But the Justice Department has declined to prosecute any of the offenders.
* THE... HOLDER... JUSTICE DEPARTMENT.
* ULTIMATELY... THE OBAMA JUSTICE DEPARTMENT...
(*SHRUG*)
* AGAIN... FOLKS... WHAT'S IT GONNA TAKE?
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Treasury officials have refused to give Mr. Grassley any specifics on the cases or to describe the disposition of Ms. O'Donnell’s case, claiming even people who improperly access tax records have an assumption of privacy under federal tax laws.
(*SNORT*)
* YOU'RE READING THIS... RIGHT...?!?!
Mr. Grassley scoffs at that explanation and is demanding answers from the Treasury and Justice departments.
* LISTEN. GRASSLEY SHOULD DRAG THESE CRETINS BEFORE A CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE AND THROW 'EM INTO JAIL FOR CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS IF THEY DON'T ANSWER THE COMMITTEE'S QUESTIONS!
“Taxpayer confidentiality laws are important. The purpose of those laws is to prevent and deter inappropriate uses of taxpayer information, not to prevent public scrutiny when that confidentiality has been breached or keep the victim in the dark,” Mr. Grassley told The Times.
* THAT WAS BACK WHEN THERE WERE LIMITATIONS UPON THE FEDERAL EXECUTIVE.
(*SHRUG*)
“A taxpayer should be able to know whether someone breached his or her confidentiality, whether any investigation resulted, and the outcome of that investigation. … I look forward to whether the Justice Department sheds any light on its decision not to prosecute what the inspector general called inappropriate and in one case willfully inappropriate access to taxpayer records.”
All the IRS will say is that the one person believed to have willfully misused the tax record system worked outside the agency.
* FOLKS, IS THIS YOUR AMERICA? IT'S NOT MINE! THIS IS OBAMA'S AMERIKA!
Ms. O'Donnell has spent the past six months trying to find out more about what happened to her personally, with little success.
* AND SHE'S A "SOMEBODY." IMAGINE YOU UP AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT.
Investigators have told her the probe has been closed, without offering an explanation.
* OBAMA'S AMERIKA...
Ms. O'Donnell’s attempts to get records about the possible misuse of her tax files through Freedom of Information Act requests have been delayed or denied.
* OBAMA'S AMERIKA...
Mr. Martel did not return calls seeking comment, and Senate investigators have been unable to get permission to interview him about Ms. O'Donnell’s case.
* WHY DO SENATE INVESTIGATORS REQUIRE "PERMISSION?" CONGRESS HAS OVERSIGHT OVER ALL FEDERAL AGENCIES!
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/07/nsa-admits-it-analyzes-more-peoples-data-previously-revealed/67287/
As an "aside" during testimony on Capitol Hill today, a National Security Agency representative rather casually indicated that the government looks at data from a universe of far, far more people than previously indicated.
Chris Inglis, the agency's deputy director, was one of several government representatives — including from the FBI and the office of the Director of National Intelligence — testifying before the House Judiciary Committee this morning.
Most of the testimony largely echoed previous testimony by the agencies on the topic of the government's surveillance, including a retread of the same offered examples for how the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had stopped terror events. But Inglis' statement was new. Analysts look "two or three hops" from terror suspects when evaluating terror activity, Inglis revealed.
For a sense of scale, researchers at the University of Milan found in 2011 that everyone on the Internet was, on average, 4.74 steps away from anyone else. The NSA explores relationships up to three of those steps.
Previously, the limit of how surveillance was extended had been described as two hops.
* SO... PREVIOUSLY WE WERE BEING LIED TO? CONGRESS WAS BEING LIED TO? (OR HAS THERE BEEN A "SUDDEN" LEAP IN TECHNOLOGICAL ABILITY?)
Think of it this way. Let's say the government suspects you are a terrorist and it has access to your Facebook account.
(If you're an American citizen, it can't do that currently (with certain exceptions) — but for the sake of argument.)
So all of your friends, that's one hop.
Your friends' friends, whether you know them or not — two hops.
Your friends' friends' friends, whoever they happen to be, are that third hop.
That's a massive group of people that the NSA apparently considers fair game.
Inglis' admission didn't register among the members of Congress present...
* WHICH TELLS YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW...
...but immediately resonated with privacy advocates online.
* AND ANYONE WHO CONSIDERS THE CONSTITUTION RELEVANT IN OBAMA'S AMERIKA 2013.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/congressman-benghazi-survivors-forced-sign-non-disclosure-agreements_739975.html
Congressman Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia, said today on the House floor that survivors of the Benghazi terror attack have been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements.
"On Tuesday I raised the question of why none of the Benghazi survivors, whether State Department, CIA, or private security contract employees have testified publicly before Congress," said Wolf. "According to trusted sources that have contacted my office, many if not all of the survivors of the Benghazi attacks along with others at the Department of Defense, the CIA have been asked or directed to sign additional non-disclosure agreements about their involvement in the Benghazi attacks. Some of these new NDAs, as they call them, I have been told were signed as recently as this summer."
* IS ANYONE DISPUTING WOLF'S STATEMENT?
Wolf continued: "It is worth noting that the Marine Corps Times yesterday reported that the Marine colonel whose task force was responsible for special operations in northern and western Africa at the time of the attack is still on active duty despite claims that he retired and therefore could not be forced to testify before Congress.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
"If these reports are accurate, this would be a stunning revelation to any member of Congress, any member of Congress that finds this out and also more importantly to the American people. It also raises serious concerns about the priority of the administration's efforts to silence those with knowledge of the Benghazi attack in response.
* BENGHAZI CONTINUES TO BE A NATIONAL DISGRACE AND OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DIRECTED COVER-UP.
"So today I ask, how many federal employees, military personnel, or contractors have been asked to sign additional non-disclosure agreements by each agency? And do these non-disclosure agreements apply to those undercover or have non-covert State Department and Defense Department employees?"
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Wolf added, "I do not expect the Obama administration to be forthcoming with answers, but if this Congress, if this Congress does not ask for the information and compel its delivery, the American people will never learn the truth. Any federal employer employee or contractor who has been coerced and is silenced through a non-disclosure agreement should expect that Congress [will] ask to speak out on their behalf and compel their voice to be heard. That's why I, along with 159 of my colleagues, support a Select Committee to hold public hearings to learn the truth about what happened that night in Benghazi."
* THE SAD TRUTH IS THAT THE AMERIKAN PEOPLE - THOSE WHO RE-ELECTED OBAMA TO A SECOND TERM - DON'T CARE WHAT OBAMA AND HIS ADMINISTRATION DID OR WHAT THEY DO. THEY ACTUALLY APPROVE OF OBAMA'S "TRANSFORMATION" OF AMERICA TO AMERIKA.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130718/METRO01/307180103/Detroit-files-Chapter-9-bankruptcy?odyssey=mod|breaking|text|FRONTPAGE
The city of Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history Thursday afternoon...
* THE AGE OF OBAMA...
The 16-page petition was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit.
Gov. Rick Snyder’s office was making plans this afternoon to hold a Friday morning news conference at the Maccabees Building, 5057 Woodward in Midtown, according to a source. It’s the same location where the governor declared a financial emergency for Detroit on March 1. Under state law, Snyder is required to approve a Chapter 9 filing. As of Wednesday, Snyder said he had not received any such request from Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr. Sources close to the governor said the situation is fluid, adding that Snyder intends to study Orr’s recommendations and related documents “for a couple of days” before making his decision.
The bankruptcy filing comes as an Ingham County judge is preparing Monday to hear arguments from retirees seeking to stop the bankruptcy filing, which produced an automatic stay of all pending litigation and capped a month of intense talks between Orr’s team and creditors, which largely have failed to restructure as much as $20 billion in debt and long-term liabilities.
* "RESTRUCTURE." WHAT A FUCKING JOKE. THERE'S NO FUCKING MONEY! THE FEDS ARE JUST GONNA THROW A BAILOUT ON THE CREDIT CARD! YEA... WE THE PEOPLE GET TO BAIL OUT DETROIT!
The Chapter 9 filing could take years, experts say, despite hopes by the governor and Orr that the case can be wrapped up in a year. A bankruptcy judge could trump the state constitution by slashing retiree pensions, ripping up contracts and paying creditors roughly a dime on the dollar for unsecured claims worth $11.45 billion.
* CAVEAT EMPTOR!
During a month of negotiations, Orr has reached a settlement with only two creditors: Bank of America Corp. and UBS AG. They have agreed to accept 75 cents on the dollar for approximately $340 million in swaps liabilities, according to a source familiar with the deal.
* AND THE EXECUTIVES WHO MADE THE BAD LOANS? WILL THEY BE FIRED? WILL THEY BE SUED FOR INCOMPETENCE AND BREACH OF FUDICIARY RESPONSIBILITY?
(*SMIRK*)
The bankruptcy plan was expected to closely follow Orr’s restructuring proposal that was unveiled to creditors on June 14 — a proposal that drew criticism from some creditors who said the cuts were too deep and did not include the sale of city assets, including Belle Isle and a Detroit Institute of Arts collection worth billions.
* NO CREDITORS SHOULD TAKE A "HAIRCUT" UNTIL DETROIT SELLS ALL SALEABLE ASSETS!
He proposed paying most of the money owed to secured creditors while pension funds, unions and unsecured bondholders would receive, in some cases, 10 cents on the dollar.
* HEY... WONDERLAND CONTRACTS DESERVE WONDERLAND PAYOUTS!
Unsecured creditors could take the biggest hit in bankruptcy court. Orr wants them to share a $2 billion payout on approximately $11.5 billion worth of debt, which includes an estimated $9.2 billion in health and pension benefits and $530 million in general-obligation bonds.
* WHO ARE THESE UNSECURED CREDITORS? I HOPE WE'RE TALKING ONLY THE SPECULATORS.
Instead of paying creditors in full, Orr would use $1.25 billion over the next decade to buy police cars and fire trucks, replace broken street lights, tear down burned-out homes, fight blight and improve city services.
* IN OTHER WORDS... THEY'RE PLANNING ON SIMPLY STEALING THE MONEY. NICE.
The filing serves as a grim reminder of the bankruptcies that hit the auto industry four years ago. Unlike the cases of General Motors and Chrysler in 2009, the White House offered no financial help.
* YET... (WE'LL SEE, WON'T WE?)
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/07/16/shut-it-down-mr-president/
Trayvon Martin was an unarmed teenager walking home from a convenience store with Skittles and iced tea, when he was shot to death by a racist, profiling wannabe cop named George Zimmerman.
In the Big Media, which has relentlessly sought out the voices of those most incensed by the verdict in Sanford, Fla., that is how the Saga of Trayvon Martin is being told.
(*SHRUG*)
And from listening to TV reports of the rage across black America, that is what is widely believed there.
(*SIGH*)
But is that what happened? Well, not exactly.
Trayvon Martin was not shot while walking home.
* DID YOU KNOW THIS...? I DID... BUT THE MSM RELENTLESSLY REPEATED THE LIE THAT MARTIN WAS "WALKING HOME" TO HIS DAD'S HOUSE.
He was shot after sucker-punching George Zimmerman, breaking his nose, knocking him down, jumping on top of him, beating him martial arts style and banging his head on a concrete walk, while Zimmerman screamed again and again, “Help me, help me.”
* ACCORDING TO ALL THE EVIDENCE!
This is what George Zimmerman said happened. It is what the sole eyewitness to the fight, John Good, says happened. It is what Sanford police believed.
(*NOD*)
It is what the defense proved beyond a reasonable doubt. It is what that jury of six women came to believe.
(*NOD*)
Why, then, do so many in the black community believe Trayvon was profiled and murdered, when even most of the analysts on the cable news shows were saying in the last days of the trial that the prosecution had failed completely to make its case? Answer: Many had convicted George Zimmerman in their hearts before the trial began.
(*NOD*)
Here, as this writer noted a year ago, are some of the voices that had declared Zimmerman guilty of murder before a witness had been called:
“Blacks are under attack,” railed Jesse Jackson. “Killing us is big business.” Trayvon was “shot down in cold blood by a vigilante … murdered and martyred.”
“A hate crime,” said Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said Trayvon had been “executed.”
The Grio compared his killing to the lynching of Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955. The New Black Panther Party put Zimmerman’s face on a “Wanted Dead or Alive” poster, called for 5,000 black men to run him down and said Trayvon had been “murdered in cold blood.”
Spike Lee twittered Zimmerman’s home address.
And President Obama? Did he calm the waters? Hardly. He signaled whose side he was on. “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” he said.
* OBAMA IS A PIECE OF SHIT...
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Not only did they all inflame the black community into believing a racist atrocity had occurred, others still do so, even after the weeks of testimony that raised far more than a reasonable doubt.
Moments after the verdict, Al Sharpton ranted, “This is an atrocity.” He went on to explain the moral outrage that the ladies of the jury had just committed.
The four-term mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry, has now brought his healing touch to the proceedings. The Zimmerman verdict was “awful,” he said, another example of “institutionalized racism.” But look to Marion to find a bright side. “The good news is that Zimmerman will never be in peace. He won’t be able to get a job. He’ll have to go underground, travel incognito and never live in peace. That’s the good news for me.”
(Now a comment like that might befit a James Earl Ray. But George Zimmerman? Who turned this neighborhood watch fellow, well-liked by all in his community, into some racist monster?)
The night of the verdict, Mark O’Mara gave America the answer. George “didn’t know why he was turned into a monster,” O’Mara told the assembled journalists. “But quite honestly, you guys had a lot to do with it. You took a story that was fed to you, and you ran with it, and you ran right over him, and that was horrid to him.”
Like his partner Don West, O’Mara exhibited moral courage in that post-verdict press conference, as did that jury of six women, who rejected the prosecution’s pleas to at least give them manslaughter or child abuse.
President Obama might now exhibit a little moral courage of his own, by directing his Justice Department to halt this scavenger hunt for a “hate crime.”
* A BIT LATE, ISN'T IT?
If Sanford police and the FBI could not find a hate crime, and the prosecution could not prove racial profiling or malice, what reason is there to believe any such motive ever existed?
* IT'S CALLED "WISHFUL THINKING." AND WHEN THE GOVERNMENT ENGAGES IN IT IT'S CALLED ABUSE OF POWER.
If Barack Obama and Eric Holder capitulate to Al Sharpton’s demand for “Plan B” and the NAACP’s demand for a second trial of George Zimmerman for a crime of which he has been acquitted, most Americans will come to believe this is no search for justice, but a drive for racial retribution and revenge. And they will be right.
End this persecution of George Zimmerman, Mr. President.
Shut it down.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-07-18/gasoline-supplies-highest-july-period-1992
Gasoline supplies had a substantial build in inventories, up 3.1 million barrels...
Well, there has never been a period in July where inventories are as high in gasoline supplies as currently exists in recent energy statistics. (We have to go all the back to 1992 to find supplies for the July period higher than they are right now, and it isn`t by much.)
It is funny all the propaganda that consumers get fed as to why they pay so much at the pump; it is all total hogwash. The oil market is one of the most rigged markets that actually have fundamental uses for the product.
Consumers should be infuriated that they are paying some of the highest prices for gasoline when oil supplies are very high, domestic oil production is at 20 year highs, and gasoline inventories are higher for this time of year than any time in the last 22 years!
Talk about getting ripped off! It was interesting that Congress`s response was to bring the refiners into recent hearings to discuss why prices jumped so much lately. ... [While] they are to blame I am sure to some extent, Congress needs to focus on the Banks and Hedge Funds - they are the real culprits for outrageous prices here.
It all started with J.P. Morgan`s call that they believe commodities have gone down far enough and that they should be bought. This was the start of the move up in oil, and thus product prices. You can rest assured that they have profited nicely on this move. So Congress needs to [investigate] the investment banks that specialize in running up these energy prices and they will see a pattern of abuse the last five years. These same firms make their public research calls, after they are properly positioned, and then strategically push up prices as high as they can. (Think in terms of the trucking industry that has to use fuel to transport all kinds of goods across this country; their operating costs just went up 15% in a month!) This usually ends in dramatic drops in demand because prices are too high for consumers and the economy starts decelerating.
* EITHER WAY THOSE WITH THE INSIDE INFO AND/OR MEANS OF PUSHING MARKETS PROFIT!
So forget about the refiners Congress, the investment banks are the ones that you need to bring in front of congress! Subpoena their trading records for the last five years and the patterns of manipulation will emerge rather clearly. This run-up like all the others is for trading profits. There never are real supply issues in the oil market.
Mark my word, these same firms will be talking about how gasoline supplies are heavy for this time of the year in a couple weeks when they push oil back down to $90 a barrel. This happens 7 or 8 times a year for the last 5 years. It is all a “volatility trading scam” to make money! This is what Congress should be investigating[!] [B]ring in J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs - these [firms] are the real reason consumers are getting screwed at the pumps once again!
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/40-stats-that-prove-the-u-s-economy-has-already-been-collapsing-over-the-past-decade
The "coming economic collapse" has already been happening.
You see, the truth is that the economic collapse is not a single event. It has already started, it is happening right now, and it will accelerate during the years ahead.
The statistics in this article show very clearly that the U.S. economy has fallen dramatically over the past ten years or so. Unfortunately, there are lots of mockers out there that love to mock the idea of an economic collapse even though one is happening right in front of our eyes. They do not seem alarmed about the fact that our national debt is nearly 17 times larger than it was 30 years ago. They do not seem alarmed about the fact that the total amount of debt in our country is more than 28 times larger than it was 40 years ago. They do not seem alarmed about the fact that our economic infrastructure is being absolutely gutted and we are steadily becoming poorer as a nation.
* I WILL POINT OUT THAT THE ONLY REASONABLE WAY TO CONSIDER DEBT IS IN CORRELATION WITH ABILITY TO REPAY. OBVIOUSLY ALL OF US ARE CONSTANTLY "GOING INTO DEBT." EACH TIME WE USE OUR CREDIT CARDS WE'RE GOING INTO DEBT. WHAT'S IMPORTANT IS OUR WILLINGNESS AND ABILITY TO REPAY THIS DEBT, AND THAT DEPENDS ON A VARIETY OF COMPLEX FACTORS. STILL... THE AUTHOR'S POINT IS WELL WORTH PAYING ATTENTION TO - THOUGH NO DOUBT IT COULD AND SHOULD BE REFINED WITH APPLES TO APPLES COMPARISONS.
They just think that the magic formula of print, borrow, spend and consume can go on indefinitely.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
Unfortunately, the truth is that a massive economic disaster has already started to unfold. We inherited the greatest economic machine in the history of the world, but we totally wrecked it. We have been able to live far, far beyond our means for the last couple of decades thanks to the greatest debt bubble in the history of the planet, but now that debt bubble is getting ready to burst. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see what is coming. Just open your eyes and look at the facts. The following are 40 stats that prove the U.S. economy has already been collapsing over the past decade:
#1 According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8% of all global economic activity in 2001. That number dropped to 21.6% in 2011.
#2 The United States was once ranked #1 in the world in GDP per capita. Today we have slipped to #14.
#3 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.
#4 Since the year 2000, the size of the U.S. national debt has grown by more than 11 trillion dollars.
#5 Back in the year 2000, our trade deficit with China was 83 billion dollars. Last year, it was 315 billion dollars.
#6 In the year 2000, about 17 million Americans were employed in manufacturing. Today, only about 12 million Americans are employed in manufacturing.
#7 The United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.
#8 The United States has lost a staggering 325of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#9 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 38% of the manufacturing jobs in Ohio were lost, 42% of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were lost and 48% of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.
#10 Back in 1998, the United States had 25% of the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10%. Today, China’s high-tech exports are more than twice the size of U.S. high-tech exports.
#11 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.
#12 The United States has lost more than a quarter of all of its high-tech manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#13 The number of full-time workers in the United States is nearly 6 million below the old record that was set back in 2007.
#14 The average duration of unemployment in the United States is nearly three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.
#15 Throughout the year 2000, more than 64% of all working age Americans had a job. Today, only 58.7% of all working age Americans have a job.
#16 The official unemployment rate has been at 7.5% or higher for 54 months in a row. That is the longest stretch in U.S. history.
#17 The U.S. government says that the number of Americans "not in the labor force" rose by 17.9 million between 2000 and 2011. During the entire decade of the 1980s, the number of Americans "not in the labor force" rose by only 1.7 million.
#18 The average number of hours worked per employed person per year has fallen by about 100 since the year 2000.
#19 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs. Sixty percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58% of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
#20 The U.S. economy lost more than 220,000 small businesses during the recent recession.
#21 The percentage of Americans that are self-employed has steadily declined over the past decade and is now at an all-time low.
#22 According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the number of startup jobs per 1,000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration: Bush Sr.: 11.3; Clinton: 11.2; Bush Jr.: 10.8; and last... and least... Obama: 7.8.
#23 In the year 2000, there were only 17 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than 47 million Americans on food stamps.
#24 In the year 2000, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages was approximately 21%. Today, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages is approximately 35%.
#25 Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has risen from $1.85 to $3.64.
#26 More than twice as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2013.
#27 Right now there are 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46% increase from 2001.
#28 The price of ground beef increased by 61% between 2002 and 2012.
#29 According to USA Today, water bills have actually tripled over the past 12 years in some areas of the country.
#30 In 1999, 64.1% of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1% are covered by employment-based health insurance.
#31 Median household income in the United States has fallen for four years in a row.
#32 As I mentioned recently, the homeownership rate in America is now at its lowest level in nearly 18 years.
#33 Back in the year 2000, the mortgage delinquency rate was about 2%. Today, it is nearly 10%.
#34 Median household income for families with children dropped by a whopping $6,300 between 2001 and 2011.
#35 Back in 2007, about 28% of all working families were considered to be among "the working poor." Today, that number is up to 32% even though our politicians tell us that the economy is supposedly recovering.
#36 According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of families in the United States declined "from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010."
#37 According to the New York Times, the average debt burden for U.S. households that earn $20,000 a year or less "more than doubled to $26,000 between 2001 and 2010."
#38 Medicare spending increased by 138% between 1999 and 2010.
#39 During Obama's first term, the federal government accumulated more debt than it did under the first 42 U.S presidents combined.
#40 Today, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. This is the first time that has ever happened in our history. That number has risen by 57% since the 2006-2007 school year.
* WELL, FOLKS... NOT SURE ABOUT #40... BUT THE REST SOUND ABOUT RIGHT.
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