The United States is in the middle of a devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny it. Over the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy. I have done this in order to make an overwhelming case that the U.S. economy is in deep decline and is dying a little bit more every single day. Until we understand exactly how bad our problems are we will never be willing to accept the solutions. The trut... (more)
It is rare in recent history for precious metals to appreciate in parallel with the broader stock market. Yet, this has been the case in the two years since the stock market began crawling out of the wreckage of the 2008 financial crisis. Although metals have vastly outperformed US equities over that time frame, it is noteworthy that stocks have gone up at all. Since January 2, 2009, the S&P 500 stock index is up just about 50%. Over the same time, gold is up 68% and silver is up a st... (more)
The only thing more ridiculous than S&P's too little too late semi-downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt was the market's severe reaction to the announcement. Has S&P really added anything to the debate that wasn't already widely known? In any event, S&P's statement amounts to a wake up call to anyone who has somehow managed to sleepwalk through the unprecedented debt explosion of the last few years.
Given S&P's concerns that Congress will fail to address its long-term fis... (more)
Everything that you own is slowly being taken away from you. It is being done purposely and it is being done by design. Many Americans like to think of themselves as "well off", but as will be demonstrated below, we don't "own" nearly as much as we think that we do. The truth is that most of us have to frantically run around accumulating wealth as rapidly as we can so that we can somehow stay ahead of the rate that wealth is being taken away from us. The entire system is designed to take wha... (more)
Last week, Congress and the administration refused to seriously consider the problem of government spending. Despite the fear-mongering, a government shutdown would not have been as bad as claimed.
It is encouraging that some in Washington seem to be insisting on reduced spending, which is definitely a step in the right direction, but only one step. We have miles to go before we can even come close to a solution, and it will involve completely redefining the role of go... (more)
....for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he says. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”
Like the housing bubble, the education bubble is about security and insurance against the future. Both whispe... (more)
Fri 08 Apr 11 | 06:36 AM ET
Marc Faber, editor and publisher of "The Gloom Boom & Doom Report," discusses the world economy and the amount of paper being printed by central banks. His preference, as a result, is gold. Faber adds that in the current environment, cash and bonds are dangerous. Everything is going up, he says. Only at th... (more)
This is an excellent interview from Marc Faber, the interviewers are, of course, retarded, but Marc makes some very insightful observations about the nature of inflation.
Tax Day (April 18) is fast approaching, which means anxiety and night sweats for about 99 percent of taxpayers.
And bitching and moaning by those at the top of the income pyramid about how they aren't forced to pay more in taxes. Secretary of State and cattle-futures queen Hillary Clinton, super-investor Warren Buffett, and b... (more)
While a majority U.S. Voters says the average American shells out 30% or more of their income in taxes, most believe they should pay no more than 20%.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of Likely Voters say, when thinking about all federal, state and local taxes, the average American pays 30% or more of their income in taxes. Thirty percent (30%) believes the average American pays 20%, while 10% say they pay 10% of their income in taxes. The... (more)
The people creating the most wealth in our society pay over 50% of their income in assorted taxes (see this list), then on top of it all, when they die they have half of their wealth stolen post-death. That means 75% of the wealth they produced over their life was stolen for socialist schemes and murdering people. - Chris
Updating on "the foreclosure mess" that continues "to speed struggling homeowners" out onto the streets, Yahoo News' Zachary Roth notes the "potentially fr... (more)
(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Treasury has released a final statement for the month of March that demonstrates that financial madness has gripped the federal government.
During the month, according to the Treasury, the federal government grossed $194 billion in tax revenue and paid out $65.898 billion in tax refunds (including $62.011 to individuals and $3.887 to businesses) thus netting $128.179 billion in tax revenue for March.
At the same, the Treasury paid out a tota... (more)
Thank you Ben Bernanke for all the money printing. Thanks to a massive injection of cash into the financial system by the Federal Reserve and other central banks, the price of almost every major commodity has skyrocketed over the past six months. Now those price increases are starting to filter down to the retail level. During a recent meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board, Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon said that rising inflation in the United States is "going to be serious" and that Wal-Mar... (more)
"Every single retailer has and is paying more for the items they sell, and retailers will be passing some of these costs along," Long says. "Except for fuel costs, U.S. consumers haven't seen much in the way of inflation for almost a decade, so a broad-based increase in prices will be unprecedented in recent memory."
If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.
