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"November Snow In Texas? Experts Warn Decreased Solar Activity Will Shatter All Global Climate Models"

"Our sun has been behaving very strangely, and this unusual behavior is really starting to affect our weather patterns. There have been virtually no sunspots in 2018 as solar activity has dropped to alarmingly low levels. As a result, our atmosphere has been cooling and shrinking, and experts are warning that we are heading for a bitterly, bitterly cold winter. And even though the official start of winter is well over a month away, winter weather is already sweeping the nation. As you will see below, a giant winter storm is about to slam into the east coast, but what is happening in Texas is even more unnerving. On Wednesday morning, the temperature in San Antonio plummeted to just 23 degrees, and that absolutely shattered the old record"

http://theeconomiccollapseblog...

Weimar Republic destroyed its currency via money printing, deflation should have been allowed to work its course, it wasn't.

USSR was printing trillions every year and had no production at all to justify any of that printing. It collapsed once it pretty much ran out of gold to buy food.

100 years of currency destruction in USA got you from a well working private rail road system, largest in the world at the time, to a bunch of unsustainable government subsidised roads, that cause massive pollution by burning all that oil that gets the Americans from their unsustainable suburbs to where they actually need to be - near some jobs that are still there and back. However the actual productivity is destroyed, instead of being world's largest creditor nation, as USA became over the 19th century, it is now largest debtor in history of the world, probably largest debtor in our Galaxy, running 500Billion USD/year trade deficits.

By the way cars and airplanes in USA were a product of the previous economy, the productive economy. Modern economy in USA would not have produced any of that, modern economy in USA has failing airlines and failing car companies all in need of being shut down and restructured, but instead being bailed out time and again.

Enjoy your 'win', I think it will not last for too long.

I generally do not like the idea of trophy hunting, but in some states excess game can be donated to any meat processor, who will process and package it for donation to those having problems putting food on the table. I believe Texas has such a program, but I don't know if this place is involved in it.

Yes, there *was* a program for hunters to donate their game to feed the hungry. The ever-helpful government stepped in and ended that.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/wild-chef/2013/03/la-health-officials-destroy-1600-pounds-venison-donated-hunters

The homeless shelter providing the venison-including meals does not receive any government assistance or taxpayer money. It is self-sufficient.

There are new laws & regulations being passed/implemented by those in government across the US aimed at halting private citizens, churches, etc from feeding the hungry:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/it-is-illegal-to-feed-the-homeless-in-cities-all-over-the-united-states

http://lovewins.info/2013/08/feeding-homeless-apparently-illegal-in-raleigh-nc/

http://www.8newsnow.com/story/5190505/illegal-to-feed-homeless-in-city-parks

http://youtu.be/uGtWNbSkPfc

There's much more.

With the US middle class disappearing and poverty, homelessness, and hunger skyrocketing, it seems like the government (both (R) and (D)) wants to play "Hunger Games" and use starvation as a tool of control.

I'm certainly reassured that government bureaucrats and politicians being in charge of everyones' health care will be a good thing.

For the bureaucrats and politicians.

Strat

This article has a few different cited examples. http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/feeding-the-homeless-banned-in-major-cities-all-over-america

You used both "REDUCE TAXES" and "BALANCED BUDGET". Were you dropped on your head as a child?

Actually, it's quite possible. All you have to do is STOP SPENDING.

It's not like examples of Government waste are hard to find, no matter what your ideological viewpoint.

The $70 million in IRS bonuses and ***7 BILLION*** dollars of military equipment being scrapped in Afghanistan come to mind as a few of the more obvious examples. . .

Money is debt. The problem was exaggerated inflation (money/debt creation) due to the housing bubble.

Hostess has recently had some of the highest priced snack cakes in the supermarket. Their sales have fallen off. There is competition in the free market. The union wanted a bigger slice of pie from a smaller pie. The company knew it couldn't survive a labor strike. The union was not recognizing the situation. The company cut the losses instead of bleeding to death and is putting the assets on the market.

Fast forward to the new soak the rich plan Obama has for what 1.6 Trillion Dollars? The pie they plan on bleeding will rapidly vanish. The high income folks will no longer make high income here with the high overhead. Businesses will shutter and the capitol will rapidly move to more friendly to business markets.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/share-this-massive-list-of-post-election-firings-and-layoffs-with-everyone-you-can

Is your employeer leaving town? Why would they stay. Those dependant on the government will stay and sign up for all the bailouts and handouts they can get. Those stuck with the skyrocketing bill will move assets elsewhere.

Kinda like the Panama Canal. In the long term though, I'm not sure it matters much anyway.

Well, it's Italy in this case, but if that logic applied in USA for example, then the Federal Reserve (and personally Bernanke) could be found guilty in the same exact crime.

I don't know, if you read those quotes, whether you should laugh or cry, because that man is at the head of USA central bank.

He is so wrong on everything that he says, that you can set the clock by him, just take the exact opposite value.

If he was in Italy, could he be sued for the same thing as these scientists? How about the actual Italian politicians, can they be sued now, should they be worried?

Yep, the smoking gun is on that list: "The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing."

Can we get Bernanke somehow extradited to Italy so we can get some real justice? Cause it's never gonna happen here.

Well, it's Italy in this case, but if that logic applied in USA for example, then the Federal Reserve (and personally Bernanke) could be found guilty in the same exact crime.

I don't know, if you read those quotes, whether you should laugh or cry, because that man is at the head of USA central bank.

He is so wrong on everything that he says, that you can set the clock by him, just take the exact opposite value.

If he was in Italy, could he be sued for the same thing as these scientists? How about the actual Italian politicians, can they be sued now, should they be worried?

I did. Of course, I didn't lose my house. I did, however, lose a lot of my equity.

- so you overpaid and you didn't refinance like the rest of them, and in your own words: Everyone knew it was a bubble. This makes you a liar OR it makes you stupid, it's your choice, which one do you take?

Either YOU knew about the bubble and you didn't refinance in order to pull the money out, you didn't sell the house to pull the money out, which makes you stupid.

OR (which I think is the case)

You didn't know anything. You were just another lemming, jumping off the cliff with the rest of them, and that's why you didn't pull the equity out (which was an easy way to pull money out of the bubble into your own account) and you didn't sell.

Bullshit, stop revising history. Everyone knew it was a bubble, people just differed on when they thought it would burst. Seriously, how can you possible misremember that?

- Bullshit, you are the one revising history and I can easily show it.

Let's look at Bernanke first.

(October 20, 2005) "House prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years. Although speculative activity has increased in some areas, at a national level these price increases largely reflect strong economic fundamentals."

(February 15, 2006) "Housing markets are cooling a bit. Our expectation is that the decline in activity or the slowing in activity will be moderate, that house prices will probably continue to rise."

(January 10, 2008) "The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession."

(March 28, 2007) "At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained. In particular, mortgages to prime borrowers and fixed-rate mortgages to all classes of borrowers continue to perform well, with low rates of delinquency."

(July, 2005) "Weâ(TM)ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I donâ(TM)t think itâ(TM)s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though."

(February 15, 2007) "Despite the ongoing adjustments in the housing sector, overall economic prospects for households remain good. Household finances appear generally solid, and delinquency rates on most types of consumer loans and residential mortgages remain low."

#18 (May 17, 2007) "All that said, given the fundamental factors in place that should support the demand for housing, we believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited, and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system. The vast majority of mortgages, including even subprime mortgages, continue to perform well. Past gains in house prices have left most homeowners with significant amounts of home equity, and growth in jobs and incomes should help keep the financial obligations of most households manageable."

"The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing."

(Two months before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed and were nationalized) "They will make it through the storm."

Let's look at the talking heads, what were they laughing at back then?

What they laughing at now?

Many fewer than you imagine.

- on

That is why I've been saying that everybody needs to hang on, as the education bubble will burst soon, followed by the financial bubble. One of the guys in the apt building next door actually committed suicide over student loans recently, being so buried in debt that he'd never be able to pay off the bill and being hounded by the collectors and I believe we will see millions simply get disposable phones and will "drop off the grid" as much as possible simply because student loans have made living in the system impossible. I live next to a college and have already met several like that, taking cash only work and doing their best to simply drop out because of the collectors and thanks to there being no real way to ever get rid of this debt when the bubble bursts you are gonna see a massive amount of debt that like the housing simply gets repackaged and sold like a hot potato until the whole thing falls down. you simply can't charge $50k-$80k for even a lousy education and expect the average person to be able to work their way out of it with McJobs, its is simply not possible.

Then the final bubble will burst, all the IRA and 401Ks without anyone to put money in and no real safe places to go will simply have no place to go. I watched a talk recently (sorry i didn't think to save the link) with several fund managers and they were discussing this, how they are quickly running out of places to put the money. The former go to places either pay nothing or are too unstable, so as one put it "We are spending all our time on the phones just trying to find foreign places with stability as we are finding less and less in the USA that meets that criteria".

Did you know that nearly half the USA pays no taxes at all, because after bills are paid they are simply too poor? And the disability and social security payouts are shooting up as more people file just to survive and to be able to afford their ever increasing costs of medications. I can tell you with relatives on disability that once on they can never get off, that they end up in a catch 22 where the meds they require which would allow them to work are so expensive that if they got a job they couldn't afford their meds so all they could do is stay where they are, which is grinding poverty. One uncle could easily work but the med that allows him his ability to function costs over $100k a year and he'd be lucky to qualify for a 30K a year job so he simply sits at home watching TV.

Just read this article and you will see that just looking at the numbers there is no way its sustainable long term, you have too few making real money and too many in life sucking desperate poverty for the system as is to survive. And as far as the rest of the world i have to wonder...what do they think will happen when a nuclear superpower falls apart? as we saw with the collapse of the USSR things can get nasty quickly and there won't be a USA to quietly come along and try to help if we fall.

So your answer is to just let the corps do what they want without even having to bother with the bribes? you DO realize that with a jug of milk at $4 the corps are pushing the conservatives to do away with the minimum wage even though thanks to the feds rampant inflation of the money what they are being paid now is worth less than it was in 1963? Or look at what happened with the banks after Glass Stegall ended, banks now treat Wall street like Las Vegas with nicer outfits.

I'd say the ONLY thing we agree on is a smaller fed because i want that power back in the hands of the states so that We, The People can have control again. But we don't need less regulation we need more regulation and the ones we have now strictly enforced. We also need to replace "free" trade which is anything but with China manipulating its currency and replace it with fair trade, and we need to punish corps that have sent 42,400 factories overseas since 2001. here are a few more facts for you, here is the source and please remember that as with glass Stegall in the past 20 years the government has been gutting regulations left and right so by your accounts it should be great here since the businesses are free to do as they will, instead we have:

1.-43.6 Americans living in poverty, the highest number in the entire 51 years of record keeping, 2.-4 million more join them a year. 3.-In 2000 11 percent were living in poverty, by 2009 that had jumped to 14 percent. 3.- The US poverty rate is now the third worse on the entire planet 4.-More than 50 million are now without health insurance, so they will be going to our ERs and dragging down the system. 5.-Now there are more than 40 million Americans on food stamps and these numbers are two years old, its even worse now. 6.-And for something closer to us geeks manufacturing in the computer industry, our tech that is supposed to save us, is now actually lower than it was in 1975.

Look at the numbers for yourself. Since Reagan we've had one corporate ass kissing POTUS after another and while the regulations have either disappeared or are simply not enforced the businesses haven't used that to become "job creators" unless you count jobs in Bangalore and Beijing. Hell the "job czar" that Nobama hired not only didn't pay any taxes with his megacorp he actually got 1.2 billion in rebates back only to use that money to close one of the last factories they had in the USA and send it to India. he even had the gall to brag "These aren't the low skill low wages jobs i'm sending, these are the good high wage jobs. We're doing this because India is where the money is and we want the jobs to be where there are customers". We Mr Prick CEO maybe if you and your friends hadn't systematically gutted our manufacturing base over the past 30 years we might actually HAVE money to buy your products, ever think of that?

No my friend we need to drop the hammer on these corps and when they offshore throw their CEOs and their families out with it, let them live in China and breathe through a mask. After all its good enough for their employees right?

I'll get hate for saying it but in this case its probably an insult to the Nazis. During "Springtime for Hitler" in the mid 30s the Nazis were actually quite popular because as Hitler's bodyguard put it in the excellent BBC series "World At War" "At the time we were in a bad way, yes a very bad way. they promised us bread and jobs which seems like such a trivial thing now but then that meant a lot when you couldn't feed your family" so while the Nazis gave the boot to anybody that wasn't like them they also put the country back to work modernizing their systems whereas in America they just ship the jobs overseas or hire illegals and give you the boot. I doubt VERY seriously you'd find the US government popular with anybody but multigenerational superelite who have been making out like robber barons of old.

I'd urge everyone to read this article that drives a stake in the "job creators and lower taxes' lie, followed by this one on corporate taxes and finally some numbers that will make you sick. They are quite a good read and will help to show why we have gotten where we are. Personally i think the elite at the top are trying to condition the public to a mindset of fear so they won't have an uprising spread if they should roll the tanks. they have already seen what the Arab Springs have done to systems that had been there for years and they know they can only juggle the numbers, lie about the true unemployment figures, and print money like there is no tomorrow for so long before the thing falls down and we become another failed country like Greece. I don't know which is worse, the thought they might actually turn the tanks on us or decide that its our turn to be the bad guys and do what Germany did to Poland in South America. But I doubt the rulers at the top of the food chain will just go without a fight, nor do i think after buying the entire congress for years they will just sit by and let the people bring fairness back into the system no matter how badly we as a nation are suffering. i think its gonna get ugly folks, really ugly.

Actually if you look at our history the times of the highest growth was when the top tax rate was 70% or above which makes perfect sense if you think about it. you see when you have a tax rate that high for the uber rich if they sit on the money then they don't sit on the money, they invest it instead since there was all these provisions that lowered their tax rates if they used the money to increase productivity. Now they simply set it overseas thanks to being able to electronically send it anywhere in a nanosecond or just dodge the taxes all together like the double dutch and Irish tax scams. For a good read on the subject i'd suggest this article where the author lays it out clearly and concisely and puts that 'job creators need lower taxes' myth to bed. to see what the lowest taxes on the top 1% in the history of our country has done for us follow it up with this article which again lays out the facts and shows if lower taxes on the wealthy were to actually create jobs they sure as fuck aren't being created here.

in the end its not about fair or letting some fifth generation superrich continue the dynasty, its about a government doing what its supposed to do which is promote the welfare of the entire country and not just a specific class. As Buffet so accurately put it "We have had class warfare for years and we're winning" which all you have to do is look out a window at the boarded up homes and closed factories across this once great nation to know this is true.

Actually its pretty easy to predict, its around 35%. When the unemployment numbers reach around 35% to 40% even those that have a job will be happy to jump in because they know their job could disappear tomorrow and when you have that many unemployed that is a lot of potential soldiers with nothing to lose. if you say it could never reach that high I would point out that we've lost 42,400 factories this past decade and we have the man most likely to be the next R to run for POTUS paying just 15% taxes while corporate taxes have never been lower makes for a LOT of hate filled bitter people who are tired of feeling like serfs.

So i wouldn't say it couldn't happen here, we got a lot of national guard armories just bristling with weapons, similar to what happened with Iraq, you got survivalists sitting on enough copies of the cookbook to wallpaper the capital and you have American soldiers signing oaths to turn on their own leaders if they disobey the constitution.It really wouldn't take but a couple of body blows like a complete EU collapse to put the last bullet in the US economy and send the few corps left off to the growth markets of Asia and people with no hope, jobs, or future frankly have nothing to lose. Do i think it will happen? nothing lasts forever and even the great empires all fell, it seems one can't keep a single system going for any length of time without the corruption ruining it. I do think we should at least give Dodd credit for being an honest whore, i'd rather have one stand up and say they are a whore than be like Obama on that pot petition and just blow smoke for 40 minutes.

intended to help people who wanted to overthrow a dictator

You mean the bankers, and oil executives. Right?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42308613/Libyan_Rebels_Form_Their_Own_Central_Bank
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/wow-that-was-fast-libyan-rebels-have-already-established-a-new-central-bank-of-libya
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20111122-713038.html

This is the problem. Vapid, ignorant, uninterested people who don't even bother to illuminate the vast empty place between their ears. You mention Nazis. So let's do this by the numbers. WHY WERE NAZIS BAD? Because they were Fascists and slaughtered a bunch of innocent folks. What is a Fascist? Well, Mussolini, a Fascist, said its the corporate state. Why is this bad? Well when a nation's corporations determine the fate of that nation and its people all kind of predictable things, bad things, begin to happen. You see profit is a great thing to motivate people, but as a guiding target for a society, it can lead to dark things. At first everything is great and the society enjoys explosive growth. But soon, the system begins to cannibalize itself. Ultimately the wheels come off, it crashes and explodes, and often a lot of people die. That why we don't like fascism. If you want to know how to tell a Fascist State here are some signs to look at. If you've not been in a coma for the last decade, you may notice that modern day America now has something in common with Germany and sadly its not the love of beer. So your Nazi comment as clever as you might have thought it was echoes a sad and frightening irony.

As for soup kitchens and bread lines, are you brain damaged? Here, try these sites: People in line at foodbank, The State of Poverty in America, What replaced the Soup Kitchens, The real state of Unemployment in America Today, Tent Cities Sprouting up all over the country. One in five children in America today goes to bed hungry. One in six people in this country suffers chronic malnutrition. One in eight is out of work and can't find employment. Entire regions of America have been depressed for so long, they now have names like "The Rust Belt." One in seven people in this country is saved from hunger by food stamps or federal food programs. There are scenes all over the country of people lined up for blocks waiting for food from food banks. There are shanty towns and tent cities across the nation of homeless people who were formerly middle class, and tens of millions of middle class Americans who live a single pay check away from becoming homeless. Food banks are pleading for support, they've never before been required to support so many people and many are on the verge of collapse. Are you so blind and poorly informed that you don't even see the profound state of social collapse around you? Are you sleep walking? Medicated? Either you have no mind or you have no heart, please which is it?

As for the ruling class, the top 400 people in this country now have the same wealth as the bottom HALF of the country, over 160,000,000 people. The imbalance of wealth in America today is greater THAN ANY TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY. That is the ruling class. They have hijacked our government. They have hijacked the media and our sources of free information. They have robbed us of our Bill of Rights and damaged our form of government to the very edge of its ability to be repaired. They are working hard to rob us of our last best hope for human freedom and development, the internet.

I don't advocate violence, and never have, but I tell you now, I am plenty angry. I pray that we find our way back without the spilling of blood, but I have a hard time imagining a bright future with so many like you walking the street today. You scare me more than the despots.

And don't even ask about basic science. There's no "profit motive" in it. Corporations don't do any worthwhile basic science. Not biology, not atmospheric, geological, astronomical, or even math. It's all applied science, with the goal of getting a profit next, or better "this quarter." Basic science is too long-range to be even considered.

You mean like:
(from HERE)
The National Science Foundation gave the Minnesota Zoo over $600,000 so that they could develop an online video game called "Wolfquest".
Almost unbelievably, the National Institutes of Health was given $800,000 in "stimulus funds" to study the impact of a "genital-washing program" on men in South Africa.
The National Institutes of Health spent approximately $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.
Approximately $1 million of U.S. taxpayer money was used to create poetry for the Little Rock, New Orleans, Milwaukee and Chicago zoos. The goal of the "poetry" is to help raise awareness on environmental issues.
The National Science Foundation spent $216,000 to study whether or not politicians "gain or lose support by taking ambiguous positions."
A total of $3 million has been granted to researchers at the University of California at Irvine so that they can play video games such as World of Warcraft. The goal of this "video game research" is reportedly to study how "emerging forms of communication, including multiplayer computer games and online virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second Life can help organizations collaborate and compete more effectively in the global marketplace.

Don't forget that if you put 6 of them in a room you wouldn't even be able to get them to agree on what's for lunch!

That is one of the really sad things about the USA, the fact we only have one party now. In Europe they have lots of different parties with different beliefs and have to have a coalition, here we have the "Give teh rich more MONIES! nom nom nom" party and then we have the Ds for dumbasses, that can't agree on shit and spend all their time bickering with each other until people get so fed up with their bullshit they vote for the "more MONIES! nom nom nom" party just to get rid of the dumbasses whining.

Personally I don't think it is really gonna matter in the end what the dumbasses or the nom noms do, we will end up with our own Arab spring. You have lost over 42,000 factories in a single decade and students buried alive in student loans (the next bubble to burst) that go straight from the graduation ceremony to the unemployment line yet we have companies following the how not to hire an American video like its a how to book and bring H1-Bs over as fast as they can shove them on a plane, and the business districts in the south look like Escape from New York thanks to all the abandoned buildings.

People will only put up with shit for so long before the powderkeg blows, and I would argue we are seeing that fuse get smaller every day. it really wouldn't take much to get the people to follow our own crazy Austrian, as frankly anything is better than what we have now. Hell if they keep stretching the military and sending them into one shithole after another I wouldn't even be surprised if some general decided a junta was in order, and most Americans? like I said better than what we've got now.

Oh but we haven't gotten to the REALLY nasty part yet! What is the REALLY nasty part? the student loan bubble that is about to burst. For years the pols have pushed "get an education!" while the corps shipped more than 20,000 factories overseas in less than a decade and brought H1-Bs over as fast as they could stuff them on a plane.

Now we have students going straight from graduation to the unemployment line, saddled with debt in all likelihood they will NEVER ever pay back. As these debts pile up they not only put a drain on the students but the economy as a whole and it won't be too long before they turn toxic just like the mortgages. The only way I foresee this stopping will be to take a bath as you have to allow students that have been without work for X number of months to write these things off or drop them to interest free at some token amount like $5 a month to get them off their backs because more and more employers are also looking at credit ratings and bad student loans obliterate credit.

Mark my words when THIS one turns it'll make the housing bubble look like a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Because at least with the bad houses folks could walk away and with the current setup there is NO ever walking away from bad student loans. What we will end up with is the best educated Micky D's workforce on the planet, bar none.

The problem with that is they don't play by our rules and therefor the whole argument is bogus. Let me spell it out: FREE TRADE IS A LIE. It is a lie spread by multinationals that want to pollute, that want to pay shit wages, that want to dump toxins and leave superfund sites. Why in the hell would you think that is in any way, shape, or form a good thing?

Look at the air in China, look at the water in India? Are we doing them a favor by poisoning them? All this is doing is creating a "race to the bottom" using people's lives instead of products, and it is sickening. If it were free trade it would work both ways, hence the word "trade". But China and India don't buy from us, do they? Hell India is even building an entire aerospace industry from scratch, all to keep from depending on us for planes and arms. You see that is what is called "being nationalistic" which to hear the media is hunky dory for them and bad for us. Why?

Because in the end you and all the "free traders" are missing the elephant in the room: All we are doing is passing on misery by allowing companies to pay ever shittier wages and to depress markets than allow everyone to rise with demand. Is it any wonder our middle class is DOA? Should we tell the corps here to dump lead and mercury and other toxins in our water, just so we can compete? Maybe you should look at some stats about what has been happening in this country then maybe you'll see why this "race to the bottom" leaves everyone but the 1% at the top losers.

Don't forget that they've recently grabbed domains that simply linked to where you can watch sports feeds, gotta protect the money those megacorps spent on the superbowl!

What is pathetic is how blatantly the federal arm is used as nothing but free attack dogs for the megacorps. Can't be spending their time and our taxpayer money actually trying to keep our country safe, heaven for fend, no we must insure that these multinational megacorps can enjoy their God given right to ever increasing profit margins! When you see crap like this and read information like how much we've lost thanks to kissing the corporate booty is it any wonder this country is falling on just about every scale you can find? Hell we've lost 42,000 factories in just the last decade!

I give it about another decade tops before the rich in this country get to re-enact the fall of Saigon. You simply can't print your way out of debt without becoming another Zimbabwe and pretty much the only thing keeping the peasants from following Egypt's example is the checks being passed out by the fed. You have an ever growing underclass with no jobs, no hope, and no future. With an ever growing underclass it won't take long before we get our own Lenin or little German to stir the underclasses into following Egypt, my guess is it will be right about the time those checks the fed keeps cranking out won't even buy a loaf of bread.

Don't forget that they've recently grabbed domains that simply linked to where you can watch sports feeds, gotta protect the money those megacorps spent on the superbowl!

What is pathetic is how blatantly the federal arm is used as nothing but free attack dogs for the megacorps. Can't be spending their time and our taxpayer money actually trying to keep our country safe, heaven for fend, no we must insure that these multinational megacorps can enjoy their God given right to ever increasing profit margins! When you see crap like this and read information like how much we've lost thanks to kissing the corporate booty is it any wonder this country is falling on just about every scale you can find? Hell we've lost 42,000 factories in just the last decade!

I give it about another decade tops before the rich in this country get to re-enact the fall of Saigon. You simply can't print your way out of debt without becoming another Zimbabwe and pretty much the only thing keeping the peasants from following Egypt's example is the checks being passed out by the fed. You have an ever growing underclass with no jobs, no hope, and no future. With an ever growing underclass it won't take long before we get our own Lenin or little German to stir the underclasses into following Egypt, my guess is it will be right about the time those checks the fed keeps cranking out won't even buy a loaf of bread.

That is why I personally believe America WILL fall, the only question is when. We have gone from "Ask not what your country can do for you" to "Where's mine bitch?" in just two generations. Our corporations see NOTHING wrong with completely crippling this country's ability to defend itself if it makes them a couple of cents on the dollar, we have hemorrhaged so much of our manufacturing and now our IT and more and more our educated jobs that many of the populace simply can't survive without government handouts, just read this and tell me it doesn't make you want to puke.

All these senators fucking NASA and our space program to "bring home the bacon" are just a symptom of a much larger and fatal disease: the "right now" disease that is frankly killing the USA. Nobody cares if the long term effect is destruction, as long as they get their money "right now". Nobody cares if their actions are ultimately not only horribly harmful but cause untold suffering on their fellow citizens as long as they get theirs "right now". Meanwhile you have China and India that aren't pulling that kind of crap because they are "nationalistic" which is apparently a code word for "not offshoring the entire economy".

Ultimately I believe it will spell the end of the USA as we know it. The only thing keeping the peasants from revolting is the payouts from mommy government, but the presses can't run forever, eventually the shit WILL hit the fan. When it does I think to give the huge masses of poor "bread and jobs" the USA will do to South America what the little German did to Poland, but even then I believe the corruption to be too deep to be stopped and it will all collapse. Afterward like the old USSR we will probably break up into several "regional co-ops" like the Midwest belt and the eastern alliance. Because things as they are simply can't continue, you simply have too many poor on the bottom and too few with money at the top.

The following are 17 national debt statistics which prove that we have sold our children and our grandchildren into perpetual debt slavery....

#1 As of December 28th, the U.S. national debt was $13,877,230,355,933.00.

#2 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.

#3 If the federal government began repaying the national debt at a rate of $10 million dollars a day it would take approximately 3,800 years to pay off the national debt.

#4 Today, the U.S. national debt is increasing by roughly 4 billion dollars every single day.

#5 The U.S. government is borrowing approximately 2.63 million more dollars every single minute.

#6 On September 30th, 1980 the U.S. national debt was 907 billion dollars. Just thirty years later, the U.S. national debt is over 14 times larger.

#7 According to a recent U.S. Treasury report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will reach 19.6 trillion dollars in 2015.

#8 It is being projected that the U.S. government will be paying 900 billion dollars just in interest on the national debt by the year 2019.

#9 A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.

#10 The U.S. Congress has raised the federal debt ceiling six times in just the past three years.

#11 The 111th Congress added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.

#12 The 111th Congress got us into so much new debt that it breaks down to $10,429.64 for each of the 308,745,538 people counted by the 2010 U.S. census.

#13 The U.S. government currently has to borrow approximately 41 cents of every single dollar that it spends.

#14 When you break down the debt that the U.S. government owes to China alone it comes to over $10,000 for every single American family.

#15 If you were alive when Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now. Almost unbelievably, the U.S. government will accumulate well over a trillion dollars more debt in 2011.

#16 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#17 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.

But the American people don't want to hear that we have spent decades creating a horrific debt crisis that is not going to be easy to fix. They just want someone to "tweak" a few things and get us back to being the greatest economy on earth. Unfortunately, it is simply not that easy.

From:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/17-national-debt-statistics-which-prove-that-we-have-sold-our-children-and-grandchildren-into-perpetual-debt-slavery

We are not functionally bankrupt. The United States of America is point blank in fact bankrupt. If you believe the GOA numbers you really need to look at the actual balance sheets for the country. Congress has been playing games for years mislabeling liabilities so they don't show up in the grand total reports. They have effectively been lying to the country. We are so totally in debt we are completely screwed if there aren't some major serious changes right away.

We are actually $202 Trillion in debt, not $14 Trillion as the GOA would have you believe. The US nation GDP is only $14 Trillion currently. So even if you believe the GAO we are 100% in debt. If you look at the actual numbers we are 1450% in debt. So anyway you slice it we are in big freaking trouble, and must have some very serious, hard changes to how much we spend. Spending has got to come down by a huge percentage. We spend more than the government gets in revenue every year. The rough amount we over spend every year is $800 Billion a year and growing. This is a GOA number so it is probably in fact higher. This can not be allowed to continue or you can kiss our economy goodbye and just get ready for the same riots and problems as Europe. This could, and probably would, give us a depression that would make the "Great Depression" look like a tiny dip in the economy that didn't last very long. There is no guarantee this won't happen anyway.

Check out this article if you need a citation source.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-11/u-s-is-bankrupt-and-we-don-t-even-know-commentary-by-laurence-kotlikoff.html

If we don't change something by 2019 then we are looking at 92 cents of every dollar revenue received by the government will be spent on entitlement programs and interest on the debt. By 2020 100% of every dollar of revenue received by the government will be spent on entitlements and interest on the debt. So you can see, there is a major problem here that must be addressed.

Check out these articles if you need citation sources.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-silent-entitlements-monster-social-security-medicare-and-interest-on-the-debt-will-gobble-up-every-single-tax-dollar-by-2020
http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2009/09frusg.pdf

None of this even addresses the huge problem of the Baby Boomers, who begin retiring next year (Jan 1, 2011) and there is no money to support them all. An average of 10,000 Baby Boomers will retire every day for the next 19 years. We may not even make it 2019 to even have to worry about the other problems. The pressure the Baby Boomers are going to put on entitlement programs is going to be massive. If they insist on all the benefits they have been promised over the years it will crush the American economy. There is no possible way for the government to be able to afford all of that.

I would guess that hard core budget cuts of about 25%-40% across the board is about the only way we might, and that's a big might, climb our way out of this mess. Squabbling about Democrats or Republicans, and who sucks more, will do zero to solve these problems. If America doesn't come together to make major changes, we will all go down together. I suspect once we fail that it will be a domino/ripple effect and you will see every other economy in the world fail. The EU is already teetering on the edge of the collapse, with the entire EU being brought down by the countries that have already failed, with more failures expected. The German court votes after the new year if it is against their Constitution to bailout other countries. If they decide that it is, the EU will be in for some major trouble and it will get

Yeah, about that....those in power really might ought to remember that whole "tree of liberty, blood of tyrants" bit. Come to the flyover states you've got endless abandoned homes and stores, huge masses of unemployed with no future side by side with huge masses of illegal immigrants with again no future. Hell the whole thing is a powderkeg and it really wouldn't take much of a match to light that fuse. The only thing that is keeping the masses from taking to the streets is the endless unemployment because thanks to offshoring we have lost 22,000 FACTORIES just since 2001 and the "business district" of most of the small towns down here look like something from "Escape from New York".

So they might want to learn from their history. No intent to Godwin but the Germans didn't give a shit if they called themselves nationalist or socialist or what, just that they had someone to hate and "bread and jobs". Despite the right's attempts to try to pin that hate on the immigrants I can tell you that many of those in the flyover states have a nice seething hatred for the rich and frankly wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. It really wouldn't take even a speaker of Lenin quality to rile up the masses and turn them on the rich right now like Pol Pot did to Cambodia. People with no hope and no future got nothing to lose. They might want to remember that.

Not really, because the prices are going up by more than the fed is saying the inflation rate is. Being down here in the trenches surrounded by those "working poor" I mentioned I can tell you it is bad with a capital B. Those without a college education (which is the majority of Americans BTW) are either being kept afloat with government dollars or are going under. I have friends in construction and they have watched their wages go down by a good 40% in places, in part because hiring illegals means the foremen don't have to pay for things like safety on the job, and in part because there are simply so many out of work.

When you add into this more and more skilled jobs are being offshored or replaced by H1-Bs, the fact that we've lost 21 THOUSAND factories, not jobs folks, factories, just since 2001, and anyone with eyes can see that the debt is simply unsustainable. Because the only thing keeping those masses of working poor from being a rioting mob is government dollars which simply can't be printed forever.

That is why I figure 5, 10 years tops on the USA defaulting. You simply can't pile more taxes on the working poor, as they just don't have it. About 20% of those in my apt building last year are living in their cars this year, and this ain't an expensive building. I know good women that have had to turn to prostitution just to keep a roof over their heads. Yes folks it is THAT bad here in the flyover states. So the only real choices are to raise taxes to the pre 1960s 90% level on the top 2%, which as we know will NEVER happen thanks to bribery, or to default. You can only print money for so long before you end up like Zimbabwe and have to carry wheelbarrows full of it to buy a loaf of bread.

And of course NO politician is gonna make those kinds of hard decisions anymore, because they can just take the bribes and book the hell out of dodge when the excrement hits the bladed cooling device, so you have what we have now: A complete sham of an economy where those in power can gamble on Wall Street like it is Las Vegas and NEVER lose thanks to bailouts, where the ultra rich mega corps can buy all the tax dodges their lobbyists can come up with, and the huge and ever growing masses of working poor slowly but surely sink as even government handouts simply can't keep up with the amount they are losing. YOU try keeping a family with 2 to 3 kids afloat on $300-$500 a week, because that is what the average working poor is getting around here IF they can even find a job. Many I know have been out of work for a year or more. It simply isn't sustainable, and anyone with eyes can see that.

So you're answer would be...what? Let the corporations turn the USA into another third world hellhole? There is a REASON why China and India can be so cheap, it is because they don't have pesky things like worker's comp or OSHA or nasty little rules like "don't dump toxic waste". Look at pictures of the air in China? You want to breathe that shit? Look at the biggest cancer cities, damned near EVERY SINGLE ONE is in China. But hey, what's a few hunder thousand dead, they're just peasants, right?

Just since 2001 the corporations have shipped 21,000 FACTORIES overseas, not jobs, whole factories. And what have we gotten in return? McJobs and trolling lawyer positions. It simply can't continue as it has, not without revolution. Hell we have oath takers in the armed forces ready to raise arms AGAINST the government that trained them!

It is high time we stop letting corporate butt kissers tell us that being nationalistic is "not PC" or is racist. what do you think China is doing in TFA. They are looking after their own and so is India, which if you think we tried to ship our masses of unemployed tech workers over there they would allow it I have a bridge to sell you, and we should do the same, or suffer the consequences. Hell I'd say the ONLY reason we aren't dealing with rioting right now this minute is they keep extending unemployment so those tons of out of work folks are sitting at home instead of taking to the streets. But they simply can't keep printing money, because sooner or later (I vote sooner) nobody outside the USA will accept it and when that happens? See Zimbabwe. It is high time we put OUR OWN PEOPLE ahead of the interests of multinational corporations who have NO allegiance to this great nation.

Excuse me? I quote "the deluded SUV drivers of the world" unquote? Maybe if somebody was proposing REAL solutions instead of cap and trade, which BTW just FYI the big spokesman pushing for cap and trade is a hypocrite who will make out like a robber baron if crap and trade is passed.

Let me enlighten you as to what will happen if crap and trade is passed: The USA, which has already lost 42 THOUSAND factories since 2001, and that ain't a typo folks, that's not factory jobs, that is total FACTORIES just since 2001, will have NO way at all to compete in a global market because India and China, and rightly so, will tell you where to stick your credits and thus what few jobs not being a CEO, lawyer, or working at MickyD, will be gone. Now is Rev Al demanding we close off trade with India and China? Nope because he and his pals are making out like robber barons on cheap labor, not to mention taking bribes in the past from China. Meanwhile the "green economy" they keep blowing up our collective butts? That will be in ASIA, NOT the USA. The #1 selling low power computing device is the smart phone, which looks to replace the PC for many. Guess how many of those are made in the USA? Why zero of course!

So when I see some REAL solutions proposed, ones that will actually allow us to have a functional industry and not hamstring the USA or turn us into a third world hellhole, well then I'll be happy to sign up. More nuclear, solar and wind powerplants? ALL for it. But cap and trade is a scam, being run by the the same group that destroyed our economy. I'm sure I'll be modded to hell for daring to say anything other than "go green" but I frankly don't care. I can see first hand what these same bozo the clowns have done to our economy by simply looking out my window at the boarded up store fronts. And whether those here at /. care to admit it or not AGW has become political, with those that dare to say anything other than "the consensus agrees" getting treated like a nut.

If all the AGWers supported REAL change, like refusing to trade with massive polluters like India and China until they cleaned up their acts? Like putting Americans to work building new nuclear plants so we can kill the coal ones? Again ALL for it. Instead what we get is BS like "clean coal" and "green economy" with no actual numbers to back them up. If you support real change then it is time to put our foot down. Demand nuclear plants replace the coal plants, demand we stop trading with countries that poison the air and water, demand realistic caps NOT cap and trade BS. Because frankly all we are getting from the self appointed "guardians of the planet" is a ponzi scheme which will make them billions off the poor. Oh and if you think cap and trade will get rid of coal plants? Think Again.

Sadly as long as we have a military industrial complex that makes more money than most third world countries that will simply never happen. Ike tried to warn us but they managed to keep us distracted with "ZOMG! Is that a commie?" until they were so firmly entrenched and so enriched they could simply buy the politicians that I don't see things changing until after our economic collapse (which considering we've lost 42 THOUSAND factories to offshoring just since 2001 probably will be soon) thanks to the incredible amount of influence they have.

I mean look at the stupid shit we have been blowing boatloads of cash on. The F22 and F35? WTF? Who in the hell are we going air to air with that the F15 through F18 couldn't seriously kick their ass? Hell the Chinese and Russians are using 80s tech fighters, no threats there. The middle east? from what I understand the Iraq air force was a turkey shoot. Yet we keep blowing assloads of cash we don't have acting like it is still the cold war. Hell we ought to cancel ALL new military spending except for UAVs, give our guys on the ground a 20% raise and war pay, and then use the rest to pay down our debt. But that wouldn't give the guys in the MIC money for their new Lexus, so that'll never happen.

As for TFA? Thanks to the coziness of the MIC whatever they choose will be 300% over budget and could have been built privately for a tiny fraction of what we'll blow. It is just shameful how much money we blow on this crap when we can't even defend our borders or give decent healthcare to the poor. Just shameful.

Which makes me think of a question maybe someone here at /. can answer: Can miners/drillers set off enough "little ones" to cause a big one? The reason I ask is I was recently shown a map I found most disturbing. A friend is working processing geological data for a wildcat drilling company, which since 2003 or so these groups have been given the keys to the kingdom around here since the economy has been down here since the factories closed ( which BTW we have lost 42 THOUSAND in the USA since 2001, thanks greedy corporations!) and the earthquake data was scary. Before they showed up we are talking an average of 1.4 on the Richter scale, and only one every decade. Since 2004 we are talking dozens in the 2.4-3 scale, all concentrated in tiny areas near the wells.

So my question is this: If these guys set off enough earthquakes in that range, can they set off New Madrid, which we are on? Not that it really matters much in the end I suppose, as we are so "corporation yay!" here they could dump their garbage on the court house steps and everyone in the chamber of commerce would pretend its roses, but those places that aren't complete corporate whores might want to watch out if it is possible. Of course if they did cause a disaster I have no doubt they'd just fold the corporation and walk away with the cash, which is why I think we need serious corporate reform in this country, not that it will ever happen.

Not to mention when it comes to food there is ZERO free market thanks to US tax dollars subsidizing all over the place, thus screwing up the market. Those that are pro illegals might want to read this and then answer a few questions for me: with the offshoring of 42 THOUSAND factories just since 2001, where will all those Americans work if they now have to compete not only with the Chinese and Indians, but in their own borders as well?

The simple fact is we are circling the bowl folks. We haven't had this few manufacturing jobs since pre WWII, and college simply isn't the answer for most Americans, not to mention that now there is a good chance even WITH a college education you may be underbid by offshoring. I'm sorry folks, but we can't be the world's policeman, we can't be the world's sugar daddy, and we can't be the world's employer. Maybe once unemployment is below 5% nationally we can talk, but as of right now if they weren't fudging the numbers (like not counting those whose benefits have run out) we'd be looking at something like 22%. That's one in five folks. We simply don't have the resources nor the jobs to go around, unless you support bringing back the WPA and having the economy simply be a pyramid scheme.