In America
today, we have such a short-term focus. We are all so caught up with what
is happening right now. Our attention spans seem to get shorter every
single year. At this point it would not be hard to argue that kittens
have longer attention spans than most of us do. (If you have ever owned a
kitten you know how short their attention spans can be.) Things have gotten
so bad that most of our high school students cannot even answer the
most basic questions about our history. If people are not talking
about it on Facebook or Twitter it is almost as if it does not even matter.
But any
serious student of history knows that is is absolutely crucial to examine long-term
trends. And when you look at the long-term trends, it rapidly becomes
apparent that the U.S. economy is in the midst of a nightmarish long-term
decline.
The following
are 24 statistics to show to anyone who believes that America has a bright
economic future....
#1 Inflation is a silent tax that steals wealth from
all of us. We continue to shell out increasing amounts of money for the
basic things that we need, and yet our incomes are not keeping pace. Just
check out the following example. Gasoline prices have been trending
higher for several years in a row as one blogger recently noted....
January
2009 $1.65
January
2010 $2.57
January 2011
$3.04
January
2012 $3.29
#2 If you can believe it, the average American
household spent approximately $4,155 on gasoline during 2011.
#3 Electricity bills in the United States have risen
faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
#4 Health care
costs continue to rise at a very alarming pace. According to the Bureau
of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal
consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#5 Getting a college education has also become insanely
expensive in America. After adjusting for inflation, U.S. college
students are borrowing about twice as much money
as they did a decade ago.
#6 To get the same purchasing power that you got out of
$20.00 back in 1970 you would have to have more than $116 today.
#7 To get the same purchasing power that you got out of
$20.00 back in 1913 you would have to have more than $457 today.
#8 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States
today than there were back in
2000 even though we have added more than 30 million extra people to the
population since then.
#9 The U.S. economy is bleeding millions of good
jobs. Greedy CEOs are systematically shipping them overseas and our
politicians are standing around and doing nothing about it. This has gone
on year after year after year. The following is from a recent article by Paul Craig Roberts....
In the first decade of the 21st century, Americans
lost 5,500,000 manufacturing jobs. US employment in the manufacture of computer
and electronic products fell by 40%; in the production of machinery by 30%, in
motor vehicles and and parts by 44%, and in the manufacture of clothing by 66%.
#10
Our economic infrastructure is being torn apart right in front of our
eyes. In 2010, an average of 23 manufacturing
facilities a day shut down in the United States. Overall, more than 56,000 manufacturing
facilities in the United States have shut down since 2001.
We have made it legal for big corporations to send
millions of jobs to countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages, where
the tax burden is much lighter and where there are barely any
regulations. The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article posted on Economy in Crisis....
Back in the 80s, I called my
friend Walter in California and asked: On your next
expansion we need a plant in South Carolina. Walter replied:
We dont produce anything in the United States. Its all in China.
China furnishes you the plant on a year-to-year basis. If your investment works
out, you dont have to pay any corporate tax; just reinvest it for
another plant and more profit. If it doesnt work out, you
can walk away with no legacy costs. I send a quality controller to watch
production. I check on it every day. I dont have any
labor, health, safety, or environmental concerns, and have time to play a round
of golf. The bleeding of jobs off-shore started in the 80s now hemorrhages
under Bush and Obama. Waiting for the economy to bounce back; calling this the worst
recession is a bum rap. The reason the economy hasnt bounced back
since 2008 is because the economy is being off-shored.
#11
As a result of our insane economic policies, our trade balances are absolutely
exploding. For example, the U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#12
As you read this, there are millions of Americans out there wondering why they
can't find any jobs. According to Reuters, 23.7 million American
workers are either unemployed or underemployed right now.
#13
The number of good jobs has been steadily shrinking in America. Since the
year 2000, the United States has lost 10% of
its middle class jobs. In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle
class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million
middle class jobs.
#14
Over the last three decades, the percentage of low income jobs has consistently
risen. Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the
United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the
United States are low income jobs.
#15
The number of middle class neighborhoods also continues to decline. In
1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in
"middle class neighborhoods". By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in
"middle class neighborhoods".
#16
A decade ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per
adult. By 2010, the United States had fallen to seventh.
#17
Our incomes continue to go down. Since December 2007, median household
income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.
#18
Unfortunately, middle class Americans have been seeing their incomes
decline for a very long time. According to one study, between 1969 and
2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50
dropped by 27 percent after you account for
inflation.
#19
Since 1971, consumer debt in the United States has increased by a whopping 1700%. Unfortunately, U.S. consumers have still not
learned how to stay out of debt. According to a recent article posted on Financial Armageddon, the rate of
personal savings in the United States is rapidly falling right now at the same
time that the total amount of consumer credit is absolutely skyrocketing.
#20
The number of children living in poverty in America keeps rising year after year. The percentage
of children living in poverty in the United States increased from 16.9 percent in 2006 to nearly 22 percent in 2010.
#21
The number of Americans on food stamps continues to set new all-time
records. Just check out the following progression....
October 2008: 30.8 million Americans on food stamps
October 2009: 37.6 million Americans on food stamps
October 2010: 43.2 million Americans on food stamps
October 2011: 46.2 million Americans on food stamps
#22
The U.S. debt problem has gotten completely and totally out
of control. Recently, the debt of the federal government surpassed 100% of GDP for the first time
ever.
#23
During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt
than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time
that Bill Clinton took office.
#24
Barack Obama's proposed 2012 budget projects that the national debt will rise
to 26 trillion dollars a decade from now.
And his budget numbers are ridiculously optimistic.
Are you starting to get the picture?
All of the long-term economic numbers are
progressively getting worse.
As the economy continues to crumble, large numbers of
Americans are becoming really desperate. For example, a recent Mother
Jones article detailed how large numbers of formerly middle class Americans are now actually
growing marijuana in an effort to make ends meet.
As things continue to get worse, people will become
even more desperate. There are millions of people out there that find
themselves unable to pay the mortgage and put food on the table for their
families. When people hit rock bottom, they often find themselves doing
things that they never dreamed that they would do.
Meanwhile, the big Wall Street banks just keep
getting larger and more powerful. We have allowed the "too big to fail" banks to become much bigger
than they have ever been before. The total assets of the six largest U.S.
banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006
and September 30, 2011.
Wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated at the
very top even as the overall economic pie in America continues to get smaller.
As our economic problems become worse, more Americans
than ever are trying to find ways to "escape".
For example, according to one new government report one out of every six adults
in America is a binge drinker.
Other Americans "tune out" by watching
endless hours of television, by playing endless hours of video games or by
indulging in endless hours of other forms of entertainment.
There are even some Americans that are giving up
completely. For example, one elderly man actually robbed a bank just so
that he could get arrested and be taken to prison where he would get
free health care.
But as I have written about previously, now is not the time to give up. Instead,
now is the time to prepare for the great challenges that are ahead.
Almost every generation in history has been faced
with great challenges and great hardships at some point.
Yes, there will be some incredibly hard times ahead,
but that also means that there will be a need for some great heroes.
Just because the U.S. economy is falling apart does
not mean that life is over