Are
They Insane? 58 Percent Of Americans Believe Economic
Conditions In The United States Will Be Good A Year From Now
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
http://albertpeia.com/insanelyoptimistic.htm
‘There is nothing wrong with being optimistic,
but there is something wrong with having blind faith that things are going to
get better when all of the evidence is screaming at you that things are going
to get worse. According to a brand new USA
TODAY/Gallup Poll, 71 percent of all Americans consider economic
conditions in the United States to be poor right now, but an astounding
58 percent of them believe that economic conditions in the United States will
be good a year from now. So what can account for this? Are they
insane? Are they hopelessly optimistic? Do they not want to believe
the facts that are staring them right in the face? Well, a lot of it
probably has to do with the upcoming election. Most Republicans are
convinced that things will be "better" somehow if Romney wins in
November. Most Democrats are convinced that things will "continue to
improve" if Obama wins in November. But the truth is that the
economy has been declining steadily in recent years no matter which party has
been in power. Today, the American Dream is out of reach for huge numbers
of formerly middle class families. Millions of jobs continue to leave the
For
example, just check out the following excerpt from a report that was just released by
LEAP/E2020....
Thus,
according to LEAP/E2020, the 2012 election year, which opens against the
backdrop of economic and social depression, complete paralysis of the federal
system (3), strong rejection of the traditional two-party system and a growing
questioning of the relevance of the Constitution, inaugurates a crucial period
in the history of the United States. Over the next four years, the country will
be subjected to political, economic, financial and social upheaval such as it
has not known since the end of the Civil War which, by an accident of history,
started exactly 150 years ago in 1861. During this period, the
Wow,
that paints a far different picture of the future than most Americans are
imagining, eh?
The
That
doesn't sound very optimistic.
Gerald
Celente, the head of the Trends Research Institute,
is also very pessimistic about the rest of 2012. Just consider the
following quotes from a recent USA Today article....
"2012
is when many of the long-simmering socioeconomic and political trends that we
have been forecasting and tracking will climax," Celente
noted in his Top 12 Trends 2012 newsletter. In an interview he added:
"When money stops flowing to the man on the street, blood starts flowing
in the street."
So
who is right and who is wrong?
Only
time will tell.
But I
think it will be very interesting to pull this article back up a year from now.
At
the moment, things do not look promising for the
-The
percentage of Americans planning to buy a home within the next six months
continues to hover near a record low.
-The
-Jobs
for blue collar workers continue to disappear. In 1962, 28 percent of all
jobs in
-There
are not nearly enough white collar jobs for the hordes of fresh college
graduates entering the marketplace. At this point, 53
percent of all
-The
percentage of working age Americans that are employed continues to go down.
The following are the figures for the past three months....
February
2012: 58.6%
March
2012: 58.5%
April
2012: 58.4%
-Due
to the lack of jobs, the middle class in the
-A
shocking number of Americans cannot even pay their bills at this point.
According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans
are not paying their bills on time right now.
-Incomes
for middle class families continue to shrink. After adjusting for
inflation, median household income in
-Meanwhile,
the prices of the things we all buy month after month continue to go up.
In fact, if inflation was measured the exact same way that it was back in 1980,
the annual rate of inflation would be more than 10 percent right
now.
-Millions
of American families are experiencing a massive amount of pain at the
pump. Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the price of gasoline
has risen by more than 100 percent.
-As
the middle class shrinks, the number of Americans on welfare continues to
explode. Back in November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food
stamps. Today, more than 46 million Americans
are on food stamps.
-But
this is not just a short-term trend. The truth is that dependence on the
federal government has been rising for decades. But in recent years it has accelerated dramatically.
In a previous article, I detailed the
incredible growth of social welfare benefits that we have seen under both
Republicans and Democrats....
Back
in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10
percent of all salaries and wages. In the year 2000, social welfare
benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and
wages. Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35
percent of all salaries and wages.
-The
federal government is propping up the economy with unprecedented amounts of
government debt. Sadly, the
-In
many ways, the
So
remind me again why things are going to get better?
The
only reason why the economy has not collapsed already is because of
unprecedented borrowing by the federal government and unprecedented money
printing by the Federal Reserve. But those
emergency measures cannot last indefinitely.
So it
is absolutely insane to expect economic conditions in the
The
truth is that they are a lot better right now than they should be. Once
the federal government quits injecting more than a trillion borrowed dollars
into the economy every single year things are going to look a lot different.
Instead
of preparing for things to get better, the American people should be preparing
for things to get worse.
So
what do you think?
Do
you think that economic conditions will be better a year from now or worse?
Feel
free to post a comment below with your thoughts....
