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 truth is that our leaders have absolutely wrecked the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen. Most Americans just assume that we will always experience overwhelming prosperity, but that is not anywhere close to the truth. We are not guaranteed anything. Our manufacturing base has been gutted, the number of jobs is declining, more Americans are dependent on government handouts than ever before, our dollar is dying and as a nation we are absolutely drowning in debt. The economists that are trumpeting an “economic recovery” and that are declaring that the U.S. economy will soon be “better than ever” are delusional. We really are steamrolling toward a complete and total economic collapse and our leaders are doing nothing to stop it.
The following are 24 more signs of economic decline in America. Hopefully you will not get too depressed as you read them….
#1 On Monday, Standard & Poor’s altered its outlook on U.S. government debt from “stable” to “negative” and warned the U.S. that it could soon lose its AAA rating. This is yet another sign that the rest of the world is losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries.
#2 China has announced that they are going to be reducing their holdings of U.S. dollars. In fact, there are persistent rumors that this has already been happening.
#3 Hedge fund manager Dennis Gartman says that “panic dollar selling is setting in” and that the U.S. dollar could be in for a huge decline.
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds.
#5 This cruel economy is causing “ghost towns” to appear all across the United States. There are quite a few counties across the nation that now have home vacancy rates of over 50%.
#6 There are now about 7.25 million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time right now. Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. The last time the employment level was that low was back in 1983.
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.
#9 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.
#10 Gas prices reached five dollars per gallon at a gas station in Washington, DC on April 19th, 2011. Could we see $6 gas soon?
#11 Over the past 12 months the average price of gasoline in the United States has gone up by about 30%.
#12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during the first quarter of 2011.
#13 U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.
#14 Approximately one out of every four dollars that the U.S. government borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt.
#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#16 Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
#17 Average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income. In China, average household debt is only 17% of average household income.
#18 The average American now spends approximately 23 percent of his or her income on food and gas.
#19 In a recent survey conducted by Deloitte Consulting, 74 percent of Americans said that they planned to slow down their spending in coming months due to rising prices.
#20 59 percent of all Americans now receive money from the federal government in one form or another.
#21 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average length of unemployment in the U.S. is now an all-time record 39 weeks.
#22 As the economy continues to collapse, frustration among young people will continue to grow and we will see more seemingly “random acts of violence”. One shocking example of this happened in the Atlanta area recently. The following is how a local Atlanta newspaper described the attack….
Roughly two dozen teens, chanting the name of a well-known Atlanta gang, brought mob rule to MARTA early Sunday morning, overwhelming nervous passengers and assaulting two Delta flight attendants.
#23 Some Americans have become so desperate for cash that they are literally popping the gold teeth right out of their mouths and selling them to pawn shops.
#24 As the economy has declined, the American people have been gobbling up larger and larger amounts of antidepressants and other prescription drugs. In fact, the American people spent 60 billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.
Glenn Beck has been warning about these facts over a year now. And for his trouble he was and is called a fear monger. And this country let Soros take him down – take him from the 5 o’clock Mon-Fri 7 days a week spot, where he was trying to stop the plummeting of our treasure by the Ruling Class.
YOU SAY MORE AMERICANS ARE ON THE GOVERNMENT DOLE THEN ARE NOT.YOU FAIL TO SAY THAT MOST OF THESE AMERICANS PAID FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE,IN THE FORM OF SPECIAL TAXES ALL THEIR LIVES. IT WAS THE GOVERNMENT WHO REPLACED IOU FOR DOLLARS. IN THIS CASE BLAME THE GOVERNMENT,AS THESE ARE NOT HANDOUTS.
Wake up!! The politicians are only intersted in their own enrichment! They love the union money!! Figure out what happens when the Unions with the support of the boys in DC that keep raising the minimum wage and driving our jobs into the hands of our Chinese friends. Wake up!! We aere in DEEP do-do!!
While I agree with your overall conclusion, some of your statistics would be more convincing if you included an historical comparison. For example, you state that "the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year." Is this number increasing or decreasing?
USA is most evil country in world and cause for most of world’s problem.It deserves to go down and better still get fragmented.You idiots stop over consumption, luxury and exploitation in name of capitalism.close down your defense equipment factories and embrace Yoga and Ayurveda.In India too an american agent is running the country and similar situation is developing in India.Your MNCs are sucking blood of poor countries like India that are western glamor struck.A large number of americans are shameless nincompoops feeding on federal charity.They even refuse to work.You guys refuse to cut your salaries and keep jobs at home rather than sending these to China ,India or Taiwan.USA is biggest consumer of fuel and polluter too.
I'm European and not pro-American at all.
But I'd like to ask you, do you have your democracy, your elections? Is it related to the Brits?
Why do you credit "agents"? Why are you using Visa paying these evils?
Stop and think.
Do not pray for someones sorrow. It would be much worse for you if America fails.
You are exploited because you are mentally lazy.
Stop emigrating to USA, UK…elsewhere. Build your country, get American jobs in your economy (as you certainly do very, very well), attract immigrants etc. Be leaders starting from your own home.
Then why don’t you leave ??? WE ARE THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN HISTORY. NO OTHER COUNTRY HAS HELPED DEFEND MORE NATIONS THAN THE U.S.A. SAD TO SAY IT’S THE LEFT WING SOCIALISTS THAT ARE DRIVING OUR GREAT NATION INTO THE DUST BUT, JUST AS YAMAMOTO SAID AFTER THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR… “A GIANT HAS BEEN AWOKEN” AND YOUR SORRY ASS ALONG WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD WILL SEE OVER THE NEXT 12-18 MONTHS. GOD BLESS AMERICA !
R K Gupta
Do you live in America? Perhaps, you do not but I can categorically say that many of your country men do. They also get a very good education here. If we are so evil, why do we continue to allow you and your people to come to America, to make a very good living and send most of your money back home, instead of putting it back into the American economy. If we go down, as you put it -so do many of your people. Where will they work? How will they make their money? In one of your wonderful cities? like Calcutta? I really think foreigners who come to America , the greatest country in world, to put it down and bleed it it dry- SHOULD BE DEPORTED!
funny but a Gupta just got arrested for stealing 20 millions dollars from the US Military. he will have a nice stay in a nice US Federal Penetentury.
Isn;t it wonderful when someone from a country (india) which has 10 Million street children, who are totally
abnadoned, despertely poor, and to all extent ignored by the humane Indian society now criticiizes the USA and calls Americans evil. With your Yoga and Ayurveda India has corruption that is far worse than the USA and the MOST CALLOUS disregard for human suffering among children and old people. YOU ARE SUCH
HYPOCRITES!
Start cleaning up your massive appalling slums, showing some human kindness to your wretched street
children, and the millions of rural Indians who live in desperate abject poverty.
Please explain to whom the USA Government pays interest on its deficit. If to "the Fed" then it follows that the US Government is borrowing from private (as distinct from public) sources. if so, then it would clearly be in the interest of said "private sources" for the US to maintain high public debt (deficit). However, apart from trade imbalances between nations, it does seem to me that other factors also necessitate a perpetually increasing increase in world money supply: such as (to name but two) (i) perpetual population increase and therefore (ii) consequent public demand increase for product of every kind. Why, then, does increaqse in money supply always have to based on creation of debt? But then, of course, there is also a duality about money itself. It is (i) a medium of exchange and (ii) a product in itself which, more than any other product, is constantly being traded. Any group holding a monopoly on supply of any product stands to benefit greatly from scarcity of this product – money included. I sense a deep contradiction here, or, if you like, an intransigent duality in the attitude of the human race towards its own invention, money, perhaps based on schizoid self-destructive tendencies in human nature itself. Comments?
What everyone who writes this stuff fails to realize is that the US Dollar is the "Reserve Currency" in the world. What that means is Oil gas, and all commodities are traded in US $. This gives us a great advantage over the reset of the world. Read that as cheep oil. As the dollar declines our price of everything goes up. In reality the new stock market bubble and the rising gas prices are more the result of the declining dollar than anything else. America is on sale. If we every loose reserve currency status and it goes to the euro or Chinese money look for gas and everythin else we impot to doulble or tripple in a very short time. How do you like $ 12.00 a gallon gas?
Jim
The IMF and other countries have been discussing the replacement of the dollar as the reserve currency for quite some time now.
Jim,
News Flash are you aware the BRICS (Brazil,Russia,India,China,South Africa) just dumped the U.S. Dollar? Of course per usual our MSM is refusing to report, political agenda?
"The truth is that our leaders have absolutely wrecked the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen." Given that this statement is true, and that we are partially to blame for electing them over and over again, the solution would seem to be too force them to make drastic cuts in EVERYTHING(50%…?) to help wright this mess. It is what was done in the 1920"s to pull us out of a severe recession/depression and it led to the roaring twenties.
The FED's management looks like something that allows any country to print U.S Dollar. Is it a point of no return? Tightening the belt or the noose didn't seem very different now!!!
The decline you point out reflects the decline in a common American vision over the last 30 years. With the decline in the belief that we are all in this together as one nation, we have been maneuvered into opposing camps that do not recognize our common American interests. Instead of all boats rising on the same tide, we now have one economic class rising on a wave that swamps all classes of lesser income (Your point #9). Until we have some recognition that for the US to survive, no less prosper, that we all need to make some sacrifice for the whole country prosper, then in the end we will all fail. Remember the Revolutionary War of Benjamin Franklin: "We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."
America was down before and always came back. This time they screwed up big, but I believe they will come back again. As Canadian, I always looked up to America, and I hope and pray that I will be able to look up to Her again. I wish you luck U.S.of A., you gona need it.