The following are 75 U.S. economic numbers from 2012 that are almost too crazy to believe...

As we're all aware of by now, the US financial outlook looking into the near future is nothing short of bleak.
The standard of living is continuously decreasing ... the budget deficit is on a sky rocket ride into the stratosphere ... the number of unemployed is growing ... the cost of living is increasing ... the average wage is falling ... etc, etc, etc ... the litany of woes just keeps on growing on literally a daily basis.

As grim as the above may seem, the following "statistics" that I found on ZeroHedge really rammed home to me the scale of the economic and societal disaster that has befallen the once great nation of the U.S. of A. and reduced it to a shadow of it's former glory.

Source: ZeroHedge

The following are 75 economic numbers from 2012 that are almost too crazy to believe...

#1 In December 2008, 31.6 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, a new all-time record of 47.7 million Americans are on food stamps. That number has increased by more than 50 percent over the past four years, and yet the mainstream media still has the gall to insist that “things are getting better”.

#2 Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.

#3 According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

#4 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all Americans have received money from a safety net program run by the federal government at some point in their lives.

#5 For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

#6 Median household income in the U.S. has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

#7 Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

#8 The percentage of working age Americans with a job has been under 59 percent for 39 months in a row.

#9 In September 2009, during the depths of the last economic crisis, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In November 2012, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed. It is more then 3 years later, and we are in the exact same place.

#10 When you total up all working age Americans that do not have a job in America today, it comes to more than 100 million.

#11 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all small business owners in America “say they would not start a business today given what they know now and in the current environment.”

#12 The number of jobs at new small businesses continues to decline. According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the decline in the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration…

Bush Sr.: 11.3

Clinton: 11.2

Bush Jr.: 10.8

Obama: 7.8

#13 The U.S. share of global GDP has fallen from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011.

#14 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

#15 There are four major U.S. banks that each have more than 40 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives.

#16 In 2000, there were more than 17 million Americans working in manufacturing, but now there are less than 12 million.

#17 According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of all Americans were “middle income” back in 1971. Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are.

#18 The Pew Research Center has also found that 85 percent of all middle class Americans say that it is harder to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.

#19 62 percent of all middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.

#20 Right now, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.

#21 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.

#22 According to one survey, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time.

#23 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percentof all men in the United States have jobs.

#24 The average amount of time that an unemployed worker stays out of work in the United States is 40 weeks.

#25 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.

#26 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.

#27 Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare. Overall, there are almost 80 different “means-tested welfare programs” that the federal government is currently running.

#28 When you account for all government transfer payments and all forms of government employment, more than half of all Americans are now at least partially financially dependent on the government.

#29 Barack Obama has been president for less than four years, and during that time the number of Americans “not in the labor force” has increased by nearly 8.5 million. Something seems really “off” about that number, because during the entire decade of the 1980s the number of Americans “not in the labor force” only rose by about 2.5 million.

#30 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

#31 According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.

#32 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

#33 Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

#34 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.

#35 At this point, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States are good jobs.

#36 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#37 Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.

#38 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#39 One survey of business executives has ranked California as the worst state in America to do business for 8 years in a row.


Continued next post ...

#40 In the city of Detroit today, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty, and close to 50 percent of all adults are functionally illiterate.

#41 It is being projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years of age.

#42 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.

#43 If you can believe it, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor’s degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed last year.

#44 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs. 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

#45 Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5 billion. That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the planet.

#46 The United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#47 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

#48 The U.S. tax code is now more than 3.8 million words long. If you took all of William Shakespeare’s works and collected them together, the entire collection would only be about 900,000 words long.

#49 According to the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banking havens such as the Cayman Islands.

#50 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.

#51 2012 was the third year in a row that the yield for corn has declined in the United States.

#52 Experts are telling us that global food reserves have reached their lowest level in almost 40 years.

#53 One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.

#54 If you can believe it, one recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.

#55 Medical costs related to obesity in the United States are estimated to be approximately $147 billion a year.

#56 Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, wages as a percentage of GDP are near an all-time low.

#57 Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

#58 The wealthiest 400 families in the United States have about as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of all Americans combined.

#59 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percentof all Americans combined.

#60 At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#61 Nearly 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.

#62 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year. Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.

#63 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.

#64 Nearly 15,000 retired federal workers are collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually. The list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

#65 U.S. taxpayers spend more than 20 times as much on the Obamas as British taxpayers spend on the royal family.

#66 Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.

#67 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

#68 During fiscal year 2012, 62 percent of the federal budget was spent on entitlements.

#69 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#70 It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#71 Medicare is also growing by leaps and bounds. As I wrote about recently, it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

#72 Thanks to our foolish politicians (including Obama), Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

#73 Amazingly, the U.S. national debt is now up to 16.3 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.

#74 During the first four years of the Obama administration, the U.S. government accumulated about as much debt as it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that George W. Bush took office.

#75 Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was originally created back in 1913.

I think this directly correlates with how much time people waste on the intent instead of being productive.

Guessing it's only going to get worse.

Wow that sucks!

On another note..... Happy Yule!

We the people...

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

...deterring tyrannical government.



tyrannical:
despotic, oppressive, controlling

Whatchya gunna do peeps??

Most of the list is the same fact stated over and over, just in a different way. obvious agenda bias, thus, not credible, nor worth my time.

reply to post by tauristercus


The numbers are pretty much the same all over the world,and it isn't good...We all need a big change,but that is never going to be achieved unless we are willing to change ourselves,our life styles,habits,judgments,perspectives and our entire take on life in general...And that's hard to do, but this economy and the politics will force us to do so if we are really willing to survive....Money ,gold, assets and resources don't fly out of this world!..there is still same amount of money and resources in the world today as it was 20,30 years ago if not more,but the people who have the power just block them to perhaps make us do the things they want us to do.They have an "agenda" and let's hope that it is one that benefits all of us.

Looks like the administration might wait till January and let the draconian automatic tax increases and deep spending cuts including for the military happen at the end of the year.

Then in January the politicians would vote in some high visibility staged legislative amendments too the budget based on priority. Probably extending unemployment benefits would be prioritized into the first round and things like tax increases that don't have as much immediate impact in fiscal year 2013 could be discussed more and voted in later.

That way both tax payers and recipients would be dealing from the same weak position brought on by going over the fiscal cliff and there would be no absolute deadline for resolution. Walking the legislation through slowly "Quid pro quo" is usually more successful than advocating some grand plan.

MSM may paint things kind of grim in that scenario and ATS would respond with lots of SHTF threads. I'm ready, got my acid washed coal for the water filter for Xmas!

reply to post by Maskander


Just because many of the facts are restated a different way doesn't make them any less dire. You are brushing the whole article off just because some of the facts are reworded. Sounds like you dont want to hear the bad news.

This is the one that gets to me:




DebtClock

Originally posted by Maskander
Most of the list is the same fact stated over and over, just in a different way. obvious agenda bias, thus, not credible, nor worth my time.

Not worth your time......are you in lala land??

These are the cold hard facts.

Welcome to the new America!!

Obama was not kidding when he said, " I will fundamentally change America."

And apparently 51% of America agree with what he is doing

Pathetic

crony capitalism doesn't work and we're finally seeing what happens when the rich just keep getting richer and making laws that continue to funnel the money UP. it's disgusting. the republicans in congress have done nothing but say NO to everything that could help turn this crap around faster. they don't care about the little guy they just want to keep making more money for the people who already have a TON of money.

Feliz NaviF'ingdad, that is amazingly great news!

reply to post by tauristercus


Good thread OP but to be honest people really don't care to understand just how bad things are. They would rather live in a fantasy jail cell made up of circuits and cell towers.




Truth be told we will not see change until the lower wage earners can not eat anymore. Guess what that time is coming very soon....next 6 months.....maybe a year.



When this happens it will only be a matter of time before the collapse. They might be able to bail them out for a little while but the need will be to great. It is not the 30s anymore people are connected and the failure will be epic.

Fascism
1

often capitalized: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

Merriam-Webster Definition Fascism

Read this :
Wikipedia-Fascism

This is the goal of the ruling class.

Originally posted by tauristercus

#54 If you can believe it, one recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.


#59 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percentof all Americans combined.

#59 is not very impressive...Hell I got more wealth than 28% all by myself...

Yet my ebook sales seem to keep going up. Maybe it's more of an issue we have with saving, than not having enough.
I'm going to go toss out some left overs... Enough to feed a small African tribe! Life can't be all that bad here in USA.
This is a prime example of people attempting to make Americans hate themselves.

75 ways to achieve the Master Plan. This is crazy to think about but dont say no one warned any of these Politicians this would happen.

We need to clean house and get rid of EVERYONE and start over. No longer can a Senator have 8 terms and take the Presidential Election process from the D's and the R's and give it back to the People.

Networks should be impartial and someone step up (besides a Russian News Channel) and televise as many Debates as possible with as many candidates as possible from as many Parties as possible to weed out the Loosers and seek our true Leader. Take out the MONEY from the Presidential Elections.

Originally posted by Maskander
Most of the list is the same fact stated over and over, just in a different way. obvious agenda bias, thus, not credible, nor worth my time.

I was thinking, I'd love to go through each item and explain the obvious bias of each one, and how the items are being used to skew the big picture. The OP gives away his own bias as well, with thefalse belief that the US has essentially collapsed, and is a shadow of it's former self (when any economist with half a brain and no anti-American political agenda will tell you things aren't nearly as bad as some would lead the foolish to believe, and are, in fact, looking up for the forseeable future.

There is also a thorough lack of understanding of the national debt - a meaningless number when not coupled with GDP as a ratio (the ratio has been improving for a year now after something like 11 years of rising.) discussing derivitive exposure of $40T...well, so what? So if all commerce stops and all assets and physical goods magically vaporize, then the banks will collapse.

This is just fear mongering for those who don't understand macro-economics.people profit from the ignorance of the masses.