"Most Americans know that the U.S. economy is in bad shape, but what most Americans don't know is how truly desperate the financial situation of the United States really is. The truth is that what we are experiencing is not simply a 'downturn' or a 'recession.' What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end for the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen."
Some interesting statistics:
- The total of government, corporate, and personal debt is now 360% of GDP, which is far higher than it ever reached during the Great Depression era.
- We have nearly totally dismantled our once colossal manufacturing base and shipped many millions of middle-class jobs overseas.
- We have lived far beyond our means for decades thinking the day of reckoning would never come.
- In 2010, the US government will issue almost as much new debt as the rest of the governments of the world combined.
- Total US government debt is now up to 90% of gross domestic product.
- There are 8 counties in California that have unemployment rates of over 20%.
- 24% of American workers say that in the past year they have postponed their planned retirement age.
- For the first time in US history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
- New York state has delayed paying bills totalling $2.5 billion as a short-term way of staying solvent.
- Half a dozen cash-poor US states announced that they are delaying their tax refund checks.
- US government-provided benefits (including Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs) rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.
- Nearly 40 million Americans are now on food stamps--an all-time record. Expected to rise to 43 million next year.
- There are over 1 million members of criminal gangs inside the country. They are responsible for up to 80% of the crimes committed in the United States each year.
- The new health care "reform" bill will suck over $400 billion in additional taxes from the American people by 2019.
- Only 26% of American teens (ages 16-19) had jobs in late 2009--a record low since statistics began to be kept back in 1948.
- Only 58% of those in "Generation Y" pay their monthly bills on time.
- To erase the 2010 US budget deficit, the US Congress would have to multiply each tax rate by 2.4. Thus, the lower tax bracket would raise from 10% to 24%, the middle bracket would go from 15% to 36%, and the top bracket would have to go from 35% to 85%.
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