The United States used to export oil. Now it imports.
The United States used to be the world’s biggest creditor. Now it is the world’s biggest debtor.
What are the trends? Let’s look at some graphs.
The jobs situation sucks:
More and more require assistance:
The US government’s spending is out of control:
Households are scarcely any better:
The Federal Reserve is printing money like there is no tomorrow:
Out of control debt:
Debt compared to income:
It’s a lie that the Federal Reserve wants to keep inflation down:
The rich take it all for themselves:
The Baby Boomers want to fund their retirement by selling assets, but to who? The baby boomers (also know as "the selfish generation") out-number the next generation. The boomers have also been using their collective clout to get more for themselves, leaving their debt (both in dollar terms and environmental damage) and obligations to the next generation, insuring the next gen will be poorer.
Tens of thousands of manufacturing plants have closed. Millions of manufacturing jobs and other good jobs have been lost, jobs with good pay and benefits, replaced by low-paying service jobs with limited (if any) benefits.
The environment is in decline. Decades of abuse has stripped the soil of it's nutrients. The water table has dropped substantially. The ocean's all around the States have huge and expanding dead zones (actually this true all around the world).
Oil, the driver of the economy, has peaked and is in decline with no replacement in sight. The amount of energy in a gallon of gas is amazing, there is nothing like it (that isn’t radioactive). In a few years Mexico will stop exporting oil to the US. Expect gas prices to continue increasing 10-50% each year.
The last time the US defaulted was in 1971 when Nixon took the US off the gold standard. The US will inflate it’s way out of this mess, which really is just another form of default.
Ever since Nixon took the US off the gold standard the US has been in decline, but the decline has been hidden by the use of debt. I could do the same thing, cash all the equity out of my house to buy cars, go on vacations, etc. My neighbours would think we were doing well, but the truth would be the opposite.
Not a pretty picture. There is no hope for the US to recover, not in a “good” way, not as long as the incompetent criminal class are in charge.
What should the US do?
- Close all military bases outside the US and bring the troops home. Shutdown the military industrial complex.
- End the War on Drugs.
- Nationalize all private prisons.
- Nationalize energy companies.
- Nationalize water companies.
- Break up all corporations of more than 10,000 employees.
- Default on all US treasury’s owned by China. Everyone may manipulate their currencies, but China is the master. The result: manufacturing jobs lost from American to China. It is time to fight back.
- Use an act of Congress to force the privately owned Federal Reserve to forgive all US Government debt owned by the Federal Reserve.
- End corporate person-hood. A corporation is not a person and should not have the rights of a person.
- Limit contributions to political parties no more than $100.
- Get a handle on rampant corruption.
- Return to the gold standard.
- Return to a real democracy.
I highly recommend: Crash Course
Related: How The U.S. Will Become A 3rd World Country
