58 Facts About The U.S. Economy From 2015 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

The world didn’t completely fall apart in 2015, but it is undeniable that an immense amount of damage was done to the U.S. economy.  This year the middle class continued to deteriorate, more Americans than ever found themselves living in poverty, and the debt bubble that we are living in expanded to absolutely ridiculous proportions.  Toward the end of the year, a new global financial crisis erupted, and it threatens to completely spiral out of control as we enter 2016.  Over the past six months, I have been repeatedly stressing to my readers that so many of the exact same patterns that immediately preceded the financial crisis of 2008 are happening once again, and trillions of dollars of stock market wealth has already been wiped out globally.  

Some of the largest economies on the entire planet such as Brazil and Canada have already plunged into deep recessions, and just about every leading indicator that you can think of is screaming that the U.S. is heading into one.  So don’t be fooled by all the happy talk coming from Barack Obama and the mainstream media.  When you look at the cold, hard numbers, they tell a completely different story.  The following are 58 facts about the U.S. economy from 2015 that are almost too crazy to believe…

#1 These days, most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.  At this point 62 percent of all Americans have less than 1,000 dollars in their savings accounts, and 21 percent of all Americans do not have a savings account at all.

#2 The lack of saving is especially dramatic when you look at Americans under the age of 55.  Incredibly, fewer than 10 percent of all Millennials and only about 16 percent of those that belong to Generation X have 10,000 dollars or more saved up.

#3 It has been estimated that 43 percent of all American households spend more money than they make each month.

#4 For the first time ever, middle class Americans now make up a minority of the population. But back in 1971, 61 percent of all Americans lived in middle class households.

#5 According to the Pew Research Center, the median income of middle class households declined by 4 percent from 2000 to 2014.

#6 The Pew Research Center has also found that median wealth for middle class households dropped by an astounding 28 percent between 2001 and 2013.

#7 In 1970, the middle class took home approximately 62 percent of all income. Today, that number has plummeted to just 43 percent.

#8 There are still 900,000 fewer middle class jobs in America than there were when the last recession began, but our population has gotten significantly larger since that time.

#9 According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

#10 For the poorest 20 percent of all Americans, median household wealth declined from negative 905 dollars in 2000 to negative 6,029 dollars in 2011.

#11 A recent nationwide survey discovered that 48 percent of all U.S. adults under the age of 30 believe that “the American Dream is dead”.

#12 Since hitting a peak of 69.2 percent in 2004, the rate of homeownership in the United States has been steadily declining every single year.

#13 At this point, the U.S. only ranks 19th in the world when it comes to median wealth per adult.

#14 Traditionally, entrepreneurship has been one of the primary engines that has fueled the growth of the middle class in the United States, but today the level of entrepreneurship in this country is sitting at an all-time low.

#15 For each of the past six years, more businesses have closed in the United States than have opened.  Prior to 2008, this had never happened before in all of U.S. history.

#16 If you can believe it, the 20 wealthiest people in this country now have more money than the poorest 152 million Americans combined.

#17 The top 0.1 percent of all American families have about as much wealthas the bottom 90 percent of all American families combined.

#18 If you have no debt and you also have ten dollars in your pocket, that gives you a greater net worth than about 25 percent of all Americans.

#19 The number of Americans that are living in concentrated areas of high poverty has doubled since the year 2000.

#20 An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.

#21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans now live in a home that receives money from the government each month, and nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty right now.

#22 In 2007, about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps. Today, that number is one out of every five.

#23 According to Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, the authors of a new book entitled “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America“, there are 1.5 million “ultrapoor” households in the United States that live on less than two dollars a day. That number has doubled since 1996.

#24 46 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out.

#25 The number of homeless children in the U.S. has increased by 60 percentover the past six years.

#26 According to Poverty USA, 1.6 million American children slept in a homeless shelter or some other form of emergency housing last year.

#27 Police in New York City have identified 80 separate homeless encampments in the city, and the homeless crisis there has gotten so bad that it is being described as an “epidemic”.

#28 If you can believe it, more than half of all students in our public schools are poor enough to qualify for school lunch subsidies.

#29 According to a Census Bureau report that was released a while back, 65 percent of all children in the U.S. are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.

#30 According to a report that was published by UNICEF, almost one-third of all children in this country “live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income”.

#31 When it comes to child poverty, the United States ranks 36th out of the 41 “wealthy nations” that UNICEF looked at.

#32 An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in the United States live in areas of “concentrated poverty”.

#33 40.9 percent of all children in the United States that are being raised by a single parent are living in poverty.

#34 There are 7.9 million working age Americans that are “officially unemployed” right now and another 94.4 million working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force”.  When you add those two numbers together, you get a grand total of 102.3 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.

#35 According to a recent Pew survey, approximately 70 percent of all Americans believe that “debt is a necessity in their lives”.

#36 53 percent of all Americans do not even have a minimum three-day supply of nonperishable food and water at home.

#37 According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if the U.S. government was actually using honest numbers the unemployment rate in this nation would be 22.9 percent.

#38 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, only about 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#39 The labor force participation rate for men has plunged to the lowest level ever recorded.

#40 Wholesale sales in the U.S. have fallen to the lowest level since the last recession.

#41 The inventory to sales ratio has risen to the highest level since the last recession.  This means that there is a whole lot of unsold inventory that is just sitting around out there and not selling.

#42 The ISM manufacturing index has fallen for five months in a row.

#43 Orders for “core” durable goods have fallen for ten months in a row.

#44 Since March, the amount of stuff being shipped by truck, rail and air inside the United States has been falling every single month on a year over year basis.

#45 Wal-Mart is projecting that its earnings may fall by as much as 12 percentduring the next fiscal year.

#46 The Business Roundtable’s forecast for business investment in 2016 has dropped to the lowest level that we have seen since the last recession.

#47 Corporate debt defaults have risen to the highest level that we have seen since the last recession.  This is a huge problem because corporate debt in the U.S. has approximately doubled since just before the last financial crisis.

#48 Holiday sales have gone negative for the first time since the last recession.

#49 The velocity of money in the United States has dropped to the lowest level ever recorded.  Not even during the depths of the last recession was it ever this low.

#50 Barack Obama promised that his program would result in a decline in health insurance premiums by as much as $2,500 per family, but in reality average family premiums have increased by a total of $4,865 since 2008.

#51 Today, the average U.S. household that has at least one credit card has approximately $15,950 in credit card debt.

#52 The number of auto loans that exceed 72 months has hit at an all-time high of 29.5 percent.

#53 According to Dr. Housing Bubble, there have been “nearly 8 million homes lost to foreclosure since the homeownership rate peaked in 2004″.

#54 One very disturbing study found that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either currently have medical bill problems or are paying off medical debt.  And collection agencies seek to collect unpaid medical bills from about 30 million of us each and every year.

#55 The total amount of student loan debt in the United States has risen to a whopping 1.2 trillion dollars.  If you can believe it, that total has more than doubled over the past decade.

#56 Right now, there are approximately 40 million Americans that are paying off student loan debt.  For many of them, they will keep making payments on this debt until they are senior citizens.

#57 When you do the math, the federal government is stealing more than 100 million dollars from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day.

#58 An astounding 8.16 trillion dollars has already been added to the U.S. national debt while Barack Obama has been in the White House.  That means that it is already guaranteed that we will add an average of more than a trillion dollars a year to the debt during his presidency, and we still have more than a year left to go.

What we have seen so far is just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.  About six months ago, I stated that “our problems will only be just beginning as we enter 2016″, and I stand by that prediction.

We are in the midst of a long-term economic collapse that is beginning to accelerate once again.  Our economic infrastructure has been gutted, our middle class is being destroyed, Wall Street has been transformed into the biggest casino in the history of the planet, and our reckless politicians have piled up the biggest mountain of debt the world has ever seen.

Anyone that believes that everything is “perfectly fine” and that we are going to come out of this “stronger than ever” is just being delusional.  This generation was handed the keys to the finest economic machine of all time, and we wrecked it.  Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have culminated in a crisis that is now reaching a crescendo, and this nation is in for a shaking unlike anything that it has ever seen before.

So enjoy the rest of 2015 while you still can.

Credit to Economic Collapse

Putin orders military to protect Kurds "at all costs"

An ominous report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Ministry of Defense (MoD) states that President Putin has issued orders authorizing Federation military and intelligence forces to protect the Kurdish peoples of Turkey-Iraq-Syria against “all threats” and “at all costs” as these besieged peoples living in the Levant War Zone are now under “existential threat” of extermination by Turkey—and which is an action many in the West are warning may trigger the “war of the century”.

According to this report, President Putin legally issued this order citing as his authority to do so Article 87 of the Constitution that gives him the title and power of being Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and by his further noting that this order “fully complies” with the “use of force” resolution unanimously passed by the Duma (Russian Parliament) this past September authorizing military-intelligence war actions against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/Daesh).

With Turkey now being named as a “belligerent hostile threat” to the Federation in this conflict, this report further explains, President Putin in issuing his order also cited the Turkish governments material and financial support of Islamic State terrorists as evidenced by the MoD discovering this week 12,000 oil tankers and trucks on the Turkey-Iraq border carrying stolen petroleum wealth legally owned by Iraq and Syria.

And with Russian energy giant Gazprom Neft planning to drill its first exploratory oil well in Iraq Kurdistan next year, this report says, President Putin’s order notes that Turkey’s stealing of Iraqi and Syrian oil with the assistance of Islamic State terrorists is, in fact, the same thing as stealing from the Federation.

Gravely concerning President Putin too, this report notes, is that in Turkey’s attempt to cover up their crimes in supporting these Islamic State terrorists, they have imitated a brutal genocidal attack upon their own Kurdish peoples that has caused over 200,000 of these defenseless minority citizens to flee their homes while Turkish military forces rampage throughout this region—and which has led one Western official in Turkey to warn “Things are reaching a critical point, and it’s not clear where things are heading.”

Siding with Turkey in committing this mass genocide against the Kurdish peoples though, this report continues, is the Obama regime whose State Department spokesman, John Kirby, this past week stated “while we understand Turkey’s needs to take security measures, it should also take all feasible precautions to protect civilians and to act consistently with its legal obligations”, but failed to order their NATO ally to stop their wanton killing and destruction.

Unlike the Obama regime though, who has sided with their Islamic State terrorist supporting NATO ally Turkey against the Kurdish peoples, this report says, President Putin was more persuaded by Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party leader Selahattin Demirtas, who in his meeting this past week with Foreign Minister Lavrov, revealed all of Turkey’s “dark/evil” secrets—and which immediate afterwards, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutolgu accused Demirtas of having committed treason.

And of the most shocking information about the murderous “terror-loving” Turkish regime revealed to the Kremlin by Demirtas, this report notes, was his proving the complicity of the Obama regime with Turkey in the shooting down on 24 November of a defenseless Aerospace Forces bomber over Syria—and which MoD spokesman Igor Konashenkov explained by stating:

“This confirms the fact that all information, which we transfer to the American side within the framework of the memorandum, has surely been handed over by the U.S. Air Force command to Turkey’s General Staff. Thus, on 24 November, when a Turkish fighter jet treacherously attacked our Su-24 bomber with a missile, Turkey’s General Staff was well aware of the time and the area where a pair of Russian bombers would carry out a combat task.”

Also critical to note about President Putin’s war order, this report says, is that prior to his issuing it he presented to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates a “grave warning” that should any of them continue in their current war actions supporting either Turkey or the Islamic State they would face immediate Federation retribution.

President Putin’s warning was immediately replied to by the GCC just hours ago with their spokesman, Qatar’s Foreign Minister Khaled bin Mohammad Al Attiyah, stating: “We are currently talking about exchanging information on movement of people and money. The topic of establishing armed forces in the framework of the Saudi-led coalition has not been discussed as of now. We are trying to concentrate our efforts on fighting against extremist ideology and our Islamic coalition is not working in the sphere of military actions of the US-led coalition.”

As Federation Aerospace Forces continue to obliterate Islamic State sources of oil revenue in Syria, this report concludes, the Obama regime continues to ignore the MoD’s call to share with the US-led coalition information about these terrorists—and which has, strangely, led Russia to begin sharing intelligence about the Islamic State with the Taliban before these ruthless terrorists take over Afghanistan too.

And though not mentioned in this MoD report, if Moscow does support these Kurdish forces in retaliation against these Turkish “backstabbers”, Turkey’s domestic political problems will come to a new level and submerge that country into full chaos, especially if President Putin begins supplying Kurd forces with the heavy weapons they’ve requested—which the US intelligence firm Stratfor warned Turkey about with their stating that Russia knows exactly how to push an opponent’s geopolitical buttons.

Or put in its most simplistic terms quoting an old Russian proverb:

“If you invite a bear to dance, it’s not you who decides when the dance is over. It’s the bear.”

Credit to EUtimes

http://www.eutimes.net/2015/12/putin-orders-military-to-protect-kurds-at-all-costs-as-war-of-the-century-nears/

Incredible New IDF Air Defense System Like “Science Fiction”

“So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.” (I Samuel 17:50)


David’s Sling Weapons System Stunner Missile intercepts target during inaugural flight test. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/United States Missile Defense Agency)

David’s Sling, a new air defense system developed under the auspices of the IDF, has passed its final round of tests and is slated for deployment in 2016, said the Defense Ministry on Monday.

The new system is designed to catch longer-range rockets that are not targeted by the Iron Dome, which shoots down short-range missiles, or by the Arrow, which intercepts ballistic missiles. David’s Sling will have the ability to target rockets with ranges of 100 to 200 km (63 to 125 miles), aircraft, guided projectiles, low-flying cruise missiles, and drones.

The final test took place Monday morning in a test field in southern Israel, and David’s Sling passed all markers. The system will be delivered to the Israel Air Force (IAF) within the next four months. A core unit of the IAF, which is being trained on how to operate the system, took part in the Monday test.

“In trials, the system’s capabilities were tested in a number of scenarios that simulate the threats it was designed to deal with,” said officials at the Defense Ministry, and David’s Sling destroyed the targets as intended.

Between the three systems, the IAF supports a network of interceptors guided by radar which can shoot down anything from shorter-range, low-flying rockets sent from Hezbollah and Hamas to longer-range ballistic Shehab and Scud missiles fired from Iran and Syria.

Initially, the IDF will deploy four David’s Sling batteries, sending two to the IAF in the first stage. The system is versatile in how it operates: David’s Sling can be installed in a permanent location, like the Arrow defense system, or moved around to wherever it is needed, like the Iron Dome system. It can work together with the other two systems, or independently of them.

According to the Defense Ministry, the system will be capable of identifying and intercepting missiles carrying warheads of up to hundreds of kilograms of explosives.

Shlomo S., who headed the project under the Israeli defense firm Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, said that the capacities of the system approach the realm of science fiction. “We’re excited this morning after the completion of the series of tests, during which we developed technologies that are first of their kind in the world and have so far been considered science fiction,” he said, according to Ynet.

Rafael, a state-owned technology firm, developed and manufactured David’s Sling with the collaboration of US arms maker Raytheon Co. Rafael also produces the Iron Dome, the Israeli mobile air defense system renowned worldwide for its accuracy and effectiveness. Foreign governments have clamored to buy the Iron Dome technology, and clients are already expressing interest in David’s Sling as well.

Israel’s air defense abilities are among the most advanced in the world, as proven by a test last week in which Israel successfully intercepted a target in space using its upgraded Arrow 3 missile defense system.



Credit to breakingisraelnews.com
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/56812/incredible-new-idf-air-defense-system-like-science-fiction-idf/#OszzEm7OWEpKDf9y.99

CAPTURED lSlS FIGHTER REVEALS TURKISH SUPPORT AND PLANS FOR MASSIVE SCALE ATTACK ON U.S.

The Obama’s Administration Is Arresting Independent Journalists for Anti-Government Speech

The arrest of Pete Santilli

On December 16, 2015, I published the following picture and commentary based upon credible intelligence that Attorney General Loretta Lynch had instructed the Department of Justice and DHS to target journalists from the Independent Media for daring to speak out against admitting immigrants to the United States without conducting the requisite background checks.

This is the face of a domestic terrorist. She will jail all talk show hosts who speak out against Muslim extremism. One day following the San Bernardino massacre, she did not utter a word about the 14 Americans that were executed by a Muslim terrorist. But Lynch(mob) threatens to arrest anyone speaking out against Muslim extremism. I do not have words to describe how out of touch this administration is with the American people. Please note the background as Lynch delivered her threat to Americans who will not submit to extremism and Sharia Law. 

As an American, and as Thomas Jefferson would point out, it is my duty to my country to speak out and identify all potential threats the United States. The Obama administration’s practice of admitting hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants, none of them Christian, without the adequate background checks, is insane and invites more terrorism incidents .

In every instance, when I travel, I am subjected to warrantless searches and seizures at the airport. My background is subject to review by the authorities in the TSA. Then why are not Muslim immigrants subject to the same rules? What makes them so special that they are above the law? And for daring to point this out, I am not subject to being arrested at gunpoint, for no reason? And if I were to make one move that a law enforcement officer did not like, I would be subject to being killed during a routine traffic stop, all because Loretta Lynch(mob) does not like what I, or what other journalists have written. The reckless immigration policies of President Obama and Attorney General Lynch are putting all American in harms way.

As I reported in the original article, the FBI has publicly admitted that they estimate that 10% of all Muslims are radicalized in their hatred towards Americans and should be considered to be dangerous. I go further than the FBI, any immigrant needs to be screened before being granted admittance to the United States, not just Muslims. For the record, this site has never advocated any form of vigilantism against group of people regardless of their race, religion and country of origin. I want all immigrants to be subject to the same procedures that I am forced to comply with. I want all immigrants to be screened by the FBI in the name of national security.

In the December 16th article, I stated that many journalists have been put on the DHS Terror Watch List and are subject to arrest, or worse. Immediately after publishing the article, I was accused of overreacting to the DHS/Lorreta Lynch threat.

It only took one day, for my warning to come true!

One Day Later… Pete Santilli Is Taken Into Custody for “Slow Driving”

Talk show host, Pete Santilli, arrested without cause at gun point for impeding traffic.

At a time when the Obama administration is stopping all investigations into the domestic threat posed by ISIS, they have begun to arrest journalists for speaking out against reckless immigration policies.

While driving in Newtown (how ironic), Ohio, Pete Santilli was pulled for slow driving and was arrested at gunpoint. He was held for 24 hours. Santilli has no criminal record and has never been arrested. During the course of the arrest, Santilli learned that he was on the DHS watch list.

Pete Santilli contacted me late last night and verified the events as listed here.

Doug Hagmann

Doug and Joe Hagmann

Doug Hagmann notified me in advance of his intention to meet with an informant inside of DoJ where Lynch presides with regard to the persecution of journalists who dare criticize this administration. The following is a brief account of what Doug Hagmann was told by this source in which he also show Doug documents to validate his concerns. Here are excerpts sent to me by Doug with regard to this topic and what he learned.

“… this source works at DoJ and listens to our shows and The Common Sense Show. ( …during our initial conversation to confirm his (identity and status… which checked out).

Long story short, (the) source said that the DoJ created a special section birthed from a meeting 2 weeks ago that is dedicated to the monitoring of certain “alternative media programs and web sites,” although the name and mission statement of that section (sub-department) does not reflect its actual job. This is staffed by about 20 people and supervised by a US Attorney.”  (Author’s note: Obviously this “task force” designed to harass members of the Independent Media was put together well in advance of the events at San Bernardino which was supposedly Lynch’s motivation to issue the threat against journalists).

…In sum and substance, the section is compiling all current and historical information about anti-Islamic (and laughably, anti-Christian and anti-Jewish) hate speech. The plan is to use federal regulations to warn us off any such talk, but it goes even deeper. He said that in the meeting, the stated criteria was much broader, including anti-government talk.”

I asked Doug if my previous article led to the D0J official contacting and he said that it did.

Conclusion

Do I need to say it? Do I dare say it? Under this administration, our liberties are quickly eroding to a level experienced by people living under the Stasi, the Nazis and the KGB. Journalists, or anyone else with an opinion which differs from this administration are being put in grave danger.

These totalitarian actions need to be exposed for all to see. Please make this article go viral with your comments.

Today at 4pm EST, The Common Sense Show is interviewing Mike Adams on the implications of the Santilli event. The show is being broadcast by the following outlets:

AM 1600, 50, 000 watt superstation WMQM

Global Star Radio Network

Talknetwork.com

And of course, people can listen by clicking the listen to Dave button at the top right hand side.

Credit to Common Sense

CROSSES AND MENORAHS BANNED AT IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL

War on X-mas