GAO Report: $501 Million Spent On Training For Jobs That Don't Exist - Green Jobs, Where?

Bass Warns “When The Globe Is At 360% Credit Market Debt-To-GDP, There Is No Real Way Out… And Investors Should Be Really Careful Doing What The Central Bankers Want Them To Do.”

Quantitative easing is nothing but “competitive devaluation,” Kyle Bass begins this brief but wide-ranging interview; and while no central bank can explicitly expose the ‘beggar thy neighbor’ policy, they are well aware (and ‘banking on’) the fact that secondary or tertiary effects will lead to devaluing their currency. The bottom line, Bass warns, is “when the globe is at 360% credit market debt-to-GDP, there is no real way out.” Furthermore, the winds of austerity have already blown (simply put no nation engaged in austerity prospectively – for the nation’s betterment – they were forced by the bond markets) and with central bankers now dominant - the Krugman-esque mentality of “let’s just keep going,” is very much in the driver’s seat since politicians now see “no consequence for fiscal profligacy.” The average investor, Bass adds, “is at the mercy of the central bank puppeteers,” as the Fed’s policies are forcing mom-and-pop to “put their money in the wrong place at the wrong time.” There will be consequences for that… there is only one way this will end… “and investors should be really careful doing what the central bankers want them to do.”

Forward to 38:31 for Kyle Bass’ interview…

 
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-04/kyle-bass-warns-there-no-real-way-out
Investment pros John Mauldin, Mohamed El-Erian, David Rosenberg, Barry Ritholtz, John Hussman and Kyle Bass discuss these important investor questions:
1) Is the Market’s Run Sustainable?
2) Where Do You Find Safe Income?
3) The Euro Crisis. DC Dysfunction. Central Bankers Printing Trillions. What Does It Mean for Your Portfolio NOW?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzkYeSfgZQI

Kyle Bass, the hedge fund manager who made billions betting against mortgage-backed securities in 2008, now says to bet against The Fed and all central banks. He says average investor is being forced to put money in wrong place at wrong time. Watch the full interview at http://inn.MauldinEconomics.com.

Deception and Dishonesty in the Government Affect Gold Prices

8/3/2013 – Precious Metals Market Update

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Audio/Video Notes Below
 
It’s been quite a week and we’re now into August. This is very important as we talk about the seasonality of gold. There are several other things that are driving gold back up gradually. The first I want to talk about is one of the things that helped drive gold down and that is the yield and the treasury bond market.

Treasury Bond Market Falls, Good For Gold

There’s a TLT sign that the 20+ year treasury bond market has broken 9% now in a little over a month and a half. With that market going down 9%, clients that sold gold like a year ago and went into long term bonds, are now moving back into gold. So this is one important thing to remember. When treasuries break like they have, a 9% drop in TLTs, then it’s certainly something we’re very aware of.
A lot of the money doesn’t go to gold, but it does go somewhere. The other thing is we’re seeing the stock market have a $384 million call on those. It’s borrowed money, and that normally means an intermediate top that will also help gold. Plus, the seasonality of what we’re moving into.

Deception and Dishonesty

But the biggest thing, Jerry, that we want to talk about is what I started out talking about in May. Through pure deception and dishonesty, Lew, the head of the US Treasury has now said for four months that the budget has been balanced; that we went up $17 trillion in debt, which was the debt limit, and the government has been able to balance the budget for four months. But at the same time, Bernanke has just borrowed $53 million in new treasury purchases.
So we know it’s just creative bookkeeping, and we are going to have to deal with the debt ceiling. History tells us that as we’ve talked about and I’ve shown many times in charts, if they take and raise the debt ceiling from $17 trillion to $18.5 or $19 trillion as they’re expected to, we’re talking about gold with at least a 30% increase and probably more.
So, this will be dealt with this fall. Lew continues to deceive the public, and some say we haven’t had any debt in four months, that the government is bringing in enough money to pay for all its obligations. And yet, Bernanke, in the other door, is borrowing money and created $53 million new treasury bills out of thin air. Those just don’t jive.
Be ready, because once that happens, you’ll see gold jump $100 to $150 in a day or two or three, just like it did in August 2011 last time they raised the debt ceiling. That’s back on our radar screen as I told you earlier.

The Technical Side

There’s rumors out of Europe this week that central banks are now pricing hundreds of tons of gold similar to what was purchased back in late June of this year when there was a 580 ton purchase that turned out to be China and India, the two central banks that ended up buying that much back in June. So, we usually don’t find out who does it until after the fact, but there is a deal being made as we speak in Europe, so there’s a lot of very positive things going on for gold.
Now, silver remains in a neutral state. It’s not in a buy signal yet like gold and platinum and, for you listeners, we want you to know that silver is down a little over 20% and gold is down a little over 30% for the year 2013. But what we don’t talk about is that palladium is up 4.5% and platinum is up 3.5% for 2013. So, these metals are set to really explode.
Like you wrote in your briefing, Jerry, with the amount of money being printed at the Fed, we don’t expect to go down any in quantitative easing. We don’t expect them to cut back from $85 billion per month. In fact, we expect them to increase. Every sign that we are seeing is that they will actually increase the spending, and now that President Obama is interviewing and looking at some extremely liberal people possibly taking Bernanke’s job, I think we’re getting set up for that because so far everything that’s happened really hasn’t affected the economy to the good at all. It really hasn’t, it’s all just deception and mirrors.
So, we’re getting ready for a tremendous month. We think the last four or four and a half months of this year, starting somewhere in the middle of August will produce a potential for gold and silver both to gain enough that they don’t lose anything this year. So, what I’m saying is we expect gold to go up 20% by the end of the year, and silver over 30%. That may sound crazy, but that’s what we hear and that’s what we believe at this point.
So, it’s a great time to get into silver. It’s going to be a buy signal anytime, and we’ve got to get it to break to $20.50 and hold for 2 or 3 days. Then we should get a quick 10% move into the $22.50 to $23 per ounce range like we’re looking for.
Palladium, populations just keep requiring it. It looks extremely bullish to us, and we know there is a shortage out of Russia and South Africa. There are strikes in South Africa that are affecting that market. And platinum is a little bit similar to palladium, but I think palladium still has more run in it than the platinum does.

Gold Top Investment for Rest of 2013

I was talking to a major financial adviser yesterday, who is getting ready to move 10% more of his client’s money into gold in particular. He’s been in the business about 35 years, and says he sees gold without question the top investment for the rest of 2013, if you look at it from right now until the end of the year. So, hopefully, all of this will be helpful.
So, for those who need to talk to me, you can reach me at 800-247-2812, and if you would like to get our email blast, you can visit our precious metals page and sign up for our email blast that I send out 2 or 3 times a week. We keep your email completely confidential. We don’t share it with anyone. It tells you our specials, our operating hours, plus articles that we find pertinent to the market and precious metals.
With this week’s precious metals market update, this is Tom Cloud signing out.

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Want to speak with Tom Cloud? Call him direct at (800) 247-2812

Syria Bans Use of U.S. Dollars Amid Hyperinflation

FTMDaily.com – Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad has just issued a grim decree that outlaws the use of all foreign currency, including the U.S. dollar, in commercial transactions. According to the SANA, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency:

“President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday issued Legislative Decree No. 54 for the year 2013 which provides for the prevention of dealing in currencies other than the Syrian pound as a means of payments or any other kind of commercial dealings or cash payments whether it is in foreign currencies or precious metals.”

Those Syrians who violate the decree could face stiff fines and prison time:

“Anyone who violates the previous provisions shall be punished by 6 months to 3 years imprisonment and/or a fine equivalent to twice the value of payments…”

The head of Syria’s Central Bank, Adib Mayal, stated that the measures were part of a larger effort “to prevent the dollarization of the economy.”
Indeed, the latest measures by the Assad government are a last ditch effort to shore up its failing currency, the Syrian pound, which has lost much of its value against the U.S. dollar since tensions erupted within the country back in 2011. According to at least one report, the price of some goods in Syria have tripled due to rampant inflation. And according to one study issued by the Cato Institute, the current inflation rate in Syria is around 200%.

The country’s growing inflation rate has driven most Syrians to immediately convert their national currency into dollars as soon as possible. The average Syrian’s loss of faith in the Syrian pound and his growing preference for the more stable U.S. dollar has been devastating to the Syrian economy.
For years, FTMDaily has pointed out that smaller, non-nuclear nations who attempt to reject the use of the U.S. dollar soon find the U.S. military on their doorstep ready to “spread democracy.”
For example, the nation of Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, attempted to switch from U.S. dollars to euros in exchange for its oil exports back in 2000.
Libya is another interesting case study. In the years prior to his overthrow and violent death, Muammar Qaddafi began threatening to nationalize his country’s vast oil industry and introduce a new gold-backed dinar currency to challenge the U.S. dollar in Libya’s oil trade. Soon, the U.S. announced that stopping Gadhafi was important to America’s ‘strategic interests’ within the region.
Additionally, before the U.S. takedown of Gadhafi, Libya had one of the world’s only remaining state-owned central banks. With a nationalized central bank, Libya had successfully been able to keep Western banks at bay. However, all that changed once the U.S.-funded Libyan “rebels” began running wild through the streets. Within weeks, these “rebels” had formed a new national oil company and a new central bank for Libya. (These must have been some saavy “rebels” to incorporate a major oil corporation and to establish a modern Westernized central bank.) Not surprisingly, these new entities interfaced perfectly with Western interests.
For more on the insidious nature of this global “dollars for oil” system, read this article series on the coming collapse of the petrodollar system and check out our recent podcast entitled: “U.S. Desperation Leading to New Petrodollar Wars in Syria, Iran“

Peter Schiff: Make A-Rod Fed Chairman, Has Experience With Artificial Stimulus

China Is Ending Its "One-Child Policy" - Here Are The Implications

Source: Zero Hedge

Back in 1978, the Chinese politburo enacted the "one-child policy", whose main purpose was to "alleviate social, economic, and environmental problems" in China as a result of the soaring population. According to estimates, the policy prevented more than 250 million births between 1980 and 2000, and 400 million births from about 1979 to 2011. And while not applicable to everyone, in 2007 approximately 35.9% of China's population was subject to a one-child restriction.
Regardless of the numbers, things are about to change: with the Chinese economy now having peaked and suddenly finding itself in rapid deceleration with excess credit growth providing virtually no boost to marginal growth, the Chinese government is forced to reexamine 35 years of social policy in order to extract growth from the one place where for nearly 4 decades it had tried to stifle: demographics.
According to the 21st Business Herald which cited sources close to the National Population and Family Planning Commission, China may relax its one-child policy at end-2013 or early-2014 (read end) by allowing families to have two children if at least one parent is from a one-child family. A plan for allowing all families to have two children after 2015 is also being reviewed.
According to Bank of America's Ting Lu, the news is reliable and is in line with the bank's view. BAC expects around 9.5 million babies to be born as a result of such reform. China’s A-share market welcomed the news on Friday with baby-related stocks up sharply.
To say that this is a paradigm demographic shift at the world's most populous country is an understatement. And while we will provide further analysis in the days to come, here is Bank of America's cursory assessment of what this will mean for the Chinese economy.

We are optimistic that an end to the one-child policy will soon be confirmed. In fact, in our report Post-leadership change reform: End of the one-child policy? (24 Jan 2013), we predicted that the window for the population policy reform could be 4Q13 around the ruling party's annual meeting or 1Q14 around the people’s congress meeting. We believe that the reform-minded president Xi and premier Li will use the opportunity of abolishing the one-child policy to build up their authority, show their determination in making changes and convince the Chinese people that they do have a roadmap for reforms.
The estimated impact: Around 9.5mn incremental babies
If the 21st Business Herald news is confirmed, the demographic reform path (which we called “piecemeal path” in our earlier report) is more conservative than our baseline “middle path”, which is defined as allowing all families to have two children without any restrictions. So is this a big disappointment? Not really. This is because the one child policy now is only strictly enforced in urban areas and some developed rural areas where most couples of child-bearing age have at least one singleton (note China’s one-child policy started in the late 1970s).
According to the 2005 population survey, singletons account for 29.3% of Chinese aged 30 or under (the generation affected by the one-child policy). The ratio should be significantly higher in urban areas. Assuming 60% of people of child bearing age in urban areas are singletons, on top of the 36% families which are already allowed to have two children, we estimate 48% of urban families of child bearing age could benefit from the coming reform. Using census data, there are 79mn women of child bearing age (23 to 42) this year. 48% of 79mn is 38mn. Assuming 25% of them choose to have a second child, about 9.5mn babies would be born as a result of this reform to one-child policy.

While we touched on the main demographic reason for this paradigm shift toward population control back in January with "China Hits Key Demographic Ceiling As Working-Age Population Now Declining", here is much more on this topic from a previous take by Bank of America:
End of the one-child policy?
We think China’s rapidly worsening demographics entail significant risks to its long-term social stability and economic growth if Chinese policymakers do not terminate the country’s one-child policy. The one-child-policy is very unpopular, and in our view has been long outdated; it is only supported by some smaller interest groups. For China’s reform-minded new leaders who will take office in March this year, we believe abolishing the one-child-policy could provide them with a means to build up their authority, show their determination in making changes and convince the Chinese populous that they do have a roadmap for future structural reforms.
Why China may soon end the one-child policy
Three factors lead us to believe that China may soon terminate its unpopular one-child policy: (1) Statistics point to rapidly deteriorating demographics which could lead to severe social and economic consequences in the future; (2) consensus for doing away with the one-child policy is well built up; (3) China’s new leaders could take ending the one-child policy as an opportunity to show their strength in their first year in office without taking on major interest groups. But before discussing why the one-child policy may soon be ended, we briefly go through the history and the current status of China’s one-child policy.
The current status of China’s one-child policy
“In 30 years, the currently pressing issue of population growth may have been eased, and a different population policy can be adopted.” – About Controlling China’s Population Growth, An open letter to Party and Youth League members from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, 25 September 1980. That letter marked the official start of China’s one-child policy. More than 30 years have passed and in our view the one-child policy has been much more successful in slowing China’s population growth than most officials at the time had expected. The National Population and Family Planning Commission (henceforth NPFPC) was in charge of the enforcement of the one-child policy in the central government, while at local levels usually deputy governors take responsibility for enforcing it.

The NPFPC has gradually loosened up the one-child policy, especially in rural areas. Currently, a second child is permitted if both parents are singletons. The rule is looser for rural families, which (with some exceptions) can have a second child if the first-born is a girl. Some provinces have even looser policies for rural families. For instance, in Anhui province, a rural family can have two children if one parent is singleton. There are also other exceptions for a second child, and minority ethnic groups are allowed to have two or even more children. Families which have more children than the policy allows are subject to fines under the name of social maintenance fees. The fee amount varies across the nation, but usually is at least 2-6 times of the higher of annual family income and average local household disposable income.
Worsening demographics
China’s population growth is rapidly decelerating. It rose by 0.48% to 1,347.4mn in 2011, significantly slower than the pace of 0.76% in 2000 and 1.45% in 1990. The falling population growth is a result of both a fast decline in birth rate, which in turn is due to the one-child policy and rising income per capita, and a slowly climbing death rate on an aging population. The birth rate dropped to 1.19% in 2011 from 2.11% in 1990 and 1.40% in 2000, while the death rate rose to 0.71% in 2011 after bottoming out at 0.64% in 2003. China’s current birth rate is similar to those of developed countries (1.1% in 2005-2010) but much lower compared to other less developed countries (2.5%).
Based on the trend, we think China’s population will likely peak by 2020 at below 1.4bn (far lower than NPFPC’s projection of 1.5bn in 2033) and will likely decline sharply afterwards. The United Nation estimates that the Chinese population will likely peak at 1,358mn in 2017, and decline to 1,319mn in 2030 and 1,130mn in 2050, which are 2% and 16% contractions respectively from now, in its low variant case.
Why the NPFPC has a different estimate?
China’s existing population policy is based on the NPFPC’s projection of population growth, which estimates that China’s population will peak at 1.5bn in around 2033. The key assumption of the NPFPC is that China’s total fertility rate (TFR) has stayed at 1.8 over the past decades and will stay at that level for years ahead, though all evidence seems to suggest that China’s TFR has been much lower than 1.8 since the mid-1990s. In hindsight, NPFPC’s forecasts of population growth have been systematically overshooting the actual numbers by a significant margin. In 2001-05, the Chinese population increased by only 40.1mn, far below the NPFPC’s forecast of a 62.6mn increase. In 2006-10, the Chinese population added 33.8mn, again much lower than the NPFPC’s projection of 52.4mn. In our view, the NPFPC’s forecasts have a poor track record.
What is China’s true TFR?
TFR is perhaps the most controversial demographic indicator in China. It is the average number of children born to each woman over the course of her life. By international standard, a TFR of 2.1 is required to keep a stable population. In 2005-2010, TFR was 2.52 globally, 1.66 for developed countries and 3.03 for less developing countries excluding China, according to the UN.
What is TFR in China? The NPFPC claims that China’s TFR has been quite stable at around 1.8 over the past 20 years. It believes such a TFR is suitable for China and that China should stick to its existing population policy to control population growth. The 2010 census suggests that China’s TFR has dropped to a suprisingly low 1.18 in 2010, down further from 1.33 in 2005 and 1.22 in 2000. In the past the NPFPC has often claimed that census data significantly underestimates the true TFR as a lot of families with more than one child choose to under-report their actual number of children and the NPFPC has revised up its TFR estimate to 1.8 regardless of the census data.
However, a consensus has been reached that China’s TFR is likely to have been 1.4 to 1.5 over the past decade, falling from 2.3 in 1980 and 5.8 in 1950. This is much lower than many developed countries, such as the US (2.07), the UK (1.83) and France (1.97), but similar to some other countries struggling to deal with a low fertility rate, such as Japan (1.31), Korea (1.29) and Germany (1.36). In sum, China’s TFR has stayed significantly lower than the replacement level of 2.1 for more than two decades, and we believe it is likely to drop further as GDP per capita grows.

The aging population and worsening age structure
The Chinese population has been aging fast. Three decades ago, the Chinese population was young with a median age of 22.4. The median age in China is now 34.5, still less than Korea’s 37.9, Japan’s 44.7, the US’ 36.9, France’s 39.9 and the UK’s 39.8, but much higher than other less developed countries at 24.5. The trend of aging is set to continue. The UN suggests China’s median age will rise to 53.4 in 2050, similar to estimates for Japan at 52.3 and Korea at 51.8 and significantly above estimates for the US at 40.0, France at 42.7 and the UK at 42.9 and other less developed countries at 34.4. We note that China is still a developing country. Its GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity was US$7,553 in 2010, only 16-25% of that pf the developed countries mentioned above.
At the same time, China’s age structure is deteriorating. In 2011, 9.1% of Chinese were aged 65 or over, up from 7.0% in 2000 and 5.2% in 1980, while the percentage of young age (0 to 14) declined to 16.5% in 2011 from 22.9% in 2000 and 35.5% in 1980. The share of elderly could further rise to 17.4% in 2030 and 29.3% in 2050, while the share of young may decline to 10.8% in 2030 and 9.1% in 2050, the UN suggests.
The baby boom in early 1960s and the one-child policy from mid-1970s have significantly lowered the dependency ratio (those not of working age to those of the working age of 15-64) in the past three decades – from 62.6% in 1982 to 34.4% in 2011. For comparison, it is quite similar to Korea’s 36.8% but much lower than Japan’s 56.2%. A low dependency ratio has allowed China to save more and grow its capital base in the past. However, this ratio has likely already bottomed out and could start rising on aging population. It could rise to 39.2% in 2030 and 62.3% in 2050, according to the UN. The old-age dependency ratio  (age 65+/age 15-64) could rise to 24.2% in 2030 and 47.6% in 2050 from 11.3% in 2010 and 8.7% in 1980. This means that in 40 years time only two workers will support one retiree, vs nine workers supporting one now.
Such an unprecedented pace of aging poses big challenges to China’s pension system. Traditionally, Chinese families have largely relied on their children after their retirement. However, after a 30-year enforcement of the one-child policy, every only-child will need to support two parents and four grandparents, which is likely to be too much of a burden. The retirees will have to depend on the national pension system. China needs to quickly catch up its pension system coverage to ensure social security, as currently only about a third of the population is covered. Furthermore, how to finance the pension system remains a big question as China’s labor force shrinks.

New leaders’ best, safest and easiest reform in 2013
As we explained in detail in China’s post-leadership transition reforms (16 Nov 2012), major structural reforms are unlikely in China before 2014 as the new leadership, especially incoming president Xi and premier Li, will have a mandate of a whole decade. Messrs. Xi and Li will most likely take the first couple of years to consolidate their power base and make allies. In our view, for the two leaders to aggressively revamp China’s institutions, time is likely to be required in order to amass the power base necessary to take on the vested interest groups.
Strong support, little resistance
However, despite the focus on solidifying power bases and maintaining short-term growth stability, in our view the new leaders might still start some reforms in areas with the least resistance and the strongest support. For politicians, barriers to reforms could stem from conservatives clinging to old ideas and vested interest groups. As mentioned above, there is significant support from scholars and social elites for reforming the one-child policy, and the resistance might be only from those with vested interests.
We might be able to learn something from recent history. A decade ago when Messrs. Hu and Wen took office, they abolished all agricultural taxes which had existed in China for more than 2000 years. At that time, the amount of revenue from agricultural taxes had become almost irrelevant (only 2% of total national tax revenue), but Chinese farmers had been strongly against these taxes. This time around, we believe that fine-tuning the one-child policy, which was started in the mid-1970s, could be the major reform to be introduced by the new government with a window of late-2013 to 2014.
Opportunity for new leadership
In our view, China’s new leaders could use reform of the one-child policy as an opportunity to show leadership in their first year in office without taking on major interest groups. Messrs. Xi and Li have displayed a sincere intendance towards reforms and have promised to give the Chinese people a roadmap for what they will do in coming years. The best way to convince the Chinese people of their determination, in our view, would be to start with easier reforms that impart significant meaning. In this regard, we believe there are few other reforms better suited that could be enacted in 2013 (or in  early 2014).

40 Percent Of U.S. Workers Make Less Than What A Full-Time Minimum Wage Worker Made In 1968

Are American workers paid enough?  That is a topic that is endlessly debated all across this great land of ours.  Unfortunately, what pretty much everyone can agree on is that American workers are not making as much as they used to after you account for inflation.  Back in 1968, the minimum wage in the United States was $1.60 an hour.  That sounds very small, but after you account for inflation a very different picture emerges.  Using the inflation calculator that the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides, $1.60 in 1968 is equivalent to $10.74 today.  And of course the official government inflation numbers have been heavily manipulated to make inflation look much lower than it actually is, so the number for today should actually be substantially higher than $10.74, but for purposes of this article we will use $10.74.  If you were to work a full-time job at $10.74 an hour for a full year (with two weeks off for vacation), you would make about $21,480 for the year.  That isn't a lot of money, but according to the Social Security Administration, 40.28%of all workers make less than $20,000 a year in America today.  So that means that more than 40 percent of all U.S. workers actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.  That is how far we have fallen.

The other day I wrote an article which discussed the transition that we are witnessing in our economy right now.  Good paying full-time jobs are disappearing, and they are being replaced by low paying part-time jobs.  So far this year, 76.7 percent of the jobs that have been "created" in the U.S. economy have been part-time jobs.
That would be depressing enough, but what makes it worse is that wages for many of these low paying jobs have actually been declining over the past decade even as the cost of living keeps going up.  The following is from a recent USA Today article...

In the years between 2002 and 2012, real median wages dropped by at least 5% in five of the top 10 low-wage jobs, including food preparers and housekeepers.

So where have the good jobs gone?
Well, there are three long-term trends that are absolutely crushing American workers right now.
First of all, thanks to our very foolish politicians American workers have been merged into a global labor pool where they must directly compete for jobs with workers on the other side of the planet that live in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.  This has resulted in millions upon millions of good jobs leaving this country.  Big corporations can pad their profits by taking a job from an American worker making $15 an hour with benefits and giving it to a worker on the other side of the globe that is willing to work for less than a dollar an hour with no benefits.  Our politicians could do something about this, but they refuse to do so.  Most of them are absolutely married to the idea of a one world economic system that will unite the globe.  Unfortunately, the U.S. economy is going to continue to lose tens of thousands of businesses and millions upon millions of jobs to this one world economic system.
Secondly, big corporations are replacing as many expensive workers with machines, computers and robots as they possibly can.  As technology continues to advance at a blistering pace, the need for workers (especially low-skilled workers) will continue to decrease.  Unfortunately, the jobs that are being lost to technology are not coming back any time soon.
Thirdly, the overall U.S. economy has been steadily declining for more than a decade.  If you doubt this, just read this article.  As our economy continues to get weaker, the lack of jobs is going to become a bigger and bigger problem.
And as our economy systematically loses good jobs, more Americans are forced to become dependent on the government.
Back in 1979, there was about one American on food stamps for every manufacturing job.  Today, there are about four Americans on food stamps for every manufacturing job.
When I first found that statistic I was absolutely stunned.  How in the world can anyone out there deny that the U.S. economy is collapsing?
But as I mentioned above, it isn't just that the number of jobs is not what it should be.  The quality of our jobs is declining as well.  For example, one study found that between 1969 and 2009 the wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 declined by 27 percent after you account for inflation.
That is a pretty stunning decline.  And it has only accelerated in recent years.  Median household income (adjusted for inflation) has fallen by 7.8 percent since the year 2000, and the ratio of wages and salaries to GDP in the United States is near an all-time record low.
Most Americans are finding that their bills just keep going up but their paychecks are not.  This is causing the middle class to wither away, and most families are just trying to survive from month to month at this point.  In fact, according to one recent survey 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
So where do we go from here?
To some people the answer is simple.  They say that we should substantially raise the minimum wage.  And yes, that would definitely make life a bit better for lots of low paid workers out there, but it would also have some very negative side effects.  A substantially higher minimum wage would mean higher prices at retail stores and restaurants, and it would also greatly increase the incentive that corporations have to replace American workers with foreign workers or with technology.  We already have rampant unemployment in this country, and right now there are more than 100 million working age Americans that do not have a job.  We certainly don't want to make that worse.
So raising the minimum wage would not solve our problems.  It would just redistribute our problems.
What we really need to do is to return to the principles that once made this country great.  In early America, we protected our markets with high tariffs.  Access to the U.S. market was a privilege.  Foreign domination was kept out, and our economy thrived.
It is definitely not "conservative" and it should not be "liberal" to stand by and watch millions upon millions of our good jobs get shipped over to communist China.  We need more "economic patriots" in America today, but unfortunately they appear to be a minority at this point.
And once upon a time the U.S. economy was actually a free market system where rules, regulations and red tape were kept to a minimum.  Our nation blossomed under such a system.  Sadly, today we have become a nation that literally has millions of laws, rules and regulations.  The control freaks seem to run everything.  In fact, the Obama administration recently forced one small-time magician out in Missouri to submit a 32 page disaster plan for the little rabbit that he uses in his magic shows for kids.  That is a very humorous example, but it is a perfect illustration of how absurd our system has become.
Another thing we could do to turn this around would be to get rid of the IRS and the income tax.  Did you know that the greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was during a time when there was absolutely no income tax?  If you doubt this, just read this article.
And of course probably the most important thing that we could do for our economy would be to get rid of the Federal Reserve.  The Fed is a massive Ponzi scheme and it has played a primary role in creating almost every single financial bubble in the post-World War II era.  Right now we are living in the greatest bond bubble in the history of the planet, and when that Fed-created bubble bursts the pain is going to be absolutely excruciating.  In addition, the value of our currency has declined by over 96 percent and the size of the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger since the Fed was created.  The Federal Reserve is at the very heart of our economic problems, and we desperately need to shut it down.
Unfortunately, our politicians are not even willing to consider these solutions, and most Americans are way too busy watching Toddlers & Tiaras, Honey Boo Boo and other mindless television programs to be bothered with the real problems that our country is facing.

So needless to say, the great economic storm that is coming is not going to be averted.  Most of the country is still asleep, and most people are going to get absolutely blindsided by the economic nightmare that is rapidly approaching.