Thread: The U.S. Economy Is A Dead Horse And Americans Are Mad

The U.S. Economy Is A Dead Horse And The American People Are Starting To Get Really Mad And Frustrated

The economic frustration of the American people is reaching a fever pitch. Millions of Americans can't seem to get a good job no matter what they do. Millions of others are working as hard as they can but find that they keep coming up short at the end of the month. Record numbers of Americans are still going bankrupt. Record numbers of Americans are still losing their homes. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is a dead horse at this point. It just doesn't have any more to give. At this point the U.S. economy is like an aging rock star that requires larger and larger doses of drugs each night just to be able to perform. The U.S. economy is addicted to "drugs" such as debt and government stimulus, and years ago those things really supercharged the U.S. economic system, but at this point they aren't provoking much of a response at all. In fact, the things that once "stimulated" the economy are now slowly killing it. But the vast majority of the American people do not understand this. All they know is that the economy is broken and they want someone to "fix" it.

For most Americans, all we have ever known is tremendous prosperity. All our lives we have been taught that America is the richest and most prosperous nation on the planet, and that while there will always be times of "recession", things will always bounce back and be better than ever before.

But this time things aren't bouncing back.

And Americans are starting to become extremely frustrated.

A couple of quotes that appeared in a recent article in The New York Daily News really embodied the growing frustration that so many are feeling at this point....

"My husband and I are fortunate to be able to move in with my 81-year-old mother-in-law. But how sad is that? I apply for jobs and nothing happens," writes Gayle Hanson. "Who wants to hire a 59-year-old woman? My answer is nobody. [I] have years of experience, excellent references. And nothing to show for it."

"I am soon to be 57 and considered too old, too expensive, etc. I can't get an employer to hire me at any salary," writes Mike Stiller. "I am BOILING MAD."

But Gayle Hanson and Mike Stiller are far from alone.

Millions upon millions of Americans are "boiling mad" about the economy at this point.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=173169

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... y-to-china

The truth is that the United States has lost 10.5 million jobs since 2007. Many of those jobs have been shipped off to countries like China and India where labor is much cheaper and they are never coming back.

There just are not enough jobs for everyone in America at this point. The number of "chronically unemployed" has been rising at a frightening pace. In fact, the average duration of unemployment in the United States has risen to an all-time high.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-0 ... weeks.html

If you have never been unemployed and unable to find a job, then you just don't know how soul crushing it can be. This is especially true when you have a family to support.

Right now, there are 9.2 million Americans that are unemployed but are not even receiving an unemployment insurance check. It is easy to tell those unemployed workers that they should "get a job", but as the chart below shows, the gap between the number of unemployed workers and the number of job openings has increased dramatically over the last couple of years....

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1278532800.php

But in this economy, even many of those who do have jobs are still struggling mightily. According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck. That was up significantly from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.

And Americans are still losing their homes in record numbers. Banks repossessed an average of 4,000 south Florida properties a month in the first half of 2010, which was up 83 percent from the first half of 2009.

Meanwhile, demand for homes is dropping through the floor. The Mortgage Bankers Association announced on Wednesday that demand for loans to purchase U.S. homes sunk to a 13 year low last week, and refinancing demand also plummeted despite near record-low mortgage rates.

So considering all of these statistics, is it any wonder why so many Americans are so pessimistic?

According to a recent poll conducted by Bloomberg, 71% of Americans say that it still feels like the economy is in a recession.

But the truth is that we haven't seen anything yet.

Things are going to get much worse.

Already, Federal Reserve policymakers are discussing what steps they might take to stimulate economic activity "if the outlook were to worsen appreciably".

So can more economic stimulus help?

To a limited extent.

The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government will likely try to inject more debt and more "economic stimulus" into the system to try to shock the economy back to life.

But the more debt the U.S. government takes on the worse our long-term problems are going to get.

The reality is that the U.S. economic system is broken, and there is simply not any "quick fix" that is available that is going to get things back to normal.

So on an individual level, what should we all do?

Well, we all need to start becoming a lot less dependent on the system.

We should all consider how we can start our own businesses, grow our own food and trade within our own communities.

If the entire system is starting to break down, it is those who are the least dependent on the system that will have the best chance to prosper during the times ahead.

Source: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... frustrated

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... y-to-china



http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/05/us-inv ... gle+Reader

As the U.S. economy continues to implode, large American corporations are investing billions upon billions of dollars in China. But all of this investment comes at a price. Over the past several decades, hundreds of factories and manufacturing facilities that would have been constructed in the United States, along with millions of decent paying jobs, have ended up going to China instead where labor is so much cheaper.

In the process, China has become a massive economic powerhouse, while once thriving manufacturing cities in the United States such as Detroit are now rusted-out corpses. In fact, China's economy has grown so rapidly that it is being projected that in 2010 China will replace Japan as the world's second-largest economy.

Not only that, but China has already overtaken Germany and is now the biggest exporter of goods in the entire world. But none of this growth in communist China would have been possible without all of the globalism and free trade that U.S. politicians from both parties have been pushing on us for the last 40 years. When they were selling us on the benefits of "free trade" they didn't tell us that we would end up shipping our economy, our jobs and our prosperity over to China.

American consumers never seemed to be able to put two and two together. As we were busy running out and filling up our shopping carts with cheap plastic crap made in China, we didn't seem to realize that a "global economy" meant that we would be competing for jobs and wages with workers on the other side of the world.

So now the U.S. economy, with its high wages and repressive government regulations, is suffering while China's economy is thriving.

So just how much money are U.S. corporations pouring into China?

Well, according to the U.S.-China Business Council, U.S. corporations combined for $3.6 billion in direct foreign investment in China in 2009. That was substantially up from $2.9 billion in 2008.

As U.S. companies pour increasingly large amounts of money into China, the economies of the U.S. and China are becoming inextricably linked.

In fact, some of the biggest "American" success stories are now manufactured in China.

For example, have you purchased an Apple iPhone? Well, if you have, there is a really good chance that it was made in China. Of course what Apple doesn't tell you is that ten workers at the facility in China where the iPhone is manufactured have committed suicide in the past year by jumping off buildings at the factory. Perhaps they were depressed over their low pay - the workers at the factory work very long hours but make less than 300 hundred dollars a month.

How would you like to work for 300 dollars a month?

But things could be even worse.

Reuters recently described the ordeal of one Chinese worker who spends at least eight hours a day standing on an assembly line putting together locks for Honda cars....

"Each year is the same. It makes me sick in the stomach. There's no freshness to things anymore," he said of his job which pays around 30 yuan (US$5) per day.

How in the world can American workers be expected to compete with someone who makes 5 dollars a day?

But some Chinese workers toil in even more difficult conditions. According to the Toronto Star, employees at the Pingdingshan Cotton Textile Company work grueling two day shifts and yet only make 65 cents an hour.

These low wages have enabled big global corporations to make huge profits, and they have helped provide lots of low price products for American consumers, but in the process they are cannibalizing U.S. jobs, factories and businesses.

In fact, it is getting quite hard to find things that are made in the United States anymore. Even many of the "organic foods" that you are buying at organic food stores are now actually made in China.

As tens of millions of American workers sit at home collecting unemployment checks, U.S. companies are busy making plans to invest billions more in China.

According to Pacific Epoch, a China-focused research firm based in Shanghai, Pepsi "has committed $1 billion over the next four years to build 14 new beverage production plants, in a move that will almost double its production capacity in the country."

Couldn't we use a few of those beverage production plants in the United States?

But who wants to pay U.S. workers 12 dollars an hour when they can pay Chinese workers 2 dollars an hour?

But Pepsi is far from alone. Forbes recently detailed the massive investments that some of the major car companies are making in China....

General Motors and Volkswagen have invested billions in China, starting more than a decade ago. Ford is rushing to catch up by adding production capacity and expanding its dealer network in China. Ford and its joint-venture partner, Chang'an Ford Mazda Automobile, plan to start producing next-generation Ford Focus models at a new, $490 million plant in Chongqing in 2012.

Meanwhile, once thriving American manufacturing cities such as Detroit and Flint, Michigan are so dilapidated and run down that they literally look like war zones.

But it is not just U.S. companies that are investing in China. According to China's Ministry of Commerce, overall direct foreign investment in China rose 14 percent to approximately $39 billion in the first five months of 2010. Nearly half of that money was spent on building or expanding factories.

The implications of all this are staggering.

First of all, nobody can deny any longer that China has become a superpower. China now has one of the largest economies in the world, their military has been dramatically upgraded and modernized and they have developed a network of economic and diplomatic contacts around the globe that would have been unthinkable 20 or 30 years ago.

Meanwhile, the United States has an economy that is imploding, a reputation that has been deeply tarnished and a debt that is the largest in the history of the world.

In fact, China owns about a trillion dollars of U.S. government debt.

Yes, the United States is falling and China is rising.

So now that China's economy and manufacturing base has been built up so dramatically, what happens when someday the communist Chinese government decides that it doesn't want to be such great friends with the United States anymore?

If relations between the two nations really go south someday, could U.S. corporations suddenly lose the billions upon billions that they have poured into China?

Also, many Chinese military strategists believe that it is inevitable that there will be a war between the United States and China someday. So could China end up using all of the technology and manufacturing capacity that they have gained at our expense against us someday?

The truth is that all of the money and technology that we have poured into China could end up being one of the greatest national security blunders of all time.

China is not a democracy. The Communist Party runs China, and most of their leaders still believe in the ultimate worldwide triumph of communism.

So in the end the United States may look back and realize how incredibly stupid it was to build up communist China at the expense of our own economy.

But this is the world our leaders have built for us. A world where globalism and "free trade" force us to compete for jobs against sweatshop laborers around the globe.

The reality is that this "new world" is not very good at all for the American middle class. The economic realities of the 21st century are very cruel for Americans who are seeking to live a middle class lifestyle.

Gradually, everyone in the world is being pushed into two economic groups. The massive global corporations that dominate everyone and everything, and the worldwide mass of expendable labor that serves those global corporations.

It is this kind of "neo-feudalism" that we must avoid at all costs. If the American people would just wake up this trend towards increasing globalism could be reversed.

But will they wake up?

Originally Posted by HAPPY2BME

Right now, there are 9.2 million Americans that are unemployed but are not even receiving an unemployment insurance check. It is easy to tell those unemployed workers that they should "get a job", but as the chart below shows, the gap between the number of unemployed workers and the number of job openings has increased dramatically over the last couple of years....

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1278532800.php

========================================

This 9.2 is an old number. Recent unemployment estimates are at least 15 million Americans out of work.

At least 8 million occupied jobs are occupied by illegal aliens from Mexico.

Secure our borders, deport illegal aliens, reform immigration so there is no Birthright citizenship and only 100k visas in a lottery and the Economy will BOOM. Americans DO NOT want to work for Mexico

Even with record unemployment numbers, large corps. are importing foreign workers. Many send American workers to China to train their replacements.
It is all about the almighty dollar. Nothing about loyality to employees or country. When the dollar collapses, Americans better be prepared for survival, not prosperity.

TO: MOD

I thought the Vegas video was quite realistic. Risque, but frank.

The problem is Gridlock in Washington, DC. Along with the money wasting ideas from both Parties there are actually some good ideas in the mix. But the longer we dither the more those opportunities tend to walk off to other countries willing to implement them immediately.

The US will almost certainly never again be a shoo-in winner of high wage manufacturing and clerical jobs that involve a modicum of skill. We even have competition now for the high level medical careers. What countries like India and China still cannot produce is sophisticated equipment that protects the life and safety pf occupants and/or users----like Jet airliners, for example or electrical generating equipment and high level electronic technology or medical devices. But wait 20 years. They will be there.

Meanwhile the US, because of infighting and bickering, will have squandered opportunities. There are some innovations in aircraft technology---funded by grants from NASA during the Bush administration. But these are not slated for market until 2030-35. It really needs to be sooner. Likewise, replacing petroleum needs to step up and be done now, This would be another manufacturing opportunity--especially in the Great Lakes states, that already have the industrial infrastructure to do it.

Originally Posted by Captainron

The problem is Gridlock in Washington, DC. Along with the money wasting ideas from both Parties there are actually some good ideas in the mix. But the longer we dither the more those opportunities tend to walk off to other countries willing to implement them immediately.

The US will almost certainly never again be a shoo-in winner of high wage manufacturing and clerical jobs that involve a modicum of skill. We even have competition now for the high level medical careers. What countries like India and China still cannot produce is sophisticated equipment that protects the life and safety pf occupants and/or users----like Jet airliners, for example or electrical generating equipment and high level electronic technology or medical devices. But wait 20 years. They will be there.

Meanwhile the US, because of infighting and bickering, will have squandered opportunities. There are some innovations in aircraft technology---funded by grants from NASA during the Bush administration. But these are not slated for market until 2030-35. It really needs to be sooner. Likewise, replacing petroleum needs to step up and be done now, This would be another manufacturing opportunity--especially in the Great Lakes states, that already have the industrial infrastructure to do it.

The political parties are like two children fighting over a toy who tear it apart in the process.

And now the oil rigs are moving away from the Gulf of Mexico, taking jobs with them, due to Obama's drilling ban. How many will follow?

"Diamond Offshore announced Friday that its Ocean Endeavor drilling rig will leave the Gulf of Mexico and move to Egyptian waters immediately — making it the first to abandon the United States in the wake of the BP oil spill and a ban on deep-water drilling.

And the Ocean Endeavor's exodus probably won't be the last, according to oil industry officials and Gulf Coast leaders who warn that other companies eager to find work for the now-idled rigs are considering moving them outside the U.S."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bus ... 01738.html

Diamond Offshore Drilling has pulled another rig
out of the Gulf of Mexico due to the deepwater petroleum drilling
moratorium.
The Houston-based company said that it has ordered the Ocean
Confidence rig to the Republic of Congo. The rig departed the Gulf
over the weekend.
Diamond Offshore said it rewrote a drilling contract with Murphy
Exploration and Production Co. Its current contract with Murphy was
changed to a one-year commitment in the Gulf that will begin when
Murphy is confident it can get permits to drill.
In exchange, the companies signed a new agreement to drill off
the coast of the Republic of Congo.
Last week, Diamond Offshore said it was moving another Gulf rig
to Egypt.

http://www2.nbc13.com/vtm/news/local/ar ... lf/166568/

There are about 30 rigs still in the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to the Confidence announcement, Jay Collins, chief executive of deepwater services firm Oceaneering International [OII 46.22 -0.72 (-1.53%)], said that five rigs could leave the Gulf of Mexico, while UBS analyst Angie Sedita predicted three or four more could go.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38220145

What I would like to know is what is the cost of living in China against the low wages they earn? For example, what does $300 per month buy you in terms of housing, utilties, food, and transportaion (gas,ect.).

Since labor typically is the largest cost of a product or service how does it trully compare to the US?

I am a small business owner and labor cost is my largest expense as it is for most businesses. Arizona minimum wage laws are currently $7.25 per hour so on an 8-hour day this would equate to $58 per day or according to this article 10 times higher then the average Chinese labor cost. Does that mean their cost of living is 10 times lower then us? The other factor to that needs to be looked at is the average chinese workers standard of living compared to ours. How does that equate? I assume it is much lower but exactly where is a guess.

Anybody know the answers t my questions I would love to hear a response as I agree with this article, we are in deep poo poo.

Deflationary pressures are starting to kick in and after that it wouldn't take much for rapid inflation to come about as our US Dollar starts to collaspe from the exess being printed by the Federal Reserve. The Feds can't lower the overnight lending rate any lower to stimulate the economy as it is already at zero percent. Good deal for banks who can get these loans and turn around and invest it in US Treasury notes and make free money. Why would they want to lend it when they can put it into zero rsik notes?

The Fed Reserve continuing to print money and the fed deficit climbing to unthinkable and unsustainable levels is a disaster of huge proportion in the makings for our country in my opinion. China and other countries will not continue to buy our debt at levels equal to what the fed reserve is printing. This means the extra money in the market causes the dollar to weaken. I mean afterall, how much can you print before countries see it as not having the value of a dollar and refuse to accept it for a dollar but instead for .75 cents or .50 cents?

Yes, we as a country allowed our politicains in Washington to screw us over with their free trade agreements and allowing such disproportionate trade inbalances that is now strangling America. We allowed the Wal-marts of our country to import so much cheap crap as the story states above. Our government did not place high tarriffs on these imports and has allowed our own manufacturing base to go cold becuase it was cheaper to import then to build right here in our own country.

Trade is important to growth of any country but what is more important is balanced trade. Without balance trade you transfer bits and pieces of your country's wealth to another nation. In China's case, we traded a huge portion of our wealth and it is now almost impossible to get it back. And China owns America in the debt they have bought.

The war that China talks about with the US in my opinion is the theory we will default on paying them back and they will have to seek collateral as repayment of the debt. Again, only my opinion but its what makes the most sense. China would have to do something aggressive to show the rest of the world that they will not allow anybody to default on debt owed to them and that includes the USA.

Scary times we live in and we have much to do to repair our country. Its not to late but needs a major overalll in our congress and our President to start the painful process of fixing our country. Illegal immigration is one as they also suck the wealth of our states and our country as a whole. That wealth, a high percentage, goes to another country's economy such as Mexico and other latin American countries.

The President and congress needs to place high tarriffs on imports equal to the cost of living difference between the US and the country trading with us so that it is balanced. Anything less only continues to strangle us and bleed us to death.

I am no economist or have any degree or major in econmics, I just have the school of life as most of you here and as a small business owner I know what our daily struggles are to survive. I can tell you that not one thing President Obama has done to stimulate this economy and especially small business has made one single difference in my company's survival. Its what I have done that has allowed me to survive so far and what I have done has been very painful for all of us in my company. But I have people still employed and my doors are still opened. I don't know what next year brings but it don't look good and Obama's Hope and Change promise is nothing but a bag of hot air. From what I see it is stuck indefinately on hope and no change will be coming for the average American other then a continued lower quality of life.

We have to make the change this year and 2012 and that is to vote all democrats out of office and gets solid republicans into office along with a good good percentage of working class citizens in office who know what the average person is experiencing and that will actually work for the people and not against. Who will be on the same agenda as America and will have the stregnth to not be influenced by greed or desire for wealth and power. That greed and desire for wealth and power is what has led this country to the lowest point ever.