HAMAS, THE WORLD ECONOMY AND OTHER SIGNS OF IMPENDING DOOM

To say the news has been bleak lately would be one hell of an understatement. War, collapsing economies and an almost constant lying from the news media has made a lot of us cynical as we could be. As I write this, the DOW is about to cross 17,000 for the first time, which is odd because many, many people are starting to see the writing on the wall that the end may be indeed near.


Let's start with something that may turn out to be the start of Armageddon or just another blip in the area known as the Middle East. You can never tell. Three hitch hiking teens in Israel, which is a bad idea in and of itself, were found murdered this week leading to reprisals from Israel and, of course, anti-Israeli zealots calling FALSE FLAG at the top of their lungs like the they always do. This has led to air strikes against the Gaza Strip and threats of retaliation from Hamas. Good times. This could lead to WW3 or nothing. On this front, it's wait and see.

Just in time for the Fourth of July, Hurricane Arthur is headed up the East Coast, which may or may not ruin the holiday for many of us. Those in the Northeast are iffy for a hit, but North Carolina may get a solid shot at it just in time for the fireworks. That sucks.


But amidst the celebrations, we should look at some sobering economic news that is bleak, bleak, bleak. Spain declared their recession over, even though their unemployment rate is still at 26% and youth unemployment at 52%. Yeah, your crisis is over. Here, the FED today said inflation is "under control," which it most certainly isn't, and that the economy is going to have record growth this quarter, which may be true if you are rich but for he rest of us, it's going the other way. Look at these stats from here and abroad and tell me how good you feel. This is from Blacklisted News:

#1 A study conducted by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity is projecting that the number of college graduates that will be entering the workforce in the U.S. this decade will be nearly three times as high as the growth in the number of jobs that require at least a Bachelor’s degree.

#2 Only four of the twenty fastest growing occupations in America require a Bachelor’s degree or better.

#3 It is hard to believe, but in America today one out of every ten jobs is now filled by a temp agency.

#4 At this point, 53 percent of all wage earners in the United States make less than $30,000 a year.

#5 Approximately one out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty line.

#6 One out of every three grocery store workers in the state of California is on some form of public assistance.

#7 Due to the decline in the quality of our jobs, income inequality in the United States has grown to frightening levels.  The following is an excerpt from arecent Politico editorial that was written by a very wealthy individual…

The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1 percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom 50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about 20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.
But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

#8 In 2007, the average household in the top 5 percent had 16.5 times as much wealth as the average household overall.  But now the average household in the top 5 percent has 24 times as much wealth as the average household overall.

#9 In terms of median wealth per adult, the United States is now in just 19th place in the world.

#10 Our paychecks just keep getting smaller.  Median household income in the United States is about 7 percent lower than it was in the year 2000 after adjusting for inflation.


#11 During the last recession, the U.S. economy lost millions of middle class jobs.  But during this “recovery”, most of the jobs that have been “created” have been low paying jobs.  The following is from the New York Times…

During the recession, employment declined across the board, but 60 percent of the net job losses occurred in middle-income occupations with median hourly wages of $13.84 to $21.13. In contrast, these occupations have accounted for less than a quarter of the net job gains in the recovery, while low-wage occupations with median hourly wages of $7.69 to $13.83 have accounted for more than half of these gains.

#12 Due to a lack of decent jobs, half of all college graduates are still relying on their parents financially when they are two years out of school.

#13 According to one survey, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

#14 Back in the 1980s, over 20 percent of the jobs in the U.S. were manufacturing jobs.  Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the U.S. are manufacturing jobs.

#15 One recent study discovered that all job growth in America since the year 2000 has gone to immigrants.

#16 Another recent study found that 47 percent of unemployed Americans have “completely given up” looking for a job.

#17 The plight of unemployed workers is likely going to continue to get even worse as technology replaces more of our low paying jobs.  For example, McDonald’s plans to experiment by replacing thousands of workers in Europe with touch screen tablets.


So much for that recovery we keep hearing about but never actually seeing. These stats spell disaster because an economy based on consumption cannot continue when 90% of the people do not have enough money to spend. Things are just as bad, if not worse overseas. This is from Investment Watch:

#1 The Bank for International Settlements has issued a new report which warns that “dangerous new asset bubbles” are forming which could potentially lead to another major financial crisis.  Do the central bankers know something that we don’t, or are they just trying to place the blame on someone else for the giant mess that they have created?

#2 Argentina has missed a $539 million debt payment and is on the verge of its second major debt default in 13 years.

#3 Bulgaria is desperately trying to calm down a massive run on the banks that threatens of spiral out of control.

#4 Last month, household loans in the eurozone declined at the fastest rate ever recorded.  Why are European banks holding on to their money so tightly right now?

#5 The number of unemployed jobseekers in France has just soared to another brand new record high.

#6 Economies all over Europe are either showing no growth or are shrinking.  Just check out what a recent Forbes article had to say about the matter…

Italy’s economy shrank by 0.1% in the first three months of 2014, matching the average of the three previous quarters. After expanding 0.6% in Q2 2013, France recorded zero growth. Portugal shrank 0.7%, following positive numbers in the preceding nine months. While figures weren’t available for Greece and Ireland in Q1, neither country is showing progress. Greek GDP dropped 2.5% in the final three months of last year, and Ireland limped ahead at 0.2%.

#7 A few days ago it was reported that consumer prices in Japan are rising at the fastest pace in 32 years.

#8 Household expenditures in Japan are down 8 percent compared to one year ago.

#9 U.S. companies are drowning in massive amounts of debt, but the corporate debt bubble in China is so bad that the amount of corporate debt in China has actually now surpassed the amount of corporate debt in the United States.

#10 One Chinese auditor is warning that up to 80 billion dollars worth of loans in China are backed by falsified gold transactions.  What will that do to the price of gold and the stability of Chinese financial markets as that mess unwinds?

#11 The unemployment rate in Greece is currently sitting at 26.7 percent and the youth unemployment rate is 56.8 percent.

#12 67.5 percent of the people that are unemployed in Greece have been unemployed for over a year.

#13 The unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole is 11.8 percent- just a little bit shy of the all-time record of 12.0 percent.

#14 The European Central Bank is so desperate to get money moving through the system that it has actually introduced negative interest rates.

#15 The IMF is projecting that there is a 25 percent chance that the eurozone will slip into deflation by the end of next year.

#16 The World Bank is warning that “now is the time to prepare” for the next crisis.

#17 The economic conflict between the United States and Russia continues to deepen.  This has caused Russia to make a series of movesaway from the U.S. dollar and toward other major currencies.  This will have serious ramifications for the global financial system as time rolls along.

#18 Of course the U.S. economy is struggling right now as well.  It shrank at a 2.9 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2014, which was much worse than anyone had anticipated.

 

Multiple sources this week said to look out for a collapsing economy, yet the DOW continues it's unlikely rise due to flagrant manipulation that shows no signs of slowing, until it does of course. There are too many people for too few jobs and too little resources. The end result of that is that there is going to be a culling, one way or another. When an animal population gets too big, it dies out due to starvation, disease, or in our case, war. Something is going to break soon, probably around September/October. But considering none of our economic gains are based on reality, it could happen tomorrow or next year. It will happen, as no economy can continue to shed money like all countries are doing and not having a reckoning occur. The main issue is will you be prepared for it when it does? 99% of you aren't and when bad times occur, the death toll may be in the billions. If you don't start paying attention now, it will be far too late when it does.