25 Questions

[Paslode]

http://www.infowars.com/25-questions...overy-is-real/

25 Questions To Ask Anyone Who Is Delusional Enough To Believe That This Economic Recovery Is Real

If you listen to the mainstream media long enough, you just might be tempted to believe that the United States has emerged from the recession and is now in the middle of a full-fledged economic recovery. In fact, according to Obama administration officials, the great American economic machine has roared back to life, stronger and more vibrant than ever before. But is that really the case? Of course not. You would have to be delusional to believe that. What did happen was that all of the stimulus packages and government spending and new debt that Obama and the U.S. Congress pumped into the economy bought us a little bit of time. But they have also made our long-term economic problems far worse. The reality is that the U.S. cannot keep supporting an economy on an ocean of red ink forever. At some point the charade is going to come crashing down.

And GDP is not a really good measure of the economic health of a nation. For example, if you would have looked at the growth of GDP in the Weimar republic in the early 1930s, you may have been tempted to think that the German economy was really thriving. German citizens were spending increasingly massive amounts of money. But of course that money was becoming increasingly worthless at the same time as hyperinflation spiralled out of control.

Well, today the purchasing power of our dollar is rapidly eroding as the price of food and other necessities continues to increase. So just because Americans are spending a little bit more money than before really doesn't mean much of anything. As you will see below, there are a whole bunch of other signs that the U.S. economy is in very, very serious trouble.

Any "recovery" that the U.S. economy is experiencing is illusory and will be quite temporary. The entire financial system of the United States is falling apart, and the powers that be can try to patch it up and prop it up for a while, but in the end this thing is going to come crashing down.

But as obvious as that may seem to most of us, there are still quite a few people out there that are absolutely convinced that the U.S. economy will fully recover and will soon be stronger than ever.

So the following are 25 questions to ask anyone who is delusional enough to believe that this economic recovery is real....

#1) In what universe is an economy with 39.68 million Americans on food stamps considered to be a healthy, recovering economy? In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011. Is a rapidly increasing number of Americans on food stamps a good sign or a bad sign for the economy?

#2) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March. This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report back in January 2005. So can you please explain again how the U.S. real estate market is getting better?

#3) The Mortgage Bankers Association just announced that more than 10 percent of U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago. Do you think that is an indication that the U.S. housing market is recovering?

#4) How can the U.S. real estate market be considered healthy when, for the first time in modern history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together?

#5) With the U.S. Congress planning to quadruple oil taxes, what do you think that is going to do to the price of gasoline in the United States and how do you think that will affect the U.S. economy?

#6) Do you think that it is a good sign that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of the state of California, says that "terrible cuts" are urgently needed in order to avoid a complete financial disaster in his state?

#7) But it just isn't California that is in trouble. Dozens of U.S. states are in such bad financial shape that they are getting ready for their biggest budget cuts in decades. What do you think all of those budget cuts will do to the economy?

#8) In March, the U.S. trade deficit widened to its highest level since December 2008. Month after month after month we buy much more from the rest of the world than they buy from us. Wealth is draining out of the United States at an unprecedented rate. So is the fact that the gigantic U.S. trade deficit is actually getting bigger a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?

#9) Considering the fact that the U.S. government is projected to have a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit in 2010, and considering the fact that if you went out and spent one dollar every single second it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars, how can anyone in their right mind claim that the U.S. economy is getting healthier when we are getting into so much debt?

#10) The U.S. Treasury Department recently announced that the U.S. government suffered a wider-than-expected budget deficit of 82.69 billion dollars in April. So is the fact that the red ink of the U.S. government is actually worse than projected a good sign or a bad sign?

#11) According to one new report, the U.S. national debt will reach 100 percent of GDP by the year 2015. So is that a sign of economic recovery or of economic disaster?

#12) Monstrous amounts of oil continue to gush freely into the Gulf of Mexico, and analysts are already projecting that the seafood and tourism industries along the Gulf coast will be devastated for decades by this unprecedented environmental disaster. In light of those facts, how in the world can anyone project that the U.S. economy will soon be stronger than ever?

#13) The FDIC's list of problem banks recently hit a 17-year high. Do you think that an increasing number of small banks failing is a good sign or a bad sign for the U.S. economy?

#14) The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is basically flat broke. So what do you think will happen if a significant number of small banks do start failing?

#15) Existing home sales in the United States jumped 7.6 percent in April. That is the good news. The bad news is that this increase only happened because the deadline to take advantage of the temporary home buyer tax credit (government bribe) was looming. So now that there is no more tax credit for home buyers, what will that do to home sales?

#16) Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently told the U.S. government that they are going to need even more bailout money. So what does it say about the U.S. economy when the two "pillars" of the U.S. mortgage industry are government-backed financial black holes that the U.S. government has to relentlessly pour money into?

#17) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. Tens of millions of Americans find themselves just one lawsuit, one really bad traffic accident or one very serious illness away from financial ruin. With so many Americans living on the edge, how can you say that the economy is healthy?

#18) The mayor of Detroit says that the real unemployment rate in his city is somewhere around 50 percent. So can the U.S. really be experiencing an economic recovery when so many are still unemployed in one of America's biggest cities?

#19) Gallup's measure of underemployment hit 20.0% on March 15th. That was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year. Do you think that is a good trend or a bad trend?

#20) One new poll shows that 76 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession. So are the vast majority of Americans just stupid or could we still actually be in a recession?

#21) The bottom 40 percent of those living in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth. So is Barack Obama's mantra that "what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street" actually true?

#22) Richard Russell, the famous author of the Dow Theory Letters, says that Americans should sell anything they can sell in order to get liquid because of the economic trouble that is coming. Do you think that Richard Russell is delusional or could he possibly have a point?

#23) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010. In fact, that was almost twice the level of a year earlier. Does that look like a good trend to you?

#24) In March, the price of fresh and dried vegetables in the United States soared 49.3% - the most in 16 years. Is it a sign of a healthy economy when food prices are increasing so dramatically?

#25) 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 - a 32 percent increase over 2008. Not only that, more Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005. So shouldn't we at least wait until the number of Americans filing for bankruptcy is not setting new all-time records before we even dare whisper the words "economic recovery"?

[Defender968]

There someone goes again…. confusing the issue with the facts, next thing you know they’ll want to enforce the law….the nerve of such people!

[Bebop]

Can't trust infowars as a source. Alex Jones is a total nutjob.

[Dozer523]

Is this the ECON 101 final? Oh sh!t was that TODAY?!!!??
I'm waiting for NMAP's read. (Please sit next to me)

[nmap]

Originally Posted by Dozer523

I'm waiting for NMAP's read.

Thank you for the kind words. I regret to say my view of the future is not any brighter.

First, the items on the list. A case can be made that the unemployment rate in Detroit is just an isolated area and shouldn't be generalized. We could even argue that the size of the deficit - $1.6 trillion - may not be a big problem at the moment. But other issues are more problematic; for example, the number of impaired mortgages. And the BLS U6* numbers are 17.1%. LINK

Part of our problem is that our debt, both in absolute terms and in terms of percent of GDP keeps going up - a lot. We are spending more than we have, just as we've done for decades. Ultimately, the cost of servicing our debt will impair our ability to afford anything.

Another part of the problem is that we have made promises that we cannot keep. Social Security and Medicare are not going to be able to provide the benefits expected. The unfunded liability exceeds $100 trillion dollars. (Yes, it is One Hundred and Six Trillion dollars.) LINK

And then we turn to my favorite rant - peak oil. USJFCOM has produced the JOE 2010 report, available HERE. The section on oil begins on page 24. (BTW - there are a host of other issues in this fine document. It is highly recommended!) Given the implications found by Hirsch in his report to DOE, LINK (Page 31), it seems likely that U.S. GDP growth will be less than robust for the foreseeable future.

Opinion: We are likely to see inflation, increased interest rates, and a stock market that is much lower than it is presently. We could see 3,500 on the Dow. (Basis: Bullseye Investing by Mauldin - stocks tend to revert to the levels of "good values" with low PE ratios and high dividend yields. Should stocks return to that level again, the referenced number on the Dow Industrial average is possible).

These problems are not something that one (or a few) politicians created. This has been developing over decades. It will take an extended period of working together and shared sacrifice to overcome these challenges. We shall see how people react when the reality sets in.

* U6 is defined as: Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force

[Richard]

I regret to say my view of the future is not any brighter.

And it's nice to know some things seldom change.

Richard

[GratefulCitizen]

Don't necessarily disagree, but to play devil's advocate...

Originally Posted by nmap

Opinion: We are likely to see inflation, increased interest rates, and a stock market that is much lower than it is presently.

Think we will initially see deflation, then these events, in order.

-Less productive workers will continue to be shed, more productive workers will be slave-driven.
-Corporate anorexia will start to set in, productive workers will start jumping ship.
-Bidding wars will start among employers for the more productive workers, triggering a wage/price/government subsidy spiral.
-Inflation will spike.
-Social security benefits and pensions will be anchored to indices which do not reflect true inflation.
-The debt will be repudiated via inflation.

Originally Posted by nmap

These problems are not something that one (or a few) politicians created. This has been developing over decades. It will take an extended period of working together and shared sacrifice to overcome these challenges. We shall see how people react when the reality sets in.

Suspect there will be denial and obfuscation, as the reality is already asserting itself.

This statement is the most terrifying thing you have ever posted (and I'm an optimist).
Completely disagree.

Let competition sort out the matter.
So long as there exists an obesity epidemic and people still buy new iPods because they don't like the color, we don't have real problems.

[rdret1]

Originally Posted by Bebop

Can't trust infowars as a source. Alex Jones is a total nutjob.

Which of those statements do you have a problem with?

[nmap]

Originally Posted by GratefulCitizen

-Social security benefits and pensions will be anchored to indices which do not reflect true inflation.

(Chuckle). Recall that link to shadow stats? We've been doing the above for years. I'm sure they'll do it some more.

Originally Posted by GratefulCitizen

-The debt will be repudiated via inflation.

Yep. It's being done right now.

Originally Posted by GratefulCitizen

Let competition sort out the matter.

Competition is not a binary condition. The folks in Somalia appear to compete rather vigorously for subsistence - but they do not seem to be moving in a positive direction. Please understand that I do not propose socialism; however, a society that faces painful restrictions can react as they have in Greece. IMO, riots and disruptions are counterproductive and hence best avoided.

[Paslode]

Originally Posted by Bebop

Can't trust infowars as a source. Alex Jones is a total nutjob.

Generally true. But for one of the few times I can remember, Jones actually posted something that didn't mention Illuminati, Police State, Comtrails, UN Invasion Force or NWO.

None of the questions are far fetched and most if not all have been brought up by the MSM, Cable and Financial news organizations.


As for Jones source http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/a...covery-is-real

While it is a Doom & Gloom blog, I didn't find anything on there that hasn't been discussed in the mainstream.

YMMV

[VA Pete]

See also: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...-stimulus.html

"US money supply plunges at 1930s pace as Obama eyes fresh stimulus

The M3 money supply in the United States is contracting at an accelerating rate that now matches the average decline seen from 1929 to 1933, despite near zero interest rates and the biggest fiscal blitz in history."

[Richard]

And so it goes...

Richard

[nmap]

Originally Posted by VA Pete

"US money supply plunges at 1930s pace as Obama eyes fresh stimulus

This goes back to Grateful's prediction of deflation. It suggests that, despite stimulus, people are not spending - rather, they are holding on to their dollars. But a nation of debtors cannot abide deflation. In addition, when the economy restarts, the high money supply will suddenly develop increased velocity, resulting in a sudden shift to inflation.

Bottom line, the savings of the middle class are likely to be devastated.

[GratefulCitizen]

Originally Posted by nmap

This goes back to Grateful's prediction of deflation. It suggests that, despite stimulus, people are not spending - rather, they are holding on to their dollars. But a nation of debtors cannot abide deflation. In addition, when the economy restarts, the high money supply will suddenly develop increased velocity, resulting in a sudden shift to inflation.

Bottom line, the savings of the middle class are likely to be devastated.

If you've got a decent gap between (reliable) income and non-discretionary spending, such a deflation/inflation bounce is a potential opportunity to profit.

Have a close friend who made around 500% effective ROI off of the 2009 drop/bounce.
Timely self-discipline can lead to great rewards.

[Penn]

Competition is not a binary condition. The folks in Somalia appear to compete rather vigorously for subsistence - but they do not seem to be moving in a positive direction.

If there was ever phrase to encapsulate why you are loved and respected; this may qualify as a perfect example; that said, I love your humor.