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75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post

What a year 2012 has been! The mainstream media continues to tell us what a "great job" the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve are doing of managing the economy, but meanwhile things just continue to get even worse for the poor and the middle class. It is imperative that we educate the American people about the true condition of our economy and about why all of this is happening. If nothing is done, our debt problems will continue to get worse, millions of jobs will continue to leave the country, small businesses will continue to be suffocated, the middle class will continue to collapse, and poverty in the United States will continue to explode. Just "tweaking" things slightly is not going to fix our economy. We need a fundamental change in direction.

Right now we are living in a bubble of debt-fueled false prosperity that allows us to continue to consume far more wealth than we produce, but when that bubble bursts we are going to experience the most painful economic "adjustment" that America has ever gone through. We need to be able to explain to our fellow Americans what is coming, why it is coming and what needs to be done. Hopefully the crazy economic numbers that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.

The end of the year is a time when people tend to gather with family and friends more than they do during the rest of the year. Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help start some conversations about the coming economic collapse with your loved ones. Sadly, most Americans still tend to doubt that we are heading into economic oblivion. So if you have someone among your family and friends that believes that everything is going to be "just fine", just show them these numbers. They are a good summary of the problems that the U.S. economy is currently facing.

The following are 75 economic numbers from 2012 that are almost too crazy to believe...

#1 In December 2008, 31.6 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, a new all-time record of 47.7 million Americans are on food stamps. That number has increased by more than 50 percent over the past four years, and yet the mainstream media still has the gall to insist that "things are getting better".

#2 Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.

#3 According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of "Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming."

#4 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all Americans have received money from a safety net program run by the federal government at some point in their lives.

#5 For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

#6 Median household income in the U.S. has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

#7 Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

#8 The percentage of working age Americans with a job has been under 59 percent for 39 months in a row.

#9 In September 2009, during the depths of the last economic crisis, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed. In November 2012, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed. It is more then 3 years later, and we are in the exact same place.

#10 When you total up all working age Americans that do not have a job in America today, it comes to more than 100 million.

#11 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all small business owners in America "say they would not start a business today given what they know now and in the current environment."

#12 The number of jobs at new small businesses continues to decline. According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the decline in the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration...

Bush Sr.: 11.3

Clinton: 11.2

Bush Jr.: 10.8

Obama: 7.8

#13 The U.S. share of global GDP has fallen from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011.

#14 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

#15 There are four major U.S. banks that each have more than 40 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives.

#16 In 2000, there were more than 17 million Americans working in manufacturing, but now there are less than 12 million.

#17 According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of all Americans were "middle income" back in 1971. Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are.

#18 The Pew Research Center has also found that 85 percent of all middle class Americans say that it is harder to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.

#19 62 percent of all middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.

#20 Right now, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.

#21 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either "low income" or impoverished.

#22 According to one survey, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time.

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

#24 The average amount of time that an unemployed worker stays out of work in the United States is 40 weeks.

#25 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.

#26 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.

#27 Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare. Overall, there are almost 80 different "means-tested welfare programs" that the federal government is currently running.

#28 When you account for all government transfer payments and all forms of government employment, more than half of all Americans are now at least partially financially dependent on the government.

#29 Barack Obama has been president for less than four years, and during that time the number of Americans "not in the labor force" has increased by nearly 8.5 million. Something seems really "off" about that number, because during the entire decade of the 1980s the number of Americans "not in the labor force" only rose by about 2.5 million.

#30 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

#31 According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.

#32 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

#33 Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

#34 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.

#35 At this point, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States are good jobs.

#36 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#37 Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.

#38 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#39 One survey of business executives has ranked California as the worst state in America to do business for 8 years in a row.

#40 In the city of Detroit today, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty, and close to 50 percent of all adults are functionally illiterate.

#41 It is being projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years of age.

#42 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.

#43 If you can believe it, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor's degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed last year.

#44 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs. 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

#45 Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5 billion. That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the planet.

#46 The United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#47 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

#48 The U.S. tax code is now more than 3.8 million words long. If you took all of William Shakespeare's works and collected them together, the entire collection would only be about 900,000 words long.

#49 According to the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banking havens such as the Cayman Islands.

#50 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.

#51 2012 was the third year in a row that the yield for corn has declined in the United States.

#52 Experts are telling us that global food reserves have reached their lowest level in almost 40 years.

#53 One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.

#54 If you can believe it, one recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.

#55 Medical costs related to obesity in the United States are estimated to be approximately $147 billion a year.

#56 Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high. Meanwhile, wages as a percentage of GDP are near an all-time low.

#57 Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

#58 The wealthiest 400 families in the United States have about as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of all Americans combined.

#59 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.

#60 At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#61 Nearly 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.

#62 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year. Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.

#63 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.

#64 Nearly 15,000 retired federal workers are collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually. The list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

#65 U.S. taxpayers spend more than 20 times as much on the Obamas as British taxpayers spend on the royal family.

#66 Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.

#67 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

#68 During fiscal year 2012, 62 percent of the federal budget was spent on entitlements.

#69 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#70 It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#71 Medicare is also growing by leaps and bounds. As I wrote about recently, it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

#72 Thanks to our foolish politicians (including Obama), Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately$328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

#73 Amazingly, the U.S. national debt is now up to 16.3 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.

#74 During the first four years of the Obama administration, the U.S. government accumulated about as much debt as it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that George W. Bush took office.

#75 Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was originally created back in 1913.

Please share this article with as many people as you can. Time is running out, and we need to wake up as many people as possible.

This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.

Nuclear test veteran who flew through a mushroom cloud

It was the first time he had ever had to do so. But then, it hadn't exactly been a typical flight.

That morning he and his crew had watched Britain's biggest nuclear bomb explosion. They had then
deliberately flown their plane through the radioactive mushroom cloud it created.

Their job was to measure how successful the explosion had been.

When they got back, they were taken to a decontamination area, where they stripped off, handed in their radioactivity recording equipment and scrubbed themselves in the shower for half an hour.

"After that we all felt like a few beers, and that's exactly what we did," Pasquini says.

It was during the time of the Cold War, and although Britain's status as a world power was starting to fade, in 1947 it took the the decision to join the US and Russia as the third country capable of producing nuclear weapons.

In total, Pasquini flew through two mushroom clouds and saw three other nuclear tests from the ground

Then 60 years ago, in October 1952, Britain conducted its first nuclear weapons test, exploding a bomb inside the frigate, HMS Plym.

Others followed, but it was the nine tests - codenamed Grapple X, Y and Z - over the Pacific Ocean between May 1957 and September 1958 that confirmed Britain as a state with a nuclear weapon capable of obliterating entire cities.

The hydrogen bomb that Pasquini and his crew saw that day was Grapple Y which - at three megatons - is still the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested by the British.

He had no idea what he would be taking part in when he was sitting in a crew room back in England and he got the call to go to Australia to be a part of the 76 Squadron.

"I kicked it around for a few hours and thought, sure, Australia sounds interesting. I gave the guy a call again and said 'what are they doing?' and he said there's a Canberra squadron there and I said 'what do they do?' and he said, 'they do various things - they will tell you what they do when you get there."

I think I saw the face of God for the first time - it was just incredible, it blew our minds”
Joseph Pasquini Former RAF navigator

Radioactive particles

And so it wasn't until he reached Adelaide that Pasquini was briefed about the nuclear bomb tests.

"I didn't like it, but it was too late at that particular time," he says. "This was a kind of experimental situation and basically everyone that was involved in the tests was a guinea pig."

The military personnel involved in the tests were based on Christmas Island, which is a small dot on the map in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

On the day of the test, Pasquini remembers being woken at about 02:00 in the morning, having breakfast and going to a briefing. He and the rest of his crew were in their aircraft by dawn. The weather was perfect, with only a few puffs of clouds in the sky.

The outside of the aircraft, he says, had been coated in a white wax that was supposed to capture any radioactive particles that could be washed off later.

Nuclear weapons

Nuclear bombs have only been used twice in history, both by the US on Japan

The first, on 6 August 1945, killed more than 100,000 people in the city of Hiroshima

Three days later, the second killed at least 40,000 people in Nagasaki

Was it right for the Americans to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

'Bomb falling'

His crew was one of five ordered to take samples of the bomb after it had exploded.

Flying at 46,000 feet, he says they were excited about what they were about to see.

"We were listening to the bomb aircraft counting down to drop time. As soon as they said 'bomb gone', 'bomb falling', we had to fly away."

They were about 35 miles away from where the bomb was dropped.

"It detonated at 8,000 feet. We had our eyes closed, but even with our eyes closed we could see the light through our eye lids. It took 49 seconds for the light to stop.

"As soon as that happened, we immediately turned back. Fortunately being in the navigating position, I had a little window and I watched the whole thing develop and spread and then start climbing.

"I think I saw the face of God for the first time. It was just incredible, it blew our minds away. These were things that had never been seen before, certainly not by English people."

When the mushroom cloud had passed over them, Pasquini looked up at the window above him and had another surprise - radioactive rain.

"It's the only time I've experienced rain at 46,000 feet," he says.

It was then that the plane's internal measuring equipment maxed out, Pasquini says, exposing them all to high dosages of radioactivity.

He went on to fly through another mushroom cloud during the Grapple Z tests, and saw three other nuclear bomb tests from the ground, having been stopped from flying after receiving more than the recommended dose of radiation.

Feeling of betrayal

Now 79 years old and living in the US, Pasquini has battled cancer seven times.

The Londoner attributes his own illnesses and those of his children to the effects of the radiation exposure, as well as the cancers and illnesses of other nuclear veterans and their children.

The Ministry of Defence says that the cancer rates in the veterans of the nuclear tests are no worse than in normal members of the population, and a group of veterans recently lost claims for compensation at the Supreme Court because their case had been brought to court too late.

About 750 of the veterans and their relatives so far have decided to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Pasquini isn't one of them. The Official Secrets Act had meant that he wasn't able to speak about his experiences to anyone.

But after hearing about the cause of his fellow veterans and their families three years ago, he made contact and gave evidence to help them with their case.

Unlike the British government, the US authorities have paid compensation to their veterans of nuclear testing.
Pasquini feels betrayed that the British government hasn't recognised their sacrifice in the same way.

"We were doing it and we were all ready to die," he says.

4 firefighters shot, 2 dead, after responding to blaze - U.S. News

Four firefighters were shot -- two fatally -- as they responded to a large fire early Monday in Webster, N.Y., in the northwestern part of the state.
When firefighters arrived on the scene of the blaze around 6 a.m. ET, they were fired upon by one or more shooters, police and fire officials said.
The gunfire forced the firefighters to flee. The two firefighters who were hit but survived are being treated at a local hospital for their wounds.
SWAT teams are on the ground and helicopters are hovering in the air.
“I’m not aware of anything like this happening in Webster, obviously not a firefighter being fired upon,” Webster Fire Marshal Rob Boutillier said, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

U.S. Adults Estimate That 25% of Americans Are Gay or Lesbian

reality:
New survey: 3.4% of U.S. adults are LGBT

Give the Gift of Truth | LifeSiteNews.com

sick people.. and I'm not speaking about that girl

TSA claims sick girl tests positive for bomb residue - Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com

DALLAS -

A 12-year-old girl in a wheelchair was detained for nearly an hour at DFW Airport while trying to get through security.

Shelbi Walser was traveling with her mother on Sunday for a trip that's become routine. The seventh grader lives with a genetic bone disorder and was on her way to Florida for another rare medical treatment.

She's never had a problem flying, but this time Transportation Security Administration agents claimed she had bomb residue on her hands.

"It was frightening. I kinda got mad," she said.

The agents would not allow Tammy Daniels to get close to her crying daughter so she started recording on her cellphone.

"Are you kidding me? We're going to get you out of here in a second, okay?" she said in the video.

"I said, 'What do you mean? What did you test her for?' 'Oh she tested positive for explosive residue.' Okay… at that point you would think they would test her wheelchair, but they did nothing. Everything just seemed to spiral out," Daniels said.

The mother and daughter said a bomb specialist showed up and several agents began talking on their cellphones all while other passengers were speaking up in support of the girl.

"There were people saying, 'Really? You're going to do this to her? Y'all have to take her somewhere private where she's not out in the public and everyone can see her,'" Shelbi said.

Daniels said the agents then suddenly told them they were free to go and offered no explanation about it being a false alarm or anything.

"It was a little much. I don't know what to learn from this one. Somebody, they need to go back to the drawing board on this one," she said.

The TSA responded to questions about the encounter with a statement that said in part, "TSA's mission is to safely, efficiently and respectfully screen nearly two million passengers each day at airports nationwide. We are sensitive to the concerns of passengers who were not satisfied with their screening experience and we invite those individuals to provide feedback to TSA through a variety of channels."

Riot Training - The Riot Training Experience Day. Book Online! | Wish.co.uk

There is nothing more embarrassing than turning up to police a riot and realising you haven’t grasped basic etiquette. Worry no more, as we now offer the UK's first Riot Training Experience.

In this full throttle experience, the mysteries, intrigues and fundamental steps of basic riot control will be revealed. Who runs at who, good/bad things to wave about and which way up to hold your riot shield.

The horror of Meth: Before-and-after pictures reveal shocking transformation in faces of users hooked on deadly drug

A new anti-drug advertisement shows the devastating physical transformation addicts experience after years of meth use.

The photos, that show a shocking Dorian Gray-like deterioration, were compiled from mug shots of drug users that were arrested repeatedly over the years.

The continued drug use caused horrific damage to the drug users' skin with sores and scarring - that can be caused by uncontrollable scratching during a hallucination when the addict imagines bugs are crawling under their skin.

Users also progressively began to look gaunt, brought on by malnutrition as the drug suppresses a person's appetite and the body can begin to consume muscle tissue due to the lack of proper nutrition.

The concept for this kind of ad was actually conceived in 2004, by Deputy Bret King from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon.

The officer began tracking mugshots of people who were brought in to police custody more than once.

Over the years he began to witness the physical transformation that occurred in methamphetamine addicts.

He decided to compile the photos for an anti-drug campaign in December 2004 - to educate children on the realities of the drug.

'I've made it my business to go through the mug shot system every day. I'll admit it: I'm looking for the most extreme faces,' he told The Oregonian in 2004 about the project.

The recent video and pictorial from Rehabs.com comes after a 2011 photo spread from the Oregon police, 'From Drugs to Mugs,' that shows the impact of all hard drugs including cocaine, heroin and meth.

'Everyone experiments at college or school and I want From Drugs to Mugs to show kids that everyone in those pictures started on cannabis, they didn't just dive head first into heroin.'

'So I ask the students at schools to look at these people and think about their actions, otherwise that could end up being you,' Deputy King said in 2011.

The Multnomah Sheriff's Office has also produced a heart-wrenching educational documentary to aid in its fight against young people turning to drugs.

'I want to be able to illustrate the connection between that first decision to use drugs and then down the road when it's a horrible mess,' King said.

Expanding their presentation, which is to be aired in high schools across America, the law enforcement officer and his team interviewed 300 adult inmates at Multnomah County's Inverness Jail.

In the 48-minute video, Drug Enforcement Administration officers are interviewed about how they find and arrest drug abusers.

Deputy King added testimony from Multnomah County jail inmates who had been arrested in burglaries and other crimes that have been linked to drug use.

It is Deputy King's hope that the video will show teens how easy it is to fall into drug habits.

Warning: disturbing images