A Greater Depression....sounds great, right?

A Greater Depression
June 6, 2011 by Bob Livingston

“We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The (Federal Reserve) knows it.” So said Peter Yastrow, market strategist for Yastrow Origer on CNBC Wednesday.
Yastrow’s point: Money managers can’t find an investment they feel is a safe haven for their investors. That’s because the Federal Reserve’s Ponzi scheme has been exposed for the fraud it is.
The debate in Washington, D.C., is about raising the debt ceiling. Should they, or shouldn’t they? Yes, and raise taxes, too, say some. Yes, raise taxes and cut spending say others. Yes, but only if a corresponding amount in Federal spending cuts accompany the increase, others say. No, say a few. But only a few.
Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector in the United States continues its death spiral. May saw the slowest growth in manufacturing since September 2009. Only 38,000 private-sector jobs were added in May (the Labor Department claimed 54,000). More than 300,000 new jobs per month are needed to significantly lower employment, which in May ticked up to 9.1 percent, according to the “official” count.
Mainstream economists, media talking heads and the Administration of President Barack Obama feign surprise every time bad economic news comes out. And bad news continues to trickle out despite strong-arm tactics of the Administration — and outright lies.
“We’re heading in the direction of a double dip — but you’d never know it if you listened to the upbeat messages coming out of Wall Street and Washington,” former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote in a blog on csmonitor.com in March 2011.
“But isn’t the economy growing again — by an estimated 2.5 to 2.9 percent this year? Yes, but that’s even less than peanuts. The deeper the economic hole, the faster the growth needed to get it back on track. By this point in the so-called recovery we’d expect growth of 4 to 6 percent.
“Consider that back in 1934, when it was emerging from the deepest hole of the Great Depression, the economy grew by 7.7 percent. The next year it grew over 8 percent. In 1936 it grew a whopping 14.1 percent,” Reich wrote.
Two months of economic news has not changed Reich’s mind. Last week, he wrote the following for the Financial Times: “The U.S. economy was supposed to be in bloom by late spring, but it is hardly growing at all. Expectations for second-quarter growth are not much better than the measly 1.8 percent annualized rate of the first quarter. That’s not nearly fast enough to reduce America’s ferociously high level of unemployment… Average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees — who make up 80 percent of non-government workers — dropped to $8.76 in April. Adjusted for inflation, that’s lower than they were in the depths of the recession.”
And just how bad is the current economic situation? According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Federal debt is increasing at a rate of $1,148 per U.S. family per month… and has been since Obama was sworn in as President. In fact, the debt grew $3,646,116,554,704.36 from January 2009, when Obama took office, to April 2011, when Obama finally said there was a need to get a handle on the debt situation.
“The last month has been a horror show for the U.S. economy, with economic data falling off a cliff,” Mike Riddell, a fund manager with M&G Investments in London, told CNBC on Wednesday.
Riddell said almost every bit of data about the health of the U.S. economy has disappointed recently: House prices have fallen more than 5 percent year on year, pending home sales have collapsed and existing home sales have disappointed, the trend of improving jobless claims has arrested, the first quarter gross domestic product wasn’t revised upward as predicted, durable goods orders shrank and manufacturing surveys from the Philadelphia Fed, Richmond Fed and Chicago Fed were all very disappointing.
But the current situation is not just a crisis for the United States. It’s a crisis for the world. As World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a speech in Washington, D.C., in April 2011, the world is “one shock away from a full-blown crisis.
“It’s probably too much to say that it’s a jobless recovery, but it’s certainly a recovery with not enough jobs. Especially because of youth unemployment… there is now a risk that this will be turned into a life sentence and that there is a possibility of a lost generation,” he said.
Currently, about 18.5 percent of American males between the ages of 18 and 55 are unemployed. About 40 million Americans are on food stamps. How long before we see riots in America like those in the Middle East and North Africa?
They may be starting already. Over the Memorial Day weekend, there were no fewer than seven incidents of riots or near riots in large crowds. Mob incidents, shootings, fights and looting broke out New York City; Rochester, N.Y.; Chicago; Miami; Myrtle Beach, N.C.; Nashville, Tenn.; Decatur, Ala.; and Boston. Beaches, water parks and streets were shut down. In recent weeks, there have been beat downs in hamburger joints, mob robberies and looting.
Trends forecaster Gerald Celente has said that when people lose everything and they have nothing else to lose, they lose it. The Federal Reserve and the Federal government have pillaged and looted and stolen about everything the American people have. But austerity is a dirty word to the elected elites. In Washington, in the States and in cities and towns across the country, elected elites are at least wishing they could raise taxes, if they are not outright doing so.
Talk of the slightest cuts in the Federal behemoth bring spurious claims that seniors will die and children will starve, that medical care will cease and food will be contaminated. So the Federal behemoth continues to grow.
According to The Washington Times, more than 77,000 Federal government employees are paid more than the Governors of their respective States. A report by the Center for Public Integrity revealed that the Federal limousine fleet almost doubled in the past two years, from 238 in fiscal year 2008 to 412 in fiscal year 2010.
Confidence in government is at an all-time low. More and more people are awake to the fact that the system has failed. Why? Because of the mass greed based on the rot of fiat currency. Fiat currency brings not only financial collapse but also the destruction of moral order.
What’s next? Only the mass realization that the financial system and the rule of law are no longer functioning.
I have been accused of scaremongering for warning of the coming collapse and encouraging you to buy precious metals and stockpile food and water. But now, the mainstream media are catching on.
It seems to me that anyone should be able to see the economic conditions behind the global government structure are crumbling. We are in the endgame. The earthquake is now rumbling. There are signs everywhere, for those who choose to see them.
Governments, including the U.S. government, are losing control.
Pray that the final collapse will be quick and the transition will be quick, without a prolonged period of infrastructure deterioration or destruction.