DEPRESSION

It has all been planned, and it is what bubblenomics are all about

The longer fiscal pain continues, the closer an ultimate day of reckoning approaches. It'll arrive disruptively. Perhaps people will recognize that throwing out bums for new ones accomplishes nothing.

Do you want to know what the future of America is going to look like? Just check out what is happening to Detroit. The city of Detroit was once one of the greatest industrial cities in the history of the world, but today it is a rotting, decaying, post-apocalyptic hellhole. Nearly half the men are unemployed, nearly half the population is functionally illiterate, more than half of the children are living in poverty and the city government is drowning in debt. As economic conditions have gotten worse, crime has absolutely exploded.

As millions and millions of Americans have been thrust out of the middle class and into poverty because the banks have shipped their jobs overseas and stolen their homes ABC News is trying to subtly make the case that you don't need a social safety net or food stamps or welfare, not when you can figure it out for yourself.

Ellen Brown explains what’s wrong with the economy, and gives viable solutions. All her myriad solutions in her many articles come down to the same thing: we must eliminate private control of central banks – especially private control of the money supply.

Hollywood, Florida is facing a $38 million budget deficit in 2012 and has voted tentatively to increase property taxes and firefighting fees. So the prospect of its redevelopment arm writing off a $1.7 million loan for a Holocaust center is creating some consternation. In 2005, the city gave the center a $50,000 grant for roof repairs, and in 2007 forgave another $500,000 loan for renovations.

Come March, Ford Motor Co. — not Uncle Sam — will cut checks averaging $5,000 for thousands of workers at its Claycomo plant.  That’s the reward for a work force that contributed to producing Ford’s best annual profit in 11 years after surviving perhaps the U.S. auto industry’s darkest period...Despite the big profit for the year, Ford’s stock dropped 13.4 percent Friday. Its fourth-quarter profit of $190 million was less than Wall Street had been expecting...

Even though Wall Street is swimming in cash and the Obama administration is declaring that "the recession is over", the U.S. unemployment rate has gone even higher.

The most optimistic economists are projecting that we can perhaps get the unemployment rate down to around 8 percent by 2012.  On the other hand, there are many economists that are convinced that things are going to get even worse...

I want anyone who’s got a joke on the tip of their tongue about ‘monopoly money’ to put it out of their mind. Printing your own local community currency is a perfectly legitimate thing to do—you can’t make your own local coins but bills are legal, at least in the US—and can be a great way to encourage shopping at local businesses. It doesn’t replace federal printed currency, but augments it by getting people to make the practical and symbolic gesture of supporting local businesses before national chains.

Think it’s tough to get started, to convince businesses to accept the currency and for people to attach value to it, you may be right. But here are a few examples of places which have taken their local monetary system into their own hands:

On Saturday, an estimated 2,700 rightists marched through Tokyo’s main shopping district, decrying the government’s perceived weakness in the dispute with Beijing and calling for Chinese and Koreans to leave Japan. Several smaller anti-Chinese and anti-foreigner marches took place again Sunday...“If you are not tough enough to stand up for Japan, get out of Japan! We need to fight against China!” a member of the extremist Zaitokukai movement shouted through a bullhorn...Another marcher switched targets... “Throw illegal immigrants into Tokyo Bay!” he yelled to loud cheers from his fellow marchers...

With unemployment at a historic high of over 5 per cent – a number that understates the problem since many Japanese have given up looking for work altogether – the newly homeless now fill the country’s parks and Internet cafés. Twenty-three per cent of Tokyo schoolchildren will rely on government aid for things such as school supplies this year. Depression stalks the country and 26,500 people committed suicide in 2009.

While the economically battered nation last year saw historical increases in families living in poverty and without health insurance, Nebraska’s rates dropped over that same time, the Census Bureau said Thursday.

In the midst of the Great Recession, the poverty rate in the United States increased from 13.2 percent to 14.3 percent — 43.6 million people — in 2009. It was the biggest one-year increase in almost 30 years and the highest rate since 1994. The ranks of U.S. working-age poor climbed to the highest level since the 1960s.

However, the Nebraska poverty rate dropped from 10.6 percent to 9.9 percent. Iowa, conversely, mirrored the national trend, with a sizable poverty increase from 9.5 percent to 10.7 percent.

The US may be in a depression, but don't let that stop you from considering it for your next vacation.  In the meantime, the US sends billions to Israel, enabling illegal settlers to live in comparative luxury. 

In Santa Monica, it is now illegal (and punishable by six months jail time) to engage in any of the following behaviors: Washing your hair in a public restroom; Sleeping on the beach or in parks during the day; Sleeping in a car; Shaving in a public restroom; “Aggressive” panhandling. The definition for “aggressive” involves all verbalizations requesting assistance. Signs are still legal.   The 9th circuit court of appeals upheld laws in Santa Monica which prohibited public feedings...A major proponent of these new laws is Councilman Bobby Shriver, brother to Maria Shriver, who is the wife of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was Shriver whom I first heard drop the phrase, “quality of life crimes.”

The Financial Con Of The Decade Explained So Simply Even A Congressman Will Get It

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/10/2010

How many do you need?

Guy McPherson, Nature Bats Last, 29 April 2010

I still keep hearing, “If things get bad, I’ll move to ….” And then fill in the blank with your favorite fantasy or nightmare, including these and many more:

“my sister-in-law’s property in Kansas”

“Mexico”

“the wilderness”

“a central America country”

“southern Europe”

“the coast”

This is the first in a series of entries comparing the situation in the U.S. with RECENT historical events in Argentina. It will serve to forewarn the readers in "first world" countries that it can, indeed, happen to them.  

EU Countries sinking into Depression.

Prof. Michael Hudson, Global Research, 9 April 2010

Looks like Israel is the only country that will be in good shape once the crash really starts. 

Need a job?

Below, please find the job application form for the Mossad.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMr5iHTydTs]

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) has backed down from his one-man blockade of a broad package of jobless benefits, health care programs and highway funding.

The move comes after a frantic day of negotiations where GOP leaders sought to move on past the controversy in which Bunnings objections led to the expiration of numerous provisions, including health care coverage for the jobless and unemployment insurance.

Ira Stoll, anti-Semite?

By Ami Eden · February 24, 2010

Ira Stoll -- formerly of the Lipsky-era Forward, N.Y. Sun, Jerusalem Post -- is a journalistic pitbull. I've heard fans describe him as an unrelenting defender of the Jews, Israel, etc. I've heard critics dismiss him as just another neocon who cries anti-Semitism too much. And then there's the people who think both descriptions are true.