S& P briefs GOP lawmakers on fallout

Credit ratings agency and Wall Street groups met with House Republicans to educate them about a downgrade.  More

Beware the debt ceiling vote

This year, all hell has broken loose in downtown Chicago. Years of under-hiring have resulted in a police force that is unprepared for wildings and gang violence. Moreover, concealed carry in Chicago is illegal, unless one follows the Constitution.

Tourists and residents have been attacked by mobs of youths on buses, on beaches, on bicycle paths, near the shops of the Magnificent Mile, and outside their homes. Mobs of shoplifters plagued " Mug Mile" stores.

At about 11pm last Friday night, June 3rd, I heard shouting, screaming, horns blaring and tires screeching from my apartment...When I looked out my window to the street below I saw a crowd of about 20 young people...directly across the street from the entrance to my building. They were leaning on parked cars and clogging the street. They were screaming at people walking and driving by. I watched them stop vehicles, including taxi cabs, and pull people from the vehicles...It was a frightening scene and I was sure someone was going to be hurt.

A father was dragged from his home and handcuffed in front of his children by a SWAT team looking for his estranged wife - to collect her unpaid student loans.

A stunned Kenneth Wright had his front door kicked in by the raiding party at 6 am yesterday before being dragged onto his front porch, handcuffed and led to a police car with his three children.

He says he was then detained for six hours while officers looked for his wife - who no longer lives at the house.

" You know, look — this is a humanitarian — you know, you’re smart enough to see this . . . People, you know, if it continues, we’re going to start to see civil unrest in this country. I hate to say that, but I think it’s imminently possible."

Their " Clockwork Orange" style blitz was over soon after it began. The teens boarded the train, headed to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, at the Garnett station a little after midnight seemingly intent on instilling fear. They succeeded.

“There was blood everywhere, people were hollering and screaming,” a witness told Channel 2 Action News. “We were intimidated. People were terrified. People were trying to run. But there was nowhere to run.”

The following are 39 things that are driving ordinary Americans absolutely crazy right now….

#1  According to Newsweek, close to one out of every five American men between the ages of 25 and 54 does not have a job at the moment.  So why is the “greatest economy on earth” unable to provide jobs for nearly 20 percent of the men that are in their prime working years?

#2  Last year, over a million homes were repossessed by financial institutions.  This year a similar number of repossessions is expected.  Sometimes these evictions are absolutely heartbreaking.  Just check out the following excerptfrom a recent Newsweek article….

To understand American anger, that roiling storm sometimes dubbed our national “mood,” spend a day with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart. Since 2006 the unlikely lawman—a tea drinker who listens to Bobby Kennedy speeches on his way to work—has overseen all foreclosures and evictions in the Chicago area, one of the hardest hit nationwide. The process does not always go well. One evictee shot himself in the head, remained conscious, and calmly tried to raise the pistol again as deputies battered the front door.

#3  Companies like  Netflix  and  Chipotle  are significantly raising prices.  Meanwhile, Ben Bernanke claims that there is hardly any inflation.  He must not go grocery shopping much.

#4  The government keeps telling us that the economy is improving, and yet more stores keep closing.  The Gap has announced that up to  200 stores  will be closed over the next two years.  Perkins has announced that they will be closing  58 restaurants.  Borders has announced that they will be shutting down their remaining  399 stores  and that 10,700 employees will lose their jobs.  Yes, the economy is really buzzing right now.

#5  Government services all over the nation are being cut back.  An atmosphere of austerity has descended on the entire country.  For example, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe says that we may soon have to say goodbye  to Saturday mail delivery.

#6  Many broke public school systems are now charging parents lots of money for things that used to be free.    The Wall Street Journal  says that one family in Ohio has to shell out over $4,000 a year for basic school activities….

Budget shortfalls have prompted Medina Senior High to impose fees on students who enroll in many academic classes and extracurricular activities. The Dombis had to pay to register their children for basic courses such as Spanish I and Earth Sciences, to get them into graded electives such as band, and to allow them to run cross-country and track. The family’s total tab for a year of public education: $4,446.50.

#7  The Federal Reserve gets to give out tens of billions of dollars of nearly interest-free loans  to their bankster friends  while tens of millions of American families desperately try to survive an economic downturn that was caused by those same banksters.

#8  We have gotten ourselves into a position where we are in so much debt to China that we have to constantly be concerned about how they feel about our financial status.  Earlier this week,  one top Chinese official  urged the U.S. government to do something to boost confidence in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. government debt….

“We hope the U.S. government will take responsible policies and measures to boost global financial market confidence and respect and protect the interests of investors.”

#9  The  national debt  continues to spiral out of control and our politicians seem unwilling to do anything serious about it.  If you combine all sources of income, it is estimated that LeBron James makes about 42 million dollars a year.  If he continued to make money at that rate, it would take him  23,809 years  to make a trillion dollars.  Yet our politicians see no problem with running trillion dollar deficits year after year.

#10  Unless our politicians do something dramatic, the federal government is headed straight toward  financial hell.  It is being projected that the U.S. national debt will hit  344% of GDP  by the year 2050 if we continue on our current course.

#11  It is not just the federal government that is broke.  Right now, there are a lot of state and local governments that are teetering on the brink of financial disaster.  Moody’s  has announced  that it will be reviewing, and possibly downgrading, the credit ratings of Maryland, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.  The city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is  such a financial mess  that nobody really has any idea how to fix their problems.

#12  All over the United States, highways, water treatment plants, libraries, parking meters, airports and power plants are being sold off (much of the time to foreigners) in order to plug short-term holes in state and local budgets.

#13  The combination of federal government spending, state government spending and local government spending now accounts for a larger share of U.S. GDP  than at any other time in our history.

#14  Police all over America have been  shutting down lemonade stands  run by little children.  At least one police chief in Wisconsin was good enough  to apologize  when it happened in his area.  It is too bad that there aren’t more police out there that have a little common sense.

#15  The U.S.  housing crash  shows no signs of abating.  Real estate construction is absolutely dead.  In fact, right now we are on track for  the lowest number of total housing completions  that the U.S. government has ever recorded in a single year.

#16  In June, sales of previously-owned homes in the United States declined  to a seven month low.  Without good jobs, the American people cannot afford to buy homes.  Many of those that do have good incomes are being turned down by mortgage lenders.

#17  The supply of existing homes for sale  continues to go up.  That means that it is going to get even harder for average Americans to sell their homes.

#18  The value of U.S. homes has fallen by a total of approximately  6.6 trillion dollars  since the peak of the housing market.

#19  It isn’t just banks that are kicking people out of their homes.  All over the country, homeowners’ associations  are aggressively using their powers  to boot American families out on to the streets.

#20  Instead of being used by families, all over the country thousands of foreclosed homes are rapidly filling up  with mold.

#21  Really  bizarre thefts  are being reported all over the United States right now.  For example, it was just reported that some crooks in Pennsylvania ripped up and hauled away about  100,000 pounds of train track.

#22  Authorities continue to insist that violent crime is going down, and yet the number of police officers killed by gunfire is on pace to easily set another all-time record  for the second year in a row.

#23  One recent study found that approximately 47 percent of all meat and poultry in the United States “is contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Staph“.

#24  The health insurance companies keep jacking up rates on all of us, and yet they also continue to report  record breaking profits.

#25  The Obama administration is now using “mystery shoppers” to spy on doctors.  The following is from a report  in the New York Times….

Alarmed by a shortage of primary care doctors, Obama administration officials are recruiting a team of “mystery shoppers” to pose as patients, call doctors’ offices and request appointments to see how difficult it is for people to get care when they need it.

#26  Corruption appears  to be rampant  on every level of American society today.  For example, one NYU professor recently discovered that  20 percent  of his students were blatantly cheating on assignments.

#27  Thanks to insane tax loopholes, a substantial percentage of the billions of dollars of income that hedge fund managers make is only taxed at a maximum rate  of 15 percent.  Meanwhile, middle class American families are being absolutely hammered with taxes.

#28  The “too big to fail” banks now control 77 percent of all of the banking assets in the country.

#29  In 2010, the United States had the worst current account balance in the world.  The U.S. had a current account balance of  negative 561 billion dollars  for 2010.  No other nation had a negative current account balance that even exceeded 70 billion dollars.  The amount of wealth leaving our country and being transferred to the rest of the world is absolutely mind blowing.

#30  One recent poll found that  72 percent  of Americans believe that we are involved in too many wars.  But the Obama administration seems to think that we should be “the police of the world” and they just keep getting the U.S. military involved in more conflicts.

#31  Startling revelations are starting to come out about a scandal so big that it could shake up Washington D.C. for years to come.  Apparently, ATF agents were ordered to get  thousands of guns  into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels and they were also apparently ordered not to follow those guns to see where they ended up.

#32  The top 5 percent of all income earners in America account for  almost as much  consumer spending as the bottom 80 percent of all income earners.

#33  The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased  by 46%  since 2006.  But instead of being treated with kindness, many communities are treating the growing ranks of the poor as “outcasts” or criminals.

#34  Despite the promises of our politicians,  globalism  is absolutely shredding the American economy.    According to Forbes, the United States has been losing an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#35  There are no signs that our  rampant unemployment  problem is going to end any time soon.  In fact, right now it takes the average unemployed worker about  40 weeks  to find a new job.

#36  The vast majority of U.S. consumers are tapped out at this point.  Just consider the following quote  from the New York Times….

The auto industry is on pace to sell 28 percent fewer new vehicles this year than it did 10 years ago — and 10 years ago was 2001, when the country was in recession. Sales of ovens and stoves are on pace to be at their lowest level since 1992. Home sales over the past year have fallen back to their lowest point since the crisis began.

#37  Right now in Congress there is a proposal to change the way that inflation is calculated.  According to  The Senior Citizens League, this change would cause the average retiree to lose out on $18,000 in Social Security benefits over a 25 year period.

#38  Our tax system is fundamentally unjust.  Just look at the example of General Electric.  G.E. is a favorite of the Obama administration and somehow they get away with not paying taxes year after year. Just check out what  the New York Times  claims G.E. got away with in 2010….

The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.

Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

#39  The TSA continues to abuse U.S. travelers in some of the most bizarre ways imaginable.  For example, one 95-year-old grandmother in a wheelchair that is dying from cancer  was asked to remove her adult diaper  so that TSA “officials” could feel her up properly.  In what kind of a society does this type of thing go on?

No wonder the American people are losing faith.  It is hard to keep believing when you see rampant corruption and decay everywhere you look.

no worry.... these are American's problem........ we will still play our game here and assume that the Fed and gang will come up with a solution ....

  or would they?

Cheer


 

International Monetary Fund places total U.S. debt at 96.3% of GDP, ranked 12th highest against other nations.

enuff is enuff said Och bama... :roll: giving 24 hours notice...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Moody's Investors Services placed five states on review for possible downgrade if the United States fails to resolve its debt ceiling impasse and has its own stellar credit rating downgraded.

The five states -- Maryland, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia -- could all lose their Triple A rating if the U.S. rating is downgraded, Moody's said Tuesday.

Euro had also five nations  - PIIGS.

China owns d largest portion of US debt, but a Reuters investigation shows that they may have more than the Treasury could previously report. But by buying up US debt through internationally disparate financial intermediaries, Chinese entities hid exactly how much US debt they had acquired -- estimates say it is above $1.13 trillion. While S'pore own about $60 billion...?. :lol:

Sovereign Debt Crisis Now Threatens the U.S. Economy

ATHENS (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday voiced strong U.S. support for Greece's battle to overcome its debt crisis, saying it was taking the difficult steps required for future growth.

Sovereign Debt Crisis Now Threatens the U.S. Economy