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20 Examples Of How America Is Rapidly Going Down The Toilet

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Michael Snyder

Economic Collapse
June 14, 2013

Deep corruption is eating away at every level of American society like cancer.  We can see this in our families, we can see this in our businesses, and we can especially see this in our government.  We have the highest rate of divorce in the world, we have the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the world, we have the highest rate of obesity in world, and nobody has higher rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes than we do.  The suicide rate is soaring and our economy is falling apart.  Meanwhile, our politicians seem absolutely clueless and we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt that the world has ever seen.  Has America ever been in such bad shape before?  The following are 20 examples of how America is rapidly going down the toilet…

#1 Why do so many members of the media have family members that work for the White House?  Is this one of the reasons why the mainstream media is so soft on Obama?  Just check out the following list which was recently compiled by the Washington Post…

The list of prominent news people with close White House relations includes ABC News President Ben Sherwood, who is the brother of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a top national-security adviser to President Obama. His counterpart at CBS, news division president David Rhodes, is the brother of Benjamin Rhodes, a key foreign-policy specialist. CNN’s deputy Washington bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married toTom Nides, who until earlier this year was deputy secretary of state under Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Further, White House press secretary Jay Carney’s wife isClaire Shipman, a veteran reporter for ABC. And NPR’s White House correspondent, Ari Shapiro, is married to a lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, who joined the White House counsel’s office in April.

#2 Why are IRS agents training with AR-15 rifles?  Exactly who do those IRS agents expect to be using those weapons against?

#3 The city of Detroit is on the verge of declaring the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, but a 41-year-old city worker is about to starting drawing a $96,000 annual pension…

Matt Schenk isn’t your average retiree. He’s 41, works full-time and collects $194,000 a year at the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

But as soon as next month, he’ll start collecting an estimated $96,000 annual pension, courtesy of an early retirement incentive offered to Wayne County appointees.  It had no age restriction.

#4 The number of sexual assaults in the U.S. military is up 35 percent since 2010.

#5 The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 rose by close to 30 percentbetween 1999 and 2010.  The number of Americans that are killed by suicide now exceeds the number of Americans that die as a result of car accidents.

#6 The United States has the highest rate of obesity on the planet by far.  The U.S. also has the highest rate of cancer, the highest rate of heart disease and the highest rate of diabetes.

#7 An illegal immigrant brutally raped and killed a 9-month-old girl in Richland, Washington recently, but you won’t hear anything about it from the big mainstream news networks because it might hurt the immigration bill being pushed through Congress.

#8 Even though the United States has been able to fully secure the border between North Korea and South Korea for the past 60 years, U.S. Senator Check Schumer says that it would take “years and years and years” to secure the border between the United States and Mexico.

#9 All over America illegal immigrants are turning pleasant communities into crime-infested cesspools.  The following is what Doug Hoagland says is going on down in California…

Three decades ago, before past amnesties opened the flood gates to illegal criminals, all of the farming communities mentioned in this report were thriving small towns with low crime rates and an extremely pleasing quality of life. Now, every single one of these once fine little towns are cesspools of crime, infested with drug smugglers, anchor baby welfare trolls, where decent people can no longer walk the streets at night. According to the latest census report Selma is, like most of California’s invaded cities, 78 percent Hispanic….and likely half of them illegal.

Also cited in this same report is the tragic fact that the local jails are so full these criminals must be turned out early to make way for the next fresh batch of arrestees. The Chief of Police lamented the fact that the “criminal early out” program allows the newly released criminals to go out and commit more crime.

During my entire 22-year Air Force career I always dreamed of retiring to my sedate and peaceful little town where I grew up. Then I came home, took a look around, saw the gangsters and the prolific graffiti that graces every street in town and decided to dwell elsewhere.

#10 The U.S. family is rapidly breaking down.  100 years ago, 4.52 were living in the average U.S. household, but now the average U.S. household only consists of2.59 people.

#11 The NSA spies on virtually everything that we do, but the Obama administration has banned U.S. law enforcement officials from spying on Islamic mosques without special permission.

#12 Why is the University of Chicago removing pews from an 88-year-old chapel in order to make room to accommodate Islamic prayer rugs?

#13 Barack Obama has decided to allow the sale of the Plan B One-Step abortion pill to girls under the age of 17 without a prescription.  So now young girls will be able to go to the drug store and pick up these pills at any time and their parents might not ever find out about it.

#14 The United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001, and millions upon millions of good paying jobs have been shipped out of the country.  But Barack Obama is secretly negotiating even more “free trade” agreements which will destroy our economic infrastructure even further.

#15 The state legislature of California has just passed a law that allows boys to shower with girls in the public schools if that is more “consistent” with their gender identity.

#16 Why is Barack Obama strongly against a measure that is being proposed in Congress that would protect the “religious liberty” of American service members?

#17 In the United States today, the government treats military veterans like human garbage.  Back in 2009, the number of veterans that had been waiting for more than a year to have their veteran benefits approved was 11,000.  Today, that number has soared to 245,000.  While they are waiting, the federal government is glad to provide them with “end of life” literature that helps them to determine when their lives are “no longer worth living“.

#18 Today, the U.S. ranks only 51st in the world for life expectancy even though we spend far more on health care than anyone else on the planet does.  Sadly, our health care system has become a giant money making scam that is not really concerned about whether most of us live or die.

#19 The level of government dependence in the United States is at a level that we have never seen before.  Back in 1960, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages was approximately 10 percent.  In the year 2000, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages was approximately 21 percent.  Today, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages is approximately 35 percent.

#20 The U.S. national debt is now $16,738,704,836,178.59, and it is being projected that it will increase by another 106 trillion dollars over the next 30 years.  Of course that will never happen.  The truth is that the financial system of America will totally collapse long before we ever add another 106 trillion dollars to our debt.

 

This article was posted: Friday, June 14, 2013 at 5:10 am

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The Big Dogs On Wall Street Are Starting To Get Very Nervous

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February 22, 2013

Source: Michael Snyder, Guest Post

Why are some of the biggest names in the corporate world unloading stock like there is no tomorrow, and why are some of the most prominent investors on Wall Street loudly warning about the possibility of a market crash?  Should we be alarmed that the big dogs on Wall Street are starting to get very nervous?  In aprevious article, I got very excited about a report that indicated that corporate insiders were selling nine times more of their own shares than they were buying.  Well, according to a brand new Bloomberg article, insider sales of stock have outnumbered insider purchases of stock by a ratio of twelve to oneover the past three months.  That is highly unusual.  And right now some of the most respected investors in the financial world are ringing the alarm bells.  Dennis Gartman says that it is time to “rush to the sidelines”, Seth Klarman is warning about “the un-abating risks of collapse”, and Doug Kass is proclaiming that “we’re headed for a sharp fall”.  So does all of this mean that a market crash is definitely on the way?  No, but when you combine all of this with the weak economic data constantly coming out of the U.S. and Europe, it certainly does not paint a pretty picture.

According to Bloomberg, it has been two years since we have seen insider sales of stock at this level.  And when insider sales of stock are this high, that usually means that the market is about to decline…

Corporate executives are taking advantage of near-record U.S. stock prices by selling shares in their companies at the fastest pace in two years.

There were about 12 stock-sale announcements over the past three months for every purchase by insiders at Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) companies, the highest ratio since January 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and Pavilion Global Markets. Whenever the ratio exceeded 11 in the past, the benchmark index declined 5.9 percent on average in the next six months, according to Pavilion, a Montreal-based trading firm.

But it isn’t just the number of stock sales that is alarming.  Some of these insider transactions are absolutely huge.  Just check out these numbers…

Among the biggest transactions last week were a $65.2 million sale by Google Inc.’s 39-year-old Chief Executive Officer Larry Page, a $40.1 million disposal by News Corp.’s 81- year-old Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch and a $34.2 million sale from American Express Co. chief Kenneth Chenault, who is 61. Nolan Archibald, the 69-year-old chairman of Stanley Black & Decker Inc. who plans to leave his post next month, unloaded $29.7 million in shares last week and Amphenol Corp. Chairman Martin Hans Loeffler, 68, sold $27.5 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, 57, announced plans to sell as many as 3.2 million shares in the operator of the world’s most-popular search engine. The planned share sales, worth about $2.5 billion, represent about 42 percent of Schmidt’s holdings.

So why are all of these very prominent executives cashing out all of a sudden?

That is a very good question.

Meanwhile, some of the most respected names on Wall Street are warning that it is time to get out of the market.

For example, investor Dennis Gartman recently wrote that the game is “changing” and that it is time to “rush to the sidelines”…

“When tectonic plates in the earth’s crust shift earthquakes happen and when the tectonic plants shift beneath our feet in the capital markets margin calls take place. The tectonic plates have shifted and attention… very careful and very substantive attention… must be paid.

“Simply put, the game has changed and where we were playing a ‘game’ fueled by the monetary authorities and fueled by the urge on the part of participants to see and believe in rising ‘animal spirits’ as Lord Keynes referred to them we played bullishly of equities and of the EUR and of ‘risk assets’. Now, with the game changing, our tools have to change and so too our perspective.

“Where we were buyers of equities previously we must disdain them henceforth. Where we were sellers of Yen and US dollars we must buy them now. Where we had been long of gold in Yen terms, we must shift that and turn bullish of gold in EUR terms. Where we might have been ‘technically’ bullish of the EUR we must now be technically and fundamentally bearish of it. The game board has been flipped over; the game has changed… change with it or perish. We cannot be more blunt than that.”

That is a very ominous warning, but he is far from alone.  Just the other day, I wrote about how legendary investor Seth Klarman is warning that the collapse of the financial markets could happen at literally any time…

“Investing today may well be harder than it has been at any time in our three decades of existence,” writes Seth Klarman in his year-end letter. The Fed’s “relentless interventions and manipulations” have left few purchase targets for Baupost, he laments. “(The) underpinnings of our economy and financial system are so precarious that the un-abating risks of collapse dwarf all other factors.”

Other big hitters on Wall Street are ringing the alarm bells as well.  For example, Seabreeze Partners portfolio manager Doug Kass recently told CNBC that what he is seeing right now reminds him of the period just before the crash of 1987…

“I’m getting the ‘summer of 1987 feeling’ in the U.S. equity market,” Kass told CNBC, “which means we’re headed for a sharp fall.”

And of course the “perma-bears” continue to warn that the months ahead are going to be very difficult.  For instance, “Dr. Doom” Marc Faber recently said that he “loves the high odds of a ‘big-time’ market crash“.

Another “perma-bear”, Nomura’s Bob Janjuah, is convinced that the stock market will experience one more huge spike before collapsing by up to 50%…

I continue to believe that the S&P500 can trade up towards the 1575/1550 area, where we have, so far, a grand double top. I would not be surprised to see the S&P trade marginally through the 2007 all-time nominal high (the real high was of course seen over a decade ago – so much for equities as a long-term vehicle for wealth creation!). A weekly close at a new all-time high would I think lead to the final parabolic spike up which creates the kind of positioning extreme and leverage extreme needed to create the conditions for a 25% to 50% collapse in equities over the rest of 2013 and 2014, driven by real economy reality hitting home, and by policymaker failure/loss of faith in “their system”.

So are they right?

We will see.

At the same time that many of the big dogs are pulling their money out of the market, many smaller investors are rushing to put their money back in to the market.  The mainstream media continues to assure them that everything is wonderful and that this rally can last forever.

But it is important to keep in mind that the last time that Wall Street was this “euphoric” was right before the market crash in 2008.

So what should we be watching for?

As I have mentioned before, it is very important to watch the financial markets in Europe right now.

If they crash, the financial markets in the U.S. will probably crash too.

And the financial markets in Europe definitely have had a rough week.  Just check out what happened on Thursday.  The following is from a report by CNBC’s Bob Pisani…

Italy, Germany, France, Spain, U.K., Greece, and Portugal all on track to log worst day since Feb. 4. European PMI numbers were disappointing, with all major countries except Germany reporting numbers below 50, indicating contraction.

What does this mean? It means Europe remains mired in recession: “The euro zone is on course to contract for a fourth consecutive quarter,” Markit, who provides the PMI data, said. A new insight is that France is now joining the weakness shown in periphery countries.

You’re giving me agita: Italy was the worst market, down 2.5 percent. The CEO of banking company, Intesa Sanpaolo, said Italy’s recession has been so bad it could cause a fifth of Italian companies to fail, noting that topline for those bottom fifth have been shrinking 35 to 45 percent. Italian elections are this weekend.

It wasn’t any better in Asia. The Shanghai Index had its worst day in over a year, closing down nearly three percent.

And the economic numbers coming out of the U.S. also continue to bequite depressing.

On Thursday, the Department of Labor announced that there were 362,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits during the week ending February 16th.  That was a sharp rise from a week earlier.

But I am not really concerned about that number yet.

When it rises above 400,000 and it stays there, then it will be time to officially become alarmed.

So what is the bottom line?

There are trouble signs on the horizon for the financial markets.  Nobody should panic right now, but things certainly do not look very promising for the remainder of the year.

The Fourth Amendment is Now Optional Goodbye, Fourth Amendment!

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By Source: found here

Friday, February 15th, 2013

It came out a couple of weeks ago: the executive summary of a report issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called, “Civil Rights/Civil Liberties Impact Assessment: Border Searches of Electronic Devices.”

Basically, the DHS was charged with the responsibility of determining whether or not its policy of seizing laptops and cell phones from travelers is a violation of both civil and constitutional rights.

Any moderately-educated American could answer that question quite simply — but no, we had to spend a few more tax dollars for the government to figure that one out. And you’ll never guess what the DHS concluded…

According to the new gatekeepers of our liberty, the Department of Homeland Security’s search policy doesnot violate both the First and Fourth Amendments.

That’s right. These guys believe that allowing government agents to search the contents of your laptop, cell phone, and other electronic devices — without reasonable suspicion of any wrongdoing — is both completely acceptable and legal.

Not So Fast…

laptop searchAccording to attorney Katie Haas, for more than four years now it has been the official policy of the DHS that Immigration & Customs Enforcement and Customs & Border Protection (the two agencies that monitor the border), can look at information on citizens’ laptops, cell phones, hard drives, and other devices, and sometimes keep the information or share it with others — even when there is no suspicion that the device contains evidence of wrongdoing.

Haas writes that the DHS has essentially adopted a policy of peering into anyone’s data, at any time, for any reason.

And through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed back in 2010, it has been discovered that between October 2008 and June 2010, about 3,000 U.S. citizens traveling to and from the United States have had their electronic devices searched at the border.

That particular FOIA request also found that between July 2008 and June 2009, border agents transferred data found on travelers’ electronic devices to other federal agencies over 280 times.

Incompetent and Lazy

Look, I understand we have to protect our borders… but it cannot be at the expense of law-abiding citizens.

To accept such a thing is to accept incompetence and laziness. My friends, those are two qualities that continue to degrade our democracy, not strengthen it.

And the unfortunate truth is that harassment of U.S. citizens crossing the border is nothing new. In fact, just last year two Americans documenting pollution concerns and human rights violations were interrogated by border agents while their photos were destroyed.

One of the men, Ray Askins, was told by more than one agent that they would smash his camera if he didn’t delete the photos; the other, Christian Ramirez, was threatened by one Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, who told him: “Give me one reason to take you down.”(This was after Ramirez had already crossed the border back into the United States.)

One of the lawyers defending these two U.S. citizens, M. Andrew Woodmansee, released this statement:

Americans have a right to chronicle the activities of law enforcement. The Department of Justice recently stated that the right of a citizen to gather information about government officials — including photographs — serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting the free discussion of governmental affairs. While the government has an interest in guaranteeing the security of the United States, it should have no role in stifling speech or violating our right to be secure in our person and our papers.

Protect Your Data!

Although border agents can still unconstitutionally search your electronic devices at the moment, there are some steps you can take to protect your privacy…

After all, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, there are any number of reasons why folks would want to protect their data.

  • Business travelers, lawyers, and doctors may have confidential or privileged information on their laptops they don’t want others to see — or that they are obligated by law or contract to protect.
  • Some people may have sensitive personal information on their devices such as medical records, financial documents, and years of correspondence with family, friends, and business associates.
  • Some travelers may have repeated difficulties crossing the border and wish to take proactive steps to protect their data in light of their past experiences.
  • And some feel out of principle that the government shouldn’t be able to view their private information simply because they choose to travel internationally.

Whatever the reason may be, there are a number of things you can do to protect your privacy at the border.

The good folks over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have published a free report called, “Defending Privacy at the U.S. Border: A Guide for Travelers Carrying Digital Devices.” You can access that report here.

Live honorably, live free…

Jeff Siegel Signature

Jeff Siegel for Freedom Watch

 

Leading Geneticist: Human Intelligence is Slowly Declining

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February 17, 2013

Source: Mike Barrett, Natural Society

Would you be surprised to hear that the human race is slowly becoming dumber, and dumber? Despite our advancements over the last tens or even hundreds of years, some ‘experts’ believe that humans are losing cognitive capabilities and becoming more emotionally unstable. One Stanford University researcher and geneticist, Dr. Gerald Crabtree, believes that our intellectual decline as a race has much to do with adverse genetic mutations.

According to Crabtree, our cognitive and emotional capabilities are fueled and determined by the combined effort of thousands of genes. If a mutation occurred in any of of these genes, which is quite likely, then intelligence or emotional stability can be negatively impacted.

“I would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas, and a clear-sighted view of important issues. Furthermore, I would guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues,” the geneticist began his article in the scientific journal Trends in Genetics.

Further, the geneticist explains that people with specific adverse genetic mutations are more likely than ever to survive and live amongst the ‘strong.’ Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ is less applicable in today’s society, therefore those with better genes will not necessarily dominate in society as they would have in the past.

While this hypothesis does have some merit: are genes really the primary reason for the overall cognitive decline of the human race? If humans really are lacking in intelligence more than before, it’s important to recognize other possible causes. Let’s take a look at how our food system plays a role in all of this.

It’s sad, but true; our food system today is contributing to lower intelligence across the board.

The Water Supply, Fluoride is Lowering Your IQ

Researchers from Harvard have found that a substance rampant in the nation’s water supply, fluoride, is lowering IQ and dumbing down the population. The researchers, who had their findings published in the prominent journal Environmental Health Perspectives, a federal government medical journal stemming from the U.S National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, concluded that ”our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children’s neurodevelopment”.

“In this study we found a significant dose-response relation between fluoride level in serum and children’s IQ…This is the 24th study that has found this association”.

One attorney, Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President, weighs in on the research by saying:

“It’s senseless to keep subjecting our children to this ongoing fluoridation experiment to satisfy the political agenda of special-interest groups. Even if fluoridation reduced cavities, is tooth health more important than brain health? It’s time to put politics aside and stop artificial fluoridation everywhere”.

Pesticides are Diminishing Intelligence

One study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that pesticides, which are rampant among the food supply, are creating lasting changes in overall brain structure — changes that have been linked to lower intelligence levels and decreased cognitive function. Specifically, the researchers found that a pesticide known as chlorpyrifos (CPF) has been linked to ”significant abnormalities”. Further, the negative impact was found to occur even at low levels of exposure.

Lead researcher Virginia Rauh, a professor at the Mailman School of Public Health, summarized the findings:

“Toxic exposure during this critical period can have far-reaching effects on brain development and behavioral functioning.”

Processed Foods, High Fructose Corn Syrup Making People ‘Stupid’

Following 14,000 children, British researchers uncovered the connection between processed foods and reduced IQ. After recording the children’s’ diets and analyzing questionnaires submitting by the parents, the researchers found that if children were consuming a processed diet at age 3, IQ decline could begin over the next five years. The study found that by age 8, the children had suffered the IQ decline. On the contrary, children who ate a nutrient-rich diet including fruit and vegetables were found to increase their IQ over the 3 year period. The foods considered nutrient-rich by the researchers were most likely conventional fruits and vegetables.

Interestingly, one particular ingredient ubiquitous in processed foods and sugary beverages across the globe -high fructose corn syrup – has been tied to reduced IQ. The UCLA researchers coming to these findings found that HFCS may be damaging the brain functions of consumers worldwide, sabotaging learning and memory. In fact, the official release goes as far to say that high-fructose corn syrup can make you ‘stupid’.

Gene mutations may have something to do with our ongoing decline in intelligence, but let’s stop to think for a moment what we’re doing to ourselves to make this decline even more prominent.