17 Facts To Show To Anyone That Still Believes That The U.S. Economy Is Just Fine

No, the economy is most definitely not "recovering".  Despite what you may hear from the politicians and from the mainstream media (shrugging off today's terrible GDP print), the truth is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than it was prior to the last recession.  In fact, we are still pretty much where we were at when the last recession finally ended. When the financial crisis of 2008 struck, it took us down to a much lower level economically.  Thankfully, things have at least stabilized at this much lower level.  For example, the percentage of working age Americans that are employed has stayed remarkably flat for the past four years.  We should be grateful that things have not continued to get even worse.  It is almost as if someone has hit the "pause button" on the U.S. economy.  But things are definitely not getting better, and there are a whole host of signs that this bubble of false stability will soon come to an end and that our economic decline will accelerate once again. The following are 17 facts to show to anyone that believes that the U.S. economy is just fine...

#1 The homeownership rate in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in 19 years.

#2 Consumer spending for durable goods has dropped by 3.23 percent since November.  This is a clear sign that an economic slowdown is ahead.

#3 Major retailers are closing stores at the fastest pace that we have seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

#4 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of all families in the United States do not have a single member that is employed.  That means that one out of every five families in the entire country is completely unemployed.

#5 There are 1.3 million fewer jobs in the U.S. economy than when the last recession began in December 2007.  Meanwhile, our population has continued to grow steadily since that time.

#6 According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project, the quality of the jobs that have been "created" since the end of the last recession does not match the quality of the jobs lost during the last recession...

    Lower-wage industries constituted 22 percent of recession losses, but 44 percent of recovery growth.
    Mid-wage industries constituted 37 percent of recession losses, but only 26 percent of recovery growth.
    Higher-wage industries constituted 41 percent of recession losses, and 30 percent of recovery growth.

#7 After adjusting for inflation, men who work full-time in America today make less money than men who worked full-time in America 40 years ago.

#8 It is hard to believe, but 62 percent of all Americans make $20 or less an hour at this point.

#9 Nine of the top ten occupations in the U.S. pay an average wage of less than $35,000 a year.

#10 The middle class in Canada now makes more money than the middle class in the United States does.

#11 According to one recent study, 40 percent of all Americans could not come up with $2000 right now even if there was a major emergency.

#12 Less than one out of every four Americans has enough money put away to cover six months of expenses if there was a job loss or major emergency.

#13 An astounding 56 percent of all Americans have subprime credit in 2014.

#14 As I wrote about the other day, there are now 49 million Americans that are dealing with food insecurity.

#15 Ten years ago, the number of women in the U.S. that had jobs outnumbered the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps by more than a 2 to 1 margin.  But now the number of women in the U.S. on food stamps actually exceeds the number of women that have jobs.

#16 69 percent of the federal budget is spent either on entitlements or on welfare programs.

#17 The number of Americans receiving benefits from the federal government each month exceeds the number of full-time workers in the private sector by more than 60 million.

Taken individually, those numbers are quite remarkable.

Taken collectively, they are absolutely breathtaking.

Yes, things have been improving for the wealthy for the last several years.  The stock market has soared to new record highs and real estate prices in the Hamptons have skyrocketed to unprecedented heights.

But that is not the real economy.  In the real economy, the middle class is being squeezed out of existence.  The quality of our jobs is declining and prices just keep rising.  This reality was reflected quite well in a comment that one of my readers left on one of my recent articles...

It is getting worse each passing month.

And the false stock bubble that the wealthy are enjoying right now will not last that much longer.  It is an artificial bubble that has been pumped up by unprecedented money printing by the Federal Reserve, and like all bubbles that the Fed creates, it will eventually burst.

Let us hope that this current bubble of false stability lasts for as long as possible.

That is what I am hoping for.

But let us not be deceived into thinking that it is permanent.

It will soon burst, and then the real pain will begin.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-30/17-facts-show-anyone-still-believes-us-economy-just-fine
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Numbers 1,2,3 & 5, in particular, say a lot & what they say, does not bode well!

A Chart that Demands Attention

Neil Irwin at the New York Times (The Upshot) writes that “no one cares about economic data anymore” which he says is “good news.” He points to some indisputable facts, such as the steady growth in both employment and GDP over the past few years. His focus is mostly on short-run monthly or quarterly movements in economic data–movements that perhaps we can safely ignore in the near future.

The GDP numbers for the first quarter of 2014 were released yesterday, and GDP growth was way below forecast. Bad winter weather was the likely culprit, and we agree with Irwin that we are no longer seeing the short-run gyrations in GDP numbers that we saw in the 2006 to 2010 period.

But over a longer horizon, there is something deeply puzzling about the GDP numbers, and economists everywhere should be staring at them and scratching their heads. The chart below shows why. It plots real GDP for every U.S. post-World War 2 recession for 26 quarters after the recession. Each line is indexed to 100 in the quarter before the official NBER start of the recession. The steeper the line for the particular recession, the stronger the recovery.


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This horribly anaemic US GDP Growth comes after the US Government & the US Fed Reserve have thrown many Trillions at the problem.

And, when throwing Trillions at the problem ceases, which must happen, it should be obvious to MOST, what will then happen!

Oh & btw, as I have said a "few" times before, "this time is different & the reasons why it is different are the number of "once in history factors" that are driving events.

So, merely looking at the past will not tell us what is likely to happen, this time! 

Economy Not Keeping Up With Population Growth

8 million added to working population, half a million fewer jobs

Despite adding more than 8 million people to the working-age population since 2007, total employment has declined by half a million, according to an analysis by the Senate Budget Committee.

Before President Barack Obama took office 259.7 million people were part of the working-age population, or between ages 16 and 65.  Now, the number has risen to 267.7 million.

However, in the same time period, total employment declined from 146.3 million to 145.7 million.  In other words, 531,000 fewer people have jobs.


“This statistic highlights an alarming trend that has embodied the president’s economic policies: more and more people are leaving the workforce entirely,” according to the analysis, which was released by Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.). “There are 58 million working-age people who are not working, and the labor force participation rate stands at 62.8 percent, the lowest level in 36 years.”

In defining the pool of potential workers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) includes anyone over 16, excluding inmates in penal and mental facilities, and active duty members of the Armed Forces.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/economy-not-keeping-up-with-population-growth/
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If anyone tells you that the USA Economy is back on the road to "normal Growth", YOU TELL THEM "THEY ARE WRONG"!

Besides the Great Depression, there has not been a recovery that is this weak, nor that has taken this long, to get nowhere!

Japan was already there, Europe is still there & China is slowly descending!

Given where the major Economic factors, such as Demographics, Energy & Climate are headed, if you think about it, you will soon see where the Global & OZ Economy is headed!

perceptions_now wrote on May 11^th, 2014 at 8:53am:


Having had a delayed & "somewhat" mooted reaction to the GFC, possibly because our association with China, OZ has nevertheless commenced following the Labour Force Participation trends of the USA & elsewhere and that is likely to continue!

Global GDP Does Not Look Like Recovery

Europe is in a similar predicament to a varying degree. It too looks for a rebound but all we have seen so far is positive GDP numbers. As in Japan, a plus sign is not the end of the analysis. In the wider context, GDP has only rebounded to the slightest amount – and even then only because Germany has failed to suffer the same fate as its fellow continentals.



The chart above, taken directly from Eurostat’s GDP release, actually overstates the degree to which the economy is moving. The recent nosedive in the official inflation figures is actually “helping” here in the narrow statistical sense. In nominal terms, GDP has barely grown in the past few years, even if you view the latest move as a completed cycle.



Overall, there has been improvement in other economic factors, but, once again, improvement is not the same as recovery. A recovery is very, very different and amounts to an economy that is actually being efficient and productive. What we see in Europe, as Japan, is an economy being manipulated and under constant intervention and distortion.





The net change across these cycles, if that is what they are, should not be a condition where you end up worse than where you started. Traditionally, the recession cycle into recovery ends up with employment, for example, easily re-attaining the previous cycle’s peak and then surpassing it by a wide margin.

That is another commonality linking the U.S. and European economies (where the U.S. is still behind in total jobs, and further behind in full-time jobs). But the real takeaway from all of this is that each of the central banks in these geographical areas has undertaken massive, tremendous and sustained “stimulus” and only gained these puny and “unexpected” meagerness.

That spells real, dire trouble for the global economy that is increasingly reliant on nothing but Chinese imprudence. It has been expected for five years now that the U.S. and Europe would actually recover and boost the total supply chain on down all the way to emerging economies – demand in the “developed” world means growth in resource extraction, all run through Chinese manufacturing.

It is very clear here that this is not growth in any meaningful sense.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2223433-global-gdp-does-not-look-like-recovery?i...
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As I have repeatedly said, with a slowing of Oil Production, there are also Demographic & Climate Change reasons, which are affecting the Global Economy and the combined effect of the changes in these major Economic factors would strongly suggest that the current Economic Growth model is unlikely to return.

Put bluntly, the Economic Growth Fairy is now dying!

83 Numbers From 2013 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

During 2013, America continued to steadily march down a self-destructive path toward oblivion.  As a society, our debt levels are completely and totally out of control.  Our financial system has been transformed into the largest casino on the entire planet and our big banks are behaving even more recklessly than they did just before the last financial crisis.  Due to the lack of decent jobs, poverty is absolutely exploding.  Government dependence is at an all-time high and crime is rising.  If we are going to have any hope of solving these problems, the American people need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and finally admit how bad things have actually become.

If we all just blindly have faith that "everything is going to be okay", the consequences of decades of incredibly foolish decisions are going to absolutely blindside us and we will be absolutely devastated by the great crisis that is rapidly approaching.  The United States is in a massive amount of trouble, and it is time that we all started facing the truth.  The following are 83 numbers from 2013 that are almost too crazy to believe...

#1 Most people that hear this statistic do not believe that it is actually true, but right now an all-time record 102 million working age Americans do not have a job.  That number has risen by about 27 million since the year 2000.
#2 Because of the lack of jobs, poverty is spreading like wildfire in the United States.  According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49.2 percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month.
#3 As society breaks down, the government feels a greater need than ever before to watch, monitor and track the population.  For example, every single day the NSA intercepts and permanently stores close to 2 billion emails and phone calls in addition to a whole host of other data.
#4 The Bank for International Settlements says that total public and private debt levels around the globe are now 30 percent higher than they were back during the financial crisis of 2008.
#5 According to a recent World Bank report, private domestic debt in China has grown from 9 trillion dollars in 2008 to 23 trillion dollars today.
#6 In 1985, there were more than 18,000 banks in the United States.  Today, there are only 6,891 left.
#7 The six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively gotten 37 percent larger over the past five years.
#8 The U.S. banking system has 14.4 trillion dollars in total assets.  The six largest banks now account for 67 percent of those assets and all of the other banks account for only 33 percent of those assets.
#9 JPMorgan Chase is roughly the size of the entire British economy.
#11 Right now, four of the "too big to fail" banks each have total exposure to derivatives that is well in excess of 40 trillion dollars.
#12 The total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts is more than 381 times greater than their total assets.
#13 According to the Bank for International Settlements, the global financial system has a total of 441 trillion dollars worth of exposure to interest rate derivatives.
#21 The U.S. government has spent an astounding 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs over the past five years.

#22 Incredibly, 74 percent of all the wealth in the United States is owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans.

#27 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States has fallen for five years in a row.
#28 The rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row.
#29 Only 47 percent of all adults in America have a full-time job at this point.
#30 The unemployment rate in the eurozone recently hit a new all-time high of 12.2 percent.
#31 If you assume that the labor force participation rate in the U.S. is at the long-term average, the unemployment rate in the United States would actually be 11.5 percent instead of 7 percent.
#32 In November 2000, 64.3 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  When Barack Obama first entered the White House, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  Today, only 58.6 percent of all working age Americans have a job.

#33 There are 1,148,000 fewer Americans working today than there was in November 2006.  Meanwhile, our population has grown by more than 16 million people during that time frame.

#35 Just 14 percent of all Americans believe that the stock market will rise next year.
#37 Twitter is a seven-year-old company that has never made a profit.  It actually lost 64.6 million dollars last quarter.  But according to the financial markets it is currently worth about 22 billion dollars.
#38 Right now, Facebook is trading at a valuation that is equivalent to approximately 100 years of earnings, and it is currently supposedly worth about 115 billion dollars.
#39 Total consumer credit has risen by a whopping 22 percent over the past three years.
#40 Student loans are up by an astounding 61 percent over the past three years.

#73 When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent.  Today, it is up to 101 percent.

Oh & btw, the US Debt to GDP ratio doesn't fully reflect what has actually  happened, as it doesn't include the "Funny Money" that the US Federal Reserve has thrown at the problem/s, both Overtly via QE inputs which run into $Trillions, PLUS their Covert operations which could be anything!