Most Americans know that the U.S. economy is in bad shape, but what most Americans don't know is how truly desperate the financial situation of the United States really is. The truth is that what we are experiencing is not simply a "downturn" or a "recession". What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end for the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen. Our greed and our debt are literally eating our economy alive. Total government, corporate and personal debt has now reached 360 percent of GDP, which is far higher than it ever reached during the Great Depression era. We have nearly totally dismantled our once colossal manufacturing base, we have shipped millions upon millions of middle class jobs overseas, we have lived far beyond our means for decades and we have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world. A great day of financial reckoning is fast approaching, and the vast majority of Americans are totally oblivious.
But the truth is that you cannot defy the financial laws of the universe forever. What goes up must come down. The borrower is the servant of the lender. Cutting corners always catches up with you in the end.
Sometimes it takes cold, hard numbers for many of us to fully realize the situation that we are facing.
So, the following are 50 very revealing statistics about the U.S. economy that are almost too crazy to believe....
#48) If you went out and spent one dollar every single second, it would take you
more than 31,000 yearsto spend a trillion dollars.
#46) Total U.S. government debt is now up to
90 percent of gross domestic product.
#44) U.S. corporate income tax receipts
were down 55% (to $138 billion) for the year ending September 30th, 2009.
#43) There are now 8 counties in the state of California that have unemployment rates
of over 20 percent.
#39)
More than 40% of those employed in the United States are now working in low-wage service jobs.
#36) Mortgage purchase applications in the United States
are down nearly 40 percent from a month ago to their lowest level since April of 1997.
#34) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings
were reported on 367,056 properties in March 2010, an increase of nearly 19 percent from February, an increase of nearly 8 percent from March 2009 and the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.
#31) The Mortgage Bankers Association recently announced that more than 10 percent of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment during the January to March time period.
That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago.
#27) U.S. commercial property values
are down approximately 40 percent since 2007 and currently 18 percent of all office space in the United States is sitting vacant.
#26) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks climbed
to a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010. That was almost twice the level of a year earlier.
#25) In 2009, U.S. banks posted their sharpest decline in private lending
since 1942.
#23) To make up for a projected 2010 budget shortfall of $280 million, Detroit issued $250 million of 20-year municipal notes in March. The bond issuance followed on the heels of a warning from Detroit officials that if its financial state didn't improve,
it could be forced to declare bankruptcy.
#20) Two university professors recently calculated that the combined unfunded pension liability for all 50 U.S. states
is 3.2 trillion dollars.
#16) U.S. government-provided benefits (including Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs)
rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010.
#15)
39.68 million Americans are now on food stamps, which represents a new all-time record. But things look like they are going to get even worse. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting that enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in 2011.
#13) U.S. law enforcement authorities claim that there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs inside the country. These 1 million gang members are responsible
for up to 80% of the crimes committed in the United States each year.
#12) The U.S. health care system was already facing a shortage of approximately 150,000 doctors in the next decade or so, but thanks to the health care "reform" bill passed by Congress, that number could swell
by several hundred thousand more.
#10) The Dow Jones Industrial Average just experienced
the worst May it has seen since 1940.
#6) The bottom 40 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively
own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
#4) According to a new report based on U.S. Census Bureau data, only 26 percent of American teens between the ages of 16 and 19 had jobs in late 2009
which represents a record low since statistics began to be kept back in 1948.
#1)
According to the Tax Foundation’s Microsimulation Model, to erase the 2010 U.S. budget deficit, the U.S. Congress would have to multiply each tax rate by 2.4. Thus, the 10 percent rate would be 24 percent, the 15 percent rate would be 36 percent, and the 35 percent rate would have to be 85 percent.