The Declining Middle class and the Coming Civil War

Our economy isn't in crisis, it is simply undergoing changes and during periods of change it is natural to see fluctuations in rates. Just because you can't pinpoint the cause of every fluctuation does not mean that you should start panicing and declaring a civil war on your neighbors. That's a bit childish if you ask me. Remember kids: Patience is a virtue.

We are 60 trillion in debt, not 9 trillion as many in gov't and media tell us. The various agencies use cash accounting instead of accrual accounting in their fiscal reports to the GAO, which is in violation of federal laws and regulations. If a corporation did this, they'd end up in jail. The national debt is 400% greater than our GDP. The Federal Reserve stopped releasing M3 figures (the measure of our money supply), because they are shoveling money out the door as fast as they can print it, which robs us of the purchasing power of our dollar, i.e. Inflation Tax. 40 sub-prime lenders in March went bankrupt, and more sub-prime and alt-A lenders have gone under since then. Mainstream media has picked up on the fact that there is a steep increase in foreclosures, and it is only a matter of time until the housing bubble bursts.

The GAO in their report "Fiscal Stewardship: A Critical Challenge Facing our Nation" stated the following:

The federal government faces large and growing structural deficits in the future due primarily to known demographic trends and rising health care costs. These structural deficits—which are virtually certain given the design of our current programs and policies—will mean escalating and ultimately unsustainable federal deficits and debt levels. Based on various measures—and using reasonable assumptions—the federal government’s current fiscal policy is unsustainable. Continuing on this imprudent and unsustainable path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our domestic tranquility and national security.

The GAO says this is a matter of "National Security". That means, "our economy IS in crisis. Does this mean we should resort to civil war? No, it means we should vote out of office the pieces of garbage responsible for this mess. If the vote is rigged 1 more time, or any candidate willing to stand up to the establishment is harmed or killed, or the President suspends the Constitution, then it's time to start shooting.

On the China slave labor thing, we can all vote with our Dollars. Stop shopping at WalMart. Buy American whenever you can. Buying Taiwan goods is fine. Capitalism isn't the problem. Corporatism is. We need to repeal the protections that safeguard the owners, board members, CEO's and CFO's of corporations. Allow them people to be personally and financially liable for their company's policies, just like small businesses are. This would better hold them accountable, and then they would think twice about putting bad chemicals in their products, or engaging in other practices detrimental to the American consumer.

Dawnstar, You are right, and we all need to take responsibility for our own actions that have contributed to this mess.

In closing, we aren't at the point of shooting yet, but Texas is the front line if it starts. Communism and Socialism isn't the answer. Restoring the Republic is.

[edit on 5/31/07 by Kelldor]

Kelldor I would like to see a link or two on the 60 trillion USD debt, I find that interesting since I have never heard of that one.

From www.federalreserve.gov...:

On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. The Board will also cease publishing the following components: large-denomination time deposits, repurchase agreements (RPs), and Eurodollars. The Board will continue to publish institutional money market mutual funds as a memorandum item in this release.

The most common measures are named M0 (narrowest), M1, M2, and M3. In the United States they are defined by the Federal Reserve as follows:

* M0: The total of all physical currency, plus accounts at the central bank that can be
exchanged for physical currency.
* M1: M0 + the amount in demand accounts ("checking" or "current" accounts).
* M2: M1 + most savings accounts, money market accounts, small denomination time
deposits and certificate of deposit accounts (CDs) of under $100,000.
* M3: M2 + all other CDs, deposits of eurodollars and repurchase agreements.

Repurchase agreements (RPs or Repos) are financial instruments used in the money markets and capital markets. A more accurate and descriptive term is Sale and Repurchase Agreement, since what occurs is that the cash receiver (aka repo seller) sells securities now, in return for cash, to the cash provider (aka repo buyer), and agrees to repurchase those securities from the cash provider for a greater sum of cash at some later date, that greater sum being all of the cash lent and some extra cash (constituting the implicit interest rate, known as the repo rate). There is little that prevents any security from being employed in a repo; so, Treasury or Government bills, corporate and Treasury / Government bonds, and stocks / shares, may all be used as securities involved in a repo.

The discontinuance of the M3 report blacks out a large portion of U.S. debt in the form of repurchase agreements which have interest attached to them.

The debt is at least $50 Trillion according to the Fiscal Year 2006 Financial Report of the United States Government issued by the Treasury:

PAGE 152

The Nation’s Fiscal Imbalance
While we are unable to express an opinion on the U.S. government’s consolidated
financial statements, the following key items deserve emphasis in order to put the
information contained in the financial statements and the Management’s Discussion and
Analysis section of the 2006 Financial Report of the United States Government into
context. Despite improvement in both the fiscal year 2006 reported net operating cost and the cash-based budget deficit, the U.S. government’s total reported liabilities, net social insurance commitments, and other fiscal exposures continue to grow and now total approximately $50 trillion, representing approximately four times the Nation’s total
output (GDP) in fiscal year 2006, up from about $20 trillion, or two times GDP in fiscal
year 2000. As this long-term fiscal imbalance continues to grow, the retirement of the
“baby boom” generation is closer to becoming a reality with the first wave of boomers
eligible for early retirement under Social Security in 2008. Given these and other factors, it seems clear that the nation’s current fiscal path is unsustainable and that tough choices by the President and the Congress are necessary in order to address the nation’s large and growing long-term fiscal imbalance.

I want a link for the last one so I can go in and copy paste the link as further evidence and the like. PM that to me or post it here, interesting though, 50 trillion USD debt... Not 8 trillion... The little side notes they do not like to talk about.

www.usatoday.com...

Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.

Dated 5/29/07

Does this mean a collapse of the economy is imminent? If foreign investors demanded half of that debt back how could the nation repay it? Servitude, mass liquidation of assets? This is seriously grim.

Not necessarily. China selling off their 1.2 trillion U.S. Dollars in reserves would do it though. Iran recently said "no more U.S. Dollars for oil. The Dollar dropped. Then China said they wanted to diversify their reserves and sold some of their Dollars (for Euros to buy Iranian oil with), and the Dollar dropped again. Japan has over 70% of their reserves in U.S. Dollars, and they have been buying more to keep us afloat, cause if we go down, they go with us.

We been borrowing 2-3 billion per day from China and Japan to fund our empire. We can't sustain this. I think the administration and people in the Fed know this, and don't care. I think they want to crash the economy on purpose in hopes it causes mass riots and panic and civil unrest so they have an excuse to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution. Then they will roll out the "Amero" on us, lol!

If I had a bunch of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, 401k's and IRA's, I'd dump all that crap and buy gold and silver, mostly silver. It was $7/oz. a year ago and is $13.50/oz. now. As the Dollar drops, precious metals will up, and vice versa.

OOPS! I spoke to soon!

pressesc.com...

US debt could trigger dollar collapse, UN warns

Submitted by Desha Priya on Thu, 2007-05-31 16:47.

he United States dollar is facing imminent collapse in the face of an unsustainable debt, the United Nations warned today.

United States debt, which had now deepened to well over $3 trillion, might turn out to be unsustainable in the rest of 2007 or next, putting further downward pressure on the United States dollar, Rob Vos, the Director of the Development Policy and Analysis Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference.

He pointed out that since its peak in 2002, the dollar had depreciated vis-à-vis the major currencies by some 35 per cent and by 25 per cent against a broader range of other currencies.

Vos made these comments at the launch of the 2007 World Economic Situation and Prospects report midyear update.

With that increased debt the risk of a sharp depreciation of the dollar continued, he warned. If countries willing to invest in United States dollar assets expected further depreciation, they might be less willing to hold dollar assets, triggering a much sharper fall in the United States dollar. The risk of disorderly adjustment and the steep fall of the dollar existed. The policy challenge was how to prevent a hard landing of the United States dollar and forge a benign adjustment of the global imbalance.

In terms of the United States housing sector, he noted that a recession in the housing sector had continued in 2007, with a slowdown in activity and a large number of unsold homes. While house prices had not fallen, that might happen in the months and years to come if the recession continued as expected. A decline in prices would affect the domestic market, particularly household consumption in the United States, resulting in the risk of a serious recession in its economy, slowing growth from 2.1 per cent to 0.5 per cent in 2007 and 2008. That would then significantly slow the world economy and transmit the recession into the rest of the world.

The United States deficit had increased to $860 billion at the end of 2006, and was expected to fall to $800 billion in 2007. That deficit was basically being financed by surpluses in the developing and oil exporting countries, as well as some major developed countries, in particular Japan and Germany. The European Union,at large, was projected to continue to have a slight deficit on its current account.

Continuing, he said the current tendency in macroeconomic policy was not all in the right direction, particularly in the surplus countries where there had been a tightening of monetary and fiscal policies, particularly in Germany and Japan, making it more difficult for the United States to lower its external deficits by export growth. The United States would also need to adopt some contractionary policies to slow down its deficit, he recommended.

www.un.org...

When they refer to our debt as 3 Trillion, I assume they mean "this year".

I'm watching Alex Jones 911: Road to Tyranny atm. Full of military psy-ops on cities and children, training U.S. and foreign troops to take out police stations and take over cities, kick in doors in and confiscate guns. Lot's more. It's Sick. We gotta stop the UN take over of America!

There is no doubt that it is getting harder and harder to earn a living unless you have a college degree. Both my kids now have their masters degrees so they seem to be in the minority that is doing well. If you learn anything from this post it is to make sure that your kids place a value on education.

There is no more manufacturing here in the US. It is all done in China. The IT field, of which I'm a member, is slowly being gobbled up by India. I will retire aroung 2012(providing the earth doesn't end accoring to the mayan calendar) and I should be able to support myself on my retirement funds.

I don't see a revolution in the near future. Who, exactly, are you going to revlot against? Are you going to come and shot me because I live in the top 10%. I have to tell you that I have trouble making ends meet and you're telling me that I'm wealthy. News flash, it's not the 10th percentil that is living so high on the hog. You might have to go up a little higher.

What I see happening is the middle class will continue to shrink as more and more people have to work harder to make ends meet. You might see more and more group living situations (much like college roomates) in order for people to just get by.

Goods and services in this country have never been cheaper. Visit a costco or any other big box store. People don't revolt until they can't feed themselves.

By the way, my dad was a blue collar worker his entire life. He has been talking about the erroding middle class since the 1960s. His thoughts were that the Unions got so powerful that they created a middle class standard of living for way too many people and that's why the Unions have been driven down to their inefectual levels that they now exist at.

Perhaps, instead of a civil war, we'll see a resurgance of the Unions to help the workers demand a reasonable wage.

Like I said beware of 4th and 5th parties if we go into a state of revolution or civil war. The biggest problem is if people keep being scared of Mexicans, if they keep treating them like some demonic monster in general we are going to be wiped out, all of us, even the Mexicans. Genocide will take on a whole new meaning if people keep that fear going. What we DO need is to get that realization going all 3 nations, USA, Canada, and Mexico have the same thing in mind: peace, freedom, equality, the ability to live your life without being torn appart by government taxes then bills, and a whole lot more. If the three of us unite we stand a very good chance of winning, if not... we stand an even higher chance of loosing, and I mean loosing it all as in no one will be left alive that wants freedom and democracy.
If you hate Mexicans, you are helping things explode, if you hate the nutjobs in the Mexican population, make that darn apparent when you talk to a Mexican. I have met Mexicans and frankly I like them, but all sides have their nutjobs who need removed. Lets not generalize whole societies and races when you address nutjobs or else you will make more enemies than allies.

As for the debt: at this rate it will be a very short amount of time before things fall appart, people keep saying not to worry because it will happen in maybe the 2100, 2300, 2400. Wrong. Look at how fast things have accelerated recently, they are gunning to get this done sooner, much sooner. The longer they wait the more people will wisen up, so they have to get this done FAST and I mean overnight kind of fast. Thus I am looking with interest at 2008 and the first two years following as for what will happen.

I just got hired at an aerospace manufacturer today, at the highest wage I've ever earned. It still doesn't qualify me to even dream of purchasing a home. Manufacturing isn't dead in the United States yet; there are still many things that can't be made overseas because of expertise, secrecy, or regulation. The problem is the wages for manufacturing positions have been stagnant since the 1980's, nobody wants to enter the field because the money isn't there. I hope I can get my degree before the civil war...

I do not think it will be about the middle class.

Certainly the globalists are busy destroying the middle class and are intent on reducing the world's population to 500,000,000.

Some say NORTH AM to 250,000 . . . right . . . 250 thousand.

But they are interested mostly in serfs--obedient, robot, mindless serfs.

And removing all hint of man's footprint on wide areas of North Am returning it to "natural, pristine" condition.

Arrogant treasonous idiots.

The civil war . . . if it comes . . . before attacks by Russia, China, Iran, No Korea, Mexico . . . .

will be against patriots, Christans, conservatives as we are the only ones of significant conviction and motivation to hinder their rush to the tyrannical global government.

How about an ad hoc nation wide militia?

Originally posted by BO XIAN
will be against patriots, Christans, conservatives as we are the only ones of significant conviction and motivation to hinder their rush to the tyrannical global government.

Right...Because history clearly shows conservaties have paved the way for social justice and equality, and Christians have never used political power to hinder the cause.

Conservatives and Christians alike have vied for the status quo for a long time and would continue to do so. Progressives and "leftists" are usually the ones struggling for change, and fighting to maintain any democratic gains.

Actually,

AUTHENTICALLY Christian conservatives

DID

--bring about an end to slavery;

--spread hospitals and education around the world;

--began the USA on startlingly advanced principles of government;

--foster more wealth on the part of individuals with industry and creativity than ever before in the history of the world;

. . .

Marxists, globalists, leftists are great at enslaving folks "for their own good" or "for the children" . . . as Shrillery has bragged openly about

"We are going to take things away from you and give them to others for the common good."

History has shown that NO civilization has survived much more than 100 years after more than 30% of the individual's incomes were taxed.

"Progressives" is an oxymoron . . . they've helped us progress all the way back to the corruption and hedonism of Soddom and Gomorrah.

But I think you highlight well how and why the different perspectives are more likely to result in civil war than the middle class issue.

Originally posted by BO XIAN
Actually,
AUTHENTICALLY Christian conservatives
DID.....

True up to a point. I wrote a paper on this very subject in college and I learned among other things that conservative evangelic Christians from the 19th century of which you speak, would not recognize the funnymentalist Christians of today. If anything they would for the most part look down on them as a rather tacky, uneducated and dogmatic and their churches (and preachers) little more than snake oil salesmen, and in my opinion, in this they would be right.

I grew up in southern Christian churches and I do not recognize what passes for it today either.

BTW historically speaking conservatism is always a rear guard action and as such is a losing proposition. Doesn't matter what era we are talking about either. Conservatism NEVER moves a society forward.

Originally posted by Vekar
Like I said beware of 4th and 5th parties if we go into a state of revolution or civil war. The biggest problem is if people keep being scared of Mexicans, if they keep treating them like some demonic monster in general we are going to be wiped out, all of us, even the Mexicans.

While I don't try to "demonize" anyone, I do think that the massive flow of illegal immigration into this country is a major contributing factor to many, many of our problems. Yes, yes,I do indeedy.

[edit on 2-6-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

Bo Xian, must you bring religion into the equation? This has absolutely nothing to do with religion. It is a thread about economics. Thank you.

I wrote a paper on this very subject in college and I learned among other things that conservative evangelic Christians from the 19th century of which you speak, would not recognize the funnymentalist Christians of today.

IF your paper did not deal with the research-empirically derived

INTRINSIC VS EXTRINSIC Christians

and the indiscriminately-anti-religious vs the indiscriminately-pro-religious

then it did not include the basic research on the topic.

Your statement SOUNDS/READS LIKE you did not include such research in your paper.

In the coming week, I will try and see if I can post some summaries of that research.