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US on the Brink of the Greatest Depression Ever via Fox News

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Photo credit: Mike Licht

Everywhere from FoxNews.com to CNBC.com, I suddenly see commentators warning of pending doom, economic collapse, and a new Great Depression. Welcome to my club. Perhaps America’s politicians and economists should have paid attention to an entrepreneur and small businessman that has been warning of economic collapse and a new Great Depression publicly for over two years.

More importantly, none of the current commentaries mention the “why’s” of this slow motion economic collapse…beyond the obvious — mountains of deficit and debt. None of them mention the dysfunctional structure of the current U.S. economy and the massive changes in the work ethic and mindset of the average American.

I am a successful small businessman and a patriot who loves America and always sees its greatness. I am also an optimistic, positive thinker who always sees the glass half full. But not this time.

This time we are in such deep trouble, the only solution is a radical restructuring of the politicians, the economy, and the way we view personal responsibility versus government handouts. If those changes don’t come then we are facing a long decline and the eventual end of America.

This time the results are going to be dramatically worse than 1929. This time we are facing The Greatest Depression ever.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: The question is not “if,” it’s “when” our nation collapses from insolvency

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This new “Government Gone Wild” video explains in simple terms that both parties are selling this country out. Collapse is inevitable absent fundamental change.

Heritage: Another Recession Is Imminent

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Photo credit: Ed Yourdon

Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that without a doubt, America will have a fresh recession next year unless Congress and the President prevent it.

We are facing the largest tax increase in history—Taxmageddon, scheduled to take effect January 1—and what experts are calling a “fiscal cliff” of sharp and unforgiving budget changes that will send the country spiraling downward. Congress and the President have the power to prevent this, and when the August congressional recess is over, that is exactly what they should do.

In its new report, the CBO said that if Congress does not act, it’s not economic growth we should be worried about, because the economy will actually shrink next year. It will shrink by 0.5 percent, and the unemployment rate will spike to 9.1 percent. As Heritage’s J.D. Foster explains: “Forget percentages—what does this mean in actual jobs lost if President Obama and Congress fail to act? It means roughly 1.6 million more Americans will be out of work—on top of the 12.8 million who already want to work but can’t find jobs.”

Preventing Taxmageddon and the fiscal cliff are necessary just to keep the economy from taking a nosedive. The status quo isn’t attractive, but Congress certainly shouldn’t make things worse. If Congress moves to prevent the nosedive, the CBO projects that the economy will grow only slightly next year, at an anemic 1.7 percent, and the unemployment rate will remain stuck around 8 percent.

Why? The CBO report makes it clear: Our spending problem continues, and it’s driven mainly by the three major entitlements: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Spending on these programs will outpace tax revenue over the next decade.

Read more from this story HERE.

Top Investor Warns of “Financial Armageddon” as Billionaires Dump Stocks, Buy Gold

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In what analysts say is another indication that the economy will get worse in the not-too-distant future, recent filings by billionaire financier George Soros show he dumped virtually all his holdings in major financial companies like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup. His multi-billion-dollar U.S. fund also loaded up on gold, with the portfolio now holding more than $130 million worth of the precious metal.

Data compiled by analysts based on Soros’ most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that during the last quarter, his American fund sold more than a million shares of the big financial companies with a value of almost $50 million. During that period, Soros Fund Management also more than doubled its position in the SPDR Gold Trust to nearly 900,000 shares.

“When a major global player with direct ties to the White House, Wall Street, and the banking system starts off-loading stocks and starts stacking gold, it suggests a very serious market move is set to happen,” observed commentator Mac Slavo, a generally pessimistic analyst who follows financial news closely and has long predicted unprecedented economic chaos.

Despite his far-left political agenda, Soros has a solid track record of making wise financial moves. Americans should pay attention. “Soros is getting out of those companies which are most at risk should the financial system buckle like it did in 2008 and he’s shifting his assets into what may be the only asset class left standing when it’s all said and done,” Slavo concluded.

Major banks have already started drawing up plans for a potential financial calamity, news reports in recent weeks revealed. But Soros was hardly the only heavyweight investor whose recent actions foreshadow potential economic trouble to come.

Another billionaire investment legend, John Paulson, who successfully predicted the sub-prime meltdown and made a fortune in the process, also added a significant amount of gold to his already-gold heavy hedge fund portfolio — an increase of more than 25 percent in the last quarter worth some $700 million, regulatory filings show. Paulson’s largest holdings are in the SPDR Gold Trust, and Bloomberg reported that almost half of his U.S.-traded equities are now tied to bullion.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin: “Proud” that stimulus produced jobs at $738k each (+video)

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Photo credit: merfam

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told The Daily Caller that he is “very proud” of the Economic Recovery Act of 2009 that put 65,000 people to work with $48 billion in federal funds for the Department of Transportation, amounting to $738,461 per job.

The Recovery Act of 2009, which in total cost taxpayers $825 billion, has been criticized because it did not prevent the unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent, contrary to what the Obama administration predicted.

“Yeah, we spent $48 billion and we put 65,000 people to work in 15,000 projects in two years with no problems,” LaHood told The Daily Caller in a video interview in Alexandria, Va., on Friday. “I’m very proud of that. I know that the governors can spend this money because over two years we gave them $48 billion, they created 65,000 jobs in 15,000 projects. This is doable. We’re going to get the money out and get people to work.”

TheDC also asked LaHood about the Obama administration’s decision to send an additional $473 million in unspent earmarks to states.

“You know what? These are old earmarks. There are earmarks that were set aside by members of Congress going back several years,” LaHood said. “We’re in the no earmark era. There are no more earmarks. This money needs to be spent because we need to get people to work.”

General Motors headed for bankruptcy . . . again

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President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again. The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.

Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.

Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share. However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49% of their value relative to the Dow.

It’s doubtful that the Obama administration would attempt to sell off the government’s massive position in GM while the stock price is falling. It would be too embarrassing politically. Accordingly, if GM shares continue to decline, it is likely that Obama would ride the stock down to zero.

GM is unlikely to hit the wall before the election, but, given current trends, the company could easily do so again before the end of a second Obama term.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Recovery Worst Since at least the Great Depression, foreign debt at record levels

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By Paul Wiseman. The recession that ended three years ago this summer has been followed by the feeblest recovery since the Great Depression, according an extensive review of the country’s economic ups and down over the past eight decades.

Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest.

The ugliness goes well beyond unemployment, which at 8.3 percent is the highest this long after the end of a recession.

Economic growth has never been weaker in a postwar recovery. Consumer spending has never been so slack. Only once has job growth been slower.

More than in any other post-World War II recovery, people who have jobs are hurting: Their paychecks have fallen behind inflation.

Many economists say the agonizing recovery from the Great Recession, which began in December 2007 during the George W. Bush administration and ended in June 2009, is the predictable consequence of a housing market collapse and a grave financial crisis.  Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Government’s Foreign Debt Hits Record $5.29 Trillion

By Terence P. Jeffrey.  The money the U.S. government owes to foreign entities rose to a record $5.2923 trillion in June, according to data released by the U.S. Treasury Wednesday afternoon.

In May, the U.S. Treasury had owed $5.2581 trillion to foreign entities. On net, in June, the U.S. government borrowed an additional $34.2 billion from foreign entities in order to fund U.S. government operations.

The U.S. government’s indebtedness to foreign interests has grown by 72.3 percent during President Barack Obama’s term in office. In January 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, the U.S. government owed $3.0717 trillion to foreign entities, according to the Treasury Department. That has increased by $2.2206 trillion—or 72.3 percent—to the record $5.2923 trillion reported for yesterday.

Entities in the People’s Republic of China remain the largest holders of U.S. government debt. Entities in Japan, however, are on track to eclipse the Chinese as the top holders of U.S. government debt.

In June, the Chinese held $1.1643 trillion in U.S. government debt, up slightly from the $1.1640 trillion in U.S. government debt the Chinese held in May. However, Chinese ownership of U.S. government debt hit an historical peaked of $1.3149 trillion in July 2011 and has been on a generally downward trend since then.  Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Newt drills CNN Host-“You’re An Extension of the Obama Campaign”

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Gingrich hands Piers Morgan’s hat to him in this interview.  Not only does Gingrich accuse Morgan of, essentially, working for Obama, he eviscerates the Obama record, noting that the US is in the worst recovery in 75 years and that Obama’s approach is “crippling” the poor.

White House: Talk About Anything But Obama’s Record

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Photo Credit: Talk Radio News Service Creative Commons

Ever since the 2009 GM bailout by “progressive” big government ended the pensions of 20,000 retirees at Delphi auto parts manufacturing, the White House and the Department of Treasury have laid the blame on the steps of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Internal government emails have been obtained that show the U.S. Treasury Department, run by Timothy Geithner, was behind those termininations. All 20,000 of the pensions seem to have been ended strictly for the reason that those retirees did not belong to labor unions.

Perhaps the National Labor Relations Board was too busy preparing to harass another private sector company planning to hire non-union workers to get involved.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Holder has yet to file any criminal charges against top Wall Street bankers with connections inside the Department of Justice or who had made political donations to the 2008 presidential campaign of the current White House occupant.

Over the years, both the Oval Office and Holder have talked tough, aggressively attacking big fat cat bankers, blaming their reckless speculation for the 2008 financial collapse. The Government Accountability Institute has found that Holder still has not “filed a single criminal charge against any top executive of an elite financial institution.”

All talk, no action. Sound tough for the union organized OWS crowd, but do nothing to upset potential campaign donors. The heck with credibility, the “progressive” Party Pravda will run interference for the re-election campaign.

Overseas, Iran has vowed it will not allow Assad to fall in Syria.

“Iran will never allow the resistance axis – of which Syria is an essential pillar – to break,” said Saeed Jalili, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary. The “axis of resistance” includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, all of which are anti-Western and openly hostile towards Israel and the United States.

Assad reassured Jalili by saying: “The Syrian people and their government are determined to purge the country of terrorists and to fight the terrorists without respite.”

If Assad is overthrown, Iran will lose influence over Syria and a crucial link to Hezbollah.

Could it be that Muslim Brotherhood influence over the White House has surreptitiously led to policies that support the creation of a regional Caliphate? What other way is there to logically explain policies that support rebellions to overthrow some Middle Eastern dictators, but not support rebellions hostile to the Iranian regime or its allies?

With so much baggage for the White House to carry through the campaign, their “Priorities” are to have their “progressive” allies run misleading ads that attempt to tie Mitt Romney to death.

Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting the Oval Office is running a new ad that blames Mitt Romney for a family losing health insurance which contributed to a woman dying from cancer.

It apparently makes no difference to the “progressive” super PAC that Romney left Bain Capital years before the GST Steel bankruptcy in 2001. In addition, the cancer casualty Ranae Soptic died in 2006, long after the GST plant had been closed.

In another move to distract attention away from the dismal economic performance of the White House, the Oval Office occupier was overheard whispering to a top fundraiser that GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney wanted to name Gen. David Petraeus as his choice for Vice President.

The White House was more than happy to clutter the news cycle by dismissing the Drudge Report. Anything to keep the pathetic economic record of the White House out of the headlines will suffice.

Press Secretary Jay Carney reminded reporters to “be mindful of your sources” when asked about the Petraeus rumor. “I can say with absolute confidence, such an assertion has never been uttered by the president. And again be mindful of your sources” said Carney.

And so it goes for the most open, transparent White House in American history. They are more than happy to talk about anything but their own record.

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/

You want to save the US economy? Deliver American Energy to Americans

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There is widespread consensus that America needs to become energy independent. America’s ever growing dependence on foreign energy puts her at ever-greater risk in a world that is increasingly unstable. Given the current political upheavals in the Middle East, this reality is slapping America in the face with increasing costs at the pump which, in turn, drive up costs of goods and services to consumers.

Making matters worse, Progressives are obsessed with forcing Americans into accepting their green energy fantasy. Three plus years of actions taken by the current administration and fellow Progressives show a willingness to achieve this end at any cost. Increasing limitations on auto emissions and mileage, crushing EPA regulations on energy providers, opposing development of domestic energy resources, enormous deficit spending on inefficient and noncompetitive solar, wind, tide and bio-fuel technologies all litter the landscape of the White House’s failed energy policy.

While such Progressive measures may theoretically promote development of green energies, they dictate a highly impatient, frantic pace that is further crippling an already fragile American economy. They force the issue at the worst possible time, in the middle of a recovery resistant recession that is quite possibly teetering on the brink of a full-blown depression.

America’s economic infrastructure is based on the use of petroleum, natural gas and coal, as well as limited nuclear power. Nearly every vehicle that is driven on American roads burns gasoline or diesel fuel. Public transportation relies on fossil fuels as well. Natural gas, heating oil and coal are used in furnaces to heat homes and places of business. Coal and nuclear power generate electricity, which powers countless devices; the uses of which are taken for granted every day. Coal, natural gas and petroleum products power American’s industrial complex, the base of the economic engine.

In short, America’s economy depends heavily on existing energy. The methods of providing and consuming energy are deeply ingrained into American business, industry, home life and recreation.

Expecting to change the methods of powering a society of over 300 million people overnight is impractical. Even if it were justified, transforming a hydrocarbon-based economy to something else would take an enormous amount of money and time, far more than most of the public realizes.

Granted, some movement to “renewable” energy sources is currently taking place, but what energy is powering the manufacturing, delivery, and installation of windmills, solar panels, turbines, generators and power grid modifications needed to provide “green” energy to the public? Is it the “green” energy that is still under development? Of course not. No, the energy used to move away from oil, gas, and coal will be those traditional fuels themselves.

Why does America continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign energy while there is undeveloped energy in its own country? Why doesn’t America keep those billions of dollars at home, in its own cash starved economy?

At a time when millions of Americans are looking for work and its economy is starving for liquid capital, why doesn’t America take advantage of its own expansive wealth of natural resources? Why aren’t Americans drilling for oil and natural gas or digging for coal? Why aren’t people working building refineries and power plants? Why aren’t people delivering gas, coal and natural gas to consumers? How many peripheral jobs would be created in the process? For every new oil well, power plant, refinery, and mine there will be new roads, followed by restaurants, stores, housing, and other infrastructure. All generated by the only force capable of powering America’s economic recovery: the private sector.

In the interest of national security and job creation, America should put Americans back to work delivering American energy to Americans. This is the best way to become energy independent. Forcing “green energy” on America overnight will only lead to more economic destruction.

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/

Photo credit: Chimpanz APe