75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse
December 21, 2012

What a year 2012 has been!  The mainstream media continues to tell us what a “great job” the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve are doing of managing the economy, but meanwhile things just continue to get even worse for the poor and the middle class.  It is imperative that we educate the American people about the true condition of our economy and about why all of this is happening.  If nothing is done, our debt problems will continue to get worse, millions of jobs will continue to leave the country, small businesses will continue to be suffocated, the middle class will continue to collapse, and poverty in the United States will continue to explode.  Just “tweaking” things slightly is not going to fix our economy.  We need a fundamental change in direction.  Right now we are living in a bubble of debt-fueled false prosperity that allows us to continue to consume far more wealth than we produce, but when that bubble bursts we are going to experience the most painful economic “adjustment” that America has ever gone through.  We need to be able to explain to our fellow Americans what is coming, why it is coming and what needs to be done.  Hopefully the crazy economic numbers that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.

The end of the year is a time when people tend to gather with family and friends more than they do during the rest of the year.  Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help start some conversations about the coming economic collapse with your loved ones.  Sadly, most Americans still tend to doubt that we are heading into economic oblivion.  So if you have someone among your family and friends that believes that everything is going to be “just fine”, just show them these numbers.  They are a good summary of the problems that the U.S. economy is currently facing.

The following are 50 economic numbers from 2012 that are almost too crazy to believe…

#1 In December 2008, 31.6 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, a new all-time record of 47.7 million Americans are on food stamps.  That number has increased by more than 50 percent over the past four years, and yet the mainstream media still has the gall to insist that “things are getting better”.

#2 Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps.  Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.

#3 According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

#4 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all Americans have received money from a safety net program run by the federal government at some point in their lives.

#5 For the first time ever, more than a millionpublic school students in the United States are homeless.  That number has risen by 57 percentsince the 2006-2007 school year.

#6 Median household income in the U.S. has fallen for four consecutive years.  Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

#7 Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

#8 The percentage of working age Americans with a job has been under 59 percent for 39 months in a row.

#9 In September 2009, during the depths of the last economic crisis, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed.  In November 2012, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed.  It is more then 3 years later, and we are in the exact same place.

#10 When you total up all working age Americans that do not have a job in America today, it comes to more than 100 million.

#11 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all small business owners in America “say they would not start a business today given what they know now and in the current environment.”

#12 The number of jobs at new small businesses continues to decline.  According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the decline in the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration…

Bush Sr.: 11.3

Clinton: 11.2

Bush Jr.: 10.8

Obama: 7.8

#13 The U.S. share of global GDP has fallen from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011.

#14 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

#15 There are four major U.S. banks that each have more than 40 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives.

#16 In 2000, there were more than 17 million Americans working in manufacturing, but now there are less than 12 million.

#17 According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of all Americans were “middle income” back in 1971.  Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are.

#18 The Pew Research Center has also found that 85 percent of all middle class Americans say that it is harder to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.

#19 62 percent of all middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spendingover the past year.

#20 Right now, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.

Read the entire article

We Must NOT Give Up Our Guns to Obama

Infowars.com
December 21, 2012

Alex talks with former federal prosecutor and a former member of the United States House of Representatives for Georgia’s 7th congressional district, Bob Barr. He was the Libertarian Party nominee for president in the 2008 election. Mr. Barr sits on the NRA board and will talk with Alex about the effort to disarm the American people.

Obama calls on public to lobby Congress on gun restrictions

Editor's Note: Here we go, they are on an All - out assault against the only real means of defending our liberty! Without our 2nd Amendment rights, there will be no rights!!!

Planet Washington
December 21, 2012

President Obama will observe a moment of silence at 9:30 a.m. today at the White House, marking one week since a lone gunman opened fire in a Connecticut elementary school, killing 20 first graders before turning a gun on himself.

And he pledged in a video that he'd do everything in his power as president to address safety, mental health issues and the culture of violence that may have contributed to the tragedy.
"If there's even one thing we can do as a country to protect our children, we have a responsibility to try," the president said.

The video was a response to the "We The People" petitions that have been submitted to the White House in the wake of the Newtown tragedy. In it, Obama urges viewers to call Congress "as many times as it takes" to push for gun restrictions. Obama earlier this week called on Congress to ban the sale of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips as he announced that Vice President Joe Biden would lead an effort to develop "concrete proposals" to stem gun violence. He wants answers by January.
"If we're going to succeed it's going to take a sustained effort," Obama says in the video. "You started something and now I'm asking you to keep at it."

Petitions relating to gun violence have amassed more than 400,000 signatures, making it one of the most popular petition issues since the White House launched We the People. One of the gun petitions was the fastest petition ever to reach the 25,000 signature threshold required for White House review. 

Read more here: http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/washington/2012/12/obama-to-address-gun-control-petition-.html#storylink=cpy

Reality Check: Are calls for stricter gun laws really about guns

Reality Check
Dec 20, 2012

In the days after the Connecticut school shooting, there has been a lot of talk about the need for gun control laws to be more strict across the nation.

Martial Law About to Be Declared in Arkansas?

Info Salvo
December 16, 2012

In a supposed response to increased crime rates in Paragould, Arkansas, Police Chief Todd Stovall and Mayor Mike Gaskill have teamed up to back a horrific plan with the aim of creating a new force of a walking militarized police unit virtually declaring martial law over the city.

According to an article in the paragoulddailypress,  beginning in early 2013 armed police officers dressed in protective gear will routinely walk the streets of Paragould in an effort to lower the high crime rates. Their plan includes stopping everyone they see, asking for their ID, and interrogating the population in hopes of collecting information and leads to 'snuff' out crime. 

"[Police are] going to be in SWAT gear and have AR-15s around their neck," Stovall said. "If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID."

"We're going to do it to everybody," he said. "Criminals don't like being talked to." 

Going even further, Mayor Gaskill backed up the Chiefs ideology by saying, "They may not be doing anything but walking their dog," he said. "But they're going to have to prove it."

Legally though, an officer cannot ask for ID without probable cause. So what probable cause is given to justify police marching through the streets with assault rifles? Stovall justifies the idea as follows:

"To ask you for your ID, I have to have a reason. Well, I've got statistical reasons that say I've got a lot of crime right now, which gives me probable cause to ask what you're doing out. Then when I add that people are scared...then that gives us even more [reason] to ask why are you here and what are you doing in this area." 

Going on to say against those who refuse to produce identification, "…we have a right to be doing what we're doing. We have a zero-tolerance. We are prepared to throw your hind-end in jail, OK? We're not going to take a lot of flack." "Anyone that's out walking, because of the crime and the fear factor, [could be stopped]," he said.

According to the article, Stovall apparently wasn't bothered by the mention of his plan sounding like martial law where he proclaims, "I don't know that there's ever been a difference" between his proposals and martial law. Individuals who refuse to produce identification will be charged with obstructing a governmental operation. 

In a time where so many events are happening across the united states that signal the beginning of a push to take away our second amendment right to bare arms, it's a scary thing to see police upgrading their power and arms against the population. Using fear to generate fear so power and control are simply given. 

"This fear is what's given us the reason to do this. Once I have stats and people saying they're scared, we can do this," Stovall said. "It allows us to do what we're fixing to do."

The idea will be discussed with residents Tuesday at Center Hill Church of Christ and Thursday at the Paragould Community Center. Both meetings start at 7 p.m. 

If you live anywhere close to Paragould, Arkansas, it would be ideal to go to these town meetings. Fight for your rights, protest and raise awareness. 

Pentagon Adviser: Attack on Our Financial Markets Imminent

NewsMax

December 18, 2012

Evidence from the following investigation has been 

presented to the Pentagon, CIA, and Congress.

What you are about to view reveals an economic threat an adviser to the Director of National Intelligence warns could be a"financial Pearl Harbor we never saw coming."

Watch the breaking News Here

No Time To Disarm America

Personal Liberty Digest

December 18, 2012

In the wake of the terrible tragedy that occurred last week at a Connecticut elementary school, the opinions have begun following in from both sides of the gun control debate. The debate is sure to become increasingly fallacious and nasty in coming months as people on both sides make ridiculous claims to support their case.

President Barack Obama spoke over the weekend at a memorial service for the 26 victims of Adam Lanza’s horrifying shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School. His speech, some people (gun-control advocates, no doubt) gushed, was akin to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Here is part of the President’s speech:

We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law—no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.

But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this. If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that—then surely we have an obligation to try.

In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens—from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators—in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. Because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

The President is prepared to “use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens” to prevent further tragedies like what occurred in Connecticut. Because, he asserted, Americans must protect the children.

The President’s words are strong, and combined with his past positions there is little doubt that his plan involves launching anything less than a full on assault on Americans’ right to own semi-automatic weapons.

In a USA Today column last week, Glenn Reynolds channeled famed author and renowned gun activist William S. Burroughs in describing what the government’s most likely course of action will be:

“After a shooting spree,” author William Burroughs once said, “they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.” Burroughs continued: “I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”

Many Americans disagree with Burroughs’ opinion and are pushing for police and military personnel to be society’s sole armed protectors. And in gun-free zones, such as schools and many State and Federal properties, they are.

Those places have also become magnets for crazed gunmen. The cowardly mind-set of a man willing to kill at random — despite the anti-hero persona mainstream media seek to affix to these individuals — doesn’t lend itself well to ballsy attacks on rooms filled with armed men. Instead, they seek out the weakest or most unassuming targets imaginable: moviegoers in a darkened theater, attendees at a political rally, mall shoppers or schoolchildren.

And no matter what utopia the American left believes we inhabit, laws banning (and the all-out confiscation of) even every firearm manufactured will not stop the killing. Those capable of murder believe themselves to be far superior to any laws of man.

Perhaps a better option would involve a lessening of gun laws and an American realization that it is not up to the police, but to the citizen to ensure his own safety.

Speculation is reckless, but it is very tempting to fantasize about how Friday morning may have turned out differently if the school had been full of armed and trained teachers with easy access to firearms.

“Guns in schools, the horror,” liberal Americans might say. They may even venture to believe that frustrated armed teachers could be dangerous to students, though that seems very unlikely given the stories of teacher heroism coming from Connecticut where those educators likely wished they had tools at their disposal to better protect themselves and their students.

In 2008, the isolated Harrold Independent School District in Texas made an addition to its $100,000 state-of-the-art security system because administrators feared an armed intruder could do much damage in the 20 minutes it could take police to arrive. Feeling students and staff would be safer if on-site, trained staff members were equipped to handle a crisis at a moment’s notice, they decided to allow teachers to train and carry firearms to school.

In the years since, no gun has been brandished and no student hurt by an armed teacher. In fact, reports indicate that the students really didn’t have much at all to say about the policy. But the school district’s superintendent David Thweatt made a good point in 2009, a year after the policy went into place.

“We’re the first responders. We have to be,” Thweatt said. “We don’t have 5 minutes. We don’t have 10 minutes. We would have had 20 minutes of hell” if attackers had targeted the school.

Despite the President’s opinions, it is no time for gun rights activists to back off on the fight to keep and bear all legal firearms. We are all our own first responders and the protectors of those in our care who cannot defend themselves.

The TRUE SOURCE of RANDOM & MASS SHOOTINGS and VIOLENCE

You Tube
December 18, 2012




http://www.facebook.com/ConnectTheBlotsHiddenPsychPlan
Find out why Dr. Ron Paul is crusading to STOP mandatory mental screening and forced drugging of our children. This video highlights the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence, including nearly all recent mass-shootings and school shootings.
Discover more truth about Psychiatry's evil reign as the true shadow governments that have a chokehold on all sectors of society, visit our page at:
Connect the blots... 
http://www.facebook.com/ConnectTheBlotsHiddenPsychPlan

This video is a chapter from the full documentary "Psychiatry's Prescription for Violence" which was originally produced and released by CCHR, the worlds leading watchdog on mental health. For more videos by CCHR visit http://www.cchrint.org/

Ban all people on psychiatric medication from owning guns, driving cars or voting for President

The solution to the insanity

Mike Adams
Natural News
December 18, 2012

I know how to stop the next school shooting, save the children and restore some sanity to America. Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, was on medication, we now know. So were previous shooters like the two students at Columbine High School in the 1999 Colorado shooting. Medication makes some people go crazy with violence.

There has been a lot of talk these past few days about banning guns. But the idea of banning guns from all the GOOD people — the sane, law-abiding citizens of America — is ludicrous. What really makes sense is banning gun purchases and ownership among mentally MEDICATED people.

Yep. If they’re on psychiatric meds, they get no guns. But why stop there? Vehicles are very dangerous metal machines, too, and if people on meds are too dangerous to own guns, they should be too dangerous to operate high-velocity rolling chunks of metal (cars and trucks) on public roadways, no?

That’s why I say ban all medicated people from operating motor vehicles. Given that there are currently 32,000 deaths each year in America from motor vehicle accidents, we’re talking about saving a thousand times the lives of the children in Sandy Hook!

But why stop there? Electing the wrong President can be just as dangerous as operating a motor vehicle or shooting up a school. The wrong President, you see, can drag a nation into deadly wars, just as we’ve seen with Bush and Obama. So for those people who are too dangerous to own guns, and too dangerous to drive motor vehicles, they should also be declared too dangerous to VOTE.

Voting, obviously, should be conducted only by someone in a clear state of mind, should it not?

And why even stop there? I think we should ban people on psych drugs from becoming members of Congress. After all, Congress is where the most insane people tend to congregate, and probably at least half of them are on mind-altering meds (and brain-numbing cholesterol drugs). No wonder they can’t even read the bills they vote on!

Allowing medicated members of Congress to vote on legislation is a lot like allowing medicated, video-game-playing teenagers to own assault rifles. The outcome is sometimes disastrous…

I’m serious…

This article is only partially satire, by the way. If we’re going to talk about banning things in America, let’s get serious about the altered mental states being caused by psychiatric drugs, and let’s get psych drugs to come with warnings and red flags that preclude people who take those drugs from operating firearms, vehicles or voting booths.

Guns, cars and votes should only be commanded by people of sound mind who are NOT subjected to chemical influences. In society today, we don’t tolerate people drinking and driving. So why do we tolerate people medicating and voting?

And if there’s any effort to ban guns at all, it needs to be concentrated on those medicated individuals who are not of sound mind.

The erosion of purchasing power via inflation – Federal Reserve and the permanent portfolio.

MyBudget360
December 18, 2012

Inflation has a subtle and quite way of eroding your purchasing power.  The process can unfold slowly and before you know it you suddenly wake up realizing your paycheck no longer stretches so far.  This is happening across the US in many ways.  Those on very tight budgets, especially those now on food stamps are feeling the pinch of higher food costs.  Middle class Americans seeking to send their kids to college realize that it might be difficult to do so without going into deep student debt.  Inflation as measured by the CPI understates the real change in purchasing power because our system is flooded with massive levels of debt.  Access to debt is viewed as a vector in which you can pretend to have money and spend on things you are unable to afford.  Yet debt and wealth are not the same.  Inflation is creeping into the system and people are feeling it.

Change in prices

As household incomes have gone flat over the last year, the cost of many items has actually gone up:

The fastest rising sector is medical care cost.  Do you think this is going to be an issue given the large number of baby boomers now retiring and requiring more medical care?  Do you think this is going to put a strain on those Social Security checks indexed to the CPI?  Of course it is.  Shelter went up by 2.2 percent over the last 12 months largely by the big push in rental prices and because banks are stunting the inventory available on the market.  Again, if incomes are stagnant, all this means is more disposable income is now going to these sectors.

Food prices have also gone up by 1.8 percent over the last year and for the 47.7 million Americans on food stamps you can rest assured this is being felt.  This is the slow eroding impact inflation has on your purchasing power.  Americans feel poorer because they actually are.  The Fed is purposely trying to devalue the dollar and create a low wage system where our nationwide debts are cheaply funded by low interest rates.  The Fed is selecting winners and losers.  This is no shock.  Yet the Fed’s balance sheet is still near $3 trillion.  Will they ever unload these items onto the market?

You’ll notice the large purchases done by the Fed starting in 2008.  Not much has changed here.  The Fed is the only player in town when it comes to mortgage backed securities.  The Fed is keeping rates near zero to keep interest payments low but also to allow banks to unload their inflated assets onto the market at higher prices.  Of course the public in order to compete will need to leverage itself with low rate mortgage but pay a much higher sticker price.

We are addicted to debt.  That is clear.  The Fed is creating a closed feedback loop here where the entire market now depends on its large action to keep rates low.  They are now viewed as a permanent player in these sectors.  You should not be surprised that the sectors being hit heaviest with price increases are those with maximum debt leverage.  Think of housing and college.  It comes as no surprise that these sectors see big price volatility.  Housing has boomed, busted, and is now moving up again with the Fed keeping rates artificially low.  Yet incomes are back to levels last seen in the 1990s.  Tuition is rising across the nation in line with access to college debt.  The large players in both markets are banks intertwined with the Fed.

Inflation is clearly here even as measured by the BLS data.  Yet incomes are stagnant suggesting that people are seeing a real measurable decrease in the standard of living.  The fiscal cliff is merely another method of funding spending with money we don’t have (more debt).  It is part of human nature to want it all as quickly as possible without paying for it.  Unfortunately the bill always comes due and many seem perfectly fine with passing the bill to future generations.

Peter Schiff : Our Economy Will Ultimately Collapse Due to the Fed Money Printing Machine

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!
Mark Matheny
December 18, 2012

Peter Schiff appeared on CNBC stating that the economic collapse coming will in large part be the fault of our own government.

"I think it is structural, and I think it's the government that structured it this way. The Fed with cheap money, .. with the government, with our tax codes, and all the regulations. We have too many people consuming, and not enough people producing.
We don't have enough laboring and manufacturing as we should. The government makes it too easy for people not to work by giving them viable alternatives, so we've created this situation, where people aren't going to work, and we're going to continue to rely upon the jobs abroad, as we hemorage red ink and the Fed keeps printing money to finance our trade deficits and eventually - and I'm not talking about in the distant future - but sometime soon, this whole artificial economy is going to implode".

December 17, 2012 CNBC News

Gun rights: What can Obama do? What might he do?

Christian Science Monitor
December 17, 2012

President Obama walks off after delivering a speech at an interfaith vigil for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on Sunday at Newtown High School in Newtown, Conn. A gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School Friday and opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children.

Evan Vucci/AP

Three days after the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre, the White House is making clear that this time – this mass shooting, in which 20 first-graders were gunned down – is different.

But President Obama has also made clear that he is going to take a little time first to figure out exactly how to proceed. The message: Dealing with the mass shootings that have been occurring with alarming regularity is not just about gun control, or law enforcement, or mental health services. It’s about all of the above, and more.

On Sunday night, speaking at an ecumenical prayer service at Newtown High School, Mr. Obama vowed to use “whatever power this office holds” to prevent future such tragedies, but did not offer specifics. On Monday, at his daily White House briefing, spokesman Jay Carney also declined to elaborate on what might be under consideration, but his message was “stay tuned,” not “stop asking.”

“It's a complex problem that will require a complex solution,” Mr. Carney said. “No single piece of legislation, no single action will fully address the problem.”

Carney also reinforced the president’s message from Sunday, which is that he intends to engage lawmakers, law-enforcement officials, mental-health professionals, and educators in addressing the issue of gun violence. Obama noted in his remarks that the massacre Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which 26 people were killed, was the fourth time as president he has come to comfort a grieving community beset by a mass shooting.

“We’re not doing enough,” Obama said. “And we will have to change.”

Read the entire article

Obama "Sandy" Storm aid bill filled with holiday goodies unrelated to storm damage

Editor's Note: More government abuse and the excuse once again used is "crisis"...

New York Post

December 17, 2012

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s $60.4 billion request for Hurricane Sandy relief has morphed into a huge Christmas stocking of goodies for federal agencies and even the state of Alaska, The Post has learned.

The pork-barrel feast includes more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. It also includes a whopping $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC.

An eye-popping $13 billion would go to “mitigation” projects to prepare for future storms.

Dan Callister

BARELY HOLDING ON: A woman stands amid rubble in Sandy-thrashed Breezy Point, Queens, where more federal assistance would be welcome.

Other big-ticket items in the bill include $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries.

Budget watchdogs have dubbed the 94-page emergency-spending bill “Sandy Scam.”

Matt Mayer of the conservative Heritage Foundation slammed the request as an “enormous Christmas gift worth of stuff.”

“The funding here should be focused on helping the community and the people, not replacing federal assets or federal items,” he said.

Republican lawmakers say the lack of details and justifications for the spending will delay approval until after Christmas, while they analyze and document what spending is “appropriate.”

“To throw out a number this large without in-depth analysis and formal request detailing the basis for it I think is premature and I wouldn’t support that,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).

Gov. Cuomo yesterday warned Congress not to hold up the money.

“There is no Plan B,” declared Cuomo at a press conference at the governor’s office in Manhattan, where he was joined by business and union leaders.

Mayor Bloomberg, however, called for careful scrutiny of the federal spending.

“You would think they’d want to ask questions before they give away the public’s money,” the mayor said on his radio program.

Society Is Crumbling Right In Front Of Our Eyes And Banning Guns Won’t Help

Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse
Dec 17, 2012

What in the world is happening to America?  I have written many articles about how society is crumbling right in front of our eyes, but now it is getting to the point where people are going to be afraid to go to school or go shopping at the mall.  Just consider what has happened over the past week.  Adam Lanza savagely murdered 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  42-year-old Marcus Gurrola threatened to shoot innocent shoppers and fired off more than 50 rounds in the parking lot of Fashion Island Mall in Newport Beach, California.  After police apprehended him, he told them that he “was unhappy with life”.  Earlier in the week, a crazy man wearing a hockey mask and armed with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire on the second floor of a mall in Happy Valley, Oregon.  He killed two people and injured a third.  On Saturday morning, a lone gunman walked into a hospital in Alabama and opened fire.  He killed one police officer and two hospital employees before being gunned down by another police officer.  So have we now reached the point where every school, every mall and every hospital is going to need armed security?  How will society function efficiently if everyone is constantly worried about mass murderers?

In response to the horrible tragedy in Connecticut, many in the mainstream media are suggesting that much stricter gun laws are the obvious solution.

After all, if we get rid of all the guns these crazy people won’t be able to commit these kinds of crimes, right?

Unfortunately, that is not how it works.  The criminals don’t obey gun control laws.  Banning guns will just take them out of the hands of law-abiding American citizens that just want to protect their own families.

Adam Lanza didn’t let the strict gun control laws up in Connecticut stop him from what he wanted to do.  Connecticut already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, and Adam Lanza broke at least three of them.

However, if there had been some armed security officers or some armed teachers at that school, they may have had a chance to protect those dear little children from being brutally gunned down.

If gun control was really the solution to our problems, then cities that have implemented strict gun control laws should be some of the safest in the entire country.

But sadly, just the opposite is true.

For example, Chicago has very strict gun laws.  But 10 people were shot in the city of Chicago on Friday alone.  Chicago is now considered to be “the deadliest global city“, and the murder rate in Chicago is about 25 percenthigher than it was last year.

So has gun control turned Chicago into a utopia?

Of course not.

And it won’t solve our problems on a national level either.

You can find more statistics about the futility of gun control right here.

Well, how would things be if we did just the opposite and everyone had a gun?

Would gun crime go through the roof?

That is what liberals were warning of when the city of Kennesaw, Georgia passed a law requiring every home to have a gun.  But instead of disaster, the results turned out to be very impressive…

In March 1982, 25 years ago, the small town of Kennesaw – responding to a handgun ban in Morton Grove, Ill. – unanimously passed an ordinance requiring each head of household to own and maintain a gun. Since then, despite dire predictions of “Wild West” showdowns and increased violence and accidents, not a single resident has been involved in a fatal shooting – as a victim, attacker or defender.

The crime rate initially plummeted for several years after the passage of the ordinance, with the 2005 per capita crime rate actually significantly lower than it was in 1981, the year before passage of the law.

Prior to enactment of the law, Kennesaw had a population of just 5,242 but a crime rate significantly higher (4,332 per 100,000) than the national average (3,899 per 100,000). The latest statistics available – for the year 2005 – show the rate at 2,027 per 100,000. Meanwhile, the population has skyrocketed to 28,189.

When criminals know that everyone has guns, they are much less likely to try something.  And often armed citizens are able to prevent potential mass murderers from doing more damage.  You can find several examples of this right here.

Read the entire article

Gandhi advocated the right to bear arms; use of ‘violence’ to defend innocents against bullying, oppression

Mike Adams
Natural News

Dec 17, 2012

Gandhi is known around the world as the master of “nonviolence.” And yet, in the face of being threatened with bullying attacks, even Gandhi directly advocated the use of violence in the defense of the innocent. Had Gandhi been alive today and witnessed the senseless loss of life at Sandy Hook Elementary school, he would have advocated arming the principal and giving her a chance to protect innocent lives through the use of defensive violent action.

Don’t believe me? Read his own words…

“I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence,” Gandhi wrote in his famous work, Doctrine of the Sword.

He continues:

…When my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence.

Gandhi advocated “training in arms” to defend liberty

Gandhi also advocated justified violence over the “cowardice” of submission. Again, this is in his own words:

…Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor. – M.K. Gandhi, The Doctrine of the Sword.

Gandhi also explains that someone who cannot use violence to defend themselves or their family is a helpless coward and a “worm.”

In his own words from the text Between Cowardice And Violence

…He who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully …

[When violence] is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenceless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission.

In his own words, Gandhi advocated facing danger with measured violence (i.e. shooting back)

Also from Gandhi’s text Between Cowardice And Violence

…A man who, when faced by danger, behaves like a mouse, is rightly called a coward.

Not knowing the stuff of which nonviolence is made, many have honestly believed that running away from danger every time was a virtue compared to offering resistance, especially when it was fraught with danger to one’s life. As a teacher of nonviolence I must, so far as it is possible for me, guard against such an unmanly belief.

Self-defence … is the only honourable course where there is unreadiness for self-immolation.

You got that? Even Gandshi advocated self defense, even if it involved acts of violence. This is why, if Gandhi were alive today, he would have advocated arming school principals to defend innocent life (the children) against psychopathic killers.

Obama wants Americans to be cowards; Gandhi wanted people to act with courage

President Obama, of course, wants to disarm all Americans and turn them into cowards… “sheeple” with no ability to defend themselves against psychopathic killers or a tyrannical government like the one Gandhi faced.

Gandhi openly advocated the opposite: Arming the citizens in the defense of the innocent.

Gandhi, it turns out, was pro Second Amendment and openly believed in the right of citizens to arm themselves in their defense against violence and oppression.

Note: Credit for the research on this article goes to David Rainoshek of www.RevolutionaryWebinars.com

Obama Administration Declares War on Guns

Infowars.com
December 15, 2012

Counterterrorism Agency: Every Citizen a Suspect

The New American
December 15, 2012

Regulations recently signed into effect by Attorney General Eric Holder allow the National Counterterroism Center (NCTC) to monitor records of citizens for any potential criminal activity, without a warrant and without suspicion.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the records that will be subject to seizure and examination by the NCTC include “flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign exchange students and many others.”

Prior to the promulgation of these new regulations, such records were stored on only those citizens suspected of terror-related activity or as part of ongoing criminal investigations.

Furthermore, this information could only be stored for five years; that information will be stored indefinitely, so that the data can be analyzed by federal agents for signs of potential criminal behavior.

These sweeping new powers resulted from a debate among Obama administration intelligence officials, the story reports. 

“The debate was a confrontation between some who viewed it as a matter of efficiency—how long to keep data, for instance, or where it should be stored—and others who saw it as granting authority for unprecedented government surveillance of U.S. citizens,” the Wall Street Journal reports, claiming that the newspaper received this insight into the process through Freedom of Information requests and interviews with representatives at several agencies familiar with the events.

In a historic and unconstitutional way, the new directives grant NCTC the power to place every American under the constant surveillance of the federal government, not because these people have ever merited the attention, but because someday they might.

Granting an agency of the federal government the power to place innocent citizens under surveillance is not only an unconscionable diminution of due process rights, but a wholesale regulatory nullification of the Bill of Rights.

Another equally intrusive aspect of the new regulations allows agents of the U.S. government to exchange the information gathered on citizens to be shared with their counterparts in other countries so that they can conduct their own analyses. 

Should any agent — foreign or domestic — find any hint of potential threats in these files, the individual will be marked for future surveillance so as to prevent commission of future crimes.

Read the entire article

New Retirement Model of Working into Old Age – Baby Boomers hitting retirement age with little to no savings.

MyBudget360
December 16, 2012

The fiscal issues facing the country are troubling for a variety of reasons but one big reason is the reality that many older Americans simply do not have enough money to retire.  The idea of entering your golden years without the need of working is a relatively modern one.  In fact, it was the generation that grew up after World War II that enjoyed this middle class ideal.  A secure job, a paid off house, and the ability to send your children to a good college.  That was the dream.  Yet that dream is now largely gone in a puff of smoke.  It has been gone for sometime but the ability to access unsupportable debt kept the party illusion going a decade or so longer.  Today, Americans are now entering retirement at a time when the stock market has given zero returns over a decade.  Government debt is tipping over and we continually spend more than we earn.  For millions of older Americans, retirement means continuing to work.

The evaporation of a pension

Back in 1983, not too long ago 62 percent of Americans had what we would call a pension.  Today that figure is down to 20 percent:

That rate is now much lower if we had data on it since this research was done prior to the 2007 meltdown.  The meltdown also brought to the forefront that unrealistic returns of 8 to 10 percent per year were mostly pipe dreams.  The 2000s were largely a decade fueled byhigh debt spending.  The real estate bubble created a sugar high that really did not add any deeper value to our overall economy.  Many in fact tapped into their equity, a thought that would seem sacrosanct in the previous generation, and will now have to pay it back.  In the past the ability to have a paid off home provide added security.  Many then with a modest Social Security check had the ability to make ends meet.  Many today continue to carry a mortgage well into older age.

This becomes even more troublesome because the majority of retirees depend on Social Security as their largest source of income.  This ties in with the earlier chart.  Even in the 1980s those with pensions likely had a bigger cushion when they combined this with Social Security.  That is no longer the case.  Today, most have the access to 401k plans and as we have seen, the market is back to levels last seen in the late 1990s.  Also, those that built portfolios up during this time will need to sell to withdraw funds to live.  Who will buy these funds?  Younger Americans?  Younger Americans are massively in debt and half are either working at jobs that don’t require college degrees, are underemployed, or have not job.  The 401k is the least of their worries.

Less work and more college debt

It is clear that education is valuable for many reasons.  Yet with tuition costs being so high you have to ask whether it is worth it.  Our overall participation rate in the workforce is dramatically lower for younger Americans:

Many are now competing with older Americans for lower level positions.  You also have massive numbers of students going to college yet overall, a college degree has been watered down.  You might ask, if younger Americans are poorer how can they afford record levels of college costs?  They can’t.  But what they can do is go into massive student debt.  This is why today, total outstanding college debt is well over $1 trillion.

So think about this.  You have an older population with 10,000 Americans hitting retirement age each and every day.  Many will rely on Social Security at a time when we keep going into deeper debt.  You then have younger Americans with a large portion already in deep college debt working jobs that largely do not pay a good wage and the days of a pension are all but gone.  It should be no surprise why we now have 47.7 million Americans on food stamps.

How will America adjust to this world with no retirement or with the idea of what we once thought of as retirement?  It isn’t a question we need to ponder much since we are going to find out in real-time.