83 Numbers From 2013 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe
During 2013, America
continued to steadily march down a self-destructive path toward oblivion.
As a society, our debt levels are completely and totally out of control.
Our financial system has been transformed into the largest casino on the
entire planet and our big banks are behaving even more recklessly than they
did just before the last financial crisis. We continue to see thousands of
businesses and millions of jobs get shipped out of the United States, and
the middle class is being absolutely eviscerated. Due to the lack of decent
jobs, poverty is absolutely exploding. Government dependence is at an
all-time high and crime is rising. Evidence of social and moral decay is
seemingly everywhere, and our government appears to be going insane. If we
are going to have any hope of solving these problems, the American people
need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and finally admit how bad
things have actually become. If we all just blindly have faith that
“everything is going to be okay”, the consequences of decades of incredibly
foolish decisions are going to absolutely blindside us and we will be
absolutely devastated by the great crisis that is rapidly approaching. The
United States is in a massive amount of trouble, and it is time that we all
started facing the truth. The following are 83 numbers from 2013 that are
almost too crazy to believe…
#1 Most
people that hear this statistic do not believe that it is actually true, but
right now an all-time record 102
million working age Americans do not have a job. That number has risen by
about 27 million since the year 2000.
#2 Because
of the lack of jobs, poverty is spreading like wildfire in the United States.
According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time
record 49.2
percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government
program each month.
#3 As
society breaks down, the government feels a greater need than ever before to
watch, monitor and track the population. For example, every single day the NSA
intercepts and permanently stores close to 2
billion emails and phone calls in addition to a whole host of other data.
#4 The
Bank for International Settlements says that total public and private debt
levels around the globe are now 30
percent higher than they were back during the financial crisis of 2008.
#5 According
to a recent World
Bank report, private domestic debt in China has grown from 9 trillion
dollars in 2008 to 23 trillion dollars today.
#6 In
1985, there were more
than 18,000 banks in the United States. Today, there are only 6,891
left.
#7 The
six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America,
Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively
gotten 37
percent larger over the past five years.
#8 The
U.S. banking system has 14.4 trillion dollars in total assets. The six largest
banks now account for 67
percent of those assets and all of the other banks account for only 33
percent of those assets.
#9 JPMorgan
Chase is roughly the size of the
entire British economy.
#10 The
five largest banks now account for 42
percent of all loans in the United States.
#11 Right
now, four of the “too big to fail” banks each have total exposure to derivatives
that is well in excess of 40
trillion dollars.
#12 The
total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts ismore
than 381 times greater than their total assets.
#13 According
to the Bank for International Settlements, the global financial system has a
total of 441
trillion dollars worth of exposure to interest rate derivatives.
#14 Through
the end of November, approximately 365,000 Americans
had signed up for Obamacare but approximately 4
million Americanshad already lost their current health insurance policies
because of Obamacare.
#15 It
is being projected that up
to 100 million more Americanscould have their health insurance policies
canceled by the time Obamacare is fully rolled out.
#16 At
this point, 82.4
million Americans live in a home where at least one person is enrolled in
the Medicaid program.
#17 It
is has been estimated that Obamacare will add 21
million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.
#18 It
is being projected that health insurance premiums for healthy 30-year-old men
will rise by an average of 260
percent under Obamacare.
#19 One
couple down in Texas received
a letter from their health insurance company that informed them that they
were being hit with a 539 percent rate increase because of Obamacare.
#20 Back
in 1999, 64.1
percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance.
Today, only 54.9
percent of all Americans are covered by employment-based health insurance.
#21 The
U.S. government has spent an astounding 3.7
trillion dollarson welfare programs over the past five years.
#22 Incredibly, 74
percent of all the wealth in the United States is owned by the wealthiest 10
percent of all Americans.
#23 According
to Consumer Reports, the number of children in the United States taking
antipsychotic drugs has
nearly tripled over the past 15 years.
#24 The
marriage rate in the United States has fallen to an all-time low. Right now it
is sitting at a yearly rate of just 6.8
marriages per 1000 people.
#25 According
to a shocking new study, the average American that turned 65 this year will
receive $327,500 more
in federal benefits than they paid in taxes over the course of their lifetimes.
#26 In just
one week in December, a combined total of more than 2000 new cold
temperature and snowfall records were set in the United States.
#27 According
to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States has
fallen for
five years in a row.
#28 The
rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for
eight years in a row.
#29 Only 47
percent of all adults in America have a full-time job at this point.
#30 The
unemployment rate in the eurozone recently hit a
new all-time high of 12.2 percent.
#31 If
you assume that the labor force participation rate in the U.S. is at the
long-term average, the unemployment rate in the United States would actually be 11.5
percent instead of 7 percent.
#32 In
November 2000, 64.3
percent of all working age Americans had a job. When Barack Obama first
entered the White House, 60.6
percentof all working age Americans had a job. Today, only 58.6
percent of all working age Americans have a job.
#33 There
are 1,148,000
fewer Americans working today than there was in November 2006. Meanwhile,
our population has grown by more than 16 million people during that time frame.
#34 Only 19
percent of all Americans believe that the job market is better than it was a
year ago.
#35 Just 14
percent of all Americans believe that the stock market will rise next year.
#36 According
to CNBC, Pinterest is currently valued at more
than 3 billion dollars even though it has never earned a profit.
#37 Twitter
is a seven-year-old company that has never made a profit. It actually lost
64.6 million dollars last quarter. But according to the financial markets
it is currently worth about 22 billion dollars.
#38 Right
now, Facebook is trading at a valuation that is equivalent to approximately 100
years of earnings, and it is currently supposedly worth about 115
billion dollars.
#39 Total
consumer credit has risen by a whopping 22
percent over the past three years.
#40 Student
loans are up by an astounding 61
percent over the past three years.
#41 At
this moment, there are 6
million Americans in the 16 to 24-year-old age group that are neither in
school or working.
#42 The
“inactivity rate” for men in their prime working years (25 to 54) has just hit a
brand new all-time record high.
#43 It
is hard to believe, but in America today one out of every ten jobs is now
filled by
a temp agency.
#44 Middle-wage
jobs accounted for 60
percent of the jobs lost during the last recession, but they have accounted
for only 22
percent of the jobs created since then.
#45 According
to the Social Security Administration, 40
percent of all U.S. workers make less than $20,000 a year.
#46 Approximately one
out of every four part-time workers in America is living below the poverty
line.
#47 After
accounting for inflation, 40 percent of all U.S. workers are making less than what
a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968.
#48 When
Barack Obama took office, the average duration of unemployment in this country
was 19.8 weeks. Today, it is 37.2
weeks.
#49 Investors
pulled an astounding 72
billion dollars out of bond mutual funds in 2013. It was the worst year for
bond funds ever.
#50 Small
business is rapidly dying in America. At this point, only
about 7 percent of all non-farm workers in the United States are
self-employed. That is an all-time record low.
#51 The
six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom
one-third of all Americans combined.
#52 Once
January 1st hits, it will officially be
illegal to manufacture or import traditional incandescent light bulbs in the
United States. It is being projected that millions of Americans will attempt to
stock up on the old light bulbs before they are totally gone from store shelves.
#53 The
Japanese government has estimated that approximately 300
tons of highly radioactive water is being released into the Pacific Ocean
from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear facility every single day.
#54 Back
in 1967, the U.S. military had more
than 31,000 strategic nuclear warheads. That number is already being cut
down to 1,550, and now Barack Obama wants to reduce it to
only about 1,000.
#55 As
you read this, 60
percent of all children in Detroit are living in poverty and there are
approximately 78,000
abandoned homes in the city.
#56 Wal-Mart
recently opened up two new stores in Washington D.C., and more
than 23,000 people applied for just 600 positions. That means that only
about 2.6 percent of the applicants were ultimately hired. In comparison,
Harvard offers admission to 6.1
percent of their applicants.
#57 At
this point, almost
half of all public school students in America come from low income homes.
#58 Tragically,
there are 1.2
million students that attend public schools in the United States that are
homeless. That number has risen by 72 percent since the start of the last
recession.
#59 According
to a Gallup
poll that was recently released, 20.0 percent of all Americans did not have
enough money to buy food that they or their families needed at some point over
the past year. That is just under the all-time record of 20.4 percent that was
set back in November 2008.
#60 The
number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 17
million in the year 2000 to more than 47
million today.
#61 Right
now, one
out of every five households in the United States is on food stamps.
#62 The
U.S. economy loses
approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are
imported from overseas.
#63 Back
in 1950, more
than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less
than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.
#64 According
to one
survey, approximately 75 percent of all American women do not have any
interest in dating unemployed men.
#65 China
exports 4
billion pounds of food to the United States every year.
#66 Overall,
the United States has run a trade deficit of more
than 8 trillion dollars with the rest of the world since 1975.
#67 The
number of Americans on Social Security Disability now exceedsthe
entire population of Greece, and the number of Americans on food stamps now
exceeds the
entire population of Spain.
#68 It
is being projected that the number of Americans on Social Security will rise
from 57 million today to more than 100
million in 25 years.
#69 Back
in 1970, the total amount of debt in the United States (government debt +
business debt + consumer debt, etc.) was less than 2 trillion dollars. Today it
is over
56 trillion dollars.
#70 Back
on September 30th, 2012 our national debt was sitting at a total of 16.1
trillion dollars. Today, it is up to 17.2
trillion dollars.
#71 The
U.S. government “rolled over” more
than 7.5 trillion dollarsof existing debt in fiscal 2013.
#72 If
the U.S. national debt was reduced to a stack of one dollar bills it would
circle the earth at the equator 45
times.
#73 When
Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under
70 percent. Today, it is up to 101
percent.
#74 The
U.S. national debt is on pace to
more than double during the eight years of the Obama administration. In
other words, under Barack Obama the U.S. government will accumulate more debt
than it did under all of the other presidents in U.S. history combined.
#75 The
federal government is borrowing (stealing) roughly 100 million dollars from our
children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day.
#76 At
this point, the U.S. already has more government debt per
capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.
#77 Japan
now has a debt to GDP ratio of more
than 211 percent.
#78 As
of December 5th, 83 volcanic eruptions had been recorded around the planet so
far this year. That is a new
all-time record high.
#79 53
percent of all Americans do not have a 3 day supply of nonperishable food
and water in their homes.
#80 Violent
crime in the United States was up 15
percent last year.
#81 According
to a very surprising survey that was recently conducted,68
percent of all Americans believe that the country is currently on the wrong
track.
#82 Back
in 1972, 46
percent of all Americans believed that “most people can be trusted”. Today,
only 32
percent of all Americans believe that “most people can be trusted”.
#83 According
to a recent Pew Research survey, only 19
percent of all Americans trust the government. Back in 1958, 73
percent of all Americans trusted the government.