The City of Detroit declares bankruptcy

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 07/18/2013 - 17:59

 

The City of Detroit declared Chapter 9 bankruptcy in federal court this afternoon.

The following is Gov Rick Snyder's letter to Emergency Manger Kevyn Orr authorizing the filing.

We took the liberty of marking in red the items having to do with the city's complete failure at providing services for it's citizens.

We did this especially for them that have been going on and on with their whine about the city's lost sovereignty under the Emergency Manager provisions of the State of Michigan.

This letter makes it perfectly clear that Detroiters are unable to manage their own affairs at an acceptable level for a civilized society.

Feel free to construe racism if that is your bent, the evidence is incontrovertable the rest is just excuses.

 

Kevyn D. Orr

Emergency Manager
City of Detroit
Coleman A. Young Municipal Center 2 Woodward Ave., Suite 1126
Detroit, MI 48226

Andrew Dillon
State Treasurer
Michigan Department of Treasury 4th Floor Treasury Building
430 W. Allegan Street
Lansing, MI 48992

Re: Authorization to Commence Chapter 9 Bankruptcy Proceeding Dear Mr. Orr and Mr. Dillon,
 
I have reviewed Mr. Orr's letter of July 16, 2013, requesting my approval of his recommendation to commence a bankruptcy proceeding for the City of Detroit under Chapter 9 of title 11 of the United States Code. As you know, state law requires that any such recommendation must first be approved by the Governor before the emergency manager may take that step. MCL 141.1558. For the reasons discussed below, I hereby approve that recommendation and authorize Mr. Orr to make such a filing.

Current Financial Emergency

In reviewing Mr. Orr's letter, his Financial and Operating Plan, and his report to creditors, it is clear that the financial emergency in Detroit cannot be successfully addressed outside of such a filing, and it is the only reasonable alternative that is available. In other words, the City's financial emergency cannot be satisfactorily rectified in a reasonable period of time absent this filing.

I have reached the conclusion that this step is necessary after a thorough review of all the available alternatives, and I authorize this necessary step as a last resort to return this great City to financial and civic health for its residents and taxpayers. This decision comes in the wake of 60 years of decline for the City, a period in which reality was often ignored. I know many will see this as a low point in the City's history. If so, I think it will also be the foundation of the City's future — a statement I cannot make in confidence absent giving the City a chance for a fresh start, without burdens of debt it cannot hope to fully pay. Without this decision, the City's condition would only worsen. With this decision, we begin to provide a foundation to rebuild and grow Detroit.

Both before and after the appointment of an emergency manager, many talented individuals have put enormous energy into attempting to avoid this outcome. I knew from the outset that it would be difficult to reverse 60 years of decline in which promises were made that did not reflect the reality of the ability to deliver on those promises. I very much hoped those efforts would succeed without resorting to bankruptcy. Unfortunately, they have not. We must face the fact that the City cannot and is not paying its debts as they become due, and is insolvent.

After reading Mr. Orr's letter, the Financial and Operating Plan, and the report to creditors, I have come to four conclusions.

1.    Right now, the City cannot meet its basic obligations to its citizens.

2.    Right now, the City cannot meet its basic obligations to its creditors.

3.    The failure of the City to meet its obligations to its citizens is the primary cause of its inability to meet its obligations to its creditors.

4.    The only feasible path to ensuring the City will be able to meet obligations in the future is to have a successful restructuring via the bankruptcy process that recognizes the fundamental importance of ensuring the City can meet its basic obligations to its citizens.

I will explain how I came to each conclusion.

Inability to Meet Obligations to Its Citizens. As Mr. Orr's Financial and Operating Plan and the June 14 Creditor Proposal have noted, the scale and depth of Detroit's problems are unique. The City's unemployment rate has nearly tripled since 2000 and is more than double the national average. Detroit's homicide rate is at the highest level in nearly 40 years, and it has been named as one of the most dangerous cities in America for more than 20 years. Its citizens wait an average of 58 minutes for the police to respond to their calls, compared to a national average of 11 minutes. Only 8.7% of cases are solved, compared to a statewide average of 30.5%. The City's police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances are so old that breakdowns make it impossible to keep up the fleet or properly carry out their roles. For instance, only a third of the City's ambulances were in service in the first quarter of 2013. Similarly, approximately 40% of the City's street lights were not functioning in that quarter and the backlog of complaints is more than 3,300 long. Having large swaths of largely abandoned structures -- approximately 78,000 — creates additional public safety problems and reduces the quality of life in the City. Mr. Orr is correct that meeting the obligations the City has to its citizens to provide basic services requires more revenue devoted to services, not less.

Inability to Meet Obligations to Its Creditors. The City has more than $18 billion in accrued obligations. A vital point in Mr. Orr's letter is that Detroit tax rates are at their current legal limits, and that even if the City was legally able to raise taxes, its residents cannot afford to pay additional taxes. Detroiters already have a higher tax rate than anywhere in Michigan, and even with that revenue the City has not been able to keep up with its basic obligations, both to its citizens and creditors. Detroit simply cannot raise enough revenue to meet its current obligations, and that is a situation that is only projected to get worse absent a bankruptcy filing.

Failure to Meet Obligations to Citizens Creates Failure to Meet Obligations to Creditors. Mr. Orr's letter and prior report put in stark reality the dramatic impact of the City's plummeting population. While many who love Detroit still live there, many other Detroiters at heart could not justify the sacrifice of adequate services. The City's population has declined 63% from its peak, including a 28% decline since 2000. That exodus has brought Detroit to the point that it cannot satisfy promises it made in the past. A decreasing tax base has made meeting obligations to creditors impossible. Mr. Orr is correct when he says the City cannot raise the necessary revenue through tax increases, and it cannot save the necessary revenue through reducing spending on basic services. Attempts to do so would only decrease the population and tax base further, making a new round of promises unfulfillable.

Only One Feasible Path Offers a Way Out. The citizens of Detroit need and deserve a clear road out of the cycle of ever-decreasing services. The City's creditors, as well as its many dedicated public servants, deserve to know what promises the City can and will keep. The only way to do those things is to radically restructure the City and allow it to reinvent itself without the burden of impossible obligations. Despite Mr. Orr's best efforts, he has been unable to reach a restructuring plan with the City's creditors. I therefore agree that the only feasible path to a stable and solid Detroit is to file for bankruptcy protection.

The past weeks have reaffirmed my confidence that Mr. Orr has the right priorities when it comes to the City of Detroit. l am reassured to see his  prioritization of the needs of citizens to have improved services. I know we share a concern for the public employees who gave years of service to the City and now fear for their financial future in retirement, and I am confident that all of the City's creditors will be treated fairly in this process. We all believe that the City's future must allow it to make the investment it needs in talent and in infrastructure, all while making only the promises it can keep. Let us remain in close communication regarding measures Mr. Orr might take so we can discuss the possible impacts that might occur both within and outside of the City.

Contingencies

2012 PA 436 provides that my approval of the recommendation to commence a Chapter 9 proceeding may place contingencies on such a filing. MCL 141.1558(1). I am choosing not to impose any such contingencies today. Federal law already contains the most important contingency — a requirement that the plan be legally executable. 11 USC 943(b)(4).

Conclusion

In conclusion, I find Mr. Orr's Recommendation Letter to be persuasive, especially in conjunction with his prior reports laying out the level of services the City can provide and its financial ability to meet its obligations to creditors. I am also convinced that Mr. On has exercised his best efforts to arrive at a restructuring plan with the City's creditors outside of bankruptcy, to no avail. Given these facts, the only feasible path to sustainability for the City of Detroit is a filing under chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code. Therefore, I hereby approve Mr. Orr's recommendation and authorize the emergency manager to make such a filing on behalf of the City of Detroit and to take all actions that are necessary and appropriate toward that end.
Sincerely,
 
Richard D. Snyder Governor
State of Michigan

 

Gipsy Kings

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 07/13/2013 - 13:47

 

The Reyes Brothers began their musical career backing up their father, world renowned Flamenco singer Jose Reyes. Upon the death of Jose Reyes, the brothers joined forces with their cousins the Ballardo brothers, sons of famed Flamenco guitarist Manitas de Plata and began their career as Los Reyes working weddings and busking the streets of Cannes in the south of France.

I'm not even going to attempt to decipher who is doing what to whom in this beautifully recorded vid on account of the fast cuts the director chose to employ, except to say that the three playing left handed on upside down strung guitars are three of four Reyes brothers, the rest are one remaining Reyes brother, Ballardo brothers or unidentified sidemen.  As an aside, whoever is playing the drums here pretty much defines the notion of tasteful drumming as far as I'm concerned, and the sound guys in this crew were worth every penny.

Here are the Gipsy Kings playing their international hit Bomboleo followed by Canastero, live in the studio.

 

 

Lots of People on Lies, Liars and the Truth

Submitted by Roanman on Fri, 07/12/2013 - 07:04

 

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know for a fact that you would lie if you were in his place. H.L. Mencken

No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.  Abraham Lincoln

Who lies for you will lie against you.  Bosnian Proverb

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.  Thomas Carlyle

A half truth is a whole lie.  Yiddish Proverb

A lie will easily get you out of a scrape, and yet, strangely and beautifully, rapture possesses you when you have taken the scrape and left out the lie.  Charles Edward Montague

Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow color-blind.  Austin O'Malley

A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.  William Blake

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand fold.  Aristotle

The most dangerous untruths are truths moderately distorted.  Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Dare to be true:  nothing can need a lie:  A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby.  George Herbert

With lies you may get ahead in the world - but you can never go back.  Russian proverb

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread.  Josh Billings

A lie has speed, but truth has endurance.  Edgar J. Mohn

When you stretch the truth, watch out for the snapback.  Bill Copeland

Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it.  Mark Twain

A lie may take care of the present, but it has no future.  Unknown

I never lie because I don't fear anyone.  You only lie when you're afraid.  John Gotti

Truth fears no questions.  Unknown

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth - anonymously and posthumously.  Thomas Sowell

I don't mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.  Samuel Butler

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.  Winston Churchill

If you want to ruin the truth, stretch it.  Unknown

The truth is more important than the facts.  Frank Lloyd Wright

Like all valuable commodities, truth is often counterfeited.  James Cardinal Gibbons

Respect for the truth is an acquired taste.  Mark Van Doren

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.  Mark Twain

Always telling the truth is no doubt better than always lying, although equally pathological.  Robert Brault

People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.  Richard J. Needham

There is always a way to be honest without being brutal.  Arthur Dobrin

Beware of the half truth.  You may have gotten hold of the wrong half.  Unknown

When truth is divided, errors multiply.  Eli Siegel

Honesty pays, but it don't seem to pay enough to suit some people.  Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard

Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.  Slovenian Proverb

Always tell the truth.  Even if you have to make it up.  Unknown

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.  Adlai Stevenson

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.  Robert Brault

The truth needs so little rehearsal.  Barbara Kingsolver

Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.  Lin Yutang

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.  Saki

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.  Mark Twain

Someday a computer will give a wrong answer to spare someone's feelings, and man will have invented artificial intelligence.  Robert Brault

It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.  Jerome K. Jerome

It takes two to lie.  One to lie and one to listen.  Homer Simpson

 

To quote Robert A. Heinlein over and over and over and .....

Submitted by Roanman on Thu, 07/11/2013 - 06:41

 

A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.

I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

I don't see how an article of clothing can be indecent. A person, yes.

I never learned from a man who agreed with me.

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

Never insult anyone by accident.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.

No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.

One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

One man's "magic" is another man's engineering.

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.

Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

Sex without love is merely healthy exercise.

The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship.

Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.

They didn't want it good, they wanted it Wednesday.

To be matter-of-fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy - and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.

When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to this idea.

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again.

 

To quote The Roanman along with just a whole raft of other people about Astrology

Submitted by Roanman on Wed, 07/10/2013 - 08:37

 

I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.  Arthur C. Clarke
 
Who needs astrology?  The wise man gets by on fortune cookies.  Edward Abbey
 
We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born.  Astrology does not lay claim to anything more.  Carl Gustav Jung
 
A wise man shall overrule his stars, and have a greater influence upon his own content than all the constellations and planets of the firmament.  Jeremy Taylor
 
About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities.  They are communism at its best.  Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.  Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 
All anyone can see in a birthchart are tendencies that will become facts if he does not do something to alter them.  Isabel Hickey
 
We need not feel ashamed of flirting with the zodiac.  The zodiac is well worth flirting with.  D.H. Lawrence
 
The signs of the zodiac are karmic patterns; the planets are the looms; the will is the weaver.  Author Unknown
 
There is no better boat than a horoscope to help a man cross over the sea of life.  Varaha Mihira
 
I don't believe in astrology. The only stars I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage.  Noel Coward
 
Figure-flingers and star-gazers pretend to foretell the fortunes of kingdoms, and have no foresight in what concerns themselves.  Roger L'Estrange
 
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy:  the mad daughter of a wise mother.  Voltaire
 
Astrology? ............. Why not?   The Roanman
 
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.  An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!  William Shakespeare
 
Everything that is hard to attain is easily assailed by the generality of men.   Claudius Ptolemy
 
Astrology is a language.  If you understand this language, the sky speaks to you.  Dane Rudhyar
 
The vast majority, who believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic about the bilge when a group of astronomers denounces it.   Isaac Asimov
 
The stars which shone over Babylon and the stable in Bethlehem still shine as brightly over the Empire State Building and your front yard today....  Linda Goodman
 
Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Responsibility, n.  A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor.  In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.  Ambrose Bierce
 
The puzzling thing is that there is really a curious coincidence between astrological and psychological facts, so that one can isolate time from the characteristics of an individual, and also, one can deduce characteristics from a certain time....  Carl Jung
 
Do not Christians and Heathens, Jews and Gentiles, poets and philosophers, unite in allowing the starry influences?  Walter Scott
 
If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish...  Robert G. Ingersoll
 
The controls of life are structured as forms and nuclear arrangements, in a relation with the motions of the universe.  Louis Pasteur
 
Men should take their knowledge from the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician.  Hippocrates
 
If one were to bring ten of the wisest men in the world together and ask them what was the most stupid thing in existence, they would not be able to discover anything so stupid as astrology.   David Hilbert

Whether the ice caps melt, or expand - whatever happens - the anthropogenic global warming theorists claim it confirms their theory.  A perfect example of a pseudo-science like astrology.   Frank Tipler

Courteous Reader, Astrology is one of the most ancient Sciences, held in high esteem of old, by the Wise and the Great. Formerly, no Prince would make War or Peace, nor any General fight in Battle, in short, no important affair was undertaken without first consulting an Astrologer.   Benjamin Franklin
 
It is clearly evident that most events of a widespread nature draw their causes from the enveloping heavens.  Claudius Ptolemy
 
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.  John Kenneth Galbraith
 
Anyone can be a millionaire, but to become a billionaire you need an astrologer.  John Pierpont Morgan
 

 

Detroit

Submitted by Roanman on Tue, 06/18/2013 - 07:06

 

We took this piece in it's entirety from Michael Snyder's Economic Collapse Blog, which is something we rarely ever do.  

It's just that as lifelong residents of Southeastern Michigan and former residents of Detroit ..... a couple of us at least ..... we've been pointing to this stuff for ....... ever seemingly.

So, as is the case with any slow moving train wreck, as we were scrolling down the page copying items to tease you into reading the entire post, we could neither look away nor lift a finger from the mouse.

Two generations of Liberal/Progressive political activists complete their masterpiece in the city of Detroit, Michigan USA.

 

Rotting, Decaying And Bankrupt – If You Want To See The Future Of America Just Look At Detroit

The Future Of The United States - Photo by Albert DuceEventually the money runs out.  Much of America was shocked when the city of Detroit defaulted on a $39.7 million debt payment and announced that it was suspending payments on$2.5 billion of unsecured debt, but those who visit my site on a regular basis were probably not too surprised.  Anyone with half a brain and a calculator could see this coming from a mile away.  But people kept foolishly lending money to the city of Detroit, and now many of them are going to get hit really hard.  Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has submitted a proposal that would pay unsecured creditors about 10 centson the dollar.  Similar haircuts would be made to underfunded pension and health benefits for retirees.  Orr is hoping that the creditors and the unions that he will be negotiating with will accept this package, but he concedes that there is still a "50-50 chance" that the city of Detroit will be forced to formally file for bankruptcy.  But what Detroit is facing is not really that unique.  In fact, Detroit is a perfect example of what the future of America is going to look like.  We live in a nation that is rotting, decaying, drowning in debt and racing toward insolvency.  Already there are dozens of other cities across the nation that are poverty-ridden, crime-infested hellholes just like Detroit is, and hundreds of other communities are rapidly heading in that direction.  So don't look down on Detroit.  They just got there before the rest of us.

The following are some facts about Detroit that are absolutely mind-blowing...

1 - Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, and in 1960 Detroit had thehighest per-capita income in the entire nation.

2 - Over the past 60 years, the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent.

3 - At this point, approximately 40 percent of all the streetlights in the city don't work.

4 - Some ambulances in the city of Detroit have been used for so long that they have more than 250,000 miles on them.

5 - 210 of the 317 public parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down.

6 - According to the New York Times, there are now approximately 70,000 abandoned buildings in Detroit.

7 - Approximately one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict.

8 - Less than half of the residents of Detroit over the age of 16 are working at this point.

9 - If you can believe it, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

10 - According to one very shocking report, 47 percent of the residents of Detroit are functionally illiterate.

11 - Today, police solve less than 10 percentof the crimes that are committed in Detroit.

12 - Ten years ago, there were approximately 5,000 police officers in the city of Detroit.  Today, there are only about 2,500 and another 100 are scheduled to be eliminated from the force soon.

13 - Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the publicfor 16 hours a day.

14 - The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.

15 - Crime has gotten so bad in Detroit that even the police are telling people to "enter Detroit at your own risk".

16 - Right now, the city of Detroit is facing $20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities.  That breaks down to more than $25,000 per resident.

As Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orrnoted last week, it took a very long time for Detroit to get into this condition...

“What the average Detroiter needs to understand is that where we are right now is a culmination of years and years and years of kicking the can down the road,” said Orr, adding that his proposal should not be seen as a “hostile act” but as a step in the right direction.

Does that sound familiar?

It should.

U.S. politicians have also been kicking the can down the road for "years and years and years".

But eventually you can't kick the can down the road anymore.

Sometimes it is helpful to step back and look at what we have done to ourselves over the past several decades.

For example, back in 1980 the U.S. national debt was less than one trillion dollars.  Today, it is rapidly approaching 17 trillion dollars.

And our debt binge has greatly accelerated under Barack Obama.

During Barack Obama's first term, the federal government accumulated more debt than it did under the first 42 U.S presidents combined.

Isn't that insane?

In fact, if you started paying off just the new debt that the U.S. has accumulated during the Obama administration at the rate of one dollar per second, it would take more than 184,000 years to pay it off.

The following are a lot more facts about our exploding national debt from one of my previous articles entitled "55 Facts About The Debt And U.S. Government Finances That Every American Voter Should Know"...

#1 While Barack Obama has been president, the U.S. government has spent about 11 dollarsfor every 7 dollars of revenue that it has actually brought in.

#2 During the fiscal year that just ended, the U.S. government took in 2.449 trillion dollarsbut it spent 3.538 trillion dollars.

#3 During fiscal year 2011, over a trillion dollars of government money was spent on 83 different welfare programs, and those numbers do not even include Social Security or Medicare.

#4 Over the past four years, welfare spending has increased by 32 percent.  In inflation-adjusted dollars, spending on those programs has risen by 378 percent over the past 30 years.  At this point, more than 100 million Americansare enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.  Once again, these figures do not even include Social Security or Medicare.

#5 Over the past year, the number of Americans getting a free cell phone from the federal government has grown by 43 percent.  Now more than 16 million Americans are enjoying what has come to be known as an "Obamaphone".

#6 When Barack Obama first entered the White House, about 32 million Americans were on food stamps.  Now, 47 million Americans are on food stamps.  And this has happened during what Obama refers to as "an economic recovery".

#7 The U.S. government recently spent 27 million dollars on pottery classes in Morocco.

#8 The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently spent $300,000 to encourage Americans to eat caviar at a time when more families than ever are having a really hard time just trying to put any food on the table at all.

#9 During 2012, the National Science Foundation spent $516,000 to support the creation of a video game called "Prom Week", which apparently simulates "all the social interactions of the event."

#10 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the largest snack food maker in the world (PepsiCo Inc.) a total of 1.3 million dollars in corporate welfare that was used to help build "a Greek yogurt factory in New York."

#11 The National Science Foundation recently gave researchers at Purdue University$350,000.  They used part of that money to help fund a study that discovered that if golfers imagine that a hole is bigger it will help them with their putting.

#12 If you can believe it, $10,000 from the federal government was actually used to purchase talking urinal cakes up in Michigan.

#13 The National Science Foundation recently gave a whopping $697,177 to a New York City-based theater company to produce a musical about climate change.

#14 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $666,905 to a group of researchers that is studying the benefits of watching reruns on television.

#15 The National Science Foundation has given1.2 million dollars to a team of "scientists" that is spending part of that money on a study that is seeking to determine whether elderly Americans would benefit from playing World of Warcraft or not.

#16 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $548,731 to a team of researchers that concluded that those that drink heavily in their thirties also tend to feel more immature.

#17 The National Science Foundation recently spent $30,000 on a study to determine if "gaydar" actually exists.  This is the conclusion that the researchers reached at the end of the study...

#18 Back in 2011, the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.

#19 The U.S. government spends more on the military than China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.  In fact, the United States accounts for 41.0% of all military spending on the planet.  China is next with only8.2%.

#20 In a previous article, I noted that close to 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.

#21 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year.  Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.

#22 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.

#23 During 2010, the average federal employee in the Washington D.C. area received total compensation worth more than $126,000.

#24 The U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more back in 2005.  When Barack Obama became president, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more.  By June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civiliansearning $170,000 or more.

#25 During 2010, compensation for federal employees came to a grand total ofapproximately 447 billion dollars.

#26 If you can believe it, close to 15,000retired federal employees are currently collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually.  That list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

#27 During 2010, the federal government spent$33,387 on the hair care needs of U.S. Senators.

#28 During 2010, U.S. Senators pulled$72,370 out of the "Senate Restaurant Fund".

#29 During 2010, an average of $4,005,900 of U.S. taxpayer money was spent on "personal" and "office" expenses per Senator.

#30 In 2013, 3.7 million dollars will be spent to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

#31 During 2011, the federal government spent a total of 1.4 BILLION dollars just on the Obamas.

#32 When you combine all federal government spending, all state government spending and all local government spending, it comes toapproximately 41 percent of U.S. GDP.  But don't worry, all of our politicians insist that this is not socialism.

#33 As I have written about previously, less than 30 percent of all Americans lived in a home where at least one person received financial assistance from the federal government back in 1983.  Today, that number is sitting at an all-time high of 49 percent.

#34 Back in 1990, the federal government accounted for just 32 percent of all health care spending in America.  This year, it is being projected that the federal government will account for more than 50 percent of all health care spending in the United States.

#35 The number of Americans on Medicaid soared from 34 million in 2000 to 54 million in 2011, and it is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#36 In one of my previous articles, I discussed how it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

#37 If you can believe it, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years.  That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

#38 In the United States today, more than 61 million Americans receive some form of Social Security benefits.  By 2035, that number is projected to soar to a whopping 91 million.

#39 Overall, the Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.

#40 When Barack Obama first took office, the U.S. national debt was about 10.6 trillion dollars.  Now it is about 16.7 trillion dollars.  That is an increase of 6.1 trillion dollars in a little more than 4 years.

#41 The federal government has now run a budget deficit of more than a trillion dollars forfour years in a row.

#42 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#43 If you were alive when Jesus Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

#44 Some suggest that "taxing the rich" is the answer.  Well, if Bill Gates gave every single penny of his entire fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

#45 If the federal government used GAAP accounting standards like publicly traded corporations do, the real federal budget deficit for 2011 would have been 5 trillion dollars instead of 1.3 trillion dollars.

#46 The United States already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain does.

#47 At this point, the United States government is responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.

#48 The amount of U.S. government debt held by foreigners is about 5 times larger than it was just a decade ago.

#49 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.

#50 The U.S. national debt is now more than 37 times larger than it was when Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard.

#51 The U.S. national debt is now more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was first created.

#52 The U.S. national debt jumped more on the very first day of fiscal year 2013 than it did from 1776 to 1941 combined.

#53 Historically, the interest rate on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has averaged 6.68 percent.  If the average interest rate on U.S. government debt rose to that level today, the U.S. government would find itself spending more than a trillion dollars per year just on interest on the national debt.

#54 A recently revised IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year 2050.

#55 Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff is warning that the U.S. government is facing a gigantic tsunami of unfunded liabilities in the coming years that we are counting on our children and our grandchildren to pay.  Kotlikoff speaks of a "fiscal gap" which he defines as "the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue".  His calculations have led him to the conclusion that the federal government is facing a fiscal gap of 222 trillion dollars in the years ahead.

Please share this article with as many people as you can.  We are in the process of committing national financial suicide and time is rapidly running out to do anything about it.

Just like Detroit, a day is rapidly approaching when America will not be able to kick the can down the road anymore.

Sadly, our politicians don't seem inclined to do anything about it and most of the population seems to think that our exploding national debt is not a significant problem.

By the time it becomes clear how wrong they were, it will be far too late to do anything about it.

 

United States Imperialism

Submitted by Roanman on Fri, 06/07/2013 - 08:44

 

The following infographic was taken from a piece published by the Ludwig Mises Institute that we consider to be very worthy of your time.

Although, it is your time ... do what you want.

For our progressive/liberal/Democrat friends out there who are unable to summon the tolerance required for a reading from the Ludwig von Mises Institute on the basis of opposing overall viewpoints, we posted a similar map and piece from Mother Jones some time ago that you can read instead by clicking this here little gear right here.

For the rest of you click on the inforgraphic below for the enntire piece which includes an expandable version of a this well done infographic demonstrating the global reach of American Imperialism. 

Way, super double highly recommended with a cherry on top ..... and then some.

 

 

Tags:

Perfuming the Pig

Submitted by Roanman on Sun, 06/02/2013 - 07:50

 

All you need to know about what is truly wrong with this world can be found in the following story.

Chronic liars holding political and/or economic power spend their days lying to their people, each other and themselves, expending enormous effort to maintain the illusion that what is rotted is indeed healthy and that they are worthy of their charge.

From the Irish Times.

As always you can click on the photo below or the little gears up there for the entire piece.

 

Recession out of the picture as Fermanagh puts on a brave face for G8 leaders

County’s makeover plan branded ‘a big lie’ as reality of recession is hidden

 

A vacant business premises in Belcoo, Co Fermanagh, in which a pharmacy was formerly located, has been made to look like an office supplies store.  Photograph: Bryan O’Brien

 

Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on a Fermanagh facelift as the county prepares for the G8 summit in just under three weeks’ time, but locals complain the work paid for by the local council and the Stormont Executive is little more than skin deep.

More than 100 properties within range of the sumptuous Lough Erne resort which hosts the world’s wealthiest leaders, have been tidied up, painted or power-hosed.

However, locals say the makeover only serves to hide a deeper malaise which US president Barack Obama, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande and others will not get to see.

Two shops in Belcoo, right on the border with Blacklion, Co Cavan, have been painted over to appear as thriving businesses.  The reality, as in other parts of the county, is rather more stark.

Just a few weeks ago, Flanagan’s – a former butcher’s and vegetable shop in the neat village – was cleaned and repainted with bespoke images of a thriving business placed in the windows.  Any G8 delegate passing on the way to discuss global capitalism would easily be fooled into thinking that all is well with the free-market system in Fermanagh.  But, the facts are different.

Jim Sheridan, director of Belcoo Enterprises Limited, welcomes any attempt to tidy the area but laments the wrecking effects recession and the demise of the Celtic Tiger have had locally.

“That work happened just a few weeks ago,” he said. “The council got that place painted but it went under sometime last year.  A lot of people round here worked in construction and that work has gone now.”

The butcher’s business has been replaced by a picture of a butcher’s business. Across the road is a similar tale. A small business premises has been made to look like an office supplies store. It used to be a pharmacy, now relocated on the village main street.

Elsewhere in Fermanagh, billboard-sized pictures of the gorgeous scenery have been located to mask the occasional stark and abandoned building site or other eyesores.

 

 

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