ISLAMANAD – The US is facing serious economic problems though on the faceof it ,it looks like a robust economy. And it’s about to get much, muchworse.
The evidence is piling up all around. In recent months, we’ve seen nearly$8 trillion disappear from world stock markets… and a whopping 70% ofinvestors lost money in 2015.Even the great Warren Buffett lost $11 billiondollars. We’re looking at a collapse in corporate bonds and plummeting oiland commodity prices. Research shows the “too big to fail” banks, the topfive largest financial institutions (the ones that were bailed out in2008), are now 25% bigger than they were back then, and more dangerous thanever.
We’ve seen private businesses take on more debt than any time in the past12 years, and an incredible 863 companies that have had their credit ratingdowngraded last year, the most since 2009 and it includes the retail giantWalMart too which announced the shutdown of more than 250 stores, worldwide.
This is what happens when our government embarks on a gross, out of controlexperiment, expanding the money supply 400% in just six years, and morethan doubling our national debt since 2006.It took USA 216 years to rack up the first $8.5 trillion in debt… then just8 more years to double that amount. As per Stansberry Research, which hasbeen investigating this situation closely for years, “this is a 100%certainty: The way we, live, work, travel, retire, invest… everything isgoing to change. Some of it in ways most people would never expect.
A “new” crisis of epic proportions is already underway”, says the researchreport. Stocks will fall further. Bonds are going to collapse.Huge numbers of bankruptcies in the energy business may soon ripple throughthe financial system. And eventually, there is going to be a major stockmarket crash and it will be worse than the one world experienced sevenyears ago.
There is, perhaps, going to be a currency crisis too because investors andgovernments around the world will realize the US dollar is not the safehaven, it once was. Sooner than most people think, we’ll see the US dollarlose it’s “reserve currency” status, and this will make it much harder forUS government to borrow money, and have its military stationed in more than150 countries.
There are going to be massive changes to retirement system and SocialSecurity payments. There will be huge tax increases and even a “wealthtax,” which levies a fee on all savings and any assets of value.
There will be all kinds of new laws and rules about what one can do withmoney, just like House of Representatives bill H.R. 2847, which went intoeffect July 1, 2014. This law made it extremely difficult, if notimpossible, for the average American to get some of their money out of USdollars, and into more stable currencies via foreign banks.
In the months and years to come we’re going to see more and more of these“capital controls” placed on personal savings…There is all the possibilityof a massive inflation when the trillions and trillions of newly printeddollars begin making their way into the economy.
Many people see the recovered stock market, the rebound in real estateprices, and want to believe everything is “back to normal.” But, theresearch report says, nothing is “normal” about what is happening inAmerica today. It is all smoke and mirrors the result of an out of controlgovernment experiment with our money supply. After all, how can it be“normal” when roughly 75% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck,with essentially zero savings, according to another recent study.
The “labor force participation rate” (basically the percentage of ablebodied people who are actually working) has fallen every year since 2007and at the end of 2015 was at its lowest level since the 1970s. (Source:The US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
How can things really be “normal” in America, when the number of people onfood stamps has basically doubled during Barack Obama Presidency… and whenhalf of all children born today will be on food stamps at some point intheir life? Yes, you read that correctly: Roughly 50% of all children bornin America today will be on food stamps at some point in their lifetime.
Does that sound “normal” to you? Can America really be back to “normal”when, according to the most recent numbers from the Census Bureau, anincredible 49% of Americans are receiving benefits from at least onegovernment program every single month? Or when 52% of all American workersmake less than $30,000 a year?
Can things really be “normal” in America when at one point, a single USgovernment controlled agency (the Federal Reserve) was purchasing up to 70%of the bonds issued by the US Treasury simply by creating money out of thinair?
Or when the “too big to fail banks” that got bailed out in 2007 areactually 25% larger than they were back then. And how can things be normalwhen country’s money supply has increased by 400% since 2006 all justprinted out of thin air (Qualitative easing policy initiated by former FedChairman, Bernanke).
By: Rashid A Mughal — The writer is former DG (Emigration) and consultantILO, IOM.