Economic Collapse

[lady glueck]

“The heat is on you. Poised outside this
chamber are the denizens of darkness.
Those are the groups waiting out there
in the temples of this city, waiting to
shred this baby to bits" Former Senator (R) Alan Simpson

-----Even on the reported figures, the
situation is bad enough. Critically, the
US is at the end of a quarter-century
“credit super-cycle” which has seen
aggregate debt soar to 358% of GDP, a
level which is unprecedented in modern
times. Over the last decade, the US
has added $5.58 of debt for each $1 of
expansion in GDP. To be sure, the US –
unlike most other OECD countries – has
made some very modest inroads into this
debt ratio, but the reduction achieved
thus far makes no significant difference
to the overall position.
The US, then, is stuck in a high-debt,
low-growth economic trap. How did
this happen?......

“Who profits from a low-growth U.S. economy
hidden under statistical camouflage[?] Might
it be Washington politicos and affluent elites,
anxious to mislead voters, coddle the financial
markets, and tamp down expensive cost-ofliving
increases for wages and pensions?”

read full:
http://www.tullettprebon.com/Documents/strategyinsights/TPSI_ArmaggaddonUSA_USL_spw_008.pdf

......true inflation might
be at least 9%, rather than the 3.4%
reported in December.
If critics are right – and we are convinced
that they are – then the implications are
enormous, because inflation calculations
reach into every aspect of economic life.
The significance of distorted inflation
reporting has impacts on:
• Americans’ cost of living, and
the purchasing power of the
dollar over time.
• Wage rates and settlements.
• Benefit levels, and the cost of social
payments to government.
• Economic growth.
• Real interest rates.
According to official figures, aggregate
inflation between 2001 and 2011 was
27%, meaning that the dollar lost 21%
of its purchasing power over that period.
But, if we accept that real inflation may
have exceeded the official number by
6% in each of those years, the loss of
dollar purchasing power was about 55%
between 2001 and 2011. Between the
third quarters of 2001 and 2011, average
weekly wages increased by 31%, fine
if the dollar lost 21% of its purchasing
power over that period but evidence of
very severe impoverishment if the dollar
in 2011 was worth only 45% of its 2001
value. In short, if millions of Americans
feel poorer now than they did ten years
ago, the probable explanation for this is