24 Signs That All Of America Is Becoming Just Like Detroit â A Rotting, Post-Industrial, Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland For years, people have been laughing at the horrific economic decline of Detroit. Well, guess what? The same thing that happened to Detroit is now happening to dozens of other communities across the United States. From coast to coast there are formerly great manufacturing cities that have turned into rotting, post-industrial war zones. In particular, in America's "rust belt" you can drive through town after town after town that resemble little more than post-apocalyptic wastelands. In many U.S. cities, the "real" rate of unemployment is over 30 percent. There are some communities that will start depressing you almost the moment you drive into them. It is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of those communities. Meanwhile, the economic downturn has been incredibly hard on the finances of state and local governments across the United States. Unlike the federal government, state and local governments cannot use the Federal Reserve to play games with their exploding debt burdens. Facing horrific budget deficits, many communities have begun adopting "austerity measures" in an attempt to slow the flow of red ink. All over the nation, deep budget cuts are slashing police departments, fire departments and other basic social services, but it seems like no matter what many of these communities try the debt just keeps growing. So when you combine economic hopelessness with drastic budget cuts, what you get are hordes of communities from coast to coast that are becoming just like Detroit. In the city of Detroit today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 44 schools have been permanently closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas. Many Americans thought that it was funny to make fun of Detroit, but little did they know that what happened there would soon start happening everywhere. The following are 24 signs that all of America is becoming a rotting, post-industrial, post-apocalyptic wasteland just like Detroit.... #1 The second most dangerous city in the United States - Camden, New Jersey - is about to lay off about half its police. #2 In the city of Camden, about the only "industries" that are truly thriving are drug-dealing and prostitution. It is estimated that there are literally dozens of open-air drug markets in Camden. #3 The city of Newark, New Jersey laid off 13 percent of its police force just last week. #4 Of 315 municipalities the New Jersey State Policemen's union recently surveyed, more than half indicated that they were planning to lay off police officers. #5 At least 1000 people now live in the 200 miles of flood tunnels that exist under the city of Las Vegas. #6 All over America, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel because it is cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt road into gravel over the past year, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads. #7 The number of Americans on food stamps has hit yet another new all-time record. 42.9 million Americans are now enrolled and federal authorities fully expect that number to continue to skyrocket. #8 The city of San Jose, California recently laid off 49 firefighters. #9 Over the past year, approximately 100 of New York's state parks and historic sites have had to cut services and reduce hours. #10 In 2009 alone, approximately 4 million more Americans joined the ranks of the poor. #11 The state of Arizona recently decided to stop paying for many types of organ transplants for people enrolled in its Medicaid program. #12 Many of the police in Arizona that patrol communities near the border with Mexico say that they are "outmanned" and "outgunned" and now live in fear of being taken out by drug cartel assassins. #13 Gang violence in America is getting totally out of control. According to authorities, there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs operating inside the country, and those gangs are responsible for up to 80% of the violent crimes committed in the U.S. each year. #14 Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism. #15 One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one anti-poverty program run by the federal government. #16 The state of Illinois is so far behind on its bills that not even schools and essential social services are getting their money on time. #17 The sheriff's department in Ashtabula County, Ohio has been slashed from 112 to 49 deputies, and there is now just one vehicle remaining to patrol all 720 square miles of the county. #18 As our local communities degenerate economically, it appears that they are falling apart morally as well. There are approximately 400,00 registered sex offenders in the United States as you read this. #19 In a desperate attempt to save money, the city of Colorado Springs turned off a third of its streetlights and put its police helicopters up for auction. #20 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010. #21 According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, more than 25 percent of America's nearly 600,000 bridges need significant repairs or are burdened with more traffic than they were designed to carry. #22 In Georgia, the county of Clayton recently eliminated its entire public bus system in order to save 8 million dollars. #23 Things have gotten so bad in Stockton, California that the police union put up a billboard with the following message: "Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops." #24 Major cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and Sacramento have instituted "rolling brownouts" in which various city fire stations are shut down on a rotating basis. So if you live in one of those cities and you have a fire, you had better hope that your local fire station is not scheduled for a "brownout" that day. As I have documented in article after article, the "American Dream" is rapidly becoming the American Nightmare. We were once a nation that was endlessly expanding, endlessly growing and endlessly becoming more powerful, but now just the opposite is happening. All of this didn't happen overnight. Back in 1982, Billy Joel could see what was starting to happen and he released a song entitled "Allentown" which captured the depression that many residents of once great steel cities were experiencing. The song started out with these two lines.... Well we're living here in Allentown And they're closing all the factories down Well, the United States has lost over 42,000 factories since 2001 and now all of America is turning into "Allentown". Unfortunately, things are going to get even worse. Thousands more factories and millions more jobs will be sent overseas. The debt loads of our state and local governments will continue to skyrocket. The truth is that city after city after city is going to start looking like something out of a third world country. But perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you believe that America's greatest days are just around the corner. Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below.... http://endoftheamericandream.com/ar...ng-post-industrial-post-apocalyptic-wasteland
Plenty of baby boomers are retiring with pensions. They have neither the inclination or energy to give a shit. Then we have the Obama voters, the young people who have no money and less experience but are going to change the world. F'k them. Who's left? Chumps eeking out a living in the age of information writing about Detroit.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=211666 From 1998 to 2010, profits rose 203%. But the S&P 500 was up just 7%. http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticke...eep-Growing?tickers=dia,spy,jpm,xlf,bac,c,wfc Warning: Pay Gap Between CEOs and Workers Will Keep Growing There's a widening compensation gap between U.S. CEOs and American workers. And there's no end in sight to the trend, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, which has been tracking executive pay since 1994. In 2007, the average ratio between salaries for a chief executive and American worker was 344 to one. That figure dipped to 319 in 2008, but is likely to rise this year, which is "really worrisome," says John Cavanagh, the Institute's director. "If nothing is done -- if the federal government does nothing this fall in terms of CEO pay, the ratio will likely go up this year and there will be huge stock option gains by the CEOs of some of the worst-run companies," he says. The public's outrage about CEO pay seems to have died down in recent months as the broader stock market has rallied, and the focus has shifted to health-care reform, among other issues. But Cavanagh says the chasm between the incomes of the average CEO and the average worker is a critical issue. The gap is "still very, very high, still much higher than most other countries in the world would consider decent and in sync with democracy," Cavanagh says. "If you go back a generation in this country, on average it was about 30-to-1."
But Cavanagh says the chasm between the incomes of the average CEO and the average worker is a critical issue. ------------------------------ Jeter makes 18m and a Yankees bat boy makes $15 an hour. Teachers make 100 grand and the punkbitch students get nothing. I could go on................(sigh) Always sumpin.....
You only need to look a Caterpillers China deal to see the future. While it's been going on for years, it's full throttle at this point. As major manufactures continue to move out of country, the jobs lost are lost forever. All the tax breaks in the world won't bring those jobs back, and there's nothing in place for those workers to do. And China knows how to work a deal. Product will be made in China, by Chinese workers, with steel form Chinese mills, and all profits will be kept in China. Sweet! We can Retrain? Retrain for what? Everything in every sector is moving abroad. Best learn to empty bed pans, cause that's about all there is left to do.
Right, because the only "change" that can be affected by the "central planners" are asset prices directly tied into constant POMO and monetization. It also doesn't hurt that these are also the most liquid assets. Just do yourself a favor and track insider selling vs buying. The central planners with their liquidity pump have bailed out the corporate community to the nth degree. It's pure fallacy that it represents anything aside from the desperate attempts to inflate equity prices. But that is the problem with political hacks. They start off with noble intentions and before they know it they'll bend their own rules just so long as they can convince themselves that "their guys are winning".