Number of Long Term Unemployed Hits New High – Again

In June, the number of long-term unemployed Americans hit a record high of 4.4 million.

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released unemployment data for July and the number of long-term unemployed jumped by 584,000 to over five million.

Long-term unemployment is defined as looking for a job, unsuccessfully, for 27 weeks or more. That’s going half a year without being able to find a job.

This July, one in three unemployed Americans are people who have been searching for jobs for six months or longer.

The average length for an American to be unemployed also set a new record of 25.1 weeks.

The official unemployment numbers do not include 2.3 million Americans who are unemployed, but have not searched for work in the last four weeks. Many Americans have simply given up on working.

Rethinking the GDP Report

Dr. Chris Martenson of Financial Sense University recently posted a very interesting and somewhat scary article, GDP Report Just Plain Wrong.

In this article, Chris shows how corporate revenues are down 15% — a massive drop which is somehow hidden in the governments official GDP numbers.

The data are very damning.  They show how our government is attempting to use “spin” to increase consumer (and voter) confidence.  In other words, instead of improving the economy by lowering taxes or decreasing the deficit, the government is simply lying to us.

This should be very distressing news to anyone who has not completely lost faith in the U.S. government already. Which group are you in?

Your Tax Dollars at Play

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has proudly published a list of recipients of taxpayer funds made available by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Scroll through the list of people you are supporting and think about why you can’t afford to take your family to a movie or put money into your children’s college education fund this year.

Here are a few of the people who believe that they deserve your hard-earned dollars more than you do:

Academy of American Poets, Inc.
New York, NY
$50,000

Archipelago Books, Inc.
Brooklyn, NY
$25,000

Architectural League of New York
New York, NY
$50,000

Architecture for Humanity
San Francisco, CA
$50,000

Bad Dog Rediscovers America
Salt Lake City, UT
$25,000

Center for Puppetry Arts
Atlanta, GA
$50,000

I just want to say one thing to these parasites: Get a job.

Deflation

Almost everyone knows about inflation and the troubles associated with it, but comparatively few people are familiar with deflation.  This is fairly understandable, as the U.S. has not experienced deflation since 1955, until now.

Take a look at the skyrocketing rate of deflation over the last four months:

Note how the rate of deflation increases every single month.  That’s a dangerous pattern brewing.

The Effects of Deflation

In a deflationary economy, prices continually fall.  This sounds good, right?  Well, maybe not so much.  Wages tend to fall as well, but not all prices fall.  In particular, the payments on home mortgages do not fall.  You could end up taking a pay cut at work and losing your home because you can no longer afford your mortgage.

The perfect strategy for a deflationary economy is to not spend money.  In an inflationary economy, every dollar you own is worth less every day that you own it.  In a deflationary economy, every dollar you own increases in value every day that you own it.  You become richer by just not spending money.  Of course, you can also invest that money to further enhance your wealth building.

Put more simply, in an economy where prices are constantly falling, it makes sense to delay purchases as long as possible.  Why buy a truck for $24,000 today when you can buy the same truck for $23,000 next month?

This behavior terrifies liberal economists, because they incorrectly believe that consumer spending creates economic strength.  They believe that American consumers can spend their way to riches.  Obviously this is not true, but consumer spending can make an economy look better in the short-term.  Liberals don’t want you to save and become wealthy, they want you to spend your hard earned dollars to “stimulate the economy” buy buying a bunch of stuff you don’t need.

Don’t fall into that trap.  Save your money and invest it wisely.  Make yourself wealthy and you will help make the whole nation wealthy.

Inflation is Coming

The current deflation won’t last forever.  The federal government is printing money faster than at any time in recent history.  Keep you eyes on the monthly inflation reports and be ready to change investment strategies when our current deflationary recession becomes a hyperinflationary depression.

Unemployment Rate to Cross 10%

The U.S. unemployment rate will rise higher than 10% before Christmas.

The federal unemployment rate is currently 9.5%, the highest rate in 26 years.

The unemployment rate has already crossed 10% in sixteen states — almost 1/3rd of all U.S. states.

Yesterday’s 70 cent increase of the federal minimum wage to $7.25/hr should destroy an additional 300,000 jobs.  That alone should push the unemployment rate to 9.6%.

It will only take a few more bad decision by the folks in D.C. to push the unemployment rate above 10%  — and they are making bad decisions at a rate faster than we have seen since 1979.

If you are not yet unemployed, I strongly urge to you increase the percentage of your income that you are putting into savings.  For most American households, the loss of a job by the primary breadwinner for just a few months can cause missed mortgage payments and the risk of foreclosure.  You don’t want that to happen to your family.

Cost cutting opportunities are numerous.  Many Americans have cut back or canceled their Summer vacation plans.  Thanksgiving and Christmas trips this year may be replaced by telephone calls. This Christmas, consider a strict no-gifts policy for everyone in your family over twelve years old.

Americans are already driving less and walking and bicycling more.  This is as good for your physical health as it is for your financial health.  Most of us eat out far too often, which is often both unhealthy and expensive.  Avoid rip-off stores like Whole Foods (also known as Whole Paycheck); shop in bulk at value-focused stores like Sams or Wal-Mart and cook at home.  You’ll save money and you’ll also help bring your family closer together.

If you have an available space, consider planting a garden full of nutritious vegetables.  If the politicians continue to mismanage the economy, food may be in short supply — at any cost.

Stockpiling does not make sense at the current time, because we are currently experiencing deflation.  When this turns around and we start seeing inflation again, consider stockpiling reasonable amounts of food to provide for your family during periods of social unrest.

Lastly, although I know you have probably seen the value of your house plummet, this may be a good time to consider selling your house and trading down into a less expensive home.  This is the fastest way for most of us to take years off of our mortgage.  If you can, try to find a house further out from the cities.  This will be safer if civil unrest does occur and it may give you room to plant that yummy vegetable garden.

Everyone Didn’t Guess Wrong

Vice-president Joe Biden recently claimed that “everyone guessed wrong” about the effects of the Democrat’s “stimulus package” on employment numbers.

The Democrats added a trillion dollars to our national debt and they expected this to improve the economy?

No Joe, “everyone” didn’t guess wrong.  No one with any common sense guessed wrong.  No one who was thinking guessed wrong.  No one who isn’t immersed in leftist propaganda guessed wrong.

New unemployment figures are out now.  They show that unemployment has worsened, again, in 48 states and the District of Columbia.  Eight of these states are showing record levels of unemployment.

No one can spend themselves to success.  This doesn’t work for individuals, families, businesses, or nations.  Spending yourself to success is like an alcoholic trying to drink themselves to sobriety.

The Democrats spent approximately one trillion taxpayer dollars to pay back the special interest groups that got them elected.  Period.  The term “stimulus package” is nothing but trashy propaganda.  Anyone who believed that bribing special interest groups would improve the nations economy certainly did “guess wrong.”