Factory Farm Nation: Map Charts Unprecedented Growth in Factory Farming

Food & Water Watch Analysis Finds Livestock on Factory Farms Grew by 20 Percent in 5 Years

Washington, D.C. – Food & Water Watch today unveiled the newest version of its pioneering Factory Farm Map (www.factoryfarmmap.org) that charts the concentration of factory farms across the country and the impacts these massive operations have on human health, communities, and the environment. The interactive map illustrates the geographic shift in where and how food is raised in the U.S. and allows anyone to quickly search for the highest concentration of animals by region, state and county.

Food & Water Watch analyzed U.S. Department of Agriculture Census data from 1997, 2002 and the most current census, 2007, for beef and dairy cattle, hogs, broiler meat chickens and egg-laying operations, and found the total number of livestock on the largest factory farms rose by more than 20 percent between 2002 and 2007—while the number of dairy cows and broiler chickens nearly doubled during the same time, making them the fastest-growing population of factory farmed animals.

Despite the fact that the number of livestock farms across the country has decreased, the Food & Water Watch Factory Farm Map illustrates that big farms are getting bigger, with specific regions and states bearing the brunt of intensive animal production.

“While more and more light is being shed on the ways our food system is broken and consumers are increasingly interested in knowing where their food comes from, there is still a lot of information that’s hidden from public view,” said Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch’s executive director. “The purpose of the Factory Farm Map is to provide an easy-to-use tool that anyone can access to learn more about where our food is really coming from.”

Key findings in Food & Water Watch’s analysis and map show:

• In five years, total animals on factory farms grew by 5 million, or more than 20 percent.
  • Cows on factory dairy farms nearly doubled from 2.5 million cows in 1997 to 4.9 million in 2007. Factory dairy farms growth in western states like Idaho, California, New Mexico and Texas shifted the dairy industry away from traditional states like Wisconsin, New York and Michigan.
  • Beef cattle on industrial feedlots rose 17 percent from 2002 to 2007 – adding about 1,100 beef cattle to feedlots every day for five years.
  • Nationally, about 5,000 hogs were added to factory farms every day for the past decade.
  • The growth of industrial broiler chicken production added 5,800 chickens every hour over the past decade.
  • Egg laying hens on factory farms increased by one-quarter over the decade.

• The average size of factory farms increased by 9 percent in five years, cramming more animals into each operation.
  • In 2007, the average factory-farmed dairy held nearly 1,500 cows and the average beef feedlot held 3,800 beef cattle.
  • The average size of hog factory farms increased by 42 percent over a decade.
  • Five states with the largest broiler chicken operations average more than 200,000 birds per factory farm.
  • Over a decade, average-sized layer chicken operations have grown by 53.7 percent to 614,000 in 2007.

Food & Water Watch released a companion report, Factory Farm Nation, which explains the forces driving factory farms, as well as the environmental, public health, and economic consequences of this type of animal production. The report also examines the causes for industrial-scale livestock and the demise of small and medium farms.

“This map shows the extent to which factory farms have taken over farming and our communities,” said Robby Kenner, director of the Academy Award-nominated film Food, Inc. “Through the Factory Farm Map, Food & Water Watch is shining a spotlight on the mega-corporations that need to be held accountable for the damage they’re doing to our health, environment and rural economies.”

In addition to the map itself, the website ranks the top concentrations of factory farmed livestock nationwide as well as by state and county. It features a newsfeed for monitoring local and national factory farm news and social media tools that allow users to share the map and its data via Facebook, Twitter, email and RSS feed. The Factory Farm Map website includes a widget that bloggers and other websites can embed on their sites and a variety of other online tools for activists to spread the word and encourage local, regional or national action.

“Whether you live near a factory farm and are subject to the groundwater contamination or air pollution it causes, or live thousands of miles away and eat the meat or eggs from potentially unsafe facilities, very few people are spared the risk that these operations bring,” said Hauter. “The Factory Farm Map arms consumers with critical information about how our food is being produced and what we need to do to chart a course to a more sustainable food system.”

The Factory Farm Map and the companion report can be found at http://www.factoryfarmmap.org.

LIES ACROSS AMERICA

“Every single empire, in its official discourse, has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort.” – Edward Said

The increasingly fragile American Empire has been built on a foundation of lies. Lies we tell ourselves and Big lies spread by our government. The shit is so deep you can stir it with a stick. As we enter another holiday season the mainstream corporate mass media will relegate you to the status of consumer. This is a disgusting term that dehumanizes all Americans. You are nothing but a blot to corporations and advertisers selling you electronic doohickeys that they convince you that you must have. Propaganda about consumer spending being essential to an economic recovery is spewed from 52 inch HDTVs across the land, 24 hours per day, by CNBC, Fox, CBS and the other corporate owned media that generate billions in profits from selling advertising to corporations schilling material goods to thoughtless American consumers.  Aldous Huxley had it figured out decades ago:

“Thanks to compulsory education and the rotary press, the propagandist has been able, for many years past, to convey his messages to virtually every adult in every civilized country.”

Americans were given the mental capacity to critically think. Sadly, a vast swath of Americans has chosen ignorance over knowledge. Make no mistake about it, ignorance is a choice. It doesn’t matter whether you are poor or rich. Books are available to everyone in this country. Sob stories about the disadvantaged poor having no access to education are nothing but liberal spin to keep the masses controlled. There are 122,500 libraries in this country. If you want to read a book, you can read a book. The internet puts knowledge at the fingertips of every citizen. Becoming educated requires hard work, sacrifice, curiosity, and a desire to learn. Aldous Huxley describes the American choice to be ignorant:

“Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.”

It is a choice to play Call of Duty on your PS3 rather than reading Shakespeare. It is a choice to stand on a street corner looking for trouble rather than reading Hemingway. It is a choice to spend Black Friday in malls fighting other robotic consumers for iSomethings, the latest innovative, advanced TVs, flashy Rolexes, and ostentatious Coach bags rather than spending the day reading Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman, a brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning history of the outset of World War I, which would provide insight into what could happen on the Korean Peninsula. It is a choice to watch 6 hours per day of Dancing With the Stars, American Idol, Brainless Housewives of Everywhere, or CSI of Anywhere rather than reading Orwell or Huxley and discovering that their dystopian warnings have come true.

Conspicuous Consumption Conquistadors

Americans have chosen to lie to themselves. They have persuaded themselves that buying stuff with plastic cards while paying 19% interest for eternity, driving BMWs while locked into never ending indecipherable lease schemes, and living in permanently underwater McMansions bought with 0% down on an interest only liar loan, is the new American Dream. They think watching the boob tube will make them smart. They soak in the mass media hype, misinformation and lies like lemmings walking off a cliff. Depending on their political predisposition, they watch Fox or MSNBC and unthinkingly believe the propaganda that pours from the mouths of the multi-millionaire talking heads who read Teleprompters with words written by corporate media hacks. They tell themselves that buying stuff on credit, giving them the appearance of success as measured by the media elite, is actually success. This is a bastardized, manipulated, delusional version of accomplishment. Americans have chosen to believe the lies because the truth is too hard to accept.

Becoming educated, thinking critically, working hard, saving money to buy what you need (as opposed to what you want), developing human relationships, and questioning the motivations of government, corporate and religious leaders is hard. It is easy to coast through school and never read a book for the rest of your life. It is easy to not think about the future, your retirement, or the future of unborn generations. It is easy to coast through life at a job (until you lose it) that is unchallenging, with no desire or motivation for advancement. It is easy to make your everyday troubles disappear by whipping out your piece of plastic and acquiring everything you desire today. If your brother-in-law buys a 7,000 sq ft, 7 bedroom, 4 bath, 3 car garage, monolith to decadence for his family of 3, thirty miles from civilization, with no money down and a no doc Option ARM providing the funds, why shouldn’t you get in on the fun. It’s easy. Why sit around the kitchen table and talk with your kids, when you can easily cruise the internet downloading free porn or recording every trivial detail of your shallow life on Facebook so others can waste their time reading about your life. It is easiest to believe your elected leaders, glorified mega-corporation CEOs, and millionaire pastors preaching the word of God for a “small” contribution to their mega-churches.

Americans love authority figures who act as if they have all the answers. It matters not that these egotistical monuments to folly and hubris (Bush, Obama, Paulson, Geithner, Greenspan, Bernanke) have committed the worst atrocities in the history of our Republic, leaving economic carnage and the slaughter of thousands in their wake. The most dangerous man on this earth is an Ivy League educated, arrogant ideologue who believes they are smarter than everyone else. When these men achieve power, they are capable of producing catastrophic consequences. Once they seize the reigns of authority these amoral psychopaths have no problem lying to the American public in order to achieve their objectives. They know that Americans love to be lied to, so the bigger the lie, the more likely it is to be believed.

The current lie proliferating across the land of the free financing and home of the debtor is that austerity has broken out across the land. The mainstream media and the government, aided by various “think tanks” and Federal Reserve propagandists insist that Americans have buckled down, reduced spending, increased savings, and have embraced austerity.

Austerity – Circa 1932

Austerity – Circa 2010

They now proclaim that it is time to spend again. It is the patriotic thing to do, just like defeating terrorists by buying an SUV with 0% down from GM was the patriotic thing to do after 9/11. Defeating terrorists by going further into debt was the brilliant idea of those Ivy League geniuses Bush & Greenspan. Let’s critically examine the facts to determine how austere Americans have become:

• Consumer credit outstanding is $2.41 trillion, the same level reached in early 2007, and up from $1.5 trillion in 2000. This is a 60% increase in ten years. Personal income has risen from $8.4 trillion to $12.6 trillion over this same time frame, a 50% increase. Americans have substituted debt for income in order to keep up with the Joneses. The mass delusion lives.
• The MSM declares that the reduction in overall consumer debt from its peak of $2.56 trillion in 2008 to $2.41 trillion today proves that consumers have been cutting back and paying off debt. This is another media lie. Non-revolving debt, which includes car loans, education loans, mobile home loans and boat loans sits at $1.6 trillion, an all-time high matched in 2008. Credit card debt has “plunged” from $957 billion to $814 billion, not because consumers paid down their balances. The mega Wall Street banks have written off $20 billion per quarter since early 2009, accounting for ALL of the reduction in credit card debt. Clueless consumers continue to charge at the same rate as the peak in 2008.
• Average credit card debt per household with credit card debt: $15,788
• There are 609.8 million bank credit cards held by U.S. consumers.
• The U.S. credit card default rate is 13.01%
• In 2006, the United States Census Bureau determined that there were nearly 1.5 billion credit cards in use in the U.S. A stack of all those credit cards would reach more than 70 miles into space – and be almost as tall as 13 Mount Everests.
• Penalty fees from credit cards added up to about $20.5 billion in 2009.
• The national average default rate as January 2010 stood at 27.88% and the mean default rate is 28.99%.
• Total bankruptcy filings in 2009 reached 1.4 million, up from 1.09 million in 2008. Bankruptcies in 2010 are on pace to exceed 1.6 million.
• 26% of Americans, or more than 58 million adults, admit to not paying all of their bills on time. Among African-Americans, this number is at 51%.

Does This Look Like Austerity? Really?

This data clearly proves that austerity has not broken out across the land of delusion. The billions in consumer loan write-offs by the Wall Street banks that run this country have masked the fact that Americans have not cut back on their spending habits at all. GMAC (taxpayer owned) and Ford Credit continue to dish out car loans to anyone with a pulse and a 600 credit score. The Federal Reserve and the FASB have encouraged, if not insisted, that banks fraudulently value the commercial real estate loans on their books. The Federal Reserve has bought $1.5 trillion of toxic mortgage loans from the criminal Wall Street banks at 100 cents on the dollar. The government’s corporate fascist public relations firms then spread the big lie that the economy is recovering and consumers should join the party and spend, spend, spend.

If Americans were capable or willing to do some critical thinking, they would realize that those in power have created the illusion of a recovery by handing $700 billion of your money to the banks that created the financial meltdown, spending $800 billion on worthless pork barrel projects borrowed from future generations, dropping interest rates to 0% so that the mega-Wall Street banks can earn billions risk free while your grandmother who depended on interest income from her CDs edges closer to eating cat food to get by, and lastly Ben Bernanke’s blatant attempt to enrich Wall Street by buying US Treasury bonds in an effort to make the stock market go up, while the middle and lower classes are crushed under the weight of soaring fuel and food price increases that exceed 30% on an annual basis. The illusion of recovery is not a recovery. With a true unemployment rate of 22%, a true inflation rate of 8% and a real GDP of -1.5% (Shadowstats), we are in the midst of the Greater Depression. You are being lied to, but most of you prefer it.

The Little Lies We Tell Ourselves

“Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know.” – M King Hubbert

When Jimmy Carter gave his malaise speech in 1979, Americans were in no mood to listen. Carter’s solutions were too painful, required sacrifice, and sought to benefit future generations. The leading edge of the Baby Boom generation had reached their 30s by 1979, and the most spoiled, pampered, egocentric generation in history could care less about future generations, long term thinking, or sacrifice for the greater good. They were the ME GENERATION. The 1970s had proven to be tumultuous episode in US history. M King Hubbert’s calculation in 1956 that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s proved to be 100% correct.

The Arab oil embargo resulted in gas shortages and economic chaos in the U.S. Hubbert used the same method to determine that worldwide oil production would peak in the early 2000s. If long term planning had been initiated in the early 1980s, combining exploration of untapped reserves, greater utilization of natural gas, development of nuclear plants, more stringent fuel efficiency standards, increased taxes on gasoline, and more thoughtful development of housing communities, we would not now face a looming oil crisis within the next few years. Instead of dealing with reality, adapting our behavior and preparing for a more localized society, we put our blinders on, chose ignorance over reason and pushed the pedal to the medal by moving farther away from our jobs, building bigger energy intensive mansions, and insisting on driving tank-like SUVs, Hummers, and good ole boy pickups. Kevin Phillips in American Theocracy explained that hyper-consumerism, fear, and inability to use logic have left our suburban oasis lives in danger of implosion when the reality of peak cheap oil strikes:

Besides the innate thirst of SUVs, some of the last quarter century’s surge in U.S. oil consumption has come from Americans driving more – some twelve thousand miles per motorist per year, up almost one – third from 1980 – because they as a whole live farther from work. In consumption terms, exurbia is the physical result of the latest population redistribution enabled by car culture and the electorate that upholds it.

Family values are central – if by this we mean having families and accepting lengthy commutes to install them in reasonably safe and well churched places. In the 1970’s such households might have been fleeing school busing or central city crime; in the post – September 11 era, many sought distance from “godless” school systems or the random violence and terrorist attacks expected to occur in metropolitan areas.

We willingly believe the lies espoused by the badly informed pundits on CNBC and Fox   that if we just drill in Alaska and off our coasts, we’ll be fine. The ignorant peak cheap oil deniers insist there are billions of barrels of oil to be harvested from the Bakken Shale, even though there is absolutely no method of accessing this supply without expending more energy than we can access. Environmentalists lie about the dangers of nuclear power, while shamelessly promoting the ridiculous notion that solar, wind and ethanol can make a visible impact on our future energy needs. Ideologues on the right and left conveniently ignore the facts and the truth is lost in a blizzard of their lies. Here is an explanation so clear, even a CNBC “drill baby drill” dimwit could understand:

When oil production first began in the mid-nineteenth century, the largest oil fields recovered fifty barrels of oil for every barrel used in the extraction, transportation and refining. This ratio is often referred to as the Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROEI). Currently, between one and five barrels of oil are recovered for each barrel-equivalent of energy used in the recovery process. As the EROEI drops to one, or equivalently the Net Energy Gain falls to zero, the oil production is no longer a net energy source. This happens long before the resource is physically exhausted.

After the briefest of lulls when oil reached $145 per barrel, Americans have resumed buying SUVs, pickup trucks, and gas guzzling muscle cars. They have chosen to ignore the imminence of peak cheap oil because driving a leased BMW makes your neighbors think you are a success, while driving a hybrid would make your neighbors think you are a liberal tree hugger. It boggles my mind that so many Americans are so shallow and shortsighted. According to Automotive News, at the start of 2008 leasing comprised 31.2% of luxury vehicle sales and 18.7% of non-luxury sales. This proves that hundreds of thousands of wannabes are driving leased BMWs and Mercedes to fill some void in their superficial lives.

I bought a Honda Insight Hybrid six months ago. It gets 44 mpg and will save me $1,500 per year in gasoline costs. I put 20% down and financed the remainder at 0.9% for three years. My payment is $450 per month. I will own it outright in 2 ½ years. I could have leased a 2010 BMW 328i with moonroof, bluetooth, power seats with driver seat memory, lumbar support, leather interior, iPod adapter, 17″ alloy wheels, heated seats, wood trim, 3.0 Liter 6 Cylinder engine with 230 horsepower for 3 years at $389 per month. At the end of 3 years I’d own nothing. In 2 ½ years I’ll be able to put $450 per month away for my kids’ college education and I’ll be saving more on fuel as gasoline approaches $5 per gallon. The self important egotistical BMW leaser pretending to be successful will need to hand over their sweet ride and move on to the next lease, never saving a dime for the future. I’m sure they’ll make a killing in the market or their McMansion will surely double in price, providing a fantastic retirement.

Delusional                                   Practical

The delusion that cheap oil is a God given right of all Americans can be seen in the YTD data on vehicle sales. Pickups and SUVs account for 48.5% of all sales, while small fuel efficient cars account for only 16.5% of all sales. Americans will continue to lie to themselves until it is too late, again.

	Oct 2010	% Chg from Oct’09	YTD 2010	% Chg from YTD 2009
Cars	448,127	3.9	4,840,525		5.3
Midsize	220,998	-0.2	2,407,457		9.9
Small	142,983	9.7	1,616,840	-1.5
Luxury	78,487	9.7	742,278		7.2
Large	5,659	-31.9	73,950	-0.8
Light-duty trucks	502,038	23.5	4,730,196		16.7
Pickup	147,207	16.9	1,334,133		13.9
Cross-over	195,274	20.0	1,928,191		16.8
Minivan	55,596	21.0	561,736		15.1
Midsize SUV	51,494	86.6	443,922		37.9
Large SUV	23,946	1.5	202,806		12.1
Small SUV	14,861	53.6	146,000	-3.8
Luxury SUV	13,660	22.1	113,408		26.2
Total SUV/Cross-over	299,235	27.4	2,834,327		18.3
Total SUV	103,961	44.3	906,136		21.7
Total Cross-over	195,274	20.0	1,928,191		16.8

 

Americans are so committed to their automobiles, hyper-consumerism, oversized McMansions, and suburban sprawl existence that they will never willingly prepare in advance for a future by scaling back, downsizing, or thinking. Our culture is built upon consumption, debt, cheap oil and illusion. Kevin Phillips in American Theocracy concludes that there are so many Americans tied to our unsustainable economic model that they will choose to lie to themselves and be lied to by their leaders rather than think and adapt:

A large number of voters work in or depend on the energy and automobile industries, and still more are invested in them, not just financially but emotionally and culturally. These secondary cadres included racing fans, hobbyists, collectors, and dedicated readers of automotive magazines, as well as the tens of millions of automobile commuters from suburbs and distant exurbs, plus the high number of drivers whose strong self-identification with vehicle types and models serve as thinly disguised political statements. In the United States more than elsewhere, a preference for conspicuous consumption over energy efficiency and conservation is a signal of a much deeper, central divide.

M King Hubbert was a geophysicist and a practical man. He observed data, made realistic assumptions, and came to logical conclusions. He didn’t deal in unrealistic hope and unwarranted optimism. He knew that our culture had become so dependent upon lies and an unsustainable growth model based on depleting oil and debt based “prosperity”. He knew decades ago that we were incapable of dealing with the truth:

“Our principal constraints are cultural. During the last two centuries we have known nothing but exponential growth and in parallel we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture, a culture so heavily dependent upon the continuance of exponential growth for its stability that it is incapable of reckoning with problems of non-growth.” – M King Hubbert

Our country is at a crucial juncture. It is time for thinkers. It is time for realists. It is time to deal with facts. It is time to drive the ideologues off the stage. Are you tired of lying to yourselves? Are you tired of being lied to by the corporate fascists that run this country? It is time to wake up. Right wing and left wing ideologues will continue to spew lies and misinformation as they are power hungry and care not for the long-term survival of our nation or the unborn generations that depend upon the decisions we make today. It is time to see how we really are.

“Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself from thinking. People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.” –   Aldous Huxley

20 Statistics That Prove That Global Wealth Is Being Funneled Into The Hands Of The Elite – Leaving Most Of The Rest Of The World Wretchedly Poor

The Economic Collapse
Nov 30, 2010

Today global wealth is more highly concentrated in the hands of the elite than it ever has been at any other point in modern history.  Once upon a time, the vast majority of the people in the world knew how to grow their own food, raise their own animals and take care of themselves.  There weren’t many that were fabulously wealthy, but there was a quiet dignity in having land you could call your own or in having a skill that you could turn into a business.  Sadly, over the past several decades an increasingly growing percentage of agricultural land has been gobbled up by big corporations and by corrupt governments.  Hundreds of millions of people have been pushed off their land and into highly concentrated urban areas.  Meanwhile, it has become increasingly difficult to start a business of your own as monolithic global corporations have come to dominate nearly every sector of the world economy.  So more people than ever around the world are forced to work for “the system” just to make a living.  At the same time, those at the very top of the food chain (the elite) have spent decades rigging the system to ensure that increasing amounts of wealth will continue to flow into their pockets.  So now in 2010 we have a global system where a few elitists at the top are insanely wealthy while about half the people living on earth are wretchedly poor.

There are very few nations around the world that have not been almost entirely plundered by the global elite.  When the elite speak of “investing” in poor countries, what they really mean is taking control of the land, water, oil and other natural resources.  In dozens of nations around the world today, big global corporations are stripping fabulous amounts of wealth out of the ground even as the vast majority of the citizens of those nations continue to live in abject poverty.  Meanwhile, the top politicians in those nations are given huge bribes to go along with the plundering.

So what we have in 2010 is a world that is dominated by a very small handful of ultra-wealthy elitists that own an almost unbelievable amount of real assets, a larger group of “middle managers” that run the system for the global elite (and are rewarded very handsomely for doing so), hundreds of millions of people who actually do the work required by the system, and several billion “useless eaters” that the global elite don’t really need and that they don’t really have much use for.

The system was not ever designed to lift up the poor.  Nor was it ever designed to promote “free enterprise” and “competition”.  Rather, the elite intend to funnel all wealth to themselves and to have the rest of us enslaved either to debt or to poverty.

The following are 20 statistics that prove that the wealth of the world is increasingly being funneled into the hands of the global elite, leaving most of the rest of the world wretchedly poor and miserable….

#1 According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the number of “least developed countries” has doubled over the past 40 years.

#2 “Least developed countries” spent 9 billion dollars on food imports in 2002.  By 2008, that number had risen to 23 billion dollars.

#3 Average income per person in the poorest countries on the continent of Africa has fallen by one-fourth over the past twenty years.

#4 Bill Gates has a net worth of somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 billion dollars.  That means that there are approximately 140 different nations that have a yearly GDP which is smaller than the amount of money Bill Gates has.

#5 A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research discovered that the bottom half of the world population owns approximately 1 percent of all global wealth.

#6 Approximately 1 billion people throughout the world go to bed hungry each night.

#7 The wealthiest 2 percent own more than half of all global household assets.

#8 It is estimated that over 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where the income gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

#9 Every 3.6 seconds someone starves to death and three-quarters of them are children under the age of 5.

#10 According to Gallup, 33 percent of the people on the globe say that they do not have enough money for food.

#11 As you read this, there are 2.6 billion people around the world that lack basic sanitation.

#12 According to the most recent “Global Wealth Report” by Credit Suisse, the wealthiest 0.5% control over 35% of the wealth of the world.

#13 More than 3 billion people, close to half the world’s population, live on less than 2 dollar a day.

#14 CNN founder Ted Turner is the largest private landowner in the United States.  Today, Turner owns approximately two million acres.  That is an amount greater than the land masses of the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.  Turner also advocates restricting U.S. couples to 2 or fewer children to control population growth.

#15 There are 400 million children in the world today that have no access to safe water.

#16 Approximately 28 percent of all children in developing countries are considered to be underweight or have had their growth stunted as a result of malnutrition.

#17 It is estimated that the United States owns approximately 25 percent of the total wealth of the world.

#18 It is estimated that the entire continent of Africa owns approximately 1 percent of the total wealth of the world.

#19 In 2008, approximately 9 million children died before they reached their fifth birthdays.  Approximately a third of all of these deaths was due either directly or indirectly to lack of food.

#20 The most famous banking family in the world, the Rothschilds, has accumulated mountains of wealth while much of the rest of the world has been trapped in poverty.  The following is what Wikipedia has to say about Rothschild family wealth….

It has been argued that during the 19th century, the family possessed by far the largest private fortune in the world, and by far the largest fortune in modern history.

Nobody seems to know exactly how much the Rothschilds are worth today.  They dominate the banking establishments of England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and many other nations.  It was estimated that they were worth billions back in the mid-1800s.  What the total wealth of the family is today is surely an amount that is almost unimaginable, but nobody knows for sure.

Meanwhile, billions of people around the globe are wondering where their next meal is going to come from.

At this point, many readers will want to start arguing about how horrible capitalism is and about how wonderful socialism and communism are.

But capitalism is not the problem and as we have seen countless times over the past several decades, government ownership of business is not the solution to anything.

What we have in the world today is not capitalism.  Rather, it more closely resembles “feudalism” than anything else.  The elite are “monopoly men” who use their unbelievable wealth and power to dominate the rest of us.  In fact, it was John D. Rockefeller who once said that “competition is sin”.

It would be great if we lived in a world where those living in poverty were encouraged to start owning land, to create businesses and to build better lives for themselves.

But instead, things are going the other way.  Wealth is becoming more concentrated in the hands of the elite, and the middle class is starting to be wiped out even in prosperous nations such as the United States.

It turns out that the global elite have decided that they don’t really need so many expensive American “worker bees” after all and they have been moving thousands of factories and millions of jobs overseas.  Meanwhile the American people are so distracted watching Dancing with the Stars, Lady Gaga and their favorite sports teams that they don’t even realize what is going on.

There is no guarantee that America will be prosperous forever.  Today, a record number of Americans are already living in poverty.  Today, a record number of Americans are on food stamps.  The median household income went down last year and it went down the year before that too.

So wake up.  America is being integrated into a world economic system that is dominated and controlled by the insanely wealthy elite.  They don’t care that you have to pay the mortgage or that you intend to send your kids to college.  Mostly what they care about is making as much money for themselves as they can.

Greed is running rampant around the globe, and the world is becoming a very cold place.  Unfortunately, unless something really dramatic happens, the rich are just going to continue to get richer and the poor are just going to continue to get poorer.

THE MADNESS OF A LOST SOCIETY

Survive Anything! Chapter 2: Food Crisis

Giordano Bruno

Food production is one of the most essential concerns of any society. Without direct availability and ease of consumption, without the consistent flow of agricultural goods, every nation existing today (except the most primitive) would immediately find its infrastructure crumbling and its people in a furious panic. It’s strange to me, then, that long term independent food planning is the one concern that many Americans seem to take most for granted. Firearms and ammo, camping gear and bug-out-bags, MRE’s, beans, and rice; these are the easiest part of your survival foundation. The hard part is not storage of goods, but devising a solid and practical plan for sustainability in the long term. This starts with the capacity to support your own agriculture regardless of how long the grid is down, even if it is down indefinitely.

Understandably, there will be some people who do not have enough land to implement many of these strategies. They should still know the fundamentals and be ready to apply them at a retreat location or within a community should the opportunity arise.

In the first chapter of our ‘Survive Anything’ series, we covered all the consequences of a nuclear attack on American soil, and how to not only make it out alive, but even thrive after such an event: http://neithercorp.us

The reason Neithercorp covered survival tactics for a nuclear strike first was simple; we wanted to make it clear that the title of this series is not an exaggeration. Truly, ANYTHING is survivable with the right knowledge and preparation. Those who promote a ‘doomer’ view of economic collapse or global war are on average people who have simply given up before the struggle has even started. Therefore, their opinions on survival are empty, and barely worth the effort to ignore. Life goes on after collapse, as it always has since the beginning of organized civilization. It is YOU who decides whether or not you will be a part of that life. It is you who decides your chances of success.

With that success in mind, let’s dive into the most important aspects of food survival in a country where infrastructure has ceased to function…

Emaciated Grocery Chains

Last winter, I witnessed perhaps the most incredible snow storm I have ever seen in my life. A low pressure system punished the Northeast with downpour after downpour, stopping most road travel and cutting power to millions for at least a week. Being that the average family has only a week’s worth of food or less in their pantry, you can imagine the chaos that unfolded. Those grocery stores with backup power were flooded with customers buying armloads of batteries, water, ice chests, and, of course, foods that don’t require refrigeration. Now, what I want you to imagine, is what would have happened if no grocery stores had been open that week. What would have happened if they had never reopened? How many people would have been in the very real position of starving to death? From what I observed that winter…far too many…

The problem of storage and backstock is widespread in the U.S. and the culprit is actually one which we have been trained to admire; efficiency. It is because of the over-application of efficiency in grocery models and in the freight sector that most outlets carry little to no backstock in goods. Instead, they order goods as quickly as they sell out, refilling shelves on a product by product basis. This means that in most grocers, what you see on the shelf, is all that they have. The speed of trucking deliveries makes this business model possible, but its operation suffers from a seriously fatal flaw…

Grocery stores may seem like a bounty of goods at first glance, but if freight shipments shut down, or even slowed, those aisles would empty within the span of a few days. Many households in America operate on the same faulty “efficiency”. They rely on the weekly trip to the grocer to maintain the pantry while also attempting to save money by reducing backstock. It’s a frayed rope holding up too much weight, a completely inflexible system that cannot withstand any deviation from the set routine. One unexpected disaster could render the entire food and agriculture distribution network immobile.

Many grocery chains also function on a line of credit from banks while operating at a loss. Profits are poured directly into the liabilities the companies incur from loans and then more money is borrowed to continue ordering goods. Some stores in the chain (flagship stores) usually bring in enough money to cover the red ink of the other branches, however, what if banks were to cut off credit completely to a grocery chain? Or maybe ALL grocery chains? The cycle of debt, to sales, to profit, to debt, becomes disrupted. Any stores that rely solely on credit to stay open for business would immediately lose the ability to bring in new stock. Again, we are faced with empty shelves in less than a week.

This scenario is entirely possible in the U.S. today, especially in the event that big banks institute capital retention in order to protect themselves from a further collapse of investment markets. Banks have already restricted loans to consumers down to the bare minimum. A restriction of loans to the business sector in the near future is not that far fetched.

Food In A World Without Walmart

The above section illustrates just a few of the weaknesses in U.S. food distribution. I haven’t included the catastrophe inherent in a hyperinflationary situation because I think the consequences of that are self evident. The point is, if you are not standing on solid ground in terms of not just food storage, but a plan for sustainability, then you and your family are in serious danger. This is not a game, and it is not to be taken lightly. It is not something to be shrugged off and postponed for some undefined “later date”. If you have not already started the process of prepping for economic downturn or collapse, then you need to start today.

Buying food with a long term storage capacity is half the battle, and I recommend purchasing at minimum a year’s supply of these goods totaling at least 2000-2500 calories a day per person. Do not forget to include salts, sugars, and ample fats, without which, your body cannot function. Being that we have covered food storage in great detail in previous articles, let’s examine some practical methods for food production after your stores run out.

Squarefoot Gardening: One of the most productive styles of gardening I have ever seen is devised by Mel Bartholomew, a civil engineer who was frustrated with the immense waste involved in single row gardening. The process involves building easy to make above ground 4 foot by 4 foot soil boxes and then dividing those boxes into grids. These grids retain water and nutrients to a much greater capacity than traditional yard gardens, resulting in up to 80% less space required, 90% less water use, and 95% less seed to grow the same amount of vegetables. Fertilizer is not necessary and existing soil can be easily used. I would not set up a survival garden any other way.

There is one downside to squarefoot gardening, however, and it is one of visibility. If you are in a situation which calls for discreet growing of crops, then the highly visible soil boxes and neat rows will stand out like a sore thumb and alert others to your presence. If you feel secure in the defense of your homestead or retreat, though, then garden visibility is irrelevant and Bartholomew’s strategy is the best by far. Read his book, or check out his website here:

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Non-Hybrid Seeds: Non-hybrid heirloom seeds are basically the seeds nature intended to be planted. These are the only seeds you should ever consider using for your survival garden for numerous reasons. Genetically modified seeds are unreliable, give you a low production count of vegetables, and very few quality seeds can be taken from the plants for the next season. Not to mention, there is no telling what has been infused into the DNA of GMO’s. A company in California called Ventria Bioscience has created a form of rice which contains HUMAN DNA, and this rice has been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture! The reason? Ventria claims it can be used to treat diarrhea in children, of all things…

I don’t know what the direct health effects are of people consuming food made out of people, and I would rather not find out. I never thought I would see the day when the movie ‘Soylent Green’ was treated less like fiction and more like a documentary…

Natural Pest Control: I hate to say it, but in the event of a total collapse, it may be best to keep pesticides in stock. The first few years of a grid down scenario will likely be brutal, and if you are extremely dependent on your garden crops to keep your family fed, then you don’t want to take any chances on vermin decimating your plants. That said, there will probably come a point when your pesticides will run out, and natural methods will be necessary.

Some proven tactics of organic pest control include…

Lady Bugs (ladybugs eat pest insects and are incredibly beneficial to any garden)

Organic Pesticide (often contains garlic, chilli pepper or powder, vegetable oil, and water)

Repellent Plants (some plants naturally repel pests, like garlic, tobacco, or rhubarb. Some hot peppers are so acidic that they act as an anti-bug defense. Any peppers that contain large amounts of Capsaicin should be included in your garden plan)

Vinegar (can be used as an effective weed killer)

Cornmeal (can be applied to garden soil or turned into a juice and sprayed on crops. Cornmeal attracts fungi from the Trichoderma family, a good fungus which kills pest funguses)

Plant Daisies Around Fruit Trees (daisies attract a certain kind of wasp which is the natural predator of the bagworm, a worm that is notorious for killing crop trees. This wasp also kills locusts, an added bonus)

Herbs (strong smelling herbs repel many animals, including deer, that would attempt to feed on your veggies. Of course, you might like the idea of attracting deer to your property too…)

Grow For Your Region: The region in which you live will greatly affect the types of crops that grow well. Listed below are the various regions of the U.S. along with the vegetables that thrive best in them…

Northeast – Tomatoes, sweet peppers, snap beans, garlic, potato, bulb onion, cabbage, broccoli, mustard, spinach, eggplant, sweet corn, cucumber, radish, snow pea, asparagus

Southeast – Sweet pepper, garlic, hot pepper, broccoli, summer squash, collards, watermelon, cantaloupe, okra, scallion, lima bean, pole bean, sweet potato, potato, radish

Midwest – Corn, onion, lettuce, tomato, garlic, squash, pumpkin, turnips, beets, broccoli, cucumber, hot pepper, carrot

Central Rockies – Carrot, spinach, tomato, bush snap peas, potato, radish, fava beans, beets, shallots, leek, scallion

Northwest – Snow pea, pole bean, potato, garlic, pumpkin, squash, hot pepper, scallion, lettuce, onion, carrot

Southwest – Tomato, carrot, summer squash, bulb onion, snow pea, sweet pepper, eggplant, hot pepper, beet radish, sweet potato, southern pea, scallion

Keep in mind that these are not the only crops you can grow in your region, just some of the top producers. Many vegetables will grow almost anywhere in the U.S.

Most Nutritious Plants: The plants and vegetables with the highest nutritional content of vitamins and minerals are: Sunflower seeds, soybeans, almonds, leaf amaranth, broccoli, navy beans, collards, potatoes, dandelions (yes, the weed), lima beans, northern beans, kidney beans, okra, spinach, kale, butternut squash, sweet potato, peanuts, avocados, and watermelon (believe it or not).

Focus On Grains: Grasses that produce grains are hearty and grow almost everywhere in the U.S. Grains are the mainstay of our diets because they are so abundant and because they can be stored for years, even decades if needed. Families and communities hoping to restore food production after a breakdown in infrastructure will need personal gardens, but also reasonably sized tracks of land set aside for wheat, rice, barley, oats, etc.

Wheat is one of the few plants that can grow during the winter, but only if nitrogen content in the soil is adequate. Growing legumes in a garden patch can add large amounts of nitrogen, after which, wheat plants can be rotated in. Wheat also needs loose soil to grow well, and compacted soil can ruin a crop. The squarefoot method can be used just as easily for wheat as with regular garden vegetables and could help avoid the soil compaction problem, along with certain space issues.

‘Hard Wheat’ is the best type to plant if you live in a dry temperate climate with cold winters. ‘Soft Wheat’ is better for climates with more moisture and mild winters. After harvest, your wheat kernels should be stored in a cool dry place (40-60 F is optimal) and sealed in containers that prevent oxygen exposure.

Grains are the single most important food item for the survivalist because of their longevity. Civilizations are built and rebuilt on grains and grain storage. The average adult requires around 275 pounds of wheat a year, and the average child requires around 175 pounds a year. A well maintained acre of plants will produce around 40 bushels or more of wheat. A bushel contains around 60 pounds of wheat, meaning a standard acre could yield around 2400 pounds of grain; more than enough for two families every year. If the squarfoot method is applied, the yield could be significantly higher and the space could be reduced tenfold. Extra grain can be easily packed away, saving you in the event of a bad crop or other unforeseen problems. Grains combined with beans also make a complete protein in the event that your diet is low on meat. The advantages of grain production for survival are endless.

Indoor Growing And Hydroponics: I realize the word “hydroponics” is synonymous with wacky weed, Maui Wowie, and that shy neighbor in the aviator shades that lives on the corner lot of your block. Of course, its none of my business what that guy is growing in his basement, nor is it the government’s, but before you go out to order a subscription of ‘High Times’, let me assure you that my primary reason for bringing up hydroponics is one of survival, and not “mind expansion”.

Hydroponics is simply a method for growing plants using electric lights that simulate the rays of the sun, and this includes vegetables. There are many benefits to growing your food indoors.

If you are in a survival situation which offers minimal protection and greater danger from looters or others, you may want to consider the hydroponic option. This method would be a considerable edge for those who have chosen to stay within a city or suburban landscape with less open land and more people in tighter quarters. A hydroponic garden in your home or apartment might show up on infrared surveillance, but otherwise, no one would be the wiser to your food supply.

Hydroponic plants grow 30% to 50% faster than outdoor plants and their vegetable yields are often much higher. Some hydroponic systems don’t even require soil for growing! ‘Active Systems’ use a pump to supply nutrients to your plants while ‘Passive Systems’ use a wick to absorb nutrient solutions and pass them on to the roots of your crop. You can build your own hydroponic system using guides available on the web, or you can purchase pre-made systems. Pre-made systems with special lights are likely to run you around $1000, though deal hunters may be able to put something together much cheaper.

The downside to hydroponic growing is that you are paying for the light that you would normally get for free from the sun. Not to mention, in a grid down scenario, you lose your light source completely (we will cover strategies for survival electricity in the next installment of this series). But, if you have the ability to produce your own electricity, then indoor growing may be a godsend. Keep in mind that with hydroponics, food growing can be done year around, even in winter. Pests are much easier to control. And, your crops are also much safer from a threat I see rising to the forefront in the near future; GMO pollen. GMO pollen has the ability to “infect” healthy non-hybrid plants and mutate their seedlings. What would happen if your acre of veggies was suddenly hit with a blast of GMO pollens from breeds that use engineered terminator seeds? Say goodbye to next year’s crop, unless you have indoor gardens and extra seeds to back you up…

Sprouting: One easy way to get nutritious greens any time of year without special growing lights or fancy equipment is to sprout beans. All you need is a wide container with small holes in the bottom, and any number of sprouting beans or seeds. These include; lentils, garbanzo, mung, adzuki, pea, peanut, alfalfa, barley, pinto, and others.

The beans are spread in a thin layer across the bottom of the container and sprayed lightly with water daily. Some indirect sunlight is recommended. After around 3 to 5 days, they will begin to sprout, producing healthy greens even in the dead of winter.

The Omnivore’s Advantage

Vegetarianism seems like a spartan way of dieting, but really, vegetarians have a difficult if not impossible time when it comes to survival environments. Vegetarianism is a luxury, one that you cannot afford if you hope to get through a grid down event. The key to survival is flexibility and adaptability. Forgoing a meal of meat is not an option if you wish to avoid starving.

While killing and dismembering Bambi for your stew pot is not the most pleasant of exercises for many, its something all of us might have to get used to very soon. Traditional hunting, though, is not the most practical way of obtaining meat during a collapse, and counting on hunting alone could very well end in empty plates for you and your family on a regular basis. Here are some strategies for making sure that never happens…

Raising Chickens: Chickens are some of the easiest livestock to raise. They require little space. If allowed to roam the yard they practically feed themselves, they lay eggs which are a fantastic source of protein, and, when they stop laying, they can be eaten.

One problem to watch out for with chickens is ‘fowl cholera’. Symptoms include greenish yellow diarrhea, difficulty breathing, swollen joints, darkened wattles. Infected birds die quickly and there is no treatment. Destroy all infected birds, even those that survive (they become carriers and infect new birds immediately). Other diseases and sicknesses usually require some care and warm shelter, while the bird’s immune system takes care of the rest.

Raising Rabbits: Rabbits are another very easy to raise meat source, though they cannot be allowed to roam like chickens and dry warm cages are necessary. As we all know, rabbits breed like there’s no tomorrow, so you will have a never-ending supply of new stock. Rabbit food is relatively inexpensive to store, though veggies from your garden often work just as well. In fact, planting a couple quick producing crops just for your rabbits may be an effective feed source. Rabbits also need clean water regularly, because they dehydrate easily.

Bring The Game To You: Running around the forest with your scoped bolt action may not be the cleverest way to put meat on the table during a collapse, unless you have a lot of well armed buddies to keep watch over you while you lounge in your tree hide for half the day. There is too much wasted time and too many risks involved. During a societal breakdown, sometimes you have to work smarter, not harder.

Bringing the game to you is not so difficult as long as you know what they like. Leaving salt licks and corn on the perimeter of your land will bring deer, and in some places wild pig. Wild flower and clover patches attract rabbits which can then be snared. Wild turkeys like crabapples, beechnuts, and acorns during winter, and clover during spring.

Another more expensive option is to build a small artificial pond on your land. Animals for miles around will congregate there to drink, especially if there are no other streams or lakes nearby.

Don’t Be A Liability

Preparation is not just about you, it is about all the people you save by not becoming part of the problem. The more Americans prep, the less Americans starve in the midst of calamity. Fewer empty stomachs means less fearful minds and less panic when the other shoe drops. In this sense, survival preparation is not a hobby, or a mode of self interest, it is a duty. Frankly, if we care at all about the continuity of our ideals, our belief in freedom and independence, then we should also feel obligated to become more self-sufficient. If the economy were to slip into oblivion tomorrow, would you be a pillar of strength, or just another frantic helpless man-child waiting desperately for a handout from the nearest criminal bureaucracy? Would you be a strong-point in the protection of liberty, or a weak link holding the rest of us back?

The strength of one can have reverberations in the lives of thousands. Preparation makes us strong. Adaptability and knowledge makes us unafraid. Training and experience makes us successful. These are the principles upon which America was founded, and these are the principles which will allow America to live on.

Why Poverty Spreads Across America

Sherwood Ross

Pockets of poverty, like the sores of some malignant disease, are spreading across America, as its states and cities go broke and bankrupt.

“Camden, New Jersey, stands as a warning of what huge pockets of America could turn into,” The Nation magazine reports in its Nov. 22nd issue. In fact, it has already happened, it is happening all over, and there is no signal on the horizon that poverty and blight will not continue to spread. It is not that Americans are lazy and shiftless; rather, they are reeling from betrayal – for they have been betrayed both by their employers, who have shown not an ounce of loyalty to their work forces, and they have been betrayed by their Federal government, which has lied the nation into costly criminal wars.

“Camden is the poster child of postindustrial decay,” writes Chris Hedges, the former foreign correspondent for The New York Times. “It stands as a warning of what huge pockets of the United States could turn into as we cement into place a permanent underclass of the unemployed, slash state and federal services in a desperate bid to cut massive deficits, watch cities and states go bankrupt and struggle to adjust to a stark neofeudalism in which the working and middle classes are decimated.” In an article titled “City of Ruins,” Hedges reports that 70 percent of Camden’s high school students drop out, that the city’s unemployment rate is probably 30 to 40 percent, and that its dangerous streets “are filled with the unemployed.”

What is thriving in Camden is prostitution, the drug trade and crime. “There are perhaps a hundred open-air drug markets, most run by gangs like the Bloods, the Latin Kings, Los Nietos and MS-13,” Hedges writes. “Knots of young men in black leather jackets and baggy sweatshirts sell weed and crack to clients, many of whom drive in from the suburbs. The drug trade is one of the city’s few thriving businesses…Camden is awash in guns…” (and) in 2009 had the highest crime rate in the nation with 2,333 violent crimes per 1,000 population vs. a national average of just 455, Wikipedia reported.

Camden is no isolated example. More than half of its residents, 52 percent, live in poverty. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2006 ranked it fourth highest among cities with under 250,00 residents as 35.6 percent of its population lived in poverty. It followed Brownsville, Tex., 40.6%; and College Station, Tex., 37.3%. Other poverty-struck cities were Edinburg, Tex., 35.4%; Bloomington,Ind., 34.7%; Flint, Mich., 34.1%; Kalamazoo, Mich., 33.4; Florence-Graham, Ca. (in Los Angeles County), 33.0%; Gary, Ind., 32.8%; and Muncie, Ind., 32.6%

The poverty rates of major cities show similar patterns of despair. The ten having the worst poverty rates are Detroit, 32.5%; Buffalo, 29.9%; Cincinnati, 27.8%; Cleveland, 27.0%; Miami, 26.9%; St. Louis, 26.8%; El Paso, 26.4%; Milwaukee, 26.2%; Philadelphia, 25.1%; and Newark, 24.2%.

High poverty rates, of course, stem largely from persistent, structural unemployment. As the Washington Post reported last January 15th, “Blacks, Hispanics and men have suffered the most mainly because they have been disproportionately employed in sectors hardest hit in the recession — manufacturing and construction. For instance, the unemployment rate for blacks is expected to reach 27 percent in Michigan, which has been shedding auto industry jobs. Other states with jobless rates above 20 percent for blacks are Alabama, Illinois, Ohio and South Carolina.”

Where the New Deal’s Work Projects Administration(WPA) alone in the Great Depression created 8-million new jobs, nothing of that scope exists today. The same Post article notes, “The Congressional Black Caucus wants the government to create training programs and jobs in low-income communities with the highest unemployment rates.” “It’s like triage in an emergency room — you take care of people who need the most help first and you help the others later,” said Kai Filion, research analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. Economic losses, the analyst said, could result in a 50 percent poverty rate for black children, up from 34 percent in 2008. While statistics defining the plight of African-Americans make for grim reading, it should be remembered that the majority of America’s unemployed are Caucasian and that the real unemployment figure according to some authorities is 20 percent, not the 10 percent reported by Washington.

It is hardly accidental that cities with high unemployment rates also have high crime rates. In terms of violent crime, as FBI statistics for calendar year 2009 show, Detroit, noted above to have the highest poverty rate, also has the most violent crime per 1,000 citizens, with 19.67 cases. Other major cities are (2) Memphis, 18.06; (3)Oakland, 16.79; (4) Baltimore, 15.13; (5) Buffalo, 14.59; (6) Cleveland, 13.95; (7)Kansas City, 13.00; (8) Stockton, 12.67; (9) Washington, D.C., 12.65; and (10), Philadelphia, 12.38. As Sir Thomas More wrote in his classic Utopia, published in 1516: “You allow these people to be brought up in the worst possible way, and systematically corrupted from their earliest years. Finally, when they grow up and commit the crimes that they were obviously destined to commit, ever since they were children, you start punishing them. In other words, you create thieves, and then punish them for stealing,” Could he have better explained America’s 2.3-million prison population today?

In Camden, there isn’t a single inner city supermarket that can put ghetto kids to work at an honest job after school and weekends but reporter Hedges says there are plenty of drug markets. Often, the only job a teenager can land is one on the staff of the local drug lord. The other employment choice for ghettoized youth is the military. While Pentagon recruiters strongly deny they target low-income neighborhoods, a careful reading of the home towns of those reported killed in the Middle East may well cast doubt upon this contention. Camden once was a significant manufacturing hub but those days are long gone. In many communities, major employers abandoned their workers with no compunction (and often without deserved pensions), automating employees out of their jobs. Other employers, as in Detroit, simply relocated their plants overseas entirely. The idea of a prosperous work force based on a vibrant local economy to underpin “the American Dream” got lost in the race to maximize corporate profits. In Trenton, N.J., the sign on a bridge across the Delaware River, “Trenton Makes, The World Takes,” is the boast of a bygone era. Reduced employment means reduced purchasing power and reduced tax take for local governments. This year, according to The Christian Science Monitor, California faces a $20 billion budget gap. It has already resorted to “mandatory furloughs for all state workers, teacher layoffs, (and reduced) aid to the university system 20 percent, (and made) massive cuts to education, corrections, and social services.” This grim picture is mirrored everywhere. The rising unemployment in New York City’s workforce, for example, has worsened its budget crisis, Financial Times reported Nov. 22nd.

At the same time, U.S. corporations continue their race to the bottom for cheap labor. Cable News Network’s “Exporting America” broadcast listed hundreds of “U.S. companies either sending American jobs overseas or choosing to employ cheap overseas labor instead of American workers.” A very small fraction of the companies on CNN’s list are reprinted in the following three paragraphs to convey some idea of the enormity of the indifference of employers for their workers:
Aetna, AIG, Alamo Rent a Car, Alcoa, Allstate, Anheuser-Bush, AT&T, Bank of America, Bechtel, BellSouth, Best Buy, Borden Chemical, Boeing, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Caterpillar, ChevronTexaco, Citigrouup, Continental airlines, Delta Air Lines, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Eastman Kodak, Eli Lilly, ExxonMobil, Fedders Corp., Fluor, Ford Motor, General Electric, General Motors, and Goldman Sachs.

Also, Halliburton, Hershey, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, IBM, Illinois Tool Works, ITT Industries, John Deere, Johns Manville, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg, Kerr-McGhee Chemicals, Kimberly-Clark, Kraft Foods, Lear Corp., Levi Strauss, Lockheed Martin, Mattel, Maytag, Merrill Lynch, MetLife, Microsoft, Monsanto, Motorola, Nabisco, Northrop Grumman, Northwest Airlines, Office Depot, Orbitz, Oracle, Otis Elevator, Owens Corning, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Polaroid, Pratt & Whitney, Procter & Gamble, and Prudential Insurance.

Also, Quaker Oats, Radio Shack, Rayovac, Rohm & Haas, Safeway, Sara Lee, Seco Manufacturing, Square D, State Farm Insurance, Target, Tenneco Automotive, Texas Instruments, Time Warner, Tropical Sportswear, TRW Automotive, Tupperware, Tyco Electronics, Union Pacific, UNISYS, United Plastics Group, United Technologies, Verizon, Wachovia Bank, Weyerhaeuser, Xerox, and Zenith.

Why hasn’t the Obama administration taken swift and forceful action to relieve the situation, perhaps even to launch the Domestic Marshall Plan for the cities the Urban League’s Whitney Young called for as far back as 1962? Perhaps it’s because like President Bush before him Mr. Obama is more focused on waging war. Here, again, Sir Thomas More speaks to us: “To start with, most kings are more interested in the science of war…than in useful peacetime techniques. They’re far more anxious, by hook or by crook, to acquire new kingdoms than to govern their existing ones properly.”

This, of course, applies perfectly to America’s kings, for not only have our presidents assumed the powers and prerogatives of kings but they have, in fact, acted no better than medieval kings, waging wars with armies raised from the poorest strata of society and spending lavishly to conquer while ignoring their own citizenry’s cries for bread and opportunity. Put another way, the Pentagon is spending more money for war (52 cents of every tax dollar) than all 50 states combined spend for all purposes to improve the lot of 300 million Americans. In their book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War”(W.W. Norton), Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes write, “A $3 trillion figure for the total cost strikes us as judicious, and probably errs on the low side. Needless to say, this number represents the cost only to the United States. It does not reflect the enormous cost to the rest of the world, or to Iraq.” (Stiglitz is former chief economist at the World Bank and a Nobel Prize laureate and Bilmes is a public policy authority at Harvard.) Given the wars’ colossal and criminal waste of human life and treasure, it is little wonder states and cities the nation over are starved for income, record numbers of homes are being foreclosed, and soup kitchens are reporting a rising influx of patrons, many of them bewildered former members of the shrinking middle class.

This situation has pertained in America now for several generations. Before Iraq and Afghanistan there was the Viet Nam aggression. Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern attempted to make the connection between war abroad and hard times at home when he said, “For every bomb that falls in Viet Nam a house somewhere in America collapses from neglect.” McGovern was defeated by incumbent Richard Nixon in a landslide. It is apparent from the recent elections that Americans today, just as in the national election of 1972, do not grasp the reality of the terminal disease that is war. They do not recognize how it is driving them relentlessly into poverty while sacrificing their children like some primitive culture on the altar of the military-industrial complex to ensure a profitable harvest from their blood.

New phase of debt crisis! Striking NOW! Despite rescues!

Martin D. Weiss

A belated “Happy Thanksgiving!” – from our family to yours!

Sadly, though, even while most Americans were enjoying the holiday or hitting the malls, much of Europe was sinking deeper into a new, more severe phase of its sovereign debt crisis.

This crisis is unfolding despite Herculean rescues by the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Federal Reserve.

It’s striking right now.

And it’s threatening to spread to all of the world’s big debtor nations, including the biggest of all – the United States.

Hard Evidence from Global Markets

This conclusion is not merely my analysis or forecast.

It’s the collective opinion of global investors who, at this very moment, are scrambling to buy insurance against bond defaults by major governments.

Think of it like life insurance:

• When the premiums are cheap, it’s because the country has a clean bill of health.
• When the premiums start rising, it means there’s growing evidence of fiscal disease.
• And when premiums skyrocket to obscenely high levels, you can be darn certain the country’s Treasury is on its death bed, threatening to take down the government … sabotage its economy … and, inevitably, impoverish its people.

That’s precisely the situation the Irish find themselves in today. Their economy is sinking fast. Their two largest banks – the equivalent of our Bank of America and Citigroup – have just gone under. The Prime Minister is resigning. Millions of citizens are sinking into poverty. And yesterday’s final agreement on a $113 billion European rescue package will not change that reality.

Moreover, their crisis is a stark warning for all U.S. investors. So you’d better understand exactly what’s happening and why …

The Real Trauma of The Irish Debt Crisis

Default insurance is the telltale indicator.

And right now, the cost of insuring €10 million of 5-year Irish government bonds against default has skyrocketed – to an extremely high €600,000.

That’s 55 percent more than it cost for the same insurance in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers failure – a time when it seemed the entire world was on the brink of collapse.

It’s 50 percent more than the cost of insuring equivalent Greek debt at the peak of Greece’s first round of financial difficulties earlier this year.

It’s at least DOUBLE the cost of insuring the debts of deeply troubled lesser nations like Romania, Lebanon, Latvia, and even Iceland.

Most shocking of all, today’s €600,000 price tag for Irish default insurance is higher than it was BEFORE the European Union and IMF first announced their intent to engineer a $113 billion rescue for Ireland just eight days ago.

Earlier this year, when Europe announced a similar bailout for Greece, traders in this kind of insurance – credit default swaps – gave Greece at least a 30-day reprieve. Now, they’ve given Ireland no more than three days.

Investors obviously don’t believe promises by politicians anymore.

Clearly, the Debt Crisis Is Accelerating. Clearly, the Bailouts Are Not Working!

The European authorities had hoped that, as soon as their massive, supposedly “definitive” Irish bailout package was announced, investors would jump for joy. Instead, investors have done precisely the opposite.

The authorities had hoped that the premiums on government bond default insurance would come down dramatically. Instead, the premiums have gone higher, as I’ve just shown you.

The authorities had hoped that Irish bond yields would come down sharply, helping to avert a disastrous, additional interest burden for the government. Instead, bond investors have dumped Irish bonds with both hands, driving their prices down and yields up.

Exactly seven days ago, on the morning after the big bailout announcement, the yield on Ireland’s benchmark 10-year government bond was near 8 percent. Now, it has surged by more than a full percentage point to 9.17 percent. That extra interest cost alone threatens to eat up a big chunk of the bailout money.

The authorities had hoped – and prayed – that their earlier bailout of Greece would have been enough to contain the cancer. Instead, it has metastasized and spread – not only to Ireland, but also to Spain and Portugal.

Right now, the cost of insuring against a default on Spanish and Portuguese bonds is at new, all-time highs, far surpassing the levels reached earlier this year when the Greek debt crisis was first exploding.

Even Greece itself, which the authorities thought was largely cured, is back in the emergency room.

But this time, all life support systems are in serious doubt. And this time, investors are in open rebellion against the spin doctors.

The facts: At the height of the last Greek debt crisis – on February 8, 2010, to be exact – the cost of insuring a €10 million 5-year Greek government bond reached a peak of €420,855.

But last week, the cost on the exact same instrument had surged above €1,000,000!

That’s like shelling out an outrageous $50,000 for a term life insurance policy that pays no more than $500,000 in death benefits.

Why so expensive? Because investors now realize that austerity, no matter how necessary, can never be a quick ticket to fiscal balance.

In fact, the more the Greek government has cut spending, the more its economy has sunk. Ditto for Ireland and other countries.

Urgent Lessons for All U.S. Investors

Even if you’ve never invested a penny in Europe – and even if you’ve never set foot outside the United States – this new phase of the debt crisis has far-reaching implications and lessons for you and your family …

Lesson #1
America Is Definitely NOT Immune to the Contagion

For 2011, the Bank for International Settlements estimates that Portugal’s and Spain’s government debts will be 99 percent and 78 percent of GDP, respectively.

But for the same year, U.S. government debts will be 91 percent of GDP.

Thus, by this measure, America’s debt burden is similar to

Portugal’s and bigger than Spain’s – two countries that are ALREADY victims of the sovereign debt crisis.

Yes, the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency.

And, yes, that gives Washington the ability to print money with impunity … press other rich countries to accept its debts … and borrow huge amounts abroad to finance its deficits.

But that’s more of a curse than a blessing!

It means that, more so than any other major nation on the planet, the U.S. government is beholden to investors overseas – often the same investors who have repeatedly attacked Greece and Ireland this year.

Ultimately, that could make the U.S. even more vulnerable than Europe.

Lesson #2
Governments CANNOT End a Debt Crisis by Piling on Still MORE Debt

Europe tried by announcing a Greek bailout earlier this year … and it failed miserably.

Europe tried again by expanding the Greek bailout to a $1 trillion fund for all euro-zone countries. But that effort is also failing. In fact, just one more bailout – for Spain – could wipe out the fund.

And now, even before Europe has figured out precisely how the bailout fund is to be used, there was new talk in high circles this weekend of expanding it even further – another desperate attempt to “reassure investors.”

But again, it is not working.

In fact, the more money Europe throws at the crisis, the more investors seem to recoil in horror.

Investors can now see, as plain as day, how past rescues have backfired.

They can see how the debt disasters can’t be papered over with bailouts or printed money.

And they KNOW that money printing can only gut the currency they’re investing in – be it the dollar or the euro!

In either case – bailout or no bailout – bond investors want out.

Lesson #3
Before a Government Debt Crisis Can Be Ended, It Must FIRST Get a Lot WORSE!

In order to slash deficits …

• Governments must impose austerity – deep cutbacks in spending, tax hikes, or both …
• The austerity inevitably drives the economy into a tailspin, and …
• The economic tailspin always causes even LARGER deficits!

It’s only after years of fiscal discipline and collective belt-tightening that this vicious cycle is ended and balance is restored.

That’s why the cutbacks in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain are, in the near term, making the crisis even worse. And it’s also why a similar vicious cycle is now looming in the U.S., as the new Congress seeks to slash the deficit.

Lesson #4
The Great Debt Crisis Of 2008 Never Ended!

Politicians talk about the U.S. debt crisis of 2008 … the Detroit bankruptcy crisis of 2009 … the European sovereign debt crisis of early 2010 … the Greek debt tragedy … the Irish debt mess … the California budget debacle … the U.S. municipal bond collapse … and more.

Then, they talk about the urgent need to make a show of resolve to bail out the world – to stop the “contagion” from spreading from one sector or region to the next.

But these are not separate, isolated disasters. Nor is the contagion of fear the true source of the problem.

Instead, what we are experiencing is one, single, integral debt crisis that never ended.

It is one crisis that has spread from the U.S. to Europe and beyond … morphed from a private-sector banking crisis to a public-sector government debt crisis … grown in scope and power … and begun to drive the large debtor nations on a collision course beyond anyone’s control.

Lesson #5
The New Phase of the Debt Crisis Can Bring Surging Interest Rates

I showed you how the yields on Ireland’s 10-year notes have surged from 8 to 9.17 percent in just a few days. Yields in other European nations have shot up as well.

Meanwhile, I assume you’ve seen how, despite the Fed’s massive bond purchases, U.S. Treasury yields have also moved higher.

And you’ve seen even bigger jumps in U.S. municipal bond yields.

This is just the beginning.

And for the near future at least, rising interest rates could be a game-changer – for real estate, for the U.S. economy, and for many financial markets.

Investors aren’t dumb. When they see a new phase of the debt crisis, they rush from risk to safety.

So don’t be surprised if we get deeper corrections in those markets that rose in recent months – U.S. stocks, precious metals, key commodities, and several foreign currencies.

There will always be exceptions. But my recommendation is the same as last week’s: Take profits off the table. Build cash. Focus on safety.

Good luck and God bless!