America In Decline: The Soul Crushing Despair Of Lowered Expectations

							America In Decline: The Soul Crushing
Despair Of Lowered Expectations
Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
All over America tonight there are
people that believe that their lives are
over. When you do everything that
you know how to do to get a job and
you still can’t get one it can be
absolutely soul crushing. If you have
ever been unemployed for an
extended period of time you know
exactly what I am talking about.
When you have been unemployed for
month after month it can be very
tempting to totally cut yourself off
from society. Those that are kind will
look at you with pity and those that
are cruel will treat you as though you are a total loser. It doesn’t matter that America is in decline and
that our economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for everyone anymore. In our society, one of the
primary things that defines our lives is what we do for a living. Just think about it. When you are out
in a social situation, what is one of the very first things that people ask? They want to know what you
“do”. Well, if you don’t “do” anything, then you are not part of the club. But the worst part of being
unemployed for many Americans is the relentless pressure from family and friends. Often they have no
idea how hard it is to find a job in this economy – especially if they still have jobs. Sometimes the
pressure becomes too great. Sadly, we are seeing unemployment break up a lot of marriages in
America today. Things are really hard out there right now. A very large number of highly educated
Americans have taken very low paying service jobs in recent years just so that they can have some
money coming in even as they “look for something else”. Unfortunately, in many cases that
“something else” never materializes. In the past, America was “the land of opportunity” where
anything was possible. But today America has become “the land of lowered expectations” and the
worst is yet to come.
We live during a time when “the American Dream” is literally being redefined. In the old days, just
about anyone could get a good job that would pay enough to make it possible to buy a house, buy a
nice car and raise a family.
Unfortunately, those days are long gone. The following is from a recent NPR article….
      The town of Lorain, Ohio, used to embody this dream. It was a place where you could get a
      good job, raise a family and comfortably retire.

      “Now you can see what it is. Nothing,” says John Beribak. “The shipyards are gone, the
      Ford plant is gone, the steel plant is gone.” His voice cracks as he describes the town he’s
      lived in his whole life.
      “I mean, I grew up across the street from
      the steel plant when there was 15,000
      people working there,” he says. “My
      dad worked there. I worked there when I
      got out of the Air Force. It’s just sad.”

We live in an economy that is in serious
decline. In this environment no job is safe. In
fact, even Goldman Sachs is laying off
workers these days.
Millions of Americans are suffering from deep
depression because they can’t find jobs. Many
of them are sitting at home right now blankly
starting at their television screens as they
wonder why nobody wants to hire them. Some
have been unemployed for years and have sent
out thousands upon thousands of resumes.
The following is from a recent article by J.D. Hicks….
      I have a brilliant cousin with a $180K Syracuse education working part-time at a
      department store. She has literally sent out 38,000 resumes in the span of a year to no
      avail. I have another very bright friend with the kindest heart who is so desperate he has
      applied for dishwashing jobs and didn’t get them, sending him deeper into depression. I’m
      sure we all know people like this, or perhaps have even been there ourselves.

      Society has trained us to believe that we are worthless without a job. Indeed, we feel
      worthless when we are unemployed with few prospects of making money. Family, friends,
      and peers constantly remind us in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that we “need” a job.

Have you ever been unemployed?
How did it make you feel?
How were you treated by your family and friends?
In the old days, a college education was almost a guaranteed ticket to the middle class.
But these days, a college education guarantees you absolutely nothing.
As a recent article by Jed Graham detailed, most young unemployed workers in America today have at
least some college education….
      For the first time in history, the number of jobless workers age 25 and up who have
      attended some college now exceeds the ranks of those who settled for a high school
      diploma or less.

      Out of 9 million unemployed in April, 4.7 million had gone to college or graduated and 4.3
      million had not, seasonally adjusted Labor Department data show.

Overall, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor’s degree under the age of 25 were either
unemployed or underemployed last year.
It is tough to tell young college graduates with their whole lives ahead of them that they need to lower
their expectations because America is in decline.
So where did all the jobs go?
Well, one place they went is overseas. Over the past couple of decades, millions upon millions of good
jobs have left the United States and have gone over to the other side of the world.
That is why you see gleaming new factories going up all over China even while our once great
manufacturing cities are turning into crime-infested warzones.
But as a recent WND article reported, the WTO has a solution. They plan to replace “Made in China”
labels with “Made in the World” labels so that we don’t feel so bad about losing our jobs and our
economic infrastructure…
     The World Trade Organization is moving closer to eliminating country-of-origin labels and
     replacing them with “Made in the World” initiative labels because they say we need to
     “reduce public opposition to free trade” and “re-engineer global governance.”

As the number of middle class jobs has steadily declined in recent years, the number of low paying
service jobs has increased.
In a previous article, I discussed how approximately one out of every four U.S. workers now makes
$10 an hour or less.
Could your family survive on 10 dollars an hour?
Today, you can find hordes of very smart, very talented Americans flipping burgers, waiting tables and
welcoming people to Wal-Mart.
Sadly, the United States now has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other
major industrialized nation does.
Perhaps we should applaud our leaders for doing such a great job of destroying the American Dream.
Because so many Americans are working crappy jobs, a very large percentage of them have absolutely
no savings to speak of.
According to one survey, 42 percent of all American workers live paycheck to paycheck.
I am constantly encouraging people to save up an “emergency fund” that will enable them to pay their
bills for at least 6 months if they suddenly become unemployed.
Unfortunately, for many Americans that is simply not possible. Way too many families are just barely
scraping by from month to month.
Another area of the economy where Americans are facing lowered expectations is in housing.
In the old days, most Americans dreamed of owning their own homes.
But today we are being told that things have changed. For example, a recent USA Today article was
entitled “Home rentals — the new American Dream?“….
     Steve and Jodi Jacobson bought their Phoenix-area “dream home” in 2005. They built
     flagstone steps to the front door. They tiled the kitchen and bathroom. They entertained
     often, enjoying their mountain views.

     “We put our soul into that house,” says Steve Jacobson, 37.

     Then, home prices tanked more than 50%. Steve, a software quality assurance engineer,
      suffered pay cuts. In 2010, foreclosure claimed the home and their $100,000 down
      payment.

      The Jacobsons didn’t lose their desire to live in a single-family home, however. They now
      rent one, like many other former homeowners displaced by foreclosure.

Is that what we are supposed to tell future generations of Americans?
“Listen Johnny and Suzie, if you work really, really hard at your minimum wage jobs perhaps someday
you will be able to rent a home that has been foreclosed by a big, greedy bank”.
    • Adverti se ment
    •
It is so sad to watch what is happening to this country.
These days many Americans are scratching and clawing and doing everything that they can to make it,
but they still find themselves short on money at the end of the month.
Many are turning to debt in an attempt to bridge the gap. According to CNN, 40 percent of “low- and
middle-income households” are using credit cards to pay for basic living expenses.
Overall, U.S. consumers have more than 11 trillion dollars in debt right now.
That is an incredible number.
As the economy has declined, a lot of families have completely given up trying to make it on their own
and have turned to the U.S. government for financial help. Today, an astounding 49.1 percent of all
Americans live in a home where at least one person receives government benefits.
Just think about that number for a while. It is one of the clearest signs that America is in deep, deep
decline.
Unfortunately, things are about to get even worse. The next wave of the financial crisis is unfolding in
Europe and we will all be talking about another “major global recession” very soon.
That means that unemployment in the United States is going to get a lot worse.
For the millions upon millions of Americans that are already suffering through the horror of
unemployment, that is really bad news.
Posted below is a trailer for a new HBO documentary entitled “Hard Times: Lost on Long Island”.
Please take a few minutes to watch this video, because I think it does a good job of showing the soul
crushing despair that many unemployed Americans are going through right now….

Hard Times: Lost on Long Island - Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LkS2uEqaL5s
10 Signs That The Highways Of America
Are Being Transformed Into A High Tech
Prison Grid
Michael Snyder
The American Dream
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Once upon a time, the open highways of America were one of our greatest symbols of liberty and
freedom. Anyone could hop in a car and
set off for a new adventure at any time and
even our music encouraged us to “get our
kicks on route 66″. But today everything
has changed. Now the highways of
America are being steadily transformed
into a high tech prison grid. All over the
country, thousands upon thousands of
surveillance cameras watch our highways
and automated license plate readers are
actually being used to track vehicle
movements in some of our largest cities.
Many state and local governments have come to view our highways as money machines and our
control freak politicians have established a vast network of toll booths, red light cameras and speed
traps to keep cash endlessly pouring in. If all of that wasn’t enough, TSA “VIPR teams” are now
hitting the interstates and conducting thousands of “unannounced security screenings” each year.
Driving on the highways of America used to be a great joy, but now “Big Brother” is rapidly sucking
all of the fun out of it. Eventually, it may get to the point where Americans simply dread having to go
out on the highway.
The following are 10 signs that the highways of America are being transformed into a high tech prison
grid….
#1 Surveillance Cameras
All over the United States, a vast network of surveillance cameras is carefully watching our highways.
The following is an excerpt from a recent article in the Baltimore Sun about this phenomenon….
     The room is large and well lit, and it buzzes with activity even though its occupants remain
     seated.

     The video screen at the front of the room is as wide as an IMAX, though not quite as tall. It
     consists of 64 smaller screens – 16 columns of four apiece – that monitor every inch of
     interstate between Great Wolf Lodge and the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. There is an
     emphasis on tunnels and bridges, and one corner screen is tuned in to a 24-hour weather
     report.

     If you are driving on an highway in Hampton Roads, VDOT is watching you.
#2 Automated License Plate Readers
In a previous article, I detailed how automated license plate readers are being used to track the
movements of every single vehicle that enters
Washington D.C.
A recent Washington Post article explained that
most people do not even know that they are
there….
      More than 250 cameras in the District and
      its suburbs scan license plates in real time,
      helping police pinpoint stolen cars and
      fleeing killers. But the program quietly has
      expanded beyond what anyone had
      imagined even a few years ago.

      With virtually no public debate, police
      agencies have begun storing the
      information from the cameras, building
      databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.

      Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader
      per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs
      have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months,
      creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.

A lot of police cruisers are being outfitted with this technology around the nation as well.
So if you see a police car pull up behind you, there is a very good chance that a computer has already
read your license plate and is giving the officer all of your information.
#3 Ridiculous Regulations
Some of the new “auto safety laws” going in around the nation are absolutely absurd.
                                                         For example, do you buckle up your pet when
                                                         you go for a ride? Well, in New Jersey you can
                                                         now be fined up to $1000 for not having your
                                                         pet properly restrained while you are out
                                                         driving.
                                                         #4 Outrageous Fines
                                                         In many areas of the country, unpaid traffic
                                                         tickets can rapidly become a major financial
                                                         burden.
                                                         For example, the new tolls on the 520 floating
                                                         bridge in Seattle are absolutely killing some
                                                         commuters…..
      Registered vehicle owners who do not pay their toll within 80 days or more will be mailed a
      $40 civil penalty for each unpaid toll transaction in
      addition to a $5 reprocessing fee.

      WSDOT confirmed some tolls plus penalty fees have
      added up to more than $1,000.

#5 Oppressive Toll Roads
Toll roads have become one of the favorite “revenue raising
tools” for our politicians.
At this point the tolls on some roads have become so
incredibly oppressive that many people simply cannot afford
to drive on them anymore.
And for some reason the toll increases are coming especially
fast and furious this year.
A recent USA Today article summarized some of the oppressive toll increases that we are seeing all
over the nation….
      •California and Washington authorized high-occcupancy toll (HOT) lanes, where tolls rise
      or fall depending on traffic flow. Texas enacted laws authorizing private toll roads and
      allowing regional authorities to collect tolls. Indiana removed a provision requiring
      legislative approval for toll roads.

      •Some Maryland tolls will double this year as the state seeks money to rehabilitate aging
      roads, bridges and tunnels.

      The use of tolls on interstate highways also is spreading:

      •Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, just won approval from the Federal Highway
      Administration to add tolls on Interstate 95 in his state. The state estimates that tolls on the
      heavily traveled corridor could generate $250 million over the first five years for
      expanding, improving and maintaining the highway.

      •New York and New Jersey recently announced that E-ZPass commuters will pay $1.50
      more and cash customers $2 more to cross bridges and tunnels between the two states.

      •Georgia just created toll lanes on Interstate 85 in suburban Atlanta.

      The toll hikes are more than chump change: Cash tolls on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
      jumped to $4 from $2.50, and to $12 from $8 on all the New York-New Jersey Hudson
      River crossings.

Toll roads are one of my pet peeves. Any time I see a toll booth it immediately puts me in a bad mood.
#6 Red Light Cameras
Red light cameras are another favorite “revenue raising tool” for the control freaks that run things.
Unfortunately, these cameras don’t always work right so a lot of innocent people end up getting
ticketed.
But politicians love them because they can raise a lot
of cash. The following is from a recent Business
Insider article….
      According to U.S. PIRG (Public Interest
      Research Group), nearly 700 U.S. cities and
      towns installed the cameras, which accounted
      for more than 90 percent of tickets issued for
      illegal right turns, or rolling stops.

      In one New Jersey town, PIRG found 2,500
      tickets were issued at one intersection within the
      first two months of installing a camera.

#7 Speed Traps
In the old days, speed traps were mostly about making
the roads safer.
Today, they are mostly about raising money.
One police chief up in Michigan has even admitted that the nature of his job has fundamentally
changed….
      “When I first started in this job 30 years ago, police work was never about revenue
      enhancement, but if you’re a chief now, you have to look at whether your department
      produces revenues.”

Speed traps are becoming more common almost everywhere, but some areas of the country are worse
than others.
A recent report from the National Motorists Association ranked how likely you are to get a speeding
ticket in each of the 50 U.S. states….
      After crunching the numbers, the NMA found that Nevada is the state most likely to issue
      you a traffic ticket, followed by Georgia and Alabama. In 2010 Florida took the top spot
      and Georgia and Nevada tied for second place.

      The state where you’re least likely to get ticketed is Wyoming, followed closely by Montana.
      These two ranked at the bottom in 2010 as well.

#8 Government Spying
It has been revealed that the federal government has been secretly putting GPS tracking devices on
thousands of vehicles in order to track the movements of people that they are interested in watching.
Most of the time the people involved have not even been charged with any crimes.
The following is a short excerpt from a recent Wired magazine article about this phenomenon….
     The 25-year-old resident of San Jose,
     California, says he found the first one
     about three weeks ago on his Volvo SUV
     while visiting his mother in Modesto, about
     80 miles northeast of San Jose. After
     contacting Wired and allowing a
     photographer to snap pictures of the
     device, it was swapped out and replaced
     with a second tracking device. A witness
     also reported seeing a strange man looking
     beneath the vehicle of the young man’s
     girlfriend while her car was parked at
     work, suggesting that a tracking device
     may have been retrieved from her car.

     Then things got really weird when police
     showed up during a Wired interview with
     the man.

     The young man, who asked to be identified only as Greg, is one among an increasing
     number of U.S. citizens who are finding themselves tracked with the high-tech devices.

     The Justice Department has said that law enforcement agents employ GPS as a crime-
     fighting tool with“great frequency,” and GPS retailers have told Wired that they’ve
     sold thousands of the devices to the feds.

#9 Extraction Devices
If you get pulled over by police, you never know what to expect these days. Previously, I have written
about how law enforcement authorities in some parts of the U.S. are using “extraction devices” to
download data out of the cell phones of motorists that they pull over.
The following is how a recent article on CNET News described the capabilities of these “extraction
                                           devices”….
                                                   The devices, sold by a company called
                                                   Cellebrite, can download text messages,
                                                   photos, video, and even GPS data from most
                                                   brands of cell phones. The handheld machines
                                                   have various interfaces to work with different
                                                   models and can even bypass security
                                                   passwords and access some information.

                                            #10 VIPR Teams
                                            If all of the above was not bad enough, now we have to
                                            deal with TSA “VIPR teams” terrorizing us on the
                                            highways.
If you regularly travel across the country, there is a
good chance that you have already encountered one of
their “unannounced security screenings”.
The following is from a local news report down in
Tennessee about how local authorities are working
with VIPR teams to fight “terrorism” on the
interstates….
     You’re probably used to seeing TSA’s signature
     blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are
     hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with
     Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response
     (VIPR).

     “Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not
     these days on an airplane more likely on the
     interstate,” said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill
     Gibbons.

     Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two
     bus stations across the state.

TSA VIPR teams now conduct approximately 8,000 “unannounced security screenings” at subway
stations, bus terminals, seaports and highway rest stops each year.
Are you starting to see what I am talking about?
All of this “security” is becoming extremely oppressive.
We don’t need “Big Brother” constantly watching us, tracking us and fining us on our highways.
So do you have any examples of how the highways of America are being transformed into a high tech
prison grid to add to the list above?




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