36 Tough Questions About The U.S. Economy That Everyone Should Be Asking -

36 Tough Questions About The U.S. Economy That Everyone Should Be Asking - 



If the economy is improving, then why aren't things getting better for most average Americans?  They tell us that the unemployment rate is going down, but the percentage of Americans that are actually working is exactly the same it was three years ago.  They tell us that American families are in better financial shape now, but real disposable income is falling rapidly.  They tell us that inflation is low, but every time we go shopping at the grocery store the prices just seem to keep going up.  They tell us that the economic crisis is over, and yet poverty and government dependence continue to explode to unprecedented heights.  There seems to be a disconnect between what the government and the media are telling us and what is actually true.  With each passing day the debt of the federal government grows larger, the financial world become even more unstable and more American families fall out of the middle class.  The same long-term economic trends that have been eating away at our economy like cancer for decades continue to ruthlessly attack the foundations of our economic system.  We are rapidly speeding toward an economic cataclysm, and yet the government and most of the media make it sound like happy days are here again.  The American people deserve better than this.  The American people deserve the truth.  The following are 36 hard questions about the U.S. economy that the mainstream media should be asking...

#1 If the percentage of working age Americans that have a job is exactly the same as it was three years ago, then why is the government telling us that the "unemployment rate" has gone down significantly during that time?

#2 Why are some U.S. companies allowed to exploit disabled workers by paying them as little as 22 cents an hour?

#3 Why are some private prisons allowed to pay their prisoners just a dollar a day to do jobs that other Americans could be doing?

#4 Why is real disposable income in the United States falling at the fastest rate that we have seen since 2008?

#5 Why do 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year?

#6 Why are wages as a percentage of GDP at an all-time low?

#7 Why are 76 percent of all Americans living paycheck to paycheck?

#8 Why are so many large corporations issuing negative earnings guidance for this quarter?  Does this indicate that the economy is about to experience a significant downturn?

#9 Why is job growth at small businesses at about half the level it was at when the year started?

#10 Why are central banks selling off record amounts of U.S. debt right now?

#11 Why did U.S. mortgage bonds just suffer their biggest quarterly decline in nearly 20 years?

#12 Why did we just witness the largest weekly increase in mortgage rates in 26 years?

#13 Why has the number of mortgage applications fallen by 29 percent over the last eight weeks?

#14 Why has the number of mortgage applications fallen to the lowest level in 19 months?

#15 If the U.S. economy is recovering, why is the mortgage delinquency rate in the United States still nearly 10 percent?

#16 Why did the student loan delinquency rate in the United States just hit a brand new all-time high?

#17 Why is the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars of municipal bonds being postponed?

#18 What are the central banks of the world going to do when the 441 trillion dollar interest rate derivatives bubble starts to burst?

#19 Why is Barack Obama secretly negotiating a new international free trade agreement that will impose very strict Internet copyright rules on all of us, ban all "Buy American" laws, give Wall Street banks much more freedom to trade risky derivatives and force even more domestic manufacturing offshore?

#20 Why don't our politicians seem to care that the United States has run a trade deficit of more than 8 trillion dollars with the rest of the world since 1975?

#21 Why doesn't the mainstream media talk about how rapidly the U.S. economy is declining relative to the rest of the planet?  According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percent of all global economic activity in 2001.  That number dropped to 21.6 percent in 2011.

#22 Why is the percentage of self-employed Americans at a record low?

#23 What are we going to do if dust bowl conditions continue to return to the western half of the United States?  If the drought continues to get even worse, what will that do to our agriculture?

#24 Why is the IRS spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on kazoos, stove top hats, bathtub toy boats and plush animals?

#25 Why did the NIH spend $253,800 "to study ways to educate Boston’s male prostitutes on safe-sex practices"?

#26 Why do some of the largest charities in America spend less than 5 percent of the money that they bring in on actual charitable work?

#27 Now that EU finance ministers have approved a plan that will allow Cyprus-style wealth confiscation as part of all future bank bailouts in Europe, is it only a matter of time before we see something similar in the United States?

#28 Why does approximately one out of every three children in the United States live in a home without a father?

#29 Why are more than a million public school students in the United States homeless?

#30 Why are so many cities all over the United States passing laws that make it illegal to feed the homeless?

#31 Why is government dependence in the U.S. at an all-time high if the economy is getting better?  Back in 1960, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages was approximately 10 percent.  In the year 2000, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages was approximately 21 percent.  Today, the ratio of social welfare benefits to salaries and wages is approximately 35 percent.

#32 Why does the number of Americans on food stamps exceed the entire population of the nation of Spain?

#33 The number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 32 million to 47 million while Barack Obama has been occupying the White House.  So why is Obama paying recruiters to go out and get even more Americans to join the program?

#34 Today, there are 56 million Americans collecting Social Security benefits.  In 2035, there will be 91 million Americans collecting Social Security benefits.  Where in the world will we get the money for that?

#35 Why has the value of the U.S. dollar fallen by over 95 percent since the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913?

#36 Why has the size of the U.S. national debt gotten more than 5000 times larger since the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913?

Read more - 

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/36-hard-questions-about-the-u-s-economy-that-the-mainstream-media-should-be-asking

UK government bans GMOs from its own Parliament restaurants while telling public to embrace genetic poisons -

UK government bans GMOs from its own Parliament restaurants while telling public to embrace genetic poisons - 



Since the mid-to-late 1990s when genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) were first being thrust onto the market by governments working in lockstep with the biotechnology industry, the U.K. Parliament has effectively barred their use in all food items served to government officials at Parliament restaurants, according to new reports. This, despite the fact that prominent elected officials in the U.K. are right now pushing GMOs on a public that is largely opposed to them, effectively shining the spotlight on their own insane hypocrisy with regards to the GMO issue.

As recently reported by the U.K.’s Daily Mail, news of the Parliament’s ban on GMOs at its own restaurants comes amid the procurement of a massive pro-GMO propaganda campaign being led by this very same Parliament against the interests of its own people. Biotech industry hacks like Conservative Secretary of State for the Environment Owen Paterson, for instance, who actually claims GMOs are safer than non-GMOs, is currently pushing for more GMO acceptance in his country even though he does not eat GMOs himself.

Paterson, who regularly dines on only the highest quality non-GMO fare at fancy Parliament restaurants like the Portcullis House and the Pavilion buffet, is quoted as blaming starvation in third world countries on widespread rejection of GMOs in the U.K. and elsewhere. Resistance to GM “Golden Rice,” for instance, is apparently the reason why millions of children have gone blind or died, according to Paterson, whose vehement advocacy of GMOs borders on maniacal.

“Over the last 15 years, despite offering the seeds for free to those who would need them, every attempt to deploy this Golden Rice has been thwarted,” exclaimed Paterson in a recent nonsensical statement. Completely untrue in every sense, as Golden Rice has never been approved anywhere, nor has it ever been offered for free to any country, Paterson’s fantasy views reflect the same lunatic sentiments as those held by many others in the Parliament, who themselves have opposed GMOs from the very beginning.

Sanctimonious government officials order the people to do as they say, not as they do

In essence, the common folk are basically expected to openly embrace untested GMOs while their overlords in government gorge on all-natural foods that have not been shown to cause cancerous tumors, digestive destruction, and other major health problems. This is further evidenced by a recent statement put forth by the company that prepares and serves food for the Parliament, which admits that Parliament members do not personally want to ingest GMOs.

“In line with its procurement policy, the House of Commons Catering Service avoids, wherever identifiable, the procurement of foods that contain genetically modified organisms,” reads a statement by the U.K. Parliament’s food supplier. “To this end, as part of the tendering process, food suppliers are required to work to a strict GM organisms policy and give assurances that goods supplied be free from genetically modified materials,” adds the group, noting that “customer choice” is responsible for keeping GMOs out of Parliament cafeterias.

In other words, GMOs are unacceptable for the self-appointed elite in the highest ranks of the government, who have decided to personally reject them in favor of real food. But for everyone else, GMOs are needed to end world hunger, save the planet, and return the global ecosystem to some type of Garden of Eden where nobody goes hungry and everybody lives forever, or something along these farcical lines.

“GM crops are not the solution to the food challenges we face,” says Clare Oxborrow from Friends of the Earth, countering the blatant dissimulation being propagated by corrupt individuals like Paterson. “They are largely being developed to benefit multinational biotech firms that are gaining control of the seed industry, not to feed poor people in developing countries. World food production needs a radical overhaul, but this should be based on less intensive practices that increase agricultural diversity, deliver resilience to the impacts of climate change and benefit local communities.”

Read more -

http://www.naturalnews.com/041003_UK_Parliament_GMO_food_hypocrisy.html

Bert and Ernie come out in the NEW YORKER... -

Bert and Ernie come out in the NEW YORKER... - 



No, not even Muppets are spared in our culture war. Below is the cover of the new issue of The New Yorker.

“It’s amazing to witness how attitudes on gay rights have evolved in my lifetime,” said Jack Hunter, the artist behind the cover.  “This is great for our kids, a moment we can all celebrate.”

Then again, in response to an 2011 online petition calling for Bert and Ernie to tie the knot, the Sesame Workshop’s Facebook page offered this statement:

“Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics…they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”

Platonic Muppets. Something to ponder.

Read more -
http://www.humanevents.com/2013/06/28/bert-and-ernie-come-out-in-new-yorker/

Scientists in Japan have cloned a mouse from a single drop of blood -

Scientists in Japan have cloned a mouse from a single drop of blood - 



Scientists in Japan have cloned a mouse from a single drop of blood.

Circulating blood cells collected from the tail of a donor mouse were used to produce the clone, a team at the Riken BioResource Center reports in the journal Biology of Reproduction.

The female mouse lived a normal lifespan and could give birth to young, say the researchers.

Scientists at a linked institute recently created nearly 600 exact genetic copies of one mouse.

Mice have been cloned from several different sources of donor cells, including white blood cells found in the lymph nodes, bone marrow and liver. (QNA)

Read more -

http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upi20130628-112007-9855

Man accidentally paints himself, his dog and his SUV Beige -

Man accidentally paints himself, his dog and his SUV Beige - 



A man accidentally repainted the interior of his SUV beige during a single-vehicle accident in Washington State earlier this week.

Jalopnik reports that the man was driving with his dog and several 5-gallon buckets of paint southwest of Belfair on Tuesday afternoon when he somehow lost control of the vehicle and veered off the road.

The buckets of paint were sent hurtling through the air during the incident, and exploded all over the man, his dog and the inside of the truck.

The man, although shaken up and thoroughly soaked with latex paint, had only minor injuries. He was taken to an area hospital as a precaution.

His paint-soaked dog, meanwhile, was attended to by a Washington state police trooper and a firefighter, who recruited a nearby resident to hose off the dog with some shampoo.

The dog was then taken to an area animal shelter until the owner was able to come and pick him up.

No word on how or if the interior of the SUV will be salvaged (but at least it was a nice, neutral colour).

Read more - 

Researchers Use Video Game Software to Steer Cockroaches - could one day be used as search-and-rescue animals -

Researchers Use Video Game Software to Steer Cockroaches - could one day be used as search-and-rescue animals - 



Using video game technology, researchers have figured out how to put the roaches on autopilot, directing them along a pre-designed path. They hope that one day, the technology could be used to send the bugs into areas that are unsafe for humans to enter, such as collapsed buildings or other disaster areas.

[VIDEO: 'Cheetah Cub' Robot Runs Like a House Cat]

And by fitting the roaches with microphones and speakers, rescuers could detect the voices of individuals trapped in buildings, researchers said.

"We may even be able to attach small speakers, which would allow rescuers to communicate with anyone who is trapped," said co-author Alper Bozkurt, in a statement.

The team of researchers had previously developed technology that allowed users to steer the roaches remotely, but ran into problems because the people operating the controls made mistakes while piloting the insects.

"We used joysticks, like the kind you fly remote airplanes with," Bozkurt told ABC News. "But some of our insects didn't respond well to our commands."

This new step in their research allows the team to create pre-planned paths for the insects to follow.

The researchers used Microsoft's motion-sensing Kinect system to plug in a plotted path for the roach and track its progress. The controls are harnessed to the roaches' bodies, connecting to their antennae and sensory appendages. The researchers use the wires attached to the sensory appendages, or cerci, to spur the roach into motion, while wires attached to the antennae send small electrical impulses that steer the roach in a certain direction, according to the report.

[READ: XBox One Unveiled]

"We want to build on this program, incorporating mapping and radio frequency techniques that will allow us to use a small group of cockroaches to explore and map disaster sites," Bozkurt said in the statement. "The autopilot program would control the roaches, sending them on the most efficient routes to provide rescuers with a comprehensive view of the situation."

In their experiments, Bozkurt either physically or digitally sketches a path for the roaches, ABC News reported. The Kinect system detects where the cockroach is relative to the path, and can send a signal that is transmitted to a circuit on the roach's back if it veers off track.

Bozkurt also said that the Kinect software brings other advantages, like being able to control the roaches in the dark, according to Slate.

Although the Kinect would not be able to see through rubble and debris in a collapsed building, Bozkurt told ABC News that a colleague of his is creating a different way to visualize the environment, using radio waves to locate the cockroaches.

Read more - 

http://www.usnews.com/news/newsgram/articles/2013/06/27/researchers-use-video-game-software-to-steer-cockroaches

UK may approve creating babies with DNA from 3 people... -

UK may approve creating babies with DNA from 3 people... - 



Britain may allow a controversial technique to create babies using DNA from three people, a move that would help couples avoid passing on rare genetic diseases, the country's top medical officer says.

The new techniques help women with faulty mitochondria, the energy source in a cell, from passing on to their babies defects that can result in such diseases as muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, heart problems and mental retardation. About one in 200 children is born every year in Britain with a mitochondrial disorder.

For a woman with faulty mitochondria, scientists take only the healthy genetic material from her egg or embryo. They then transfer that into a donor egg or embryo that still has its healthy mitochondria but has had the rest of its key DNA removed. The fertilized embryo is then transferred into the womb of the mother.

Some groups oppose artificial reproduction techniques and believe the destruction of eggs or embryos to be immoral. British tabloids jumped on the procedure when it was first announced in 2008 and labeled it the creation of a three-parent baby -- the mother, the donor and the father -- a charge scientists claim is inaccurate because the amount of DNA from the donor egg is insignificant.

"Scientists have developed ground-breaking new procedures which could stop these diseases being passed on," Britain's chief medical officer, Dr. Sally Davies, said in a statement on Friday. "It's only right that we look to introduce this life-saving treatment as soon as we can."

Similar research is going on in the U.S., where the embryos are not being used to produce children.

Earlier this year, the U.K.'s fertility regulator said it found most people supported the new in vitro fertilization methods after a public consultation that included hearings and written submissions. Critics have previously slammed the methods as unethical and say there are other ways for people with genetic problems to have healthy children, like egg donation or tests to screen out potentially problematic embryos.

In a response to the public consultation, the charity Christian Medical Fellowship said the techniques were unethical. "We do not consider that the hunt for `therapies' that might prevent a small number of disabled children (with mitochondrial disease) being born justifies the destruction of hundreds if not thousands of embryonic human lives," the group said. It also said there were lingering concerns about the safety of the techniques.

British law forbids altering a human egg or an embryo before transferring it into a woman, so such treatments are currently only allowed for research. The government says it plans to publish draft guidelines later this year before introducing a final version to be debated in the U.K. Parliament next year. Politicians would need to approve the use of the new techniques before patients could be treated.

If British lawmakers agree, the U.K. would become the first country in the world where the technique could be used to create babies. Experts say the procedures would likely only be used in about a dozen women every year.

"Many of these (mitochondrial) conditions are so severe that they are lethal in infancy, creating a lasting impact upon the child's family," said Alistair Kent, director of the charity, Genetic Alliance U.K., in a statement. "An added option for families at risk of having a child with such a condition is welcome."



Read more: - 

http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/22710662/uk-may-approve-creating-babies-with-dna-from-3-people#axzz2XWbSXhyE

7 million college students will see their borrowing costs double next week - to 6.8 percent up from 3.4 percent -

7 million college students will see their borrowing costs double next week - to 6.8 percent up from 3.4 percent - 




Some 7 million college students will see their borrowing costs double next week after Republicans and Democrats paid little attention to the issue for 11 months, then spent the past month vainly squabbling over a solution.

Senate Democrats on Thursday rallied against a potential bipartisan compromise ahead of Monday’s deadline. Republicans ruled out a temporary one-year delay. The White House played both sides in the hopes of avoiding blame for the interest rate hike.

“Students across this country would rather have no deal than a bad deal,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

If the political stalemate holds, during the upcoming school year more than 7 million undergraduates from lower- and middle-income households will take out subsidized Stafford loans that will carry interest rates of 6.8 percent, rather than 3.4 percent. Though the federal government pays the interest while borrowers remain enrolled in school, the increase will lead to an extra $1,000 owed over the typical 10- to 12-year life of the average borrower's loan.

Read more -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/senate-student-loan_n_3513073.html

'Happy Endings' Now Legal In China -

'Happy Endings' Now Legal In China - 



A recent ruling by a court in Guangdong province is sure to be welcome news for Chinese men looking for a little something extra with their massages.

Last year, the Intermediate People's Court in the city of Foshan ruled that performing masturbation on another person in exchange for money is not illegal and those who perform such acts should not face prosecution, according to a Nandu Daily report translated by the Global Times.

Prostitution is still illegal in China, as it has been since it was banned by the Communist Party in 1949. However, the Foshan court ruled that manual masturbation and "breast massage," in which a woman massages a man with her breasts, are not sex acts, and therefore do not constitute prostitution, Nandu Daily notes.

The case arose in July 2011 when four men were busted for running a massage parlor in Guangdong province that offered “happy endings” and “other erotic massage services” to customers, according to the South China Morning Post. The men were convicted of “organizing prostitution” and spanked with five-year sentences by the Foshan Court of First Instance.

Hoping to beat the charge, the men appealed their convictions to the Intermediate People's Court, where they were found “not criminally responsible” due to “unclear facts and improper application of the law” and granted a quick release.

Masturbation, which is referred to colloquially in Chinese as "hitting the airplane," "playing with little brother," and "visiting Miss Five," has long been an offering at some massage parlors in China. A 1999 Xinhua report found that one in five Chinese massage parlors were involved in prostitution, the Associated Press notes.

In Guangdong, locals were nonplussed by the new ruling on happy endings. "Girls come up to you and ask if you need it," Zhang Qian, a resident in Shenzhen, told the Global Times. "Of course, it should not be counted as prostitution because there is no actual sex involved."


The ruling did rub some people in China the wrong way. According to the Global Times, Beijing police released a statement Thursday clarifying that massage parlors providing happy endings in the capital city would still be prosecuted based on a 2001 decree that oral sex and masturbation count as prostitution.

Read more - 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/china-happy-endings-legal_n_3512037.html

Porn app "Tits & Glass" returns to Google Glass -- without the porn -

Porn app "Tits & Glass" returns to Google Glass -- without the porn - 



The world's first Google Glass pornographers are back.
Seattle company MiKandi released the first pornographic app for Google Glass at the beginning of the month -- and Google promptly changed its policies to outlaw adult content. On Thursday the company relaunched its pornographic app, but this time in a safe-for-work version that skips the nudity.
"The biggest change to the Tits & Glass adult app is that Glass users are no longer allowed to share intimate racy experiences with other Glass users. We’ve added a feature to filter out pornographic material from appearing on the Glass app," explained the company in a blog post.
MiKandi CEO Jesse Adams told FoxNews.com in early June that changes were needed in order to work around Google's ban.
“Although the app is still live and people are using it, at this point we must make changes to the app in order to comply with the new policies,” Adams said at the time.
The app was meant to share racy content directly with others and browse through adult content using Glass, a wearable computer that developers are currently poking and prodding. MiKandi's vision was to send alerts about new content directly to a user’s Glass, just like a news app would. But these headlines raised eyebrows and alarm at Google HQ.
Google defended the ban at the time, stating that the official policy makes explicit content against the rules.
“Our policies make it clear that Glass does not allow Glassware content that contains nudity, graphic sexual acts, or sexually explicit material. Any Glassware that violates this policy will be blocked from appearing on Glass,” a Google spokesman told FoxNews.com.
But that policy wasn’t in place when MiKandi began developing the app, Adams wrote.
“When we received our Glass and started developing our app two weeks ago, we went through the policy very carefully to make sure we were developing the app within the terms. We double checked again last week when making the site live on the Internet and available for install for testing during last week’s announcement.”
Although the new app doesn't beam nude photos directly to your device, MiKandi said users would still be able to share their own original photos onto the company's site.
"And because we don’t want you to get totally bored with your now-kinda-boring device, we partnered with top photographers around the globe to preload the app with irresistibly hot, *non-pornographic* photos of some of the world’s most beautiful models."


Read more: - 

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/06/27/porn-app-returns-to-google-glass-without-porn/?intcmp=trending