SGM Metals: Call Guiness! More Americans on Govt. Welfare Than Ever In US History!

Aug. 21, 2012 - PRLog -- theamericandream.com reports: [ There are more Americans dependent on the federal government than ever before in U.S. history. Keep in mind that the chart posted above does not even take into account the huge numbers of Americans that are on Social Security and Medicare.

According to the U.S. Census, well over 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.  Many are enrolled in more than one.  That is about 1/3 of the entire population of the country.  Sadly, that figure does not even include Social Security or Medicare.  Today the federal govt runs almost 80 different “means-tested welfare programs”, & almost all of those programs have experienced substantial growth in recent years.  Yes, we will always need a “safety net” for those that cannot take care of themselves, but it is absolutely ridiculous that the federal govt is financially supporting 1/3 of all Americans. At the rate we are going, it will not be too long before 1/2 the nation is on welfare.  Unfortunately, we will likely never get to that point because the gigantic debt that we are currently running up will probably destroy our financial system before that ever happens.

It is really hard to believe how rapidly some of these federal welfare programs have grown. For example, the number of Americans on food stamps has grown from about 17 million in 2000 to 31.9 million when Barack Obama took office to 46.4 million today. The federal govt spent a staggering 71.8 billion dollars on the food stamp program in 2011.

Medicaid is also growing like crazy. The number of Americans on Medicaid grew from 34 million in 2000 to 54 million in 2011. Once upon a time, Medicaid was supposed to help the poorest of the poor get medical care.  In fact, back in 1965 only about one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. But now about one-sixth of the entire country is on Medicaid. It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls. And we all know that projections like that are usually way too low.

Other welfare programs are exploding in size as well. For example, federal housing assistance increased by a whopping 42% between 2006 and 2010. In the US today, more than 61 million Americans receive some form of SS benefits. That means that nearly one out of every five Americans is drawing on Social Security.

And in the years ahead we are going to see wave after wave of Baby Boomers retire & so the number of Americans drawing on Social Security is just going to keep going up. The same kind of thing is happening with Medicare. As I wrote about the other day, it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

Americans have become totally addicted to govt money, & word has gotten out to other nations that the US is a place where you can live the high life at the expense of the govt. According to a report from the Center for Immigration Studies, 43% of all immigrants that have been in the US for at least 20 years are still on welfare. Keep in mind that the study only looked at immigrants that have been in the country for at least two decades. ]

How can we be in a recovery since June of 2009 if we are increasing the number of Americans who are dependent upon govt. to feed their families or pay their light bill? How can this be a recovery if the banks have been quietly tasked by the govt. to prepare a collapse blueprint so that regulators can walk in & begin to dismantle these banks in an orderly fashion to limit the collateral damage that could bring down other banks? How is this a recovery if we are witnessing federal judges, who are just now hearing cases of grand theft dating back to the Sentinel collapse in 2007, determine & establish a legal precedent that banks are not in the wrong for stealing the segregated funds out of private accounts under their management in order to attempt to stabilize their financial institution & fail, wiping out the institution & the private citizen in the process? How will we be able to have an honest investment market if the judicial system as well as the government takes the side of the banks who have created this mess to begin with and not the citizens of the land?

US citizens have no way of keeping up with the rate of inflation that we have experienced for the last 4 decades since the ‘gold window’ was closed in 1971 unless they successfully invest in something that will multiply their net worth to offset the ever increasing cost of maintaining the standard of living they have experienced. So we have a nation of citizens who are held hostage by the inflationary policies of our govt. & their personal banker, the federal reserve who is all too willing to lend never ending sums of money to a group of politicians who think they can borrow & spend without consequence. You really can’t blame them as they have watched the ‘debt ceiling’ which is in place to force fiscal responsibility upon the political class simply get moved every time they hit it. So how will those who impact our nations future as heavily as the political elite do ever be held accountable or expected to be accountable if they are always changing the rules to accommodate their reckless spending habits? THEY WON’T!!!

Now that federal rulings have deemed the health of our nations captors more important than our own as citizens, what will you do to limit your exposure to the collateral damage zone? The normalcy bias keeps us from seeing the true threat at our door as the mind inherently wants to make a frightening situation not so threatening in order to cope with it. But this doesn’t make the threat any less threatening or the situation any less dangerous no matter how many times you convince yourself the glass is half full. It is time we accept the danger of this very serious economic crisis & accept that there will be a period towards the end of the year where the debt ceiling will be hit again. This time, I’m predicting, it will be handled very differently since we will be on the other side of the presidential election & will be able to talk in real terms instead of the hopey changey re-election speak we have all been brainwashed with up to this point. I fear that there will be conversations about the need to forcibly lower the standard of living in America with austerity style cuts to accommodate the dire debt problem that has been forced upon us during the periods of the '”recovery” when flooding the banks with endless bailouts was of the highest priority. Now it is time to pay the piper & the citizens of the land will be those tasked with covering the bill that was racked up while members of Congress enriched themselves & the govt. welfare recipient list has grown out of control. This is when the panic will finally hit the nation & the precious metals demand will skyrocket in real terms as the physical inventories have been severely depleted during the past 3 years by those were wise enough to listen to their gut & established an inflation hedge in gold & silver bullion.

Banks are legally able to confiscate your life savings, & lose it without legal recourse, in efforts to stave off collapse now. Unemployment is annoyingly high now that we have realized 2/3 of our manufacturing capacity has been offshored over the past 2 decades. Govt. welfare recipients have multiplied beyond our wildest dreams & somebody has to pay for this. The federal reserve has arbitrarily decided banks can seize your money market accounts to use for their liquidity deficiencies & they have been drafting hail Mary emergency plans to offer a collapse plan. When will you accept the need for a contingency plan for yourself? There has never been a better time to establish your “Plan B” in physical gold & silver bullion that today. Remember it is a far better strategy to PREPARE your portfolio than to attempt to REPAIR your portfolio once the damage begins. Tick, tock.