SGM Metals: US Recovery Has 47.7 Million Now Living in Poverty, Resolutions for 2013?

Jan. 2, 2013 - PRLog -- Zerohedge.com reports: [ And we thought last month’s delayed foodstamp data was bad. The just reported foodstamp number for September was a doozy, w/ 607,544 new Americans becoming eligible for foodstamps, as a record 47.7 million Americans are now living in poverty at least according to the USDA. The monthly increase was the highest since May 2011, & with August’s 421K new impoverished America, over 1 million Americans made the EBT card their new best friend. It is unclear just which atmospheric phenomenon will get the blame for this unprecedented surge in poverty, which comes at a time when the pre-election economic data euphoria was adamant that the US economy was on an escape velocity to utopia. Instead what we do know is that in August & September, over three times as many foodstamp recipients were add to the economy as jobs (324,000). We also know that with the imminent impact of Sandy, which will send foodstamp recipients soaring, it is now looking quite possible that the US may end 2012 with just over a mindboggling 50 million Americans living in absolute poverty & collecting the $134.29 average monthly benefit per person, instead of working. Welcome to the recovery indeed.

Individual Americans on foodstamps:

Foodstamps Soar By Most In 16 Months: Over 1 Million Americans Enter Poverty In Last Two Months

Foodstamps at the household level rose to a record 24 million:

Foodstamps Soar By Most In 16 Months: Over 1 Million Americans Enter Poverty In Last Two Months

Aggregating foodstamp, disability & nonfarm payrolls data shows that since the start of the Depression in December 2007, 21.8 million Americans have shifted more or less permanently to the entitlement line, even as the US still has to generate 4.4 million jobs just to break even. ]

Foodstamps Soar By Most In 16 Months: Over 1 Million Americans Enter Poverty In Last Two Months Cumulative%20SNAP%20and%20Jobs 1

Here comes your Christmas present . . . .

THERE IS NO RECOVERY IN AMERICA & WE ARE QUIETLY BEING SENT DOWN THE EUROPEAN STYLE AUSTERITY PATH BUT ITS BEING DONE W/ A DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS APPROACH AS NOT TO RUFFLE ANY FEATHERS OR SPOOK THE HERD OF SHEEP BEFORE THEY GET LED INTO THE SLAUGHTER HOUSE.

Its finally time we take the gloves off & get serious if there is any hope whatsoever of saving this great experiment in self governance & democracy. Get off your arse & turn the boob tube off so you can walk outside & take a look at the real world around you that is crumbling as we speak. I can’t help but believe the reason for the lack of visceral reaction by red blooded Americans is nothing more than the fact that the media who is complicate in sugar coating the crisis in conjunction with modern technology that is keeping our innate “fight or flight” mechanism from triggering a response. This is what I feel is at the heart of not getting the people up in arms about our slide into a modern mash up of socialism for the lower classes sprinkled with corporatism/corporate fascism at the top for the mega corporations who have merged with govt as we go into an all encompassing lowering of the standard of living in the US. The modern technology I speak of is the “digital soup line” that currently has just over 50 million dependent upon the govt. redistribution of tax dollars to feed them. You see, I have to believe that if on the way to work you passed 5 churches in your town & outside you saw 1,000 men, women & children shivering as they waiting for a charitable meal you would feel very differently about the supposed recovery that hasn’t done anything but has showered those aligned with govt. with some $49 TRILLION in bailout dollars that will be the excuse for the raising of taxes to repay the banks who created the crisis as our economy is choked to death. Since these folks in need of the charitable meals are interspersed amongst us at the grocery stores & funding their meals with electronic welfare cards they are camouflaged amongst us & we are not alerted to the dire scenario. This is why I believe the nation is so humdrum about the crisis & this will permit those driving the economy to take us right to the edge of the cliff without resistance from anyone & then announce that it is far worse than realized & now we have no choice but to take on European austerity or surely go over the cliff. And the nation will be convinced by the media that “the greatest minds in economics gave it their all, but it just wasn’t enough to save the economy & we must do the unthinkable for now in order to rebalance the excessive lifestyle that we maintained for far too long in the US thanks to our insatiable hunger for free credit & cheap slave goods”.

Obama’s entire first term as president was dedicated to the passage of “Obamacare” & the fruits of his tireless labor are about to be bestowed upon the nation in the new year. I’m afraid the Q/1 will produce layoffs by companies ranging from small to medium & all the way up to mega corporations in order to shield themselves from burdensome expense of the new Obamacare mandates. Imagine for a moment what this will do to corporate earnings & stock performance in general when this culling of full time employees begins in massive waves as these corporations rush to protect their profit potential from this new behemoth expense. What do you think will happen to corporate earnings & general stock market performance in the new year when we begin to see hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of layoffs as business owners are forced to make the tough calls? What do you think will happen to investor confidence? Maybe that’s why the commercial banks have the highest level of commercial shorts on the S&P 500 going into the end of the year huh? We may end up being a nation of part time employees that will be forced to hold 2 to 3 part time jobs in order to earn the same annual income & now handle the increased cost of health care which has risen by some 40% since the passage of the ironically titled ‘affordable health care act’ & is projected to rise another 30% going into the next year. Since everyone will be forced to work multiple jobs to earn the same dollar amount then I can already envision the media reporting the ‘labor market starting to gain speed as hiring accelerates’ since business will now require 2.5 people to do the same job that one did before.

Have you ever felt so insecure in both your personal future & the economies future?  Have you ever laid in bed at night unable to sleep for fear of what the future holds as you have in the past year? Establish your ‘Plan B’ in physical gold & silver bullion now & begin to hedge yourself in case this brilliant configuration of policies doesn’t pan out for the nation & begin to sleep better at night as you take control of your economic future like never before. In the new year I expect that the FED will lose control of their manipulation of the inflation rate & it will rush in & deliver a hell of a wallop as the dollar falls in purchasing power. Those holding precious metals will be the ones who handle this the best as their assets will rise in value as a result & they will be able to offset the reduction in buying power as their metals compensates the differential for them. Pretty simple right? The current recession will move into depression territory officially if things don’t change quickly. Our current currency war between the federal reserve & China stands a good chance of shifting into a trade war that has a high probability of heavily affecting the availability of goods in our nation since we gave them all of our factories years ago. Our current rate of inflation could very well morph into a hyperinflationary crisis if the FED game of three card debt shuffle monte begins to slip out of their control & this will crush our economy unlike anything we have seen to date. Remember that it is a far better strategy to PREPARE your portfolio than to attempt to REPAIR it once the damage begins. TICK, TOCK!