Before I list the 20 facts, out of 70, that bug me the most, let me ask you a question: are you paying attention to what’s happening in our country? Are you??
I work with a gal who openly, and quite proudly, tells people that she’s not registered to vote, nor does she have any intention of registering to vote. This attitude just boggles my mind. I don’t understand people who prefer to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to something as important as government intrusion into our lives. I mean, I get that politics is an ugly and annoying part of our lives, but it’s also a necessary part of our lives and if we don’t take an active role in it, then who knows what our country will look like in twenty years.
And if, twenty years from now, our country is more socialist than republic then who do we have to blame for it?
The apathetic people. The people who aren’t registered, nor have any interest, in registering to vote their voice. Stop being lazy. Stop being a wuss. Stand up for what you believe in. And if people get upset by it? Tough. Grow a freaking backbone. It’s impossible to please everyone so stop trying. Vote your conscience and you know you’ve done all you can do from your end.
Anyway.
1. It is hard to believe, but today the poverty rate for children living in the United States is a whopping 22 percent.
The poverty rate for children under age 18 increased to 22% in 2010, meaning more than 1 in 5 children in America are living in poverty. Meanwhile, the poverty rate for adults ages 18 to 64 rose to 13.7%.
For people 65 and older, the poverty rate was barely changed at 9%.
Following the recession, fewer young adults are moving out of their parents’ homes. Last year, 5.9 million young adults age 25 to 34 still lived with their folks, compared with 4.7 million before the recession
2. Back in 2007, about 10 percent of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for 52 weeks or longer. Today, that number is above 30 percent.
Dude. Think about that for a moment. Wow.
3. Today, an astounding 49.1 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives benefits from the government.
4. Americans buy 80 percent of the pain pills sold on the entire globe each year.
Wow. And that’s sad.
5. Credit card debt among Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket has risen by 81 percent since 1989.
6. Each year, the average American must work 107 days just to make enough money to pay local, state and federal taxes.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not crazy about working TEN days without pay – let alone 107 days. That’s insane.
7. When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today an ounce of gold costs more than $1580 an ounce.
8. Consumer debt in America has risen by a whopping 1700% since 1971.
9. It is being projected that the Chinese economy will be larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2016.
10. The average American household spent a staggering $4,155 on gasoline during 2011.
11. The Obama administration spent $175,587 to find out if cocaine causes Japanese quail to engage in sexually risky behavior.
12. Over the next 75 years, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars. That comes to $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.
13. If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to totally pay it off.
At least we would be doing something to pay it off – that’s more than I can say now since we have a Democratic Senate too chicken sh*t to pass a budget.
What a bunch of whacks.
14. Family farms are being systematically wiped out of existence in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about 6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2 million today.
15. In 2010, 2.6 million more Americans fell into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.
16. This is the number of Americans currently on food stamps: 46,405,204. When Barack Obama first entered the White House there were only 32 million Americans on food stamps.
17. In the U.S., medical costs related to obesity are estimated to be approximately 147 billion dollars a year.
18. Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5 billion. That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the planet.
19. China now holds approximately 1.17 trillion dollars of U.S. government debt. Yet the U.S. government continues to send them millions of dollars in foreign aid every year.
20. Today, the 9 largest banks in the United States have a total of more than 200 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives. When the derivatives market completely collapses there won’t be enough money in the entire world to fix it.
Yep. Let’s re-elect this socialist so that we can continue our downward spiral – makes sense to me!!
WAKE UP, AMERICA!! OUR SITUATION IS NOT A LAUGHING MATTER!!
Write From Karen 