Middle Class Dismissed

17 Signs That Most Americans Will Be Wiped Out By The Coming Economic Collapse

"The vast majority of Americans are going to be absolutely blindsided by what is coming. They don't understand how our financial system works, they don't understand how vulnerable it is, and most of them blindly trust that our leaders know exactly what they are doing and that they will be able to fix our problems. They seem to have forgotten what happened back in 2008. When the financial markets crashed, millions of Americans lost their jobs. Because most of them were living on the financial edge, millions of them also lost their homes. Unfortunately, most Americans seem convinced that it will not happen again. Right now we seem to be living in a 'hope bubble'." Continue reading →

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How to Survive When Prices Double Every Day and a Half

"At a 2011 Casey Research Summit, I met and heard the firsthand accounts of three gentlemen from Zimbabwe, Argentina, and Yugoslavia, who had survived hyperinflation in their home countries. Although these may sound like exotic locales with foreign problems, their terrifying histories have a lesson to teach us. Hyperinflation is like fire. We all install smoke alarms, keep fire extinguishers handy, and buy insurance to protect our homes, but most of us will never fall victim to an unplanned fire. However, when a fire does ignite, it can be catastrophic – which is why prudent people simply plan ahead." Continue reading →

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Civil Forfeiture Of Cash: It Could Happen To You

"Owners of property subject to civil forfeiture find themselves in an Alice-in-Wonderland legal landscape where the property seized is accused of a crime, rather than the owner. The owners must follow obscure rules that originate in Admiralty law, with which most attorneys aren’t familiar. Fortunately, you can reduce the likelihood that law enforcement agencies will try to confiscate your cash. The most important precaution is to insure the cash you hold contains no narcotics residues. If you insist on withdrawing new bank-wrapped bills from your bank account, the likelihood of contamination drops considerably. Also, keep a bank withdrawal slip with the cash." Continue reading →

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Is Your Retirement Planning as Bad as Most Americans’ Planning? Find Out Here.

"Approximately 38,000,000 working households in the United States do not own any retirement assets. This is about 45% of all the working households in the United States. They do not have an IRA. They do not have a 401(k). They do not have anything. In other words, they have made no plans whatsoever to fund their retirements. If we take into consideration all households in America, the median retirement account balance is $3,000. Got that? $3,000. The utter impossibility of this situation should be obvious. This is not a slight shortfall. This is a guaranteed head-on collision inside the American social order. That is because the Social Security system is going bankrupt." Continue reading →

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BIS Demands Global Depression?

"There is no avoiding what the Bank for International Settlements has just demanded. The top men at that august institution are demanding a global depression. And just to ensure that people especially in the West are thoroughly confused as they slip into starvation and despair, Austrian economics has been brought back into the argument. Free-market proponents didn't cause this disaster. Central bankers did, with their insistence on price fixing and monetary expansion. Determined to control all the elements of globalism, and keep them in place, they printed tens of trillions to stop a meltdown that must inevitably occur. By stretching it out, they prolong the agony for billions." Continue reading →

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The Real New Hope for the Global Middle Class

"The idea is that if people protest loudly enough, monopoly government – Leviathan – shall oblige protestors by revealing its inner workings. We know this is possible because a worldwide transparency organization led by a former World Bank executive tells us it will be so. But we have another idea. Much that is going on in the world today is attributable to what we call the Internet Reformation. Around the world, the powers-that-be are struggling to contain its evolution and impacts. In our view, they probably will not be entirely successful. One can orchestrate protests and violence. But one cannot outrun the sociological impact of digital enlightenment." Continue reading →

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Ontario slashes Samsung green energy deal by $3.7 billion

"The cuts will hit a controversial sole-source deal with a consortium led by South Korea-based Samsung Group that offered special financial incentives in a bid to attract investment in renewable energy. The province’s change of heart is partly a response to the backlash over that arrangement – which made electricity bills more expensive – as well as an acknowledgment that Samsung was having trouble holding up its end of the bargain. It is also the latest sign of turbulence in the green-energy industry after the global recession reduced the need for power and an uncertain economy made less costly conventional electricity more attractive than pricey renewables." Continue reading →

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Bifurcation Nation

"Many observers focus on the economic causes of the widening wealth inequality, but the divide appears to be both cultural and financial. Author Charles Murray describes a cultural divide that informs the political and economic divides that are obvious to all. What Murray suggests is not that upward social mobility has ceased, but that it's become more difficult for the have-nots to join the haves, not necessarily for lack of opportunity but for the values-based reasons he describes. The resentment toward the privileged class that is bubbling up suggests people don't need to read a lengthy sociological study to sense the divide is widening." Continue reading →

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IRS sent refunds to 23,994 undocumented immigrants at same Atlanta address

"The Internal Revenue Service sent 23,994 tax refunds to a single Atlanta address for a total of $46,378,040 in 2011 — and each of the refunds averaging over $1,900 went to undocumented immigrants, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Here in South Florida, the IRS sent 1,972 refunds to 'unauthorized' recipients totaling $2,256,302, all going to a single address in Palm Beach Gardens. Other cities hard hit with thousands of refunds going to a single address include Oxnard, Calif., Raleigh, N.C., Phoenix, Ariz., San Jose, Calif. and Alvin, Calif. In each case, millions in improper IRS refunds were sent to one residence." Continue reading →

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IRS cracks down on family land gifts not declared at tax time [2011]

"The Internal Revenue Service is looking at land-transfer records state-by-state for evidence of people neglecting to report within-family real-estate gifts. This year, large family land gifts were popular because of a new tax rule that established $5 million as the amount someone can give in a lifetime before having to pay a gift tax. However, any property worth more than $13,000, gifted to one person, is still supposed to be reported to the IRS. To be precise, Form 709 reports U.S. gifts and generation-skipping transfer taxes." Continue reading →

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