Tuesday, June 26, 2012

22 Statistics That Prove That The American Dream Is Being Systematically Destroyed

The American Dream is being systematically destroyed right in front of our eyes and most Americans don’t even realize what is happening.  In the old days, if you were a hard worker and you played by the rules you could always find a good job.


That good job would enable you to buy a house, buy at least one car and support a family.  It would also enable you to take a couple of vacations each year and buy some nice things for your family.  After working for 30 or 40 years you would look forward to a comfortable retirement.  But these days fewer and fewer Americans are able to enjoy the American Dream.  Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a breathtaking pace.  Our economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for all of us anymore, and an increasing percentage of the jobs that are being produced pay 10 dollars an hour or less.  The cost of living continues to rise steadily every single year while wages do not.  Close to half of all American workers are living month to month, and many American families have gone deep into debt as they struggle to pay the bills.  Millions more Americans are falling into poverty each year and dependence on the government is at an all-time high.  Something is fundamentally wrong with our economy.  It is not working the way that it used to, and the middle class is being absolutely shredded.  Most American families are finding it harder and harder to make it through each passing year, and unless a miracle happens things are going to continue to get even harder.



The following are 22 statistics that prove that the American Dream is being systematically destroyed….
#1 As the economy has declined, the number of Americans living month to month has soared.  At this point, millions upon millions of Americans are living without any financial cushion whatsoever.  If you can believe it, one recent survey found that28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.  Another survey found that 42 percent of all American workers are currently living paycheck to paycheck.
#2 Thanks to horribly oppressive regulations, red tape and taxes, it is incredibly difficult to run a successful small business in America today.  According to the Christian Science Monitor, more than half of all small business owners in America cannot even afford to put food on the table from their small business earnings….
A shocking figure from the Wave survey relates to how well the business owners were able to meet their basic needs through their business. An incredible 52% of American small business owners can’t put food on the table through the earnings from their business over the past twelve months.
Another recent survey found that 23 percent of all small business owners have gone an entire year without pay.
#3 In recent years U.S. families have experienced an astounding decline in wealth.  According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of families in the United States declined “from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010“.
#4 The U.S. economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for all of us at this point.  For example, it was reported that 20,000 people applied for just 877 jobs at a Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama earlier this year.  Sadly, the official U.S. unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for 40 months in a row, and this is supposed to be “the recovery”.
#5 Eight million Americans have “left the labor force” since the recession supposedly ended.  If those Americans were added back into the unemployment figures, the unemployment rate would be somewhere up around 12 percent.
#6 Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high.  Meanwhile, wages as a percentage of GDP are near anall-time low.
#7 The United States was once ranked #1 in the world in GDP per capita.  Today we have slipped to #12.
#8 Just paying for the basics is becoming increasingly difficult for many Americans.  For example, there are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
#9 The average American household spent approximately $4,155 on gasoline during 2011, and electricity bills in the U.S. have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
#10 Health insurance continues to become more expensive.  Health insurance costs have risen by 23 percent since Barack Obama became president. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980.  Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#11 As the cost of living goes up, wages continue to stagnate or even fall in many areas of the country.  Sadly, this is part of a long-term trend.  According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 declined by 27 percent after you account for inflation.
#12 The percentage of low paying jobs just continues to increase.  At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.  If that sounds like a high figure, that is because it is.  Today, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
#13 Over the last several decades, the debt burdens being taken on by average Americans have absolutely exploded.  All of this debt is making things incredibly difficult on American families.  The following is from a recent CNN article….
In 1983, the bottom 95% had 62 cents of debt for every dollar they earned, according to research by two International Monetary Fund economists. But by 2007, the ratio had soared to $1.48 of debt for every $1 in earnings.
#14 During this time of the year, there are large numbers of new college graduates entering the work force.  Unfortunately, there are not nearly enough jobs for all of them.  In fact, approximately 53 percent of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed last year.
#15 Many young adults have found that they can’t make it on their own at all in this economy.  Today, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.
#16 Wealth in this country is becoming highly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.  Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.
#17 Increasingly, our country is being divided into “two Americas“.  According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.
#18 The rise in poverty is hitting children particularly hard.  If you can believe it, the poverty rate for children living in the United States is now 22 percent.  Large numbers of children in this country would go hungry without assistance.  At this point, approximately one-fourth of all American children are enrolled in the food stamp program.
#19 The more money the government spends on poverty, the more poverty seems to increase.  The federal government spent about 80 billion dollars on the food stamp program last year, but they can’t even tell us how that money is being spent.
#20 While Barack Obama has been president, the number of Americans on food stamps has increased from 32 million to 46 million.  But the Obama administration has decided that is not enough so they are spending taxpayer money on ads that will encourage even more Americans to go on food stamps….
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been running radio ads for the past four months encouraging those eligible to enroll. The campaign is targeted at the elderly, working poor, the unemployed and Hispanics.
The department is spending between $2.5 million and $3 million on paid spots, and free public service announcements are also airing. The campaign can be heard in California, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and the New York metro area.
#21 As the middle class shrinks, the ranks of the poor continue to expand.  Sadly, at this point 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.
#22 More Americans are becoming dependent on the government than ever before.  According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, 49.1 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial benefits from the government.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Prescription painkillers overtake car crashes as leading cause of accidental death in America


  • Follows celebrity deaths from painkillers including Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger
  • Non-medical prescription painkillers cost the U.S. economy $72.5billion a year
Prescription painkillers have topped car accidents as the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., according to a new report.
Research by the National Center for Health Statistics show that drug poisoning is now a more common way to go than being killed on the road.
It follows recent celebrity deaths from painkillers, including Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith.


Prescription painkillers are now so popular in the U.S. that there has been a spike in armed robberies at pharmacies and some chemists are refusing to stock them.
The number of robberies has surged by 82 per cent since 2006, from 385 to 701 last year, with 3,500 pharmacies targeted by those desperate to get their hands on the drugs, according to Digg.com.


Without painkillers, such as OxyContin and Vicodin, minor aches and pains feel considerably worse for people addicted and withdrawal symptoms include depression, anxiety, and lethargy. 

RACIAL LIFE EXPECTANCY GAP IS LOWEST EVER

The gap in life expectancy between whites and blacks in America is now the smallest ever, according to researchers in Canada.
White men can now expect to live to 76.2 years, and black men 70.8 years. White women can expect to live to 81.2 years and black women 77.5 years.
Researchers found that HIV and heart disease contributed to the narrowing of the gap alongside an increase in the number of deaths among white people from prescription drug abuse. 
Researchers at Montreal's McGill's University used data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other sources. 
They found heart disease, diabetes, homicide, HIV and infant mortality were the main reasons for the differences in life expectancy. 
After studying the data, they said more and more white people were dying 'unintentionally' from fatal drug poisoning, largely from opiates and other painkillers
Painkillers overtook car accidents as the leading cause of death back in 2008 but a report detailing the information has only just come out this month.
It shows that the number of people dying from the pills has tripled since 1980, while the number of car accidents has dropped by one-and-a-half times since that year.
In 2008, 41,000 Americans died from drug poisoning - 77 per cent of which were not intentional - compared to 38,000 road deaths. 
Between 1999 and 2008, the poisoning death rate increased by 90 per cent, while the road deaths decreased by 15 per cent.
Meanwhile, emergency department visits for prescription painkiller abuse or misuse have doubled in the last five years to nearly 500,000 and about 12 million American teenagers and adults use prescription painkillers to get 'high'. 
Nonmedical prescription painkillers costs the U.S. economy more than $72.5billion each year. 
The problem with prescription painkillers is worse in the U.S. due to a lack of regulation and a thriving black market. 
Experts said there is a lack of education surrounding the drugs and misconceptions over their use and how they should be managed. 
They also say pharmaceutical industry have introduced some 'questionable practices' in how the drugs are marketed. 
Some insurers say doctors have to explain why they have prescribed certain pills that exceed a 30-day supply, according to the website, while 40 states have systems to monitor who the drugs are supplied, although many of these are voluntary.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2162050/Prescription-painkillers-beat-car-crashes-leading-cause-accidental-death-America.html#ixzz1yNNQ81nC