Posted on 01/01/2012 9:45:00 PM PST by blam
Formerly Great Cities All Over America Are Turning Into Open, Festering Sores
January 1, 2012
Once upon a time, the people of the United States constructed beautiful, shiny cities from coast to coast that were the envy of the entire globe. We had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen and life was quite good in America. But now all of our prosperity is coming crashing down and many of our formerly great cities are turning into open, festering sores. Unfortunately, we are drowning in so much debt that we can barely even slow down the shocking decline of our cities.
Over the past decade, tens of thousands of manufacturing facilities and millions of good jobs have been shipped out of the United States. As our economic infrastructure has been ripped out right in front of our eyes, an atmosphere of unemployment, poverty and despair has descended on many of our major cities like a soaking wet blanket. Today, many of our cities that once were considered to be some of the greatest in the world have been transformed into rotting, post-apocalyptic hellholes. When you visit many of these cities and look into the sunken eyes of the residents, you almost get the feeling that something has sucked all of the hope and all of the life right out of them.
For a while, large numbers of Americans still believed that the right politician would bring them "hope" and "change", but now crushing despair is giving way to absolute desperation for millions of people. Desperate people do desperate things, and as our major cities continue to decay they are going to become very dangerous places to be.
Even in some of our most "prosperous cities" there are areas that closely resemble third world conditions. For example, in San Francisco there is an area known as "Hunter's Point" that is a complete and utter nightmare. In Hunter's Point, more than half of the population lives in poverty and more than half of all children live in a home where there is no father present. The following is what one reporter found on a visit to Hunter's Point....
Abernathy and I cut through the complex, tromping over an expanse of dirt and concrete toward the northeast end of the development, where a row of apartments looked down from a grassy hill. We paused next to a vacant, boarded-over unit to take in the scene: A stream of ****, piss, tampons, and toilet paper spewed from a dark hole in the sidewalk, poured down the hill, and formed a sort of **** lagoon next to the street. Weeds, about six inches tall, were growing in the little lagoon.
Raw ****, obviously, is not cool. Beyond the fact that it smells and looks nasty, fecal matter provides a haven for dangerous bacteria, most notably E. coli, a virulent pathogen that can sicken and even kill humans, especially infants. In the so-called developing world, according to the World Health Organization, water tainted by feces is a major killer, a prime cause of severe diarrhea, which takes the lives of an estimated 1.8 million people annually.
But in general, San Francisco is doing better than the rest of California is. Down the coast, Los Angeles continues to come apart at the seams. Approximately 40 arson fires were started in Los Angeles in just the last three days alone. That is the highest number of arson fires that Los Angeles has seen since the 1992 riots.
Unfortunately, as economic conditions worsen, we are going to see a lot more arson all over the nation.
Once upon a time, people all over the country wanted to move to California. But today, millions of people have been pouring out of the state as it continues its shocking decline. If you can believe it, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California increased by a whopping 30 percent between 2007 and 2010.
That isn't just a decline, that is a free fall.
But it isn't like there are too many areas of the country that are doing that much better. All over the country, our major cities are becoming open, festering sores and child poverty is absolutely exploding.
According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4% of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1% of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6% of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6% of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.
Speaking of Detroit, it is almost unbelievable what has happened to "the motor city"....
*An analysis of census figures found that 48.5% of all men living in Detroit from age 20 to age 64 did not have a job in 2008.
*If you can believe it, the median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.
*Only 25 percent of all students in Detroit graduate from high school at this point.
Today, Detroit has become a very frightening place to live. 100 bus drivers in Detroit recently refused to drive their routes out of fear for their own personal safety. The head of the bus drivers union, Henry Gaffney, said that the drivers were "scared for their lives"....
“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.
Right now, Detroit is a city that is being torn apart by thieves and vandals. Buildings are being literally dismantled as people scramble to find things to sell to keep themselves afloat. The following is from a recent article in the Detroit News about this crisis....
The war to keep the lights on in Detroit is a serious one. Thieves, antiquated equipment and a lack of funding have made it impossible for city officials to catch up to the problem.
City officials estimate 15-20 percent of the 88,000 lights in the Motor City are not working, and they acknowledge that figure could be as high as 50 percent in some neighborhoods.
But it is not just Detroit that is having a major problem keeping the lights on. Over in Highland Park, Michigan the majority of the street lights have been repossessed because the city was not keeping up with the electricity bill.
All over the country, cities are going dark and fixtures are being torn out of homes and businesses as thieves search for something to sell. As one of my readers shared recently, there are some parts of California that are literally being transformed into hellholes by hordes of desperate people....
Here, in the California desert, many vacant houses are being taken over. Fixtures are being ripped out and sold as scrap. Trench latrines are being dug in backyards and water is being pilfered from neighboring pools and hoses. While most of these folks are simply trying to keep a roof over their heads (while they keep their heads down), many are also setting up meth labs and in-door marijuana grows.
I can see the eventual day when the total breakdown of the economy and our society will drive thousands from the cities. A lot of those will be looking for ‘opportunities’.
As sad as it is, if you’re not one of the most unfortunate, it’s time to prepare a defense for your goods, family and self. You are going to be viewed as wealthy, no matter how poor you feel, by someone with nothing left to lose.
Do not rely on police or government authorities. We all saw how that went in New Orleans. Be ready as an individual family unit.
In Fresno, California the theft of copper wire from street lights has become a major crisis. At this point, the loss of copper wire and the cost of repairing street lights is costing Fresno about $50,000 a month. So far, approximately 2,500 street lights have been stripped of their wiring.
Over on the east coast, there are some cities that have lost so much industry that many young people feel as though there are not many viable options left other than selling drugs or selling their bodies.
In an extraordinary article entitled "City of Ruins", Chris Hedges did an amazing job of documenting the nightmarish decline of Camden, New Jersey. Today, it is estimated that the actual rate of unemployment in Camden is somewhere around 30 or 40 percent. For most young people in Camden, there are very few legitimate opportunities for a better life at this point. The following is a brief excerpt from "City of Ruins"....
There are perhaps a hundred open-air drug markets, most run by gangs like the Bloods, the Latin Kings, Los Nietos and MS-13. Knots of young men in black leather jackets and baggy sweatshirts sell weed and crack to clients, many of whom drive in from the suburbs. The drug trade is one of the city's few thriving businesses. A weapon, police say, is never more than a few feet away, usually stashed behind a trash can, in the grass or on a porch.
If the area where you live has not gotten that bad yet, you should be thankful. But the reality is that these economic conditions are spreading and they will get to where you live soon enough.
Disease is also becoming a huge problem in many of our major cities. The combination of poverty and moral decay has created some very frightening conditions in many areas of the country.
This is even happening in some of our most prosperous cities. For example, the rate of HIV infection in Washington D.C. is actually higher than it is in West Africa according to the director of the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration....
"Our rates are higher than West Africa," said Shannon Hader, the administration's director, who used to spearhead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's work in Zimbabwe. "They're on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."
Up in Canada, they have come up with some very "unusual" methods for preventing the spread of health problems. For example, in Vancouver, British Columbia authorities are actually handing out free crack pipes to addicts in an attempt to slow down the spread of diseases. But there is a limit - only one free crack pipe per day is allowed.
Crazy stuff.
What is happening to this world?
But perhaps we should all be thankful to at least have some place to lay our heads at night. Today, there are more than 700,000 homeless people in America, and that number has grown by about 20 percent since 2007.
After the next major financial crisis, that number is going to go even higher.
The truth is that the economy is in much worse shape than most people think, and the poor in America are rapidly getting poorer.
As Gerald Celente has said many times, when the poor lose everything that they have they tend to lose it.
Desperate people do desperate things, and we are already starting to see signs of this all over the nation. For example, you can watch one homeowner defend his home against four armed invaders right here.
So what are our leaders doing to fix this?
Well, unfortunately there is not a whole lot they can do.
Our federal government is absolutely drowning in debt.
During the first three years of Barack Obama, the U.S. government accumulated more debt than it did from the inauguration of George Washington to the inauguration of Bill Clinton.
Of course it would help if the Obama administration would stop wasting money on stupid things and would start spending it to rebuild this country.
For example, did you know that the Obama administration gave a $529 million loan to a U.S. electric car company so that they could manufacture electric cars in Finland?
Talk about stupid.
Is it any wonder that there is such a lack of confidence in the government at this point?
According to one recent survey, 77% of all Americans now believe that there is a leadership crisis in America.
Our economy is dying and formerly great cities all over America are being turned into open, festering sores. This country is in so much trouble that it is hard to find words that can adequately describe it.
2012 is going to represent a huge turning point for this country. If we do not get enough Americans to wake up now, we might not get another chance.
If you love America, please make this a year when you take more action than ever before.
Working together, we can make a huge difference.
The foundations of the USA’s industrial infrastructure were created in the second half of the 19th Century. The federal government was funded almost 100% by high tariffs which kept European manufactured goods out while US factories were being built to serve the home market and employ the immigrants streaming into the country. Plus capital was being invested by banks in long term productive assets such as trains, factories, roads, telephone lines, the electrical grid and ships. The country prospered by focusing on its internal development and ignoring the rest of the world.
Until the 1990’s the US sustained a tariff and quota structure that protected US industry and jobs. The economy grew and added middle class jobs to support population growth. Wages were lower in other countries in 1900, 1950 and 1990 but the tariff and quotas made it more attractive to sustain production in the US. Capital stayed at home and was reinvested in the US economy because the tariff structure worked to benefit US producers and workers.
The Bush/Clinton Wall Street led free trade movement changed the US economy dramatically. Ending tariffs and quotas caused industry to migrate out of the US taking capital and millions of middle class jobs. Wall street shifted from investing in long term productive assets in the US to stripping and destroying American companies through leveraged buyouts. In 20 years the productive capacity of domestic industry was decimated. The first decade of the 21st century saw no real GDP growth after inflation, burgeoning government spending fueled by debt, stagnant job growth and declining standards of living after inflation. We are now mired in an economic depression and looking at another decade of economic decline and a lower standard of living for most Americans.
Unlike the 1930’s there are few idle factories for US workers to return to when economic activity improves. The factories closed during our 20 year free trade experiment have been bulldozed, not idled.
One of the reasons the 2009 stimulus programs failed was to the extent any stimulus money was spent by consumers for tangible manufacured products, that money went to employ people in offshore factories, not US factories. In past decades government stimulus spending would have created demand for domestically produced products.
The free trade policies of the past 20 years have been a disaster for the US worker and the economy. For those who argue the loss of jobs was due to union greed and not the dismantling of of the tariff structure, take a look at the nonunion South and you will see communities devastated by the loss of the manufacturing base. For those who to this day claim The Smoot Hawley tariff caused the Great Deprsssion of the 1930’s, I suggest taking a look at the economic statistics instead of taking the self serving assertions of free traders as fact. Smoot Hawley was passed in 1930, after the 1929 financial crash, not before. In 1929 trade outside the US comprised only 5% of GDP. Manufacturing exports comprised only 2% of GDP. From 1929 to the bottom of the Depression in 1933, US GDP and manufacturing production dropped by 40%. A loss of 100% of manufacturing exports due to Smoot Hawley (2% of GDP) would not account for a 40% drop in GDP. The Great Depression was caused by the drop in domestic demand resulting from the unraveling of the debt bubble built in the 1920’s boom. Not unlike the situation we face today as the debt overhang must be worked through.
The US has a large enough market and abundant natural resources to be virtually self sustaining from an economic perspective. We can recognize the 20 year experiment with open market free trade has been a disaster for the economy and the middle class. Reinstating the tariffs and quotas of the period before 1990, combined with regulatory and tort reform, will result in new investment in domestic manufacturing and millions middle class jobs. Sustaining current policies means continued decline to third world status, millions of unemployed and social unrest.
The founding fathers were advocates of free trade but did not define free trade as making the US market completely open while the rest of the world persued self serving mercantilist trade policies. To the founders free trade meant US merchants were free to trade with merchants in any country. If France and Germany were at war, the US would trade with both. It did not mean the US would have a completely open market while other nations protected their economic interests. While encouraging merchants to trade freely around the world, the new nation levied stiff tariffs on imported goods to encourage the development of domestic industry and fund the government. Despite high tariffs the US economy flourished with free trade and high tariffs on imports.
Levy a 30% tariff on all imports, without exception, while reinstating quotas and you will see revenue stream to the Treasury while private capital races to build new factories in the US. Wall Street, multinational corporations, and academics will scream at the change, but jobs will come back and the nation will be stronger. Short term there might be retaliation as other nations take retaliatory action against US imports. However reclaiming the world’s largest market for US industry will quickly replace any lost export business. Plus, will other nations indefinitely cut off imports of US agricultural products and starve their citizens just because we are once again acting in our national interest?
It is time to change course and return to policies congruent with a thriving economy and strong industrial base. Invest the IRA savings of middle class Americans in US factories employing US workers instead of in Greek bonds, Chinese factories, or pure speculation in financial instruments whose value cannot be determined. History shows we can thrive economically with high tariffs while the last 20 years shows that non reciprocal open market free trade is harmful to the domestic economy and detrimental to our industrial base.
Companies only outsource in response to the confiscatory tax policies of would-be socialist politicians. The cost of setting up and maintaining out-sourcing operations is huge and problematic and only really worth it if the domestic taxes are s bad as they are.
Yea Free Trade works so well we only have fraction of the steel industry we had 50 years ago, a small fraction. We have 22 right to work states in this country and several have very low taxes. We need to save what is left of our manufacturing base. A 10% tariff would be in order.
GWB instituted a tariff on imported steel. It didn’t create jobs, it only raised the price.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A31768-2003Sep18
You should write book becauase nobody is talking about this, no one. Our guys, like Rush et al, are free traders. The left doesn’t seem to care. You forgot to mention open borders and the 46 million on food stamps, but overall you get a grade of A+.
Look at who is running the cities for the past 40 years and you will find your answer and you will not be surprised. In 08 the cancer came to Washington and 1600 pennsylvania avenue
Please....it’s because of socialism nd a loss of ALL MORALS!!! Abortion, Gay Rights, Divorce, Welfare, Illegals who have no real connection to the USA, Public PENSIONS that SUCK the life out of the Taxpayers....last would be buying everything from China.
I kind of scanned this, but I didn’t find anywhere in this article where the festering sores in these cities were blamed on those who moved in after the original owners were forced out.
It’s pretty easy to read between the lines though.
We need to rein in the unions for starters. I had an uncle who worked at a steel mill in Beaumont TX. In one of their contracts, they got one week of vacation per year of service.
And we wonder why American industry cannot compete on the global market.
I would love to see our jobs come back here, if nothing else, as a part time welder, I don’t have to worry about getting a load of hot steel where they (Mexico) melted a bunch of x-ray machines with the source still in them.
Between unions, EPA and bunny huggers, I don’t see it happening.
Raw ****, obviously, is not cool. Beyond the fact that it smells and looks nasty, fecal matter provides a haven for dangerous bacteria, most notably E. coli, a virulent pathogen that can sicken and even kill humans, especially infants. In the so-called developing world, according to the World Health Organization, water tainted by feces is a major killer, a prime cause of severe diarrhea, which takes the lives of an estimated 1.8 million people annually.
Jeez. When you consider that the largest gains in life expectancy came from sanitation, that's pretty scary.
Smoot Hawley didn't create the depression, it made it worse, throwing many nations around the world dependent on US trade into depression also. It certainly didn't create any jobs here.
A 30% across the board tariff would devastate our economy, not in any way help it. We are the worlds 3rd largest exporter, with over 1.2 trillion in 2010, and as other nations retaliated, that business would evaporate. A 30% price increase on consumer goods would tank purchases, not create mfgs here.
Protectionism doesn't work. Its been proven over and over. However, free trade agreements have increased imports and exports of both parties in every instance, growing business and adding jobs.
That's why lower tariffs and streamlined trade regulations are a conservative mainstay, while tariffs and protectionism are liberal ideals.
Free Trade is a religion, an evil one at that. Worse than liberalism or fascism.
Why should God help a nation that :
1) Rip apart its innocent babies in the womb, some being only seconds away from their first breath?
2) **Willingly** sends its precious children ( a gift from God) into godless government schools?
Once in these socialist-entitlement schools the children must think and reason godlessly just to cooperate in the classroom. How could it be otherwise? And...the excuses that Christians make for sending their children into these godless mind-control centers, and the excuses made by Christian teachers running the godless government school camps is an abomination.
Very, very well written. You’ve given me lots of food for thought..and some excellent points in history for me to do a LOT of further reading. Wow.
Someone, please post pics and values of Mitt’s homes !
No, it is not. It is business, which is neither good nor evil. Protectionism kills business by letting the federal government pick and choose winners.
That is the fact of the matter.
People won't be worrying about e. coli when there are cholera and typhoid outbreaks.
Yeah, but that won't stop certain people from looking for that quick fix.
Have you ever heard of Paul Kennedy? Back in 1988, a book by him came out called The Rise And The Fall Of The Great Powers. He was a declinist who compared the troubles of the United States to those of the Spanish Empire when the South American gold and silver ran out.
He did so on the basis of accumulating national debt, but there's another parallel. Restrictive laws had piled up on the backs of Imperial Spain's entrepreneurial class. The trap that Spain got into was the fact that the people charged with solving the problem in large part were the problem.
A frustrated reformer, bemoaning the impossibility of reform, exclaimed: "Those who can, will not; those who will, cannot." If I fibbed and wrote that the sentence was spoken by a frustrated American reformer last week, everyone (except for those who recognized the quote) would believe me.
It's a damned hard trap to break out of. No-one likes to hear that they're part of the problem. For people who've gotten real power in their hands, it's far too easy to dismiss reformers as mere malcontents. They must be jealous!
Add to that the fact that the system is largely complaint-driven. Those restrictive laws, regulations, etc. - each and every one of them, I'd assume - have a horror story behind them that makes them seem good and moral. Consequently, "only a beast" would advocate their repeal.
The fact is, it's almost too easy to cast a reformer who has his eyes on the real problems as a jealousy-ridden bad guy. Maybe that's what keeps people looking for the quick fix.
Sorry to say this, but history offers no way out of the dilemma. France had its Revolution, but it was a latecomer to the Industrial Revolution and a laggard since then. France's answer to the Model T was the Citroen Deux Chevaux, which first came out in 1949.
It's a religion, you guys will never let me have the last post, this will go on all day because you can't give it up. Why? because I reject the Free Trade doxology and it causes you to have a melt down. Free Trade priests can't have that.
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