(This is a guest post from the author’s blog.)

No group in America has been hit harder during the current recession than young adults.  Millions of Americans are graduating from college with virtually no money, lots of debt and with very dim employment prospects.  Those who don’t go to college are even worse off.  All their lives these young Americans were taught if they studied hard, got an education and worked within the system that good jobs and the American Dream would be waiting for them.  But now millions of them are realizing that all of their studying and hard work is not providing them with the rewards that they always thought they would get.  This is causing large numbers of young American adults to become depressed and disillusioned.  In fact, record numbers of them are moving back in with their parents.  But without decent jobs, what are they supposed to do?  

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in March the national rate of unemployment in the United States was 9.7%, but for Americans younger than 25 it was 18.8%.  In fact, according to a Pew Research Center study, approximately 37% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have either been unemployed or underemployed at some point during the recession.

Things are even worse for those under the age of 20.  According to a new report based on U.S. Census Bureau data, only 26 percent of American teens between the ages of 16 and 19 had jobs in late 2009 which represents a record low since statistics began to be kept back in 1948.

But the inability to get good jobs is only part of the story….

*The Pew Research Center study also found that only 61% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 are covered by some form of a health plan.

*According to a National Foundation for Credit Counseling survey, only 58% of those in “Generation Y” pay their monthly bills on time.

*Not only that, but according to a November MetLife poll, nearly 70% of those in “Generation Y” are not building up a cash cushion, and 43% are accumulating too much credit card debt.

*According to Fidelity Investments, those in Generation Y have more than three credit cards on average, and 20 percent of them carry a balance of at least $10,000.

So what does all this mean?

It means we are raising a generation of young Americans that are a financial mess. 

But isn’t that our own fault?

After all, most young Americans have never received any formal training on how to manage their money, and the role models of financial responsibility they do have (the rest of us) are hardly worth emulating.

But if each generation of Americans is becoming increasingly financially irresponsible, what does that mean for the future of this nation?

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(This is a guest post from The Economic Collapse.)

We have reached a very interesting turning point in American history.  More than at any other point in modern times, Americans are deeply angry about the state of the economy.  In fact, it is no stretch to say that millions of U.S. citizens are hopping mad about the economic situation.  Most of them don’t know exactly what is wrong, and even fewer of them have any idea about how to go about fixing things, but they do know one thing.  They know that they are mad.

As Americans, we were raised with the belief that our overwhelmingly powerful economic machine would always provide good jobs and prosperity for all of us as long as we worked hard.  But we have come to learn that is not true.  We have come to learn that our politicians and our leaders have squandered the great inheritance that our forefathers left for us.  We have come to learn that the financial future of our nation is beyond bleak.  We have come to learn that our government has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  Now the foolish decisions of the past several decades are catching up with us.

The U.S. economy is experiencing structural failure, and the American people are angry.  They want answers.  They want someone to fix things.  They want things to go back to the way they used to be.

But that isn’t going to happen.  Once the American people truly start realizing that, the anger that will erupt will dwarf what we are seeing now (Not that they aren’t already incredibly steamed).

Here’s 12 Reasons Americans Are Furious About The State Of The Economy >

There aren’t enough jobs

There simply are not enough jobs for everyone.  The number of unemployed Americans per job opening has started to increase again, hitting 5.5 in February.  Even many of those who are able to get some work find themselves only able to obtain part-time employment.  Gallup’s underemployment measure hit 20.0% on March 15th.  This was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year.

More and more people are living on handouts

More Americans than ever find themselves having to rely on the U.S. government just to survive.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 39.4 million Americans, a new all-time record, received food stamps in January.  This was up 22% from a year earlier.  In fact, the number of Americans on food stamps has hit all-time records for 14 consecutive months.

Foreclosures are setting records across the country

Foreclosures continue to set records across the United States.  RealtyTrac, the California-based authority on property trends and valuations, projects that there will be 4.5 million home foreclosures before the end of this year.  If you figure 4 people per household, that is another 18 million people that will be forced out of their homes.

The homeless and unemployed are moving to “tent slums”

As unemployment and foreclosures continue to soar, “tent slums” have started popping up all over the United States.  Is this why our founding fathers fought and died?  So we could all live in “tent slums” as the big fat cats on Wall Street roll around in their bailout cash?

Food prices are going up

But even with all of these economic problems, the price of food is going up.  Rising demand and reduced supply drove supermarket prices for 16 basic foods up 6.2% in the first quarter of 2010.

Debt will cripple the government’s ability to help

Due to the exploding government debt, the American people are going to be confronted with some tough choices.  According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the United States will soon have to make difficult choices between higher taxes and reduced social spending.  Either alternative will slow down the U.S. economy.

Wall Street fat cats are getting away with the loot

Meanwhile, corruption in the financial system is running rampant.  The CEOs of bailed-out regional banks are actually getting big raises.  The guy who helped bring down AIG is going to get off scott-free and will be able to keep the millions in profits that he made in the process.

There is evidence of rampant price manipulation

But the biggest fraud is being committed by the boys at the top of the food chain.  A whistle blower has come forward with “smoking gun” evidence of price manipulation by major financial institutions in the precious metals markets.  The scope of this fraud is in the trillions of dollars.  The American people can’t stomach much more of this type of thing.

Now interest rates are going to rise

Almost all financial experts agree that the era of super cheap money is over and that interest rates are about to rise significantly.  This is going to make it much more expensive for most Americans to borrow money to buy a home, to buy a car, to buy things with their credit cards or to borrow money for education.  Those who already have adjustable loans are going to find a much larger portion of their income going to pay interest.  Needless to say, this is going to cause the U.S. economy to experience a significant slowdown.

Disguised in health care reform is the biggest tax increase in history

One of the biggest things that the American people are upset about is the “health care reform” bill that was just rammed down their throats.  It turns out that “health care reform” is actually going to be the biggest tax increase in American history.  Not only that, but because of taxes and mandates imposed upon health insurance companies by the legislation, health insurance premiums are also about to increase substantially.  So where will the average American family get the money to pay for these increases?

Obamacare will force at least 60 hospitals to close

In addition, the new health care law that was supposed to give all of us much better health care is actually going to force the cancellation of at least 60 doctor-owned hospitals that were scheduled to be opened according to the executive director of Physician Hospitals of America.  Why?  Well, it turns out that the new law singles out physician-owned hospitals, making new physician-owned projects ineligible to receive payments for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Americans are angry at BOTH parties

The reality is that Americans are increasingly becoming disenchanted with the lack of leadership in both political parties.  Approval ratings for leaders in both parties are extremely low, and anger at politicians is at an all-time high.  The Tea Party movement is just one symptom of the seething anger many Americans are feeling.  While many Americans are gathering together at large protest rallies to demonstrate against the policies of the government, others are expressing their displeasure on blogs and websites.  There has never been a moment in modern times when Americans have been so disenchanted with their political leadership.

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(This post appeared at endoftheamericandream.com.)

The talking heads on all the major news shows keep telling us that the U.S. economy is experiencing a recovery.  Usually the term “recovery” is accompanied by a qualifier such as “jobless”, but they continue to use the word recovery anyway.  We are told that the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression is behind us and that the great American economic machine is roaring back to life and everything will be back to normal soon.  So why does it seem like things keep getting worse?  Why does it seem like the American Dream is out of reach for more Americans than ever?  Why does it seem like economic pain is spreading to more families and more businesses?

Well, maybe it is because things are getting worse.

Gallup’s underemployment measure hit 20.0% on March 15th.  This was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year.  While the U.S. unemployment rate has leveled off (for now), the truth is that job seekers are increasingly finding that all they can get is part-time work.  In the vast majority of cases, part-time work will not pay the mortgage or even really feed a family.

All of this economic pain is causing havoc in many American households.  In fact, 1.2 million U.S. households have been lost during the recent recession as economic pain has forced many Americans to move in with relatives.  It can be an extremely humbling thing to have to turn to relatives for help, but that is what an increasing number of Americans have been forced to do.

But now there are indications that things may soon get worse for the U.S. economy.

The Federal Reserve is pulling its emergency financial supports from the U.S. financial system, and this is leading some economic analysts to speculate that deflation could be on the horizon.

Already there are signs that the American economy is slowing down.  The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that consumer borrowing declined by $11.5 billion in February.  But it just isn’t consumer borrowing that is slowing down.  The biggest banks in the U.S. cut their collective small business lending balance by 1 billion dollars in November 2009.  That drop was the seventh monthly decline in a row.

As the U.S. economy slows down, the U.S. government is going to look to U.S. taxpayers to pick up the slack.  According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the United States will soon have to make difficult choices between higher taxes and reduced social spending.

Higher taxes or reduced government spending?

Maybe both?

Either of those alternatives is not good for the U.S. economy.

And the burden of taxation is falling on an increasingly smaller pool of taxpayers.  It turns out that about 47 percent of all Americans will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009.  The 47 percent who pay no taxes either earned too little or they had so many credits or deductions that they were able to avoid taxes altogether.

It must be nice for them.

Meanwhile, the faith of the American people in the financial system continues to wane as more evidence of corruption keeps coming out.  In fact, there are new allegations that JPMorgan Chase has been involved in gold price fixing.  Many have suspected for a long time that there was some really funny business going on with gold prices, but the latest bombshells that have been dropped by whistle blowers are absolutely mind blowing.

But it is about time that we learned more about what is going on at these major banks.  After all, they know so much about us.  For example, it has come out that the data mining operations of the major credit card companies are becoming so sophisticated that they can actually predict how likely you are to get a divorce.

Isn’t that lovely?

Big Brother is watching.

And this is only just the beginning.

With the stated intent of combating illegal immigration, Senators Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham are creating new legislation that would institute a national identification card.

Will we all soon be forced to take a national identification card with us wherever we go?

Will we all soon be forced to show “our papers” whenever we are confronted by authorities?

Let’s hope not.

But things are getting really crazy out there.  So many of the things that we used to take for granted are quickly disappearing into thin air.

What in the world is happening to America?

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(This guest post previously appeared at the author’s blog, The Economic Collapse)

The U.S. money supply has been expanding at an absolutely unprecedented rate.  So why are we not experiencing rampant inflation?  Why is the U.S. dollar not falling through the floor?  Well, the truth is that all of this new money has gotten into the U.S. financial system but it is not getting into the hands of U.S. businesses and consumers.  In fact, even though the money supply is exploding, U.S. banks have dramatically decreased lending.  This has brought us to a very bizarre financial situation as a nation.

What we have seen is the U.S. government shovel massive amounts of cash into the U.S. financial system and then watch as the big banks sit on that cash and refuse to lend it. The biggest banks in the U.S. reduced their collective small business lending balance by another 1 billion dollars in November 2009.  That drop was the seventh monthly decline in a row.  In fact, in 2009 as a whole U.S. banks posted their sharpest decline in lending since 1942.

So all of this money that the U.S. government pumped into the financial system has been doing American businesses and consumers very little good.  That is why we can have a vastly increased money supply (as you can see from the chart below) and very little inflation.

So if the banks are not lending the money to the American people, what are they doing with it?  One of the things they are doing with it is buying U.S. government debt.  As you can see from the chart below, U.S. banks have cut business lending by approximately 350 billion dollars since early 2009 and they have purchased approximately 300 billion dollars worth of U.S. Treasury securities.

So instead of loaning money to American businesses and consumers who desperately need it, a ton of this new money is being used to pump up yet another bubble.  This time the bubble is in U.S. Treasuries.  Asia Times recently described how this trillion-dollar carry trade in U.S. government securities works….

Remarkably, the most aggressive buyers of US government debt during the past several months have been global banks domiciled in London and the Cayman Islands. They borrow at 20 basis points (a fifth of a percentage point) and buy Treasury securities paying 1% to 3%, depending on maturity.

This is the famous “carry trade”, by which banks or hedge funds borrow short-term at a very low rate and lend medium- or long-term at a higher rate. This works as long as short-tem rates remain extremely low. The moment that borrowing costs begin to rise, the trillion-dollar carry trade in US government securities will collapse.

So what happens when this bubble collapses? 

Nobody knows for sure.  But anyone who has dealt with carry trades in the past knows that when carry trades unwind they can do so very, very quickly and the results can be nightmarish.

The truth is that the U.S. financial system is a house of cards that could fall at any time.  A lot of economic pain is on the horizon – it is only a matter of when it comes and how bad it is going to get.  Trends forecaster Gerald Celente is predicting that it could be as soon as this year….

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(This post appeared at the author’s blog.)

Is the United States economy headed for another Great Depression?  Well, according to Barack Obama, that is no longer possible.  According to Obama, the United States has avoided an economic collapse and is headed for another wonderful era of growth and prosperity. 

But is Obama right?  Do the economic signs indicate that the U.S. is headed towards recovery or towards even more difficult times?  As you shall see below, there is no way in the world that Barack Obama should have ever said that “a second depression is no longer a possibility”. 

In fact, as the U.S. financial system continues to crumble, it is likely that those words will be exploited by his political adversaries again and again.  If you are a politician and you are going to issue a guarantee, you had better be able to deliver the goods.  In this case, Obama is making a promise that defies all of the economic data.

Video of Obama making his declaration that “a second depression is no longer a possibility” is posted below….     

So why is Obama wrong?  Well, if you want a full examination of why the United States is headed for an economic collapse, please read the rest of this blog.  In this article we just wanted to highlight

A Few Reasons Why The U.S. Is Headed For A Complete Financial Meltdown >

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