As we close on another week replete with ugly economic data and the usual bizarro counterintuitive market, here is a summary of the 50 most underreported facts about the state of the US economy, courtesy of the Coto report. After reading these it almost makes sense that the market has become completely desensitized to the sad reality now pervasive in this country. Readers are encouraged to add their own observations to this list.
Surely if the list is doubled, the market will go up to 72,000 instead
of just 36,000.
#50) In 2010 the U.S. government is projected to issue almost as much
new debt as
the rest of the governments of the world combined.
#49) It is being projected that the U.S. government will have a
budget deficit of
approximately 1.6 trillion dollars in 2010.
#48) If you went out and spent one dollar every single second, it
would take you more than 31,000
years to spend a trillion dollars.
#47) In fact, if you spent one million dollars every single day since
the birth of Christ, you still would
not have spent one trillion dollars by now.
#46) Total U.S. government debt is now up to 90
percent of gross domestic product.
#45) Total credit market debt in the United States, including
government, corporate and personal debt, has
reached 360 percent of GDP.
#44) U.S. corporate income tax receipts were
down 55% (to $138 billion) for the year ending September 30th,
2009.
#43) There are now 8 counties in the state of California that have
unemployment rates of
over 20 percent.
#42) In the area around Sacramento, California there is one closed business for every six that are still open.
#41) In February, there were 5.5
unemployed Americans for every job opening.
#40) 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.
#39) More
than 40% of those employed in the United States are now working in
low-wage service jobs.
#38) According to one new survey, 24% of American workers say that they
have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
#37) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in
2009, which represented a
32 percent increase over 2008. Not only that, more
Americans filed for bankruptcy in March 2010 than during any month
since U.S. bankruptcy law was tightened in October 2005.
#36) Mortgage purchase applications in the United States are down nearly 40 percent
from a month ago to their lowest level since April of 1997.
#35) RealtyTrac has announced that foreclosure filings in the U.S. established
an all time record for the second consecutive year in 2009.
#34) According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were
reported on 367,056 properties in March 2010, an increase of nearly
19 percent from February, an increase of nearly 8 percent from March
2009 and the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its
report in January 2005.
#33) In Pinellas and Pasco counties, which include St. Petersburg,
Florida and the suburbs to the north, there
are 34,000 open foreclosure cases. Ten years ago, there were
only about 4,000.
#32) In California’s Central Valley, 1 out of every 16 homes is
in some phase of foreclosure.
#31) The Mortgage Bankers Association recently announced that more
than 10 percent of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at
least one payment during the January to March time period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a
year ago.
#30) U.S. banks repossessed
nearly 258,000 homes nationwide in the first quarter of 2010, a 35
percent jump from the first quarter of 2009.
#29) For the first time in U.S. history, banks
own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United
States than all individual Americans put together.
#28) More than 24% of all homes with mortgages in the United States were underwater as of the end of 2009.
#27) U.S. commercial property values are
down approximately 40 percent since 2007 and currently 18 percent
of all office space in the United States is sitting vacant.
#26) Defaults on apartment building mortgages held by U.S. banks
climbed to
a record 4.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010. That was almost
twice the level of a year earlier.
#25) In 2009, U.S. banks posted their sharpest decline in private
lending since 1942.
#24) New York state has
delayed paying bills totalling $2.5 billion as a short-term way of
staying solvent but officials are warning that its cash crunch could
soon get even worse.
#23) To make up for a projected 2010 budget shortfall of $280
million, Detroit issued $250 million of 20-year municipal notes in
March. The bond issuance followed on the heels of a warning from Detroit
officials that if its financial state didn’t improve, it
could be forced to declare bankruptcy.
#22) The National League of Cities says that municipal governments
will probably come up between
$56 billion and $83 billion short between now and 2012.
#21) Half a dozen cash-poor U.S. states have announced that
they are delaying their tax refund checks.
#20) Two university professors recently calculated that the combined
unfunded pension liability for all 50 U.S. states is
3.2 trillion dollars.
#19) According to EconomicPolicyJournal.com, 32
U.S. states have already run out of funds to make unemployment benefit
payments and so the federal government has been supplying these
states with funds so that they can make their payments to the
unemployed.
#18) This most recession has erased 8
million private sector jobs in the United States.
#17) Paychecks from private business shrank to
their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the
first quarter of 2010.
#16) U.S. government-provided benefits (including Social Security,
unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs) rose
to a record high during the first three months of 2010.
#15) 39.68
million Americans are now on food stamps, which represents a new
all-time record. But things look like they are going to get even
worse. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is forecasting that
enrollment in the food stamp program will exceed 43 million Americans in
2011.
#14) Phoenix, Arizona features an
astounding annual car theft rate of 57,000 vehicles and has become
the new “Car Theft Capital of the World”.
#13) U.S. law enforcement authorities claim that there are now over 1
million members of criminal gangs inside the country. These 1 million
gang members are responsible for
up to 80% of the crimes committed in the United States each year.
#12) The U.S. health care system was already facing a shortage of
approximately 150,000 doctors in the next decade or so, but thanks to
the health care “reform” bill passed by Congress, that number
could swell by
several hundred thousand more.
#11) According
to an analysis by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation the
health care “reform” bill will generate $409.2 billion in additional
taxes on the American people by 2019.
#10) The Dow Jones Industrial Average just experienced the
worst May it has seen since 1940.
#9) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the
average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000,
that ratio has exploded
to between 300 to 500 to one.
#8) Approximately 40%
of all retail spending currently comes from the 20% of American
households that have the highest incomes.
#7) According to economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez,
two-thirds of income increases in the U.S. between 2002 and 2007 went to
the wealthiest 1% of all Americans.
#6) The bottom 40 percent of income earners in the United States now
collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
#5) If you only make the minimum payment each and every time, a
$6,000 credit card bill can
end up costing you over $30,000 (depending on the interest rate).
#4) 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.
#3) According to a National Foundation for Credit Counseling survey,
only 58% of those in “Generation Y” pay
their monthly bills on time.
#2) During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that
are at least three months past due in the United States increased for
the 16th consecutive quarter.
#1) According
to the Tax Foundation’s Microsimulation Model, to erase the 2010
U.S. budget deficit, the U.S. Congress would have to multiply each tax
rate by 2.4. Thus, the 10 percent rate would be 24 percent, the 15
percent rate would be 36 percent, and the 35 percent rate would have to
be 85 percent.
h/t Teddy KGB
