Consider that food stamp rates have doubled over that period to 48.5 million participants (that's one in six Americans!) and that we have an unofficial machination-adjusted unemployment rate in excess of 22% and one thing becomes absolutely clear: the average Joe Sixpack is broke, hungry and dangerously close to ripping to shreds the remainder of our country's social safety nets.
Every piece of official data the government and their mouth pieces throw at us is and has been fabricated for the better part of a decade. Inflation is four times higher than Ben Bernanke will admit. Foreclosures continue piling up and the shadow inventory of foreclosed homes is now in the multiple millions. Real estate prices are still falling, with even "new" buyers who purchased homes after the 2008 collapse and thought they were getting a deal now underwater on their mortgages.
To top it all off we have the price of essential goods like food and energy going through the roof as a result of easy Fed money to banks and investment firms that has nowhere to go but stock and commodities paper markets. While all those freshly printed Federal Reserve dollars have yet to make their way to consumers in any significant way, we're already seeing the initial effects of our "monetary policies" and they're have a devastating impact on consumer gas prices and grocery store trips.
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We've oft opined that the collapse that so many naysayers believe will never happen is, in fact, happening right here and now. The data suggests it likely occurred well before global stock markets melted down in 2008.
The aforementioned handful of data (there's plenty more where that came from -- we haven't even gotten into the European debt debacle or the coming Japanese and Chinese economic meltdowns) is providing us a clear picture of where we've been and where we're headed.
We are literally witnessing the collapse of our entire borrow-and-consume paradigm, the aftereffects of which will not be pretty , complete with hyperinflationary depression , riots, starvation and bloodshed.
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