A quote from Gerald Celente during a recent interview, “The greatest depression is underway”, may sound apocalyptic to some, disagreeable to others, but probably rings true with the unemployed and the record number of 44 million Americans under the official poverty level (14% of all Americans, or 1 out of 7).

Even though you will probably never hear the word “depression” from billionaires like George Soros, he and other of the the world’s billionaires are getting worried about the economy. Soros recently called the current economy “Blah”. Steve Schwarzman, billionaire founder of the Blackstone group is also worried, worried about the negative effects of the current administration tax hike proposals. He said that any such activity will be “like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939?.

The billionaires know the risks to the current system… things like the weapon of mass destruction 615 trillion dollar over-the-counter derivative time bomb that is growing daily, protected by lobbyists of government, and could blow up at any time and end the world as we know it. They know the fragility of the debt burdened house-of-cards system that we live within.

In America, manufacturing jobs have disappeared, transforming the economy into a “service sector economy”. America has been giving away manufacturing jobs to the lowest bidder of labor while the American manufacturing sector disappears. The benefactors have not been the American workers and middle class, but the CEO’s, the corporate elite, the Wall Street casino owners, and of course the billionaires. Follow the money.

US unemployment is the highest since the Great Depression. The official US government unemployment numbers are biased and manipulated and do not include the “underemployed” (those who have accepted part time work but are still looking for full-time work), the “discouraged workers” (those who have given up) , and the former full-time workers who have settled for short-term contract work. The “real” numbers put the unemployment rate close to 22% (depression numbers) according to the well respected John Williams organization, shadowstats.com.

What about the fact that many of the salaried workers who are left to work are required to take on the responsibilities of those who have been laid off while working more hours with more stress, and less time for themselves. I wonder how they feel about what is going on in today’s economy.  What about the self-employed whose incomes have dramatically dropped. Consumer confidence has recently dropped to new record lows while at the same time the main-stream media outlets have been telling us that the recession is over. What?!

Debt is destroying the western world.

Although people have been trying to pay down their debts and save more, governments have been spending more and more of the peoples money. The US national debt is now nearly $13.5 trillion, or $131 thousand per tax payer. How do you feel about paying the government $131,000 to pay your share of the debt? Did you give them permission to spend that money? Do you have the money? Do you want to get even more sick? Check this out… if we include the unfunded liabilities (social security, medicare, prescription drugs) we get stuck with $356,000 each. Can you handle paying that to your government? Do you have the money? The numbers are simply staggering. Click here to see how much money $1 trillion really is. The total national debt number including unfunded liabilities is increasing by about $110 thousand per second, $6.6 million per minute, $396 million per hour, $9.5 billion per day, $228 billion per month, $2.7 trillion per year. Think about it.

Assuming that the deficit spending would stop (which seems quite unlikely at the moment), a very, very long period of “unwinding” would be required before we could get out of our state of depression and begin to think about very prosperous times again. What will continue to happen however is an accelerated devaluation of the dollar.

Most all world governments seem to be in a race to devalue their currencies, and therefore effectively decrease the value of today’s debt in terms of today’s dollar. Did you know that the value of today’s dollar is worth 95% less than it was in 1913 (the year when the Federal Reserve was formed)? If you purchased something for $20 back in 1913, it would cost you $441 today to purchase the same thing. If you stashed away $1,000 in cash under your mattress in 1913, today it would only be worth $45. The depreciation has been happening sometimes slowly, and sometimes quickly,  but it has surely been happening,  acting like a cancer eating away at the dollar.

To drastically reduce the current government debt, it could probably only be accomplished by a combination of quicker devaluation of the dollar by printing more money into the system (inflation) coupled with increased taxes, both or any of which will destroy the sputtering economy. They are in a catch-22, a no win situation.

I have a feeling that this all is going to end very badly. Could this become the greatest depression?

6 years ago, we were doing well.  We had a decent savings account, no problem paying our bills, took vacations, had an overflowing refrigerator.

This year, we're behind on every bill, constantly praying that the money will come from somewhere so we can pay our mortgage just not to lose our house.  My husband is looking for a second job and we recently, reluctantly, joined the food stamp program.

My husband hasn't had more than a $20 raise in 4 years.  Our health insurance premium keeps going up every year.

Life is really tough.  It's going to get a lot tougher for a lot more people.

You're all in better shape than we are.  Count your blessings.  Where you are now we were six years ago.  I will leave it to your imagination how bad things are now.

What's even worse is that I believe I saw somewhere that the government has said the "recession" (or depression as I call it) is over. Liars.

Orwellian propaganda...in NC, we have Richard Burr ads telling us the economy, etc is Obama's fault, as if Bush did not make it far, far worse on their own.....and yes, Burr wil lbe re-elected by the gullible Prot Proles.....