The video below is pretty scary, although it's not the kind that scary movie lovers enjoy.  Perhaps it’s better not to think or even know about what Stefan Molyneux discusses.  But if you have the stomach for train wrecks, and if you have 59 minutes, it is both fascinating and horrifying.  Some highlights:

 

  • The gap between projected federal revenue and projected federal spending is $222 trillion.
  • Since January 2009, the “labor force” in the U.S. has grown by 827,000, but “those not in the labor force” has increased by 8,208,00.
  • Federal spending on social programs was 4-5% of gdp in 1960; it is now 16%.
  • The government spends $168/day for EVERY person in poverty.  This is 20% more than the median U.S. income of $137/day.
  • In 1984 the median net worth of households led by someone 65 or older was 10 times larger than the median net worth of households led by someone under 35.  Today it is 47 times larger.
  • Total consumer debt is up 1700% since 1971.
  • In 1983 the bottom 95% of all income earners carried $.62 in debt for every $1 they earned.  In 2007 they carried $1.48 in debt for every $1 they earned.
  • The ratio of household debt to personal income is 154%.
  • In 1970, 1 in 50 people were on food stamps; today it is 1 in 6.5.
  • In 1965, 1 in 50 people were on Medicaid; today it is 1 in 6.
  • During 2011, 53% of all Americans with a bachelor’s degree were unemployed or underemployed.
  • 85% of all college seniors plan to move back in with parents after they graduate.
  • In fiscal year 2012, 62% of all federal spending was on entitlements.
  • From 2007 to 2010, U.S. gdp grew by 4.26% while national debt grew by 61%
  • If the federal government were held to the GAPP accounting standards that publicly traded companies are required to live by, the 2011 federal deficit would have been $5 trillion not $1.3 trillion.

 

There is a glimmer of hope, according to Molyneux.  Only 23% of all Americans now believe that government is the solution.  As he sums it up at the end, “Eventually all addicts…hit bottom and wake up with a hooker’s panties next to the body of a wolf in a ditch in Vegas…”  (For some strange reason, that was apparently what came off the top of his head.)  There is a link at the end of the video to Molyneux’s sources:

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