10 Signs America is Decaying right in front of our eyes

[ssjparris]

this is quoted from a website i sometimes frequent. it explains how everything is getting worst and worst in america today. it explains the paranoia of american people and how they act around eachother. essentially being scared of eachother and so forth. enjoy...

article starts here...

The decay of society is so much harder to quantify than economic decline is. The government keeps lots of statistics on things like unemployment and inflation, but it really does not keep track of how sick and twisted people are becoming. Most of us recognize that the character of the American people has changed dramatically over the decades, but unlike the national debt, you can’t easily point to a chart or a graph to show exactly how bad things are getting. In this article, my approach will be to point you to various “signsâ€￾ of social decay. Signs tell us where we are at now and where we are headed. Some of the signs that I will use will be statistics while others will simply consist of anecdotal evidence. Yes, anecdotal evidence is not perfect, but when you put enough of it together it starts to paint a pretty clear picture of what is going on out there. America is becoming a truly frightening place. Our cities our decaying, thieves are becoming bolder, you never know who you can trust and everyone seems depressed. America is decomposing right in front of our eyes, and it is time that we all admitted it.

In the old days, if you met a stranger out on the streets you knew that you could almost certainly trust that person. But these days if you let your child wander one aisle over while you are shopping at Wal-Mart there is a chance that someone will try to abduct her.

Something has changed.

In our major cities, if you walk up to someone at random there is a decent chance that person will be a pervert or a sicko, and most Americans know that this is true at a gut level. Almost everyone is very leery of “strangersâ€￾ these days. It has gotten to the point where we are all afraid of one another.

Just try this some time….

In a major U.S. city, walk right up to people on the street, look them in the eyes and try to introduce yourself.

What will happen when you do that?

In many instances, people will literally run away from you.

We are scared to death to interact with people that we do not know, and the reality is that those fears are way too often justified.

The character of the American people is decaying at a rapid pace, and the evidence of this is all around us.

The following are 10 signs that America is decomposing right in front of our eyes….

#1 As the economy crumbles, in many U.S. cities desperate people are increasingly resorting to violent acts in an attempt to survive. So far this year, violent crime in Washington D.C. has risen by 40 percent. Robberies at gunpoint have more than doubled compared to the same time period last year.

And as I wrote about recently, justifiable homicide in Detroit rose by a staggering 79 percent during 2011, and the rate of self-defense killings in Detroit is now 2200% above the national average.

#2 But it is not just in the cities where you will find crazies. A recent Daily Mail article described a very disturbing incident which took place recently in North Dakota. Two crack-fueled perverts abducted and murdered a 43-year-old math teacher named Sherry Arnold….

Spell and Waters had left Colorado days before the crime claiming they wanted work in eastern Montana and western North Dakota’s oil fields.

After smoking crack cocaine over the entire trip, Waters allegedly told Spell the drug ‘brought the devil out in him’ and began talking about kidnapping and killing a female, AP reports.

After they spotted Arnold, Spell claims that Waters told him to ‘grab the lady’ and pull her into their Ford Explorer as she jogged by.

After they got Arnold into the car, they choked her to death and then buried her body in a shallow grave in North Dakota.

Why would anyone do something like that?

#3 Unfortunately, sickos will even be found working for the government. Just as so many of us feared, TSA workers are actually purposely selecting attractive women to go through the body scanners so that they can admire their naked bodies. The following are actual quotations from official TSA complaints….

-“I feel I was targeted by the TSA employee to go through the see-you-naked machine because I am a semi-attractive female.â€￾

-“The screener appeared to enjoy the process of picking someone rather than doing true random screening. I felt this was inappropriate. A woman behind me was also “randomly selected.â€￾

-“TSA staff ‘trolling’ the lines looking for people to pull out was unprofessional.â€￾

-“I know he went to that room to see my naked body through the machine with the other guy.â€￾

-“When I looked around, I saw that there were only women that were “toldâ€￾ to go through this machine. There were no men.â€￾


One woman was recently forced to go through the body scanner three times because the TSA workers wanted to get a really good look at her “cute figure“.

Isn’t about time that we admitted that the TSA is a massive failure?

#4 The American people seem more depressed than ever. So are we the most depressed nation in the entire world? The U.S. has the highest percentage of women taking antidepressants of any country in the world, and kids in the U.S. are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants than kids in Europe are.

#5 The gang problem in the United States has never been worse. According to the FBI, the number of gang members in the United States has risen by 40 percent since 2009 and there are now a total of 1.4 million gang members living inside this country.

#6 Millions of other young people are not able to find jobs once they finish school and end up financially dependent on their parents. Today, record numbers of young adults are living at home. Many of these young people end up very disillusioned and very frustrated. Right now, more than 30 percent of all Americans in the 18 to 34 age bracket are currently living at home with their parents. That is not good news for the future of this country.

#7 All over America, criminals are becoming bolder and more desperate. The following is a report about one serial home invader from the Washington Post….

A housekeeper was tied up and sexually assaulted and a mother and teenage son were tied up during a home invasion in Bethesda early Wednesday morning that Montgomery County police say involves the same suspect as in a home invasion Tuesday in Wheaton.

As the economy gets even worse, home invasions will become even more common. You might want to learn how to defend yourself.

#8 These days thieves will steal literally anything. Each night in cities all over the nation more street lights are going out as thieves strip the copper wiring right out of them. In the San Francisco area, one very ambitious group of thieves actually swiped a copper bell that weighs 2.7 tons.

#9 One of the clearest signs that America is decomposing is the stunning decline of major cities such as Detroit. In response to my recent article about the death of Detroit, a reader identified as Bill posted the following….

Seeing what is happening to Detroit makes me want to cry AND scream.

I’m a native Detroiter myself – born in Harper Hospital on the east side & was one of those 2 million plus counted in the 1950 Census. I left Detroit in the early 70s for work reasons and had not gone back there since 1984.

When I drove through there on my way to Port Huron last September I “made a lapâ€￾ around the city – got off I-75 downtown, made a loop around the downtown area (the 2 new stadiums look nice as does the RenCen) then went out Michigan Avenue to 12th and up through the 1967 Riot area to Grand River and out to the northwestern part of town where I grew up and went to school.

What a depressing trip. All my old haunts are gone, boarded up or burnt to the ground. The car dealer where I bought my first car (the old “Redford Ramblerâ€￾ on Grand River just west of Evergreen) is nothing but a slab. All the car dealers along the Grand River strip from Evergreen to McNicoles (6 Mile Rd.) are gone, the 16th Precinct Police Station at GR & Mc Nicholes is abandoned and the high school where my cousin graduated is all boarded up (Redford High School, across Grand River from the old police station). My old house on Lasher just north of Grand River is there but the stores in the area are all gone. One would think space aliens had come and taken all the life out of the area.

On that same article, another reader identified as “Disappointedâ€￾ shared his thoughts on the decline of that once great city….

I worked in Detroit for a few years a while back. I was fascinated by the crumbling ruins, drove around to see a lot of them after work (a couple of times I drove through neighborhoods that I can tell you now I would not go near, even in the daytime). It was sad and fascinating at the same time. I would not even THINK of doing that now, it would be highly dangerous. I would not even work in Detroit now.

#10 But it isn’t just Detroit that is falling apart. This kind of thing is happening all over the country. A reader identified as Golden Child recently left the following comment on my website….

Much of America is like Detroit. America is rotting from California to West Virginia to Baltimore. It’s the same song across the United States. High unemployment, falling rent and or house prices, massive police lay-offs, giant spikes in crime accompanied by a rising cost of living and fewer job opportunities. Vallejo and Oakland, California are very much like Detroit. Vallejo ranked as the ninth most miserable city in America according to Forbes. Oakland and Vallejo have laid off nearly half of their police forces. You can get an apartment in Vallejo or Oakland for $200-600 a month although the median monthly rent in California is well over a thousand dollars with Bay Area rent being generally higher. There is a reason why rent is so comparably dirt cheap in those cities. San Francisco-Oakland-Vallejo collectively make up the car-theft capital of the United States. Northern CA cities like Oakland, Richmond and Stockton are regulars on the top ten most dangerous cities in America list. Baltimore, MD is also very much like Detroit with its thousands of abandoned rowhomes, high concentration of Black poverty, drugs and violence. Camden, NJ, East St. Louis, Gary Indiana are all no different from the D. Even large sections of wealthy world class cities like DC, NYC and San Francisco are impoverished quasi-third world hellholes. Southeast DC has the highest unemployment rate of anywhere in America despite the fact that DC is the richest city and metro in America. NYC has the widest income inequality gap of any metro area. Massive swaths of NYC are dangerous towering project buildings packed with working poor minorities. SF is home to some of the most sub-standard public housing in America in neighborhoods like Hunter’s Point, Sunnydale and Potrero Hill. America has been rotting from the core since at least the 70′s.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

As the economic decline of this nation accelerates, people are going to become much more desperate.

And desperate people do desperate things.

So where do all of you think America is headed? Please feel free to post a comment with your opinion below….

***EPILOGUE***

I wanted to post a couple of new comments from the readers. These are more firsthand examples of what life is like on the streets of America today….

—Comment By “Beanâ€￾—

This evening I had to pick my daughter up from work,a fast food restaurant in the heart of downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. My daughter came out later than expected so I had to sit in the car for about forty minutes waiting. While waiting a man walked up to my car and reached for the door handle, thankfully I had the doors locked, he started tapping on the window, I drove off went around the block and parked again to wait for my daughter. A little while later an elderly man with a cane, who appeared to be homeless, shuffled along the sidewalk, he saw me sitting in the car and he came up and tapped on the window, fortunately at that moment my daughter came out of work so I pulled up and picked her up and we got out of town. It was creepy, this was downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana, a city with a population of around 300,000, I was shocked! I do not want my daughter coming out of work at night into this kind of environment, I will be contacting the owner of the business to let them know that it is not a safe environment for young people to have to walk to their cars after dark.

—Comment By Madsr—

My wife and I were discussing this exact thing. A young girl in our quiet Arkansas town met a local guy off the internet she ended up dead on his family farm in a 55 gal drum…..Who does this? We live in a town of 4000 where we all know each other, a man walked into a little shop 3 weeks ago and raped the woman behind the counter. My wife and I consider where we live very safe compared to most of America. Yet we never go anywhere that we are not both carrying a pistol. That is what is so different between todays depression and the great depression. Most people would not hurt or kill you for food or goods. They were more apt to suffer quietly or sneak and get a chicken. It is just the opposite today they are being told everyday they are owed food and goods. The only reason they don’t have them is because the rich have it all, so you should take it from them. I guess that makes most of us that have worked 60 hours a week for the last 25 or 30 years the rich evil people. This is not going to get better regardless of the President both sides have supported the moral decay. God help us!

[zboy1]

60 Minutes: Trapped in unemployment

We've seen some improvement in the job market lately. But there's something stubborn about unemployment. Never in the last 60 years has the length of joblessness been this long. Four million people, a full third of the unemployed, have been out of work more than a year. They've been severed from the workforce. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, calls it "a national crisis."

Is America in denial of its decline

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCP0owSu ... plpp_video[/youtube]


Ashamed to be American? Ex-patriots give up on U.S.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqCIyHHO ... plpp_video[/youtube]


Gore Vidal American empire

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXDzeg3i ... plpp_video[/youtube]


Glenn Beck--Battle for the soul of the country, Kirk Cameron

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPe2s0t6 ... plpp_video[/youtube]

[Voice of Reason]

This is just the beginning.

Western Europe and the UK will be next. And Canada.

Australia was lucky to escape the economic downfall because they ride on Chinas growth...but their time will come too.

It is the end of western society as we know it.

And they deserve all they get.

[zboy1]

This is just the beginning.

Western Europe and the UK will be next. And Canada.

Australia was lucky to escape the economic downfall because they ride on Chinas growth...but their time will come too.

It is the end of western society as we know it.

And they deserve all they get.

Yes, I agree the West is in great trouble. I suggest you read Pat Buchanan's book 'Death of the West" and "Suicide of a Superpower" for a better understanding of the West's decline:

[zboy1]

Hilarious....

[odbo]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/2 ... 97313.html

[ssjparris]

Damn huge ass response from you guys.

yeah its america. Nobody wants to help each other here. Ofcourse the women are just horrible here. people are so scared too ... absolutely no life.

because of all this america will become the WORST place to be on planet earth guarantee. they are NOT family oriented, too isolated, don't want to help a stranger out. homeless people everywhere on a mass scale and people that still have money still dont want to help them out.

[djfourmoney]

Pat is a racist idiot. Fine he see the decline in America big deal, lots of people see it without constantly throwing Black People under the bus like Pat does.

[ladislav]

But if you listen to an average Filipino here on the street and utter the word America, it is like talking about Heaven where you will live with Jesus forever. The look in their eyes becomes wistful and they sigh with yearning. Most of the country would give an arm and a leg to go to the US to live. Some think that salaries in the US are 42 times higher because one gets 42 pesos to the dollar. Oh if America were as rich as what Filipinos think it is, who would want to leave?

[odbo]

But if you listen to an average Filipino here on the street and utter the word America, it is like talking about Heaven where you will live with Jesus forever. The look in their eyes becomes wistful and they sigh with yearning. Most of the country would give an arm and a leg to go to the US to live. Some think that salaries in the US are 42 times higher because one gets 42 pesos to the dollar. Oh if America were as rich as what Filipinos think it is, who would want to leave?

How do Filipinos react when they are confronted by Filipino-Americans who are jaded? If you told them America is a satanic, hyper-materialistic society which destroys people, would they believe you? And have Filipinos even heard of wealthy countries besides America?

[ladislav]

How do Filipinos react when they are confronted by Filipino-Americans who are jaded?

They do not meet those very often. The ones they meet brag about their success in the US. And most are successful by Filipino standards. They take any job, work hard and study for practical professions. Those who did get a visa to go to the US did so because they had such professions to begin with. Nurses, radiologists, physical therapists, navy people. To be sure, Filipinos know how to take advantage of the opportunities that America offers still.

If you told them America is a satanic, hyper-materialistic society which destroys people, would they believe you?

They would smile and not believe you. They want a good apartment, a car and a good job that pays in dollars.

And have Filipinos even heard of wealthy countries besides America?

Yes, but as long as people are white, they are all parts of America. And there are jobs with dollars there.
Middle East is wealthy, they know it but they know they cant get dollars there.

[momopi]

There are many opportunities in the US (and abroad) today.

The housing market crash has depreciated home owner's equity, but it's a great boon to buyers & investors in areas where it's now far cheaper to buy than to rent. In California it's now possible to buy investment SFR's and make double digit returns (pre-tax) on your cash investment.

Many old jobs have gone to the wind, but new opportunities have risen. Mobile & web are hot, and work collaboration via cloud computing is hot. Blackberry out, iOS and Android in. My in-box receives weekly spam from recruiters looking for mobile app developers (I only published a couple apps to iTunes for fun). You don't need to go to college to learn how to code, just get a Mac and download the developer kit for free.

Due to the larger % and number of college graduates, college degrees are not worth as much as they used to. But opportunities exist for those with the right certificates (and degree), such as PMP certified Project Managers. You can do PMP training in your PJ's at home, sitting in your bed, with your laptop. Heck, you can attend classes to become a realtor or broker in your PJ's at home (http://www.alliedschools.com/).

For decades, small farmers have been going out of business. The organic food movement and premium buyers like Whole Foods has been a great boon to the little guys. Popularity of Food network TV and celebrity chefs have also increased demand in quality. Small independent fishermen in Alaska who fish with hook and line instead of nets are finding premium buyers who want delicately handled fish, instead of bruised ones from net catches.

When I first started in the IT industry, finding a job means going to a local placement agency, or visiting the HR department of companies to fill out applications. Today you can search millions of jobs around the country (and abroad) from the comfort of your own home and submit resumes with the click of a button (hint: Google the company HR info and fax your resume in).

20 years ago, if you had a great idea for a new product, you had to find and approach local investors and convince them to part with their money. Today you can go on crowd funding web sites like kickstarter.com and give it your best shot, from the comfort of your home.

Have an idea to start a small home based business? You don't need to go to the bank and beg for money anymore. You can go on P2P lending sites like Prosper.com and find investors who might fund you, from the comfort of your bedroom, in your PJ's, clicking away on your laptop.

The tools and opportunities are all out there, you just need to go do it.

[djfourmoney]

There are many opportunities in the US (and abroad) today.

The housing market crash has depreciated home owner's equity, but it's a great boon to buyers & investors in areas where it's now far cheaper to buy than to rent. In California it's now possible to buy investment SFR's and make double digit returns (pre-tax) on your cash investment.

Many old jobs have gone to the wind, but new opportunities have risen. Mobile & web are hot, and work collaboration via cloud computing is hot. Blackberry out, iOS and Android in. My in-box receives weekly spam from recruiters looking for mobile app developers (I only published a couple apps to iTunes for fun). You don't need to go to college to learn how to code, just get a Mac and download the developer kit for free.

Due to the larger % and number of college graduates, college degrees are not worth as much as they used to. But opportunities exist for those with the right certificates (and degree), such as PMP certified Project Managers. You can do PMP training in your PJ's at home, sitting in your bed, with your laptop. Heck, you can attend classes to become a realtor or broker in your PJ's at home (http://www.alliedschools.com/).

For decades, small farmers have been going out of business. The organic food movement and premium buyers like Whole Foods has been a great boon to the little guys. Popularity of Food network TV and celebrity chefs have also increased demand in quality. Small independent fishermen in Alaska who fish with hook and line instead of nets are finding premium buyers who want delicately handled fish, instead of bruised ones from net catches.

When I first started in the IT industry, finding a job means going to a local placement agency, or visiting the HR department of companies to fill out applications. Today you can search millions of jobs around the country (and abroad) from the comfort of your own home and submit resumes with the click of a button (hint: Google the company HR info and fax your resume in).

20 years ago, if you had a great idea for a new product, you had to find and approach local investors and convince them to part with their money. Today you can go on crowd funding web sites like kickstarter.com and give it your best shot, from the comfort of your home.

Have an idea to start a small home based business? You don't need to go to the bank and beg for money anymore. You can go on P2P lending sites like Prosper.com and find investors who might fund you, from the comfort of your bedroom, in your PJ's, clicking away on your laptop.

The tools and opportunities are all out there, you just need to go do it.

Mompi -

About Real Estate in California, yes the time is ... Not quite yet. Anybody paying for house now is likely still overpaying as when BofA crashes the largest holder of mortgage debt out of the six largest banks (bought out CountryWide) there will be a FIRE SALE on the mortgages they hold (when Nationalized) and the contagion will be massive....

So I would WAIT, I'd say 2014-2015 will be the TIME TO BUY, dirt cheap, by California standards...

Otherwise I totally agree with your post!

Technology (IT/Development), Food Related or Health Care are your biggest growth industries. There are more mobile app programing jobs on CL than anything else, I'm even thinking about making a Android app and the tools are FREE from Google. Because of entry level phones with Android it has far more growth potential than iOS. I think Apple will have to increase prices based on improving working conditions demanded by their considerably more Liberal/Progressive cult..err I mean fan base. So very soon, more $500 Mac Book Air's, more like $600-$700 Mac Book Airs. But with the Ultrabooks becoming really popular at CES, there is no reason to overpay for a Apple product unless you're a cult follower, err I mean fan of the OS.

Unfortunately not everybody is cut-out to be their own boss. They are far more comfortable being given a task and doing it with not much more responsibility. As soon as your small business employes somebody besides yourself, it takes on a whole new level of responsibility. If you have no morals or grow so big you become disconnected from your employees, its easy to force them to take on a larger share of health care benefits or take a pay cut, while you get a pay increase.

That said you can have a one man business more than ever before with technology. You're entire back office can be run by a computer and an affordable assistant from a developing country where you pay them a fair wage at far lower prices than the same work here. You can also have a mobile office or the you can build sites that only need to be updated a few times a month or when new content becomes available. Otherwise you collect money via PayPal or BitCoin and sit back.

I am working on Passive Income now so get a job in Europe without being forced to take any old job or beg on the streets for a bite to eat (I would just come back home actually...)

[PeterAndrewNolan]

[djfourmoney]

I agree, but I have read some amazing post about cloud computing information that get me consider how clouding is the future for investment and huge profit for with all this huge high tech trends the web and even your desktop will be externalized else where ; and this is great way to new changes and opportunities for making money and may be an other new boom , so you might want to take a look at it and let me know what you think

Cloud Computing is a reality today, its just moving people away from desktops with the entire OS on a local hard-drive as oppose to on a network/cloud.

I don't need the tools and features of Office 2003/2010, I use Google Docs which has many of the same features for free (of course in exchange of sharing some of your personal data to advertisers). There are also rumor that not Windows 8 but the next Windows will be completely in the cloud (internet).

The only people that need Terrabytes of storage are people serving files or keeping media locally as I do. Instead of physical media, I rather playback files locally or by streaming (cloud).

Where not there yet because too many Brick and Mortars are standing in the way. They use the Government to keep their market advantage (Hollywood for instance).

I have a few ideas for passive income based on my current reality.