Gadsden Post: 16 Reasons To Feel Really Depressed About The Direction That The Economy Is Headed

The following are 16 reasons to feel really depressed about the direction of the economy....

#1 A newly released National Federation of Independent Business poll discovered that U.S. small businesses let go of more workers than they hired in June. Previously, the poll had registered four monthly gains in net jobs in a row. Some analysts believe that this may be another indication that the employment market is getting softer once again.

#2 Another newly released jobs report found that the number of job cuts being planned by U.S. employers increased by 11.6% in June.

#3 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million people to the population since then.

#4 There are officially 6.2 million Americans that have been unemployed for more than 6 months. There are millions of others that have also been out of work that long but they have become so discouraged about looking for work that the U.S. government considers them "to no longer be in the workforce".

#5 It now takes the average unemployed worker in America nearly 40 weeks to find a new job.

#6 Paychecks are not keeping up with inflation. In May, the average hourly wage in the United States was 1.6 percent lower than 12 months earlier.

#7 Food and gas prices have been absolutely soaring over the past year. McDonald's, Hershey and Coca-Cola have all announced price increases this year. One recent survey found that 9 out of 10 U.S. workers do not expect their wages to keep up with soaring food prices and soaring gas prices over the next 12 months.

#8 There are disturbing indications that the business community expects the economy to slow down even more in the months ahead. For example, pre-orders for Christmas toys from China are way down.

#9 As of April, there were 6.39 million home loans in the United States that were either delinquent or in foreclosure. Included in that were 675,000 home loans that had not had a single payment made on them in two years.

#10 Approximately 28 percent of all home loans in the United States are currently "underwater".

#11 Overall, American households are about 7.7 trillion dollars poorer than they were back in early 2007.

#12 As a percentage of GDP, the total amount of debt in the United States is now far higher than it ever has been in any other era of U.S. history. Things were not even close to this bad during the Great Depression.

#13 One of the key measures of consumer confidence in the United States has hit a seven-month low.

#14 According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans that lack confidence in U.S. banks is now at an all-time high of 36%.

#15 According to one recent poll, 39 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy has now entered a "permanent decline".

#16 Another recent survey found that 48 percent of Americans believe that it is likely that another great Depression will begin within the next 12 months.

So what is the United States going to look like if we do have another major economic downturn?

If the U.S. economy continues to get worse and worse, will what is happening in Greece eventually start happening in this country?

Let us certainly hope that our cities do not descend into chaos any time soon.

However, we should not just stick our heads in the sand and pretend that everything is going to be okay.

Those of us that are aware of what is happening to the economy should take this time to get prepared.

We should all be getting out of debt. When the economy tanks and interest rates start to spike you don't want a horde of creditors hunting you down.