The Annual Running of the Sheep - 2013

[spectre 633]

Hilarious and yet so sad that it's come to this.

VIDEOS IN SPOILER TAG

 

It is a day when the rest of the world makes fun of Americans for behaving like "rabid animals" and "zombies" as we indulge in a tsunami of greed. It truly is a shameful orgy of materialism for a morally bankrupt nation. It is being projected that approximately 140 million Americans will participate in this disgusting national ritual this year. Sadly, most of them have absolutely no idea that they are actively participating in the destruction of the economic infrastructure of the United States

 

How could that possibly be?

Aren't they helping the economy by spending their money?

Actually, it isn't that simple.

 

Just think about it for a moment. Where are most of the "advertised specials" that people go crazy over on Black Friday actually made?

 

If you guessed "China", you would be correct. In fact, it is very difficult to find any "Black Friday specials" that are actually made in the United States.

 

When you buy stuff made in China, you support workers and businesses in China. As I mentioned in a recent article, the U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas.

 

Overall, the U.S. has run a total trade deficit with the rest of the world of more than 8 trillion dollars since 1975.

 

So when you look around and see lots of unemployed people, it should not be a surprise to you.

 

Right now, the labor force participation rate is at a 35-year-low and more than 102 million working age Americans do not have a job. That number has increased by 27 million just since the year 2000.

 

Because the American people are not supporting American businesses, our formerly great manufacturing cities are being transformed into rotting, festering hellholes. Just take a look at Detroit. At one time Detroit had the highest per capita income in the entire nation, but now it is a dying, bankrupt ghost town.

And of course this is happening to manufacturing cities all over the nation. Since 2001, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the U.S. have permanently shut down and we have lost millions upon millions of good paying manufacturing jobs.

 

Back in the 1980s, more than 20 percent of the jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.

 

Good job America.

 

Here are some Statistics for you

 

-There are less Americans working in manufacturing today than there was in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.

 

-Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

 

-When NAFTA was pushed through Congress in 1993, the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of 1.6 billion dollars. By 2010, we had a trade deficit with Mexico of 61.6 billion dollars.

 

-Back in 1985, our trade deficit with China was approximately 6 million dollars (million with a little "m") for the entire year. In 2012, our trade deficit with China was 315 billion dollars. That was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.

 

-According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

 

-According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LMAO

 

 

 

Meanwhile, as retail stores all over America actively encourage this zombie-like behavior, police are actually cracking down on other groups of Americans that are actively trying to make this country a better place. For example, a Christian group in Lake Worth, Florida was kicked out of a public park for trying to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving. Of course this kind of thing happens all the time. In fact, dozens of major cities all over the country have now passed laws that make it illegal to feed the homeless. 

 

 

[Plumbers Crack 4,036]

A first world country preventing the feeding of the homeless in a peaceful fashion...... that just beggars belief!

[spectre 633]

South Carolina recently made being Homeless illegal. How does that work?

[Chookes 965]

Read the thread title and immediately thought it was something to do with Scotland and a nice day out for people.

[spectre 633]

correction, one of the cities did

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/28/south-carolina-capital-city-forces-its-homeless-out/

[spectre 633]

Read the thread title and immediately thought it was something to do with Scotland and a nice day out for people.

 

lmao good one

[Chookes 965]

I do not understand how you make homeless people illegal. It's a choice.

I know you're concentrating on manufacturing and how percentage of Americans working are down but what's the overall employment figures looking like? Off the top if my head I remember reading the UK's manufacturing was down but our employment was going back up (although slowly).

[Jason 1,245]

Read the thread title and immediately thought it was something to do with Scotland and a nice day out for people.

I was kinda thinking there was a sheep uprising in West Virginia.

My wife and I don't participate in the black Friday bullshit. I don't agree with the mass panic they cause, people getting mauled over a fucking cheap TV. It's stupid.

[spectre 633]

I do not understand how you make homeless people illegal. It's a choice.

I know you're concentrating on manufacturing and how percentage of Americans working are down but what's the overall employment figures looking like? Off the top if my head I remember reading the UK's manufacturing was down but our employment was going back up (although slowly).

 

That's the thing dude. They are manipulating the unemployment numbers to keep it low. Just as it came out that the unemployment numbers were manipulated right before the election to help Obama win.

 

How do they manipulate this? They just stop counting people as unemployed, even though they haven't found a job yet. It's called the labor force participation rate. This chart shows it clearly.

 

 

When an unemployed person has not found a job within one year and they have exhausted their unemployment benefits, they are considered to have dropped out of the workforce and no longer count towards unemployment numbers.

 

What the hell?

[Chookes 965]

That makes no sense .

[spectre 633]

The real unemployment numbers in the US currently are estimated between 12-15%.  During the Great Depression they were 25%.

 

What is even worse is there are more part time jobs being created than full time jobs.  Oh yeah, and Obamacare has helped cause this increase in part time jobs because employers are lowering their employee hours to below 30 to keep from having to offer full time benefits.  So now there are more people working 2 or more jobs to cover the same hours of shifts across multiple places.

 

In one way, this will make it look like even more jobs are being created and I guess Obama can say "Mission Accomplished" but it's a scam. 

 

[techno 3,478]

Thing about manufacturing is, as I find as we have a sister company starting in China, is that if you require a certain income that employers are willing to pay other people arnt willing to pay for the higher cost of goods, if manufacturing in China is cheaper and we as consumers want cheap no will in the world will will change whats happening even tho you km at see a superior product.

Were lucky at the moment as were a world leader (yeh right) and oil companies want and need reliability when China catches up they will go there.

[spectre 633]

One possible outcome I can see happening is that once the dollar loses its reserve status and other countries no longer need to import products to the US in order to get dollars so they can purchase oil (because China will have the new reserve currency).  Maybe then and finally, manufacturing will return to the US.

 

But by then, most of the trade skills will have been lost.  An empire has never been able to sustain itself in history, the same thing inevitably happens once it becomes decadent and gluttonous and all powerful.

[Xethius 59]

Yeah, I made that mistake once. I dont like or care for black friday. toooooooo much ppl. Good points too spectre