Bankruptcy of Our Nation (Revised and Expanded). Jerry Robinson

Maxed Out: The New American Slavery

       12. Breaking Free from the Consumption Trap

       Strategies — Financial Wisdom for Uncertain Times

       13. An Introduction to the P.A.C.E. Investing Philosophy

       14. 21 Income Streams You Can Create Now...and in Retirement

       15. Eight Key Strategies to Protect Your Finances

       Appendix A — The DSL Savings: A Strategy to Combat Inflation

       Appendix B — The Five Levels of Financial Freedom

       Appendix C — Frequently Asked Questions from Our Readers

       Glossary

      Acknowledgments

      To my sweet Jennifer Dyan, the love of my life and my business partner. I cannot imagine life without you.

      Also, special thanks to Brenda and Cris for their many hours of proofreading and editing. Finally, a big thank you to our growing online community at FTMDaily.com. I thank each of you for your loyal readership and your continued support.

Introduction

      According to the laws of physics, an apple thrown upward into the air will be pulled downward by the invisible force of gravity. And while history does not necessarily subscribe to a set of predictable laws, it can teach us great lessons. These lessons can even be forceful at times. It has been said that while history may never truly repeat, it does at least rhyme. And unfortunately, in the case of the inevitable American economic decline, we have a wide array of historical precedents, which we will examine throughout this book.

      The Excesses of Empire

      The painful truth expressed in these pages is that the end of the American experiment will, more than likely, come sooner rather than later. America’s ascendance into the heady realms of economic empire began in the post-World War II Bretton Woods era when it was the world’s greatest creditor nation. Today, around 70 years later, America stands as the greatest debtor nation in world history. Decades of financial excess, coupled with an entitlement mentality, have left America financially bankrupt.

      America clearly represents a reluctant economic empire in decline. And like all empires that have gone before it, its days are numbered. The death of an empire can be quick and painless; however, that is rarely the case. Instead, empires tend to die slow, painful, and humiliating deaths, and their demise is usually accompanied by at least two themes: an overextension of the empire’s military and extreme economic overindulgence and depravity. America exhibits excesses in both of these categories.

      Over the last few decades, several economic trends have pointed toward an eventual day of reckoning for the U.S. economy.

      The Selling of America: Our nation’s overconsumption, coupled with U.S. military adventurism since the Vietnam War era, has been largely financed by foreign creditors. With massive trade deficits and an exploding national debt, America is now in a highly vulnerable position as we move into an uncertain future. America’s shameful lack of sound fiscal stewardship has created the largest national debt in human history: a colossal $23 trillion . . . and it is growing by the billions every single day with interest. Foreign countries own more pieces of America than ever before. Not only do foreigners own a large amount of America’s real wealth (real estate, corporations, etc.), they also hold vast amounts of our government bonds. The repercussions of this large foreign ownership of American interests will be discussed in upcoming chapters.

Low Personal Savings Rate: Since the 1930s, the savings rate for the average American household has stood at around 10 percent. (From 1943 to 1945, the average savings rate was well over 25 percent.) However, as our nation began consuming more than it produced, the personal savings rate dropped dramatically — even turning negative in 2005 for the first time in our history.1 More recently, and in the wake of the 2008 credit crisis, consumers have boosted their savings with the average rate now at about 5 percent, still well below the saving rate of previous generations.2

      An Overreliance Upon Credit: U.S. consumer debt has reached all-time highs. This year, more Americans will declare bankruptcy than will divorce, graduate from college, or get cancer; 43 percent of American households spend more than they earn every month. Clearly, this lack of fiscal discipline must eventually end. Today, the U.S. credit industry has trumped the manufacturing industry in total revenues. This as the consumer-crazed nation purchases everything in sight through the use of high-interest credit in an effort to feed the hungry credit beast that they have created.

      The Outsourcing of American Jobs: Over the last several years the United States has outsourced the majority of its domestic manufacturing to foreign countries, like China and India. Americans have opted instead to specialize in consumption.

      The Breakdown of Social Security and Medicare: The federal government’s utter mismanagement of the money that has been entrusted to them through the Social Security and Medicare programs is an absolute disaster. Millions of hard-working Americans are rightly concerned that the money that they were promised by their government will not be there when they reach their golden years. In the upcoming chapters, I will confront this topic and even provide you with unique strategies for preparing for the potential breakdown of these government programs.

      A Systematic Destruction of the U.S. Dollar: U.S. “prosperity” is denominated in a debt-based and debt-backed currency, the U.S. dollar. But this illusion of prosperity in America is hardly recognized or highlighted by the financial elite or the nation’s media. Since 1913, the Federal Reserve’s excessive printing of the nation’s currency has led to a 95 percent decrease in the dollar’s value. Thanks to the Federal Reserve’s noxious mix of quantitative easing programs (money-printing) and extended periods of artificially low interest rates, the financial markets have been completely distorted. These negative monetary policies have systematically devalued the U.S. dollar. In the upcoming chapters, I will provide creative financial solutions for preparing your family and finances for the inevitable hyperinflation that will arise from the Fed’s destructive monetary policies.

      No Accountability Over the Federal Reserve Bank: Since it was established as America’s central bank in 1913, the Federal Reserve has operated without any meaningful congressional oversight. At the height of the 2008 economic crisis, the Fed has admitted that 90 percent of its emergency loans were issued to foreign banks. As long as the Fed is allowed to conduct its operations in secret, America’s economy will remain hostage to the elite foreign banking interests.

      The Abolishment of the Gold Standard: In 1933, the U.S. dollar lost its national gold backing. And later, in 1971, President Richard M. Nixon closed the international gold window. Put simply, in 1971, the United States led the entire global economy into a 100 percent paper money environment for the first time in world history. Today, thanks to our nation’s paper currency system, it now takes one dollar to purchase what five cents could purchase in 1945.

      America’s Debt-Based Monetary System: After the gold standard was abolished, America’s monetary system moved from being “gold-backed” to “debt-based.” This book will explain America’s current debt-based system in stark detail. You will learn how money itself is nothing more than debt. To understand this concept, we will examine the Federal Reserve System and the mind-blowing money creation process they employ.

U.S.