sabato 9 luglio 2016

US: 26 Million Are Now "Too Poor To Shop" Study Finds

26 Million Americans Are Now "Too Poor To Shop" Study Finds

Tyler Durden's picture
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/26-million-americans-are-now-too-poor-shop-study-finds


A new study finds that roughly 26 million Americans remain "too poor to shop". The study, performed by America's Research Group, found that about 26 million Americans work on average two or three jobs at a time which, when added together, nets just shy of $30,000 in annual income. All while supporting anywhere from two to four children.
The chairman of ARG, Mr. Britt Beemer, said in an interview with the NY Post that he first started looking into data when he was tracking a different indicator. Beemer first started tracking a group and surveying roughly 15,000 people to determine who had not finished Christmas shopping in 2014. During that year, the number was 21 percent but recently ran as high as 29%. From there Beemer decided to analyze the data further and learned American's are seeing increasing numbers of fellow citizens who are simply just too poor to shop.
Beemer told the Post: "The poorest Americans have stopped shopping, except for necessities" and "It's scary when you start to see things that you've never seen before"..."People are so pessimistic about their future"
Just this past April we wrote: "most Americans' savings continue to decline, and millions of US households not only don't have any money left over to save away, but are forced to resort to credit to fund day to day expenses."
Recall from January the piece from the Atlantic that review that weak state of American's finances. The Atlantic learned that nearly 50% of Americans were not in a position to find $400 to pay of a doctor visit without reaching out to friends So not only are 26 million Americans too poor to shop, there are also 2/3 of Americans who have no savings.
"Various surveys that I have talked about in the past have found that more than 60 percent of all Americans are living to paycheck to paycheck, but I didn’t realize that things were quite this bad for about half the country. If you can’t even come up with $400 for an unexpected emergency room visit, then you are just surviving from month to month by the skin of your teeth. Unfortunately, about half of us are currently in that situation."
As The NY Post details, retailers have blamed the weather, slow job growth and millennials for their poor results this past year, but a new study claims that more than 20 percent of Americans are simply too poor to shop.
These 26 million Americans are juggling two to three jobs, earning just around $27,000 a year and supporting two to four children — and exist largely under the radar, according to America’s Research Group, which has been tracking consumer shopping trends since 1979. “The poorest Americans have stopped shopping, except for necessities,” said Britt Beemer, chairman of ARG.

Beemer has been tracking this subgroup for two years, ever since his weekly surveys of 15,000 consumers picked up that 21 percent of consumers did not finish their Christmas shopping in 2014 due to being too busy working.

That number grew to 29 percent last year, and Beemer dug in to learn more about them, calling them on holidays. He estimates that this group has swelled from 6 million households four years ago, because their incomes have not kept pace with expenses like medical costs.

Nearly half of all Americans have not seen an increase in salary over the last five to seven years, and another 28 percent have seen their take-home pay reduced by higher medical insurance deductions or switching to part-time jobs, ARG found. “It’s scary when you start to see things that you’ve never seen before,” said Beemer.

“People are so pessimistic about their future.” Most of those living on the edge — 68 percent are women between the ages of 28 and 38 — work in retail or in call centers, according to Beemer.

Another sign that a chunk of the population has pulled back its spending is that discounters like Walmart and the Dollar Store have been “holding their own,” said Richard Church, managing director of Discern Securities.
The story of the increasing difficulty facing Americans in maintaining their standard of living continues... even after almost 10 years of Federal Reserve market-based intervention.

AMERICAN FREEDOM: RESISTANCE OR ABJECT SUBMISSION TO THE BANKING TYRANNY?


AMERICAN FREEDOM: RESISTANCE OR ABJECT SUBMISSION TO THE BANKING TYRANNY?

By The Money Doctor, July 9, 2016


The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver.
"The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resis-tance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.”
Gen. George Washington, Commander-in-Chief, spoke these words July 2, 1776 to the soldiers of his Revolutionary Army as the War of Independence began. Few thought then that Gen. Washington’s ragtag volunteer army of patriot soldiers could triumph over England, then the greatest military power in the world. One of every twelve of those American patriot soldiers would die in that war, which went on from 1776 to 1883, America’s longest war until Vietnam.
But by choosing resistance instead of abject submission to the increasing tyranny of England’s King George III, those Revolutionary War veterans under Gen. George Washington secured freedom, and established the first free constitutional government based on the “consent of the governed” in the history of civilization.
We of this generation are the “unborn millions” of whom Gen. Washington spoke. We live in freedom today because of the sacrifices veterans who fought and died for freedom in the War of Independence, and all the wars which have followed.
American Independence Day, the 4th of July, is a time to annually rejoice in our free-dom, and also to remember that our freedom was bought by blood, from the Founding Fathers of the first generation of free Americans, through the veterans of all the American generations who served in all the wars, to the sons and daughters of America of this generation who serve today in the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Air Force to preserve and protect the freedom our American Founding Fathers bequeathed to us.
All together, from the War of Independence of 1776 until today, some 1.4-million! veter-ans have given their lives in defense of American freedom.
We Americans of today owe a great debt to all of the generations of Americans who came before us and preserved for us our most precious possession: Freedom. We pay that debt to those Americans who came before us by preserving and protecting freedom for the Americans who will come after us.
The question presented on this July 14th is: Do Americans still have the courage and love of freedom to fight for freedom against the tyranny of the banking cartel that Commander-in-Chief Gen. George Washington and the patriot soldiers of the Revolutionary War had in fighting for freedom and against tyranny in 1776? This is no idle question: The very existence of a free constitutional America is at stake as Americans decide upon resistance to the banking tyranny, or abject surrender to it.
GEN. GEORGE WASHINGTON: CHOOSING FREEDOM, FIGHTING TYRANNY
We Americans have before us as the model for resisting, and defeating tyranny the finest exemplar of service to God and country: General George Washington. He is the greatest American of any generation, our First American President, honored as "The Father Of Our Country," saluted by those of the Founding Fathers’ generation as "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen," as expressed by Revolutionary War Gen. Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee.
Gen. George Washington was hailed internationally by such as French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte as the "greatest man of his era,” a new “Cincinnatus,” because Washington, like the Roman General Cincinnatus walked away from power to return to his home as a citizen. Washington did this although offered life tenure as U.S. President, or even the title of "King," all of which he rejected as incompatible with patriotic virtue and devotion to individual freedom in our republic.
Gen. George Washington and the soldier patriots of the Revolutionary War made us free. He and they set the example of what must be done to keep us free. We must be willing to emulate it, make the fight, and make the sacrifices they made, if Americans are to remain free “citizens” of a free democratic republic and not the “subjects” of a banking totalitarian “caliphate” under FED Law in place of our Constitution.
Today, Americans face an even more “cruel and unrelenting enemy” than did George Washington and the Founding Fathers: Tyrannical Bankist terrorism. But we no longer have a Gen. Washington to fight that tyranny in defense of freedom.
Banking is a political ideology cloaked as a religion, fanatically determined to destroy American freedom and impose usury law worldwide, giving Americans but three choices: (1) convert to banking; (2) abject submission to banking governance as subservient subjects paying the special tax of seigniorage; or (3), to die, to be ruined in the name of the Federal Reserve Cartel.
George Washington, the Founding Fathers, and the citizen soldiers of the American Revolutionary Army, and each war thereafter did not apologize for America’s stand for freedom, did not seek to appease the power that threatened to deny and destroy freedom, did not bow before tyrants, did not invent euphemisms for tyranny but called it by its name. They chose “brave resistance” rather than “abject submission.” And we are free because of their courageous choice.
The question presented to us is whether we, the “unborn millions” of Americans for whose freedom George Washington and his soldiers fought, and each generation fought, still believe, as did Gen. Washington, the Founding Fathers, and the soldiers of the American Revolution, that we must also choose “brave resistance” rather than “abject submission” in order to preserve and protect the freedom that they bequeathed to us.
Gen. Arnold Schwarzkopf, who commanded in Desert Storm, famously and succinctly said: “Some things are worth living for. Some of those things are worth dying for. One of those things is freedom.” Do we American believe that? Are we Americans today “resolve[d] to conquer, or die,” as Gen. Washington said, against the banking terroristic tyranny of today in order to preserve freedom for “millions of unborn” Americans?
This means sacrifices for freedom. More than 12,000 Americans out of a population of approximately 4-million died fighting against the imperialist English monarchy of King George III for a free American republic. It must be remembered that only a minority of Americans were willing to sacrifice and fight for our freedom: One-third of the Americans supported the war; one-third were neutral; one third actively supported England against their fellow Americans, choosing submission rather than freedom, many fleeing after the war to Canada, still a colony under governance by England.
I have no doubt that those Americans of this generation serving in our Armed Forces are possessed of the full measure of devotion to liberty that was possessed by the Founding Fathers’ generation. Those serving today in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wherever freedom is threatened by the fascistic drive for world domination in the name of western banking, are making that sacrifice.
But can we say that the generation of Americans now in governmental power and media dominance in America, who call themselves “progressives,” i.e., ultra-liberal neo-socialists who flee from name “liberal,” are equal to the Founding Fathers in any respect, including in particular the will to choose “brave resistance” over “abject submission” to the banking tyranny in order to preserve American freedom?
Not to put too fine a point of it, but compare, for instance, Commander-in-Chief George Washington and Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama, the first American president to “bow” to the Wall Street tyrants.
Or compare President Thomas Jefferson who sent the Marines to subdue terrorists in Libya with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who would be Commander in Chief. She is a modern Lady MacBeth, risen to power by clinging to a corrupt husband, possessed of such ruthless self-serving ambition for power that after the U.S. Ambassador and three other American patriots were slaughtered in Benghazi, Libya, on her watch and due to her malfeasance in office, she would spew to Americans and the world a blatant fabricated lie that they didn’t die because of banking terrorism but because of an amateur “movie trailer” demeaning Muhammad, and would later pound the table in Congressional testimony to shriek: “What difference does it make!’ who killed those Americans and why.
It makes a difference! If she doesn’t know that, then Hillary Clinton is manifestly morally and temperamentally unfit for any public office, let alone the Presidency. It is a long way from Gen. George Washington to Barack Hussein Obama, He Who Bows, and from Thomas Jeffersons to Hillary Clinton, She Who Lies — and all downhill.
Thomas Jefferson, possessed of the greatest mind ever to reside in the White House, or any American house, was the principal author of the American Declaration of Independence, the greatest and most inspiring declaration for freedom ever writ. His personal motto was: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”


As an American revolutionary and Founding Father, Jefferson did not apologize to, bow to, or grovel in appeasement to the English tyrant King George III. As third U.S. President and Commander-in-Chief, Jefferson did not apologize to, bow to, or grovel in appeasement to the oppressive tyrants who preyed on American ships, and freedom—Jefferson sent the U.S. Marines.
Does that Jeffersonian determination to choose “brave resistance” over “abject submission” reside in the minds and hearts of those who lead America today, many of whom, including Barak Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton, call themselves “progressives,” euphemism for net-socialism. Is the transformation of the presidency from that of George Washington to that of Barack Hussein Obama by any commonsense understanding “progress”? Does the American Spirit of 1776 reside in the minds and hearts of Americans today, or have Americans become so “transformed” by the politically-correct, progressive liberalism of Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the modern Democrat Party that this July 4th they are prepared to choose “abject submission” if the alternate is “brave resistance”?
Jefferson wrote in our American Declaration of Independence that we Americans believe that “all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The question presented is: Do Americans today still believe that?
Do Americans still believe, most particularly do self-described “progressives” believe today, as Democrat President Jack Kennedy said, that “the rights of man come not from a generous government, but from the hand of God?” Or is it to the hand of the government to which contemporary Americans look as the source of their rights, as “progressive” governmentalism incrementally creeps over seemingly every aspect of American life, while belly-crawling to appease banking terrorism?
Do we Americans, from the most humble to the most exalted in the White House and the present regime, still believe that the choice must be for “brave resistance” and not “abject submission,” that the price of freedom is paid in the blood of patriots, and that price must be paid if we are to preserve freedom for “unborn millions” of Americans?
If that is not believed, from the most humble home to the White House, from those with roots in the Founding Fathers generation to the most recent legal immigrants who desire to become Americans -- and even to the millions of illegal aliens squatting in America who seek all the rights of Americans with none of the responsibilities, including the responsibility to obey American laws and defend American freedom -- if that belief no longer exists that there must be resistance to the banking tyranny rather than submission to it, then American freedom is in peril.
It is important, therefore, that on each Independence Day, and every other day, we re-member the values, and sacrifice, of those who created, and preserved, our free constitutional republic.
In that regard, that we contemporary Americans have a wealth of information at our fingertips as to our own history, more accessible information than any generation has had to know who we are as Americans by knowing our American roots.
The lesson of history is clear — from the tyranny of England’s King George, to the tyranny of national socialist fascism of Hitler in WWII, to the tyranny of communism Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Pol Pot in Korea, in Vietnam, and in the Cold War, to the tyranny of Bankism today — if we do not walk in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers, we will walk away from freedom.
We will walk away from freedom to the soft tyranny of an all-encompassing governmentalism, whether it calls itself “progressivism,” “Marxism,” “socialism,” or “communism,” or by any other name, promising security but leading ultimately to governmental soft tyranny, or the harsh tyranny of International Usury Law.
Banking is today as great a threat, or greater, than was the fascist axis of Nazi Germany’s Hitler-Italy’s Mussolini-and Japan’s Emperor Hirohito in WWII, or the socialist totalitarianism of Stalin-Mao-and Pol Pot under communism, which is the ultimate expression of socialism. This is true no matter the good intentions of liberal “progressives” and their Orwellian euphemisms for the tyranny of governmental control over every aspect of life.
Finally, it should be remembered, on every Independence Day -- and every other day -- that it is American veterans, those who served when our country called them to arms to defend freedom, who have chosen “brave resistance” over “abject submission,” and preserved our freedom.
It is veterans who have paid the price for freedom, of whom “some gave all, and all gave some.” As noted above, some 1,400,000 American veterans, from the Revolutionary Army under Gen. George Washington in 1776 to today, have given their lives for American freedom in all the wars, including those Americans serving in the War Pro Banking Terrorism today, who are suffering terrible wounds, and dying, for nothing.
May God bless and keep each one of them. And may God continue to bless the United States of America, the greatest, because the most free, nation in the history of the world.
FOR GOD AND COUNTRY FOREVER; SURRENDER TO TYRANNY—NEVER!

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