Mailbag: Bear Trader Writes: The Reality Facing us

As I have pointed out before, the ACTUAL GDP has been declining steadily since last half of the year 2000, with only one quarter of growth (in 2004) since this "contraction" started. In real GDP there has been a GDP decline of about 30% since the year 2000. The USA population has increased more than 10% in this time, so GDP per capita has decreased to about 63% of what it was in the year 2000. If you use a reasonable figure of 40 million "immigrants" during this time the GDP per capita is 54% of what is was in the year 2000. So if you are wondering why you are suddenly so much poorer, well, this is the reason. And, unfortunately, the really can be no realistic expectation of the situation improving. I expect GDP per capita to continue to decline at the present rate until conditions change and the rate of decline increases, probably markedly. And certainly the mainstream media and the political class will be of no help. The reason I write is to suggest the attached link, which leads to a Power Point like slide show that neatly describes the situation we are all caught up in, which offers a real, but not easy, way out of this ugliness. The first step is to get past the "denial" stage of grief, then the "anger", to "resignation". We must face reality with courage and without illusion and delusion. http://www.businessinsider.com/jon