Niall Ferguson, Heather Conley
Field of reference: History, Politics
Description: Political crisis in West - leaders incapable of finding a way out of financial crisis
“For the better part of 500 years, it was Westerners on both sides of the Atlantic who could say that they had the best economic system, that they developed the best political system and so forth. And those claims have sounded increasingly hollow in our time," Ferguson said in an interview.The breakdown in public confidence caused by the financial crisis has revealed a deeper problem. "What we're seeing in government is part of a wider crisis of Western institutions," he said.Heather Conley, a former U.S. Under Secretary of State for European Affairs and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said this near political paralysis seen in the United States and Europe is common when governments are at an inflection point. "Without decisive direction and leadership, we march in place or attempt to muddle through, uncertain of which path to take. The West is at such a moment," she said. "Only an external shock I fear will force us to take the uncertain (new) path. Or we will become so frustrated that the West will choose leaders who will take us in a radically new direction. I'm not sure our frustration level has reached that level, yet. But Europe may be arriving there soon..”
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, משבר, 2. לראשונה גלובלי |
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Website
Field of reference: Economics
Description: 30 facts about the deep dept america is in. each fact has a link to the source
General Facts
#1 Today, 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month.
#2 Overall, Americans are carrying a grand total of $798 billion in credit card debt.
#3 If you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent $798 billion by now.
#4 Right now, there are more than 600 million active credit cards in the United States.
#5 For households that have credit card debt, the average amount of credit card debt is an astounding $15,799.
#6 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.
#7 The average interest rate on a credit card that is carrying a balance is now up to 13.10 percent.
#8 According to the credit card calculator on the Federal Reserve website, if you have a $10,000 credit card balance and you are being charged a rate of 13.10 percent and you only make the minimum payment each time, it will take you 27 years to pay it off and you will end up paying back a total of $21,271.
#9 There is one credit card company out there, First Premier, that charges interest rates of up to 49.9 percent. Amazingly, First Premier has 2.6 million customers.
Auto Loan Debt
#10 The length of auto loans in America just keeps getting longer and longer. If you can believe it, 45 percent of all new car loans being made today are for more than 6 years.
#11 Approximately 70 percent of all car purchases in the United States involve an auto loan.
#12 A subprime auto loan bubble is steadily building. Today, 45 percent of all auto loans are made to subprime borrowers. At some point that is going to be a massive problem.
Mortgage Debt
#13 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#14 Mortgage debt as a percentage of GDP has more than tripled since 1955.
#15 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, approximately 8 million Americans are at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.
#16 Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5 percent. Today, it is up around 4.5 percent.
#17 According to Dylan Ratigan, 46 percent of all mortgaged properties in Florida are underwater, 50 percent of all mortgaged properties in Arizona are underwater and 63 percent of all mortgaged properties in Nevada are underwater.
#18 Overall, nearly 29 percent of all homes with a mortgage in the United States are underwater.
#19 If you can believe it, the mortgage lenders now have more equity in U.S. homes than the American people do.
Medical Debt
#20 Medical debt is a major problem for a growing number of Americans. One study discovered that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
#21 Sadly, the number of Americans that are protected by health insurance continues to decline. An all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all right now, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.
#22 But even if you do have health insurance, there is still a good chance that you could end up with huge medical debt problems. According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.
Student Loan Debt
#23 Total student loan debt in the United States is rapidly approaching 1 trillion dollars.
#24 If you went out right now and starting spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.
#25 In America today, approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loan debt.
#26 The average student loan debt load is now approximately $25,000.
#27 After adjusting for inflation, U.S. college students are borrowing about twice as much money as they did a decade ago.
#28 One survey found that 23 percent of all college students actually use credit cards to pay for tuition or fees.
#29 The student loan default rate has nearly doubled since 2005.
#30 Student loans made to directly to parents have increased by 75 percent since the 2005-2006 academic year.
At this point, most Americans are up to their eyeballs in debt. According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, משבר, 2. לראשונה גלובלי |
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BBC News
Field of reference: Economics
Description: End of 2011 sees record high European unemployment
"The jobless rate in the 17 countries that use the single currency was 10.4% in December, unchanged from November's figure which was revised up from 10.3%.
Some 16.5 million people were out of work in the eurozone in December, up 751,000 on the year before.
The highest unemployment rate remains in Spain (22.9%), while the lowest is in Austria (4.1%).
Unemployment has been rising throughout 2011, as the debt crisis in the region has continued. In December 2010, the unemployment rate in the euro area was 10%."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, משבר, 2. לראשונה גלובלי |
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Dr. James E Hansen
Field of reference: Ecology
Description: the threat of a potentially large sea level rise
"I suggest that a `scientific reticence' is inhibiting the communication of a threat of a potentially large sea level rise. Delay is dangerous because of system inertias that could create a situation with future sea level changes out of our control. I argue for calling together a panel of scientific leaders to hear evidence and issue a prompt plain-written report on current understanding of the sea level change issue."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, משבר, 2. לראשונה גלובלי |
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National Geographic News
Field of reference: Ecology
Description: If water lavel will rise it will be the biggest catastrophe.
"However, the biggest danger, many experts warn, is that global warming will cause sea levels to rise dramatically. Thermal expansion has already raised the oceans 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). But that's nothing compared to what would happen if, for example, Greenland's massive ice sheet were to melt."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, משבר, 2. לראשונה גלובלי |
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