Stolen
The Middle Class Is Collapsing: Nearly 1 Out Of Every 4 Americans Is Now “Functionally Unemployed”
Do you ever feel like you are “functionally unemployed”? If so, you are definitely not alone. There are lots of people out there that cannot pay the bills each month even though they have jobs. In fact, there are lots of people out there that literally cannot afford to put a roof over their heads even though they are employed. Yes, there are many hard working Americans that are now living in their vehicles or in “tent communities” because that is all they can afford. In recent years, the cost of living has been rising much faster than paychecks have, and so now a substantial percentage of the population is living in a state of constant financial stress. The middle class has been collapsing all around us, and we are witnessing an extraordinary amount of economic suffering all over the country right now.
For years, the federal government has been telling us that the unemployment rate in the U.S. is very low.
Everyone knows that is a bunch of hogwash.
According to a report that was recently released by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, the true rate of unemployment in the U.S. was 24.3 percent last month…
But another indicator suggests those pieces of government data may be painting an overly rosy picture of the economy, with a recent report from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) finding the “true rate” of unemployment stood at 24.3% in April, up slightly from 24% in March, while the official Bureau of Labor Statistics rate remained unchanged at 4.2% over the same period.
LISEP’s measure encompasses not only unemployed workers, but also people who are looking for work but can’t find full-time employment, as well as those stuck in poverty-wage jobs. By tracking functionally unemployed workers, the measure seeks to capture labor market nuances that other economic indicators miss, such as Americans who are left behind during periods of economic expansion.
Today, there are millions upon millions of Americans that are “functionally unemployed”.
According to Gene Ludwig, you can literally “be homeless and in a tent community and have worked one hour” and be counted as “employed” by the federal government…
“The unemployment data, as it’s put out, has some flaws,” LISEP chairman Gene Ludwig told CBS MoneyWatch. “For example, it counts you as employed if you’ve worked as little as one hour over the prior two weeks. So you can be homeless and in a tent community and have worked one hour and be counted, irrespective of how poorly-paid that hour may be.”
I know that a lot of you can really identify with what I am talking about in this article, because you are experiencing deep economic pain on a daily basis.
Earlier this month, I heard from a reader that is essentially “functionally unemployed” at this point.
I asked him if I could share an excerpt from his email to me with all of you, and he gave me permission. If you are suffering too, hopefully his story will help you to realize that you aren’t alone…
Last year my income was $19,000. If I didn’t have a mortgage/rent free house to live in, I would be homeless!!!
I try to stock up on food when ever my local Grocery Store puts items on sale.
I shop at Thrift Stores and only on the half price days.
In 8 years my Real Estate Taxes have gone from $1,400 to $2,000.
In 8 years my Real Estate Insurance has gone from $1,500 to $2,200.
I haven’t had a Vacation in DECADES!!!
I seldom eat out.
I drive a 40 year old Pickup with 220,000 miles on it.
I try to combine errands and shopping in one trip to conserve on gasoline and not put as many miles on my old Pickup.
During the hot summer months I take a shower out of the end of a garden hose to cut my water bill.
I wear my clothes day after day until they get so dirty I can’t stand it or they start to stink.
I can only dream about living a normal American middle class lifestyle.
I hear of people making $100,000 a year and how they cannot pay their bills. MY GOODNESS MAN, I WOULD CONSIDER MYSELF RICH IF I COULD MAKE $100K A YEAR!!!!!!
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/the-middle-class-is-collapsing-nearly-1-out-of-every-4-americans-is-now-functionally-unemployed/
Two great forces are currently locked in a crucial battle. Tragically, this struggle is barely noticed. The combatants are Reality and Artificiality.
It is a very uneven fight. Almost all of the power centers of society are on the side of artificiality. Most of the political, economic and tech “deciders” seek increased Connectivity, which actually means increased Dependency.
These control freaks, who I refer to as our Malignant Overlords, want us implanted with I.D. chips, Neuro-linked to The Cloud and filled with nano-bot mRna concoctions. That is what they desire for our bodies.
Their future vision of our external world is equally sinister and depraved. They want to destroy our autonomy and self-reliance.
We will have to eat their laboratory-spawned insect goo. Since they don’t even want us to be the masters of our own vehicles, they will keep steering us towards driver-less cars. They will separate us from the natural world of farms, mountains and valleys. Instead, we will be corralled into mega-cities of steel and concrete, while being bathed in electro-magnetic force fields.
For thousands of years, the Worst Among Us have been driven by a psychotic Lust for Power. History is an almost unbroken cavalcade of tyrants rising, destroying and being replaced by the next violent maniac. But as evil as their desires and actions were, they pale when compared to the villains of our era.
That is because our current self-appointed Elites do not just seek to rule over us. Instead, they want to transform our very essence as people. They intend to “augment” the biological, carbon-based human being into a synthetic, silica-based cyborg. Mutants make better slaves.
They have already socially engineered us down into pathetic, dependent, bulbous, unskilled consumers.
Their calculators mean we can’t do arithmetic. Their spell-checkers decrease our ability to spel. Their GPS screens deprive us of the capacity to read a map.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2025/05/27/are-sea-gypsy-tribes-humanitys-last-line-of-defense/#more-368189
U.S.-Supplied Air Defenses Fail In Ukraine
On May 23 the former Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian army had a pessimistic assessment of the war in Ukraine (machine translation):
Former commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and now Ambassador to the UK Valery Zaluzhny said that Russia has overtaken Ukraine in innovations on the battlefield.
…
According to him, Ukraine at the moment "does not manage to continuously generate and scale innovations, even in those areas where yesterday we were ahead of the enemy."
"The enemy has already overtaken us and we are lagging behind – and we must be honest about this," he said.
…
The ex-commander-in-chief believes that the Russian Federation is now waging a war of attrition. In response, it is necessary, according to Zaluzhny, "to undermine the economy and social component in order to deprive Russia of the possibility of scientific and technological development and start the processes of civil unrest and disintegration."
How to do this, the ex-commander-in-chief does not specify, …
Zaluzhny was likely not only referring to the drone war which Russia is winning but also to the mediocre state of Ukraine's air defenses.
A day after Zaluzhny, the spokesman of the Air Force of Ukraine confirmed his take (machine translation):
Russia has improved its ballistic missiles, so Patriot systems have become worse at shooting them down. This was stated by the head of the Communications Department of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yuriy Ignat, commenting on today's night shelling of Kiev.
Iskander-M missiles, which attack along a ballistic trajectory, have been significantly improved and upgraded
"We are talking about shooting radar traps, which each missile can shoot during the approach to the target. Another is the flight of a ballistic missile along a quasi-ballistic trajectory, when the missile does not fly in a straight line, but already performs maneuvers, " he said on the telethon.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/05/us-supplied-air-defences-fail-in-ukraine.html#more
Rand Paul: ‘America First’ Vision Has Won Out Hearts and Minds of Public, But Neocons Still Trying to Secretly ‘Undermine’ Trump
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News exclusively that the neocons have lost the hearts and minds of the American public who are firmly with President Donald Trump’s America First vision on foreign policy, but that they are still very powerful behind the scenes in the swamp in Washington and trying to secretly “undermine” the president’s push for peace worldwide.
Paul’s comments came during a lengthy exclusive interview with Breitbart News in his U.S. Senate office last week in Washington, just after Trump returned from the Middle East and a hugely successful trip in which the president declared in a speech in Saudi Arabia the era of neoconservatism and nation-building is over and argued for a better way forward.
“I think in the first term, one of the most remarkable achievements, and it really wasn’t so much anticipated, was the Abraham Accords,” Paul told Breitbart News. “A lot of that was Jared [Kushner], but also President Trump. It was doing something that was really outside the box. Everybody tried to have a big peace plan for what do you do in Israel? Instead, they went out outside that and started trying to make peace between Israel and certain countries. I think the potential for that to continue is significant and has a great deal of potential to happen under the second Trump administration. I thought his remarks, particularly towards neocons and the nation-building stuff, were nothing short of remarkable really. That’s the kind of thing that someone like myself has sort of wished for for a long time, for someone to say ‘We’re not into nation-building and we’re not going to be getting involved in every war.’ Frankly, I think he’s doing a great job on the foreign policy front, getting them to invest over here, and having good relations is a good idea.”
Paul expressed his sympathy with Trump’s senior adviser Steve Witkoff’s aggressive travel schedule, as Witkoff—who Breitbart News previously interviewed—has been engaged in negotiations as far-ranging as those with the Russians over the Ukraine war, with the Iranians over their nuclear programs, and over finding a lasting peace in Gaza after Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel.
“I can’t imagine what his schedule is like with all the traveling,” Paul said of Witkoff, before turning to what he is enjoying about Trump’s foreign policy efforts.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/05/28/exclusive-rand-paul-america-first-vision-has-won-out-hearts-and-minds-of-public-but-neocons-still-trying-to-secretly-undermine-trump/
Politician allegedly sexually assaulted man after event at Parliament House: 'I felt dirty and confused'
A political staffer feared reporting his alleged sexual assault by a then-state minister wouldn't be taken seriously and would hinder his career, a jury has heard.
Kiama MP Gareth Ward, 44, is on trial in the NSW District Court after pleading not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent and indecent assault charges.
Jurors on Wednesday heard he approached a young, drunk political staffer after a mid-week event at the NSW Parliament House in 2015 and offered him a place to stay for the night.
The staffer said Ward had poured him drinks and tried to kiss him at his Potts Point apartment before climbing into bed with him.
The complainant, now aged in his 30s, became emotional as he recounted moving away from Ward and telling him 'no' when the politician 'groped' his backside and sexually assaulted him.
'I at no stage said yes or gave him any indication that I was pleased with what was going on,' he said.
During the painful assault, the alleged victim said he felt Ward moving next to him and heard him grunting before making a 'relieved kind of groan'.
The political staffer later noticed a sticky substance on the bed and his rear.
'I felt down but also a little dirty and confused,' the complainant said. 'I recalled saying no and I was thinking, "had I not verbalised no as loudly as I should have?"'
He also told the court he put a hand between him and Ward when the MP tried to kissed him shortly after arriving at the unit.
Two minutes after the rejection, Ward tried again and the complainant 'just went along with it' because he 'thought he just wanted a kiss and it would end there'.
The morning after the alleged sexual assault, the pair walked to Parliament House together.
Ward continued to praise the young man's 'bright future', the alleged victim said. 'At one stage he said if I stick by him, he'll take care of me.'
He told the jury he was plagued by self-doubt after the sexual assault and hadn't reported it to police because he was worried he would be humiliated.
'I didn't think it was going to be taken seriously,' he said during the emotional testimony.
'Because it wasn't rape and what I thought rape was… I didn't realise how serious it was and how much it impacted me until people started talking to me about it.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14759157/Politician-allegedly-sexually-assaulted-man-event-Parliament-House-felt-dirty-confused.html
This is fascism aka corporatism the binding of government with the private sector. One world governance - the AI isn't safe - Palantir is intel run company CIA Mi6 Mossad
MAGA didn't vote for this. Taxpayers paying for their own enslavement:
Fannie Mae Partners With Palantir For AI Mortgage Fraud Effort As Trump Works To Take Housing Giants Public
Fannie Mae, the quasi-government financial firm overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), announced a partnership with defense tech company Palantir to detect mortgage fraud using the firm's proprietary technology, which includes some elements of artificial intelligence (just in case they didn't have all of your info…)
Under the agreement, new mortgage applications would be run through Palantir's technology suite to uncover fraud before they reach Fannie Mae, according to the housing giant's president and CEO, Priscilla Almodovar, who added that the tech will allow the organization "to see patterns quicker."
"We’re going to be able to identify fraud more proactively, as opposed to reactively," she said during a Wednesday press conference in Washington D.C. "We’re going to be able to understand the fraud and stop it in its tracks. And I think over time, this really becomes a deterrent for bad actors, because we’re creating friction in the system when they do bad things."
More
https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/fannie-mae-partners-palantir-ai-mortgage-fraud-effort-trump-works-take-housing-giants-public
Anon's see patterns
Notice how all politicians apart from Massie
Quietly vote for 10 shitty thing that benefit the ruling classes agenda
Then once people start asking questions
They do something good and the media makes a big noise
And everyone forgets the 10 shitty things.
This is true in all Western nations.
Without disclosure in the next few weeks
The West is on track for complete breakdown.
Trump looks like he's been stalling the Revolt.
With lies and hopium 2 more weeks!
Like it or not that is the TRUTH