Mapping The United States Of Welfare

Via HowMuch.net,

When was the last time you stopped to think about how much the government spends on welfare?

Most people probably don’t think about it too much, but we bet even for those who do, they don’t know how much their government spends, much less what the money actually pays for.

That’s why we created a new map showing you how much each state spends on the public dole.

Source: HowMuch.net

Our viz takes U.S. Census Bureau data from GoBankingRates to create a map for the entire country. Each bubble represents a state, and the size of the bubble corresponds to the size of the public expenditure on public welfare. We then color-coded each circle according to the size of the expense. Shades of blue mean that the state spends relatively little money, but pink and red indicate a higher-than-average amount. There’s a lot that you can quickly learn by breaking mapping public welfare expenses in this war.

First off, what is public welfare? This can be a controversial topic with a lot of stereotypes, so let’s get our definitions straight. If you rely on public welfare, then you turn to the government for help with paying your basic necessities, like food, housing and healthcare. The federal government runs programs that provide these types of things, and to varying degrees, so do some states. As you can clearly see, some places are more generous than others.

California is the obvious standout on the West Coast, dropping north of $100 billion on public assistance. Texas is the only other Western state with over $30 billion of expenditures, followed by Washington at under $12 billion.

There’s a significant cluster of high-spending states across the Northeast, including New York ($61.4B) and Pennsylvania ($26.8B). Florida stands out in the South at over $27B, thanks in large part to its retirement communities. There’s also a cluster of states in the Upper Midwest in light pink, where there a lot of old manufacturing cities.

We should also point out the states with much smaller expenditures, stretching across the Midwest and into the deep South. The simplest explanation for the lack of huge welfare budgets in these states has to do with geography: there just aren’t a lot of big cities in places like Iowa and Alabama compared to other states. This helps explain why California and New York spend so much on welfare. They rank first and fourth as the most populous states.

Here’s a straightforward list of the top ten states with the highest expenditures on public welfare. Note the enormous difference between California and New York and the rest of the country.

1. California - $103 Billion

2. New York - $61.4 Billion 

3. Texas - $35.4 Billion 

4. Florida - $27.2 Billion 

5. Pennsylvania - $26.7 Billion 

6. Illinois - $21 Billion 

7. Ohio - $20 Billion 

8. Massachusetts - $18.6 Billion 

9. New Jersey - $17.3 Billion 

10. Michigan - $16.3 Billion 

Here’s an interesting fact for you. The top ten states listed above spend more on public welfare ($346.9B) than all of the bottom forty states (plus the District of Columbia) combined ($262.7B). 

Regardless of how populated any particular state is, you want to pay attention to these numbers because they foreshadow future budget problems.

When you consider the fact that many states run operating deficits and have enormous debt problems, you begin to wonder if some of these numbers are sustainable for the long term.

Mapping The Most (And Least) Valuable States In America

Everyone knows location is the most important part of real estate. You can’t change where your house is (all things being equal). You have to consider school districts, crime rates, commute times—the list goes on and on. It can be much simpler when you’re considering buying a home to compare apples to apples so you can see how the real estate market differs according to location.

So HowMuch.net created a new visualization showing land and housing prices at a glance.

Source: HowMuch.net

The blue dots represent the value of an acre of land, and the red circles indicate the median value of a home. The bigger the blue dot and the larger the red circle, the more expensive it is to become a property owner. Small circles and dots likewise indicate a very low cost of purchasing property. The home values are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Consumer Survey, and the numbers behind the land values come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

As HowMuch.net notes, several things stand out in our illustration.

An acre of land is much more valuable in the Northeast compared to any other part of the country. This is partly because the Eastern seaboard is a very densely populated area with several large cities, most notably New York. It is also a historical artifact that Europeans settled New England first and then moved west, meaning that New York and Massachusetts have some of the oldest modern structures anywhere in the U.S. In other words, Eastern cities are a lot older than Midwestern cities, so there isn’t a lot of farmland for suburban expansion anymore. We should also mention that in terms of geographic size, these are some of the smallest states in the country. Matter of fact, the three states where the cost of an acre of land is greater than the median price of a house are all located on the East Coast, and they happen to be some of the smallest states in the Union (Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey).

Median home values (the red circles) are a different and more complicated story. California has the most expensive houses by far ($449,100). Oregon and Washington boast similarly high housing valuations as well ($264,100 and $284,000, respectively). It is also expensive to buy a home on the East Coast with six out of the top ten states with the most expensive median home values.

But there’s a noticeable dip in both housing and land prices in southern and midwestern states. Prices slowly rise the further you move from east to west. This highlights unique economic developments over the last several years, including the boom in oil exploration in North Dakota and the growth of Western cities thanks to young people,like Denver. Snowbirds also tend to move to Florida and Arizona after they retire, which also pushes up housing prices in those places.

Top 5 Most Expensive States to Buy a Home 

1. California - Value per acre: $39,092; Median Home Value: $449,100


2. Massachusetts - Value per acre: $102,214;  Median Home Value: $352,100


3. New Jersey - Value per acre: $196,410; Median Home Value: $322,600


4. Maryland - Value per acre: $75,429; Median Home Value: $299,800


5. New York - Value per acre: 41,314; Median Home Value: $293,500

Top 5 Cheapest States to Buy a Home

1. West Virginia - Value per acre: $10,537; Median Home Value: $112,100


2. Mississippi - Value per acre: $5,565; Median Home Value: 112,700


3. Arkansas - Value per acre: $6,739; Median Home Value: $120,700


4. Oklahoma - Value per acre: $7,364; Median Home Value: $126,800


5. Kentucky - Value per acre: $7,209; Median Home Value: $130,000

All this shows that the laws of supply and demand are alive and well in the real estate market. You can easily find cheap acres of land where they are plentiful and un-useful (sorry, Nevada), but owning property is a lot more expensive in smaller places crowded with lots of people. As always, location, location, location.

U.S. Has 3.5 Million More Registered Voters Than Live Adults - A Red Flag For Electoral Fraud

Via Investors.com,

American democracy has a problem - a voting problem.

According to a new study of U.S. Census data, America has more registered voters than actual live voters. It"s a troubling fact that puts our nation"s future in peril.

The data come from Judicial Watch"s Election Integrity Project. The group looked at data from 2011 to 2015 produced by the U.S. Census Bureau"s American Community Survey, along with data from the federal Election Assistance Commission.

As reported by the National Review"s Deroy Murdock, who did some numbers-crunching of his own, "some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America"s adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud."

Murdock counted Judicial Watch"s state-by-state tally and found that 462 U.S. counties had a registration rate exceeding 100% of all eligible voters. That"s 3.552 million people, who Murdock calls "ghost voters." And how many people is that? There are 21 states that don"t have that many people.

Nor are these tiny, rural counties or places that don"t have the wherewithal to police their voter rolls.

California, for instance, has 11 counties with more registered voters than actual voters. Perhaps not surprisingly — it is deep-Blue State California, after all — 10 of those counties voted heavily for Hillary Clinton.

Los Angeles County, whose more than 10 million people make it the nation"s most populous county, had 12% more registered voters than live ones, some 707,475 votes. That"s a huge number of possible votes in an election.

But, Murdock notes, "California"s San Diego County earns the enchilada grande. Its 138% registration translates into 810,966 ghost voters."

State by state, this is an enormous problem that needs to be dealt with seriously. Having so many bogus voters out there is a temptation to voter fraud. In California, where Hillary Clinton racked up a massive majority over Trump, it would have made little difference.

But in other states, and in smaller elections, voter fraud could easily turn elections. A hundred votes here, a hundred votes there, and things could be very different. As a Wikipedia list of close elections shows, since just 2000 there have been literally dozens of elections at the state, local and federal level decided by 100 votes or fewer.

And, in at least two nationally important elections in recent memory, the outcome was decided by a paper-thin margin:

In 2000, President Bush beat environmental activist and former Vice President Al Gore by just 538 votes.

Sen. Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat, won his seat by beating incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman in 2008. Coleman was initially declared the winner the day after the election, with a 726-vote lead over Franken. But after a controversial series of recounts and ballot disqualifications, Franken emerged weeks later with a 225-seat victory.

Franken"s win was enormous, since it gave Democrats filibuster-proof control of the Senate. So, yes, small vote totals matter.

We"re not saying here that Franken cheated, nor, for that matter, that Bush did. But small numbers can have an enormous impact on our nation"s governance. The 3.5 million possible fraudulent ballots that exist are a problem that deserves serious immediate attention. Nothing really hinges on it, of course, except the integrity and honesty of our democratic elections.

Atlanta Fed Slashes Q1 GDP Forecast To Just 0.5%, Lowest In Three Years

Just over two months ago, the Atlanta Fed "calculated" that Q1 GDP was going to be a pleasant 3.4%, confirming that the Fed had made the correct decision by hiking not only in December, but also last month. Since then, the Fed"s own GDP estimate has crashed in almost linear fashion, and as of this morning - after the latest disappointing retail sales report - it had plunged to just 0.5%, which if accurate would make Q1 the weakest quarter going back three years to Q1 2014.

From the regional Fed:

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2017 is 0.5 percent on April 14, down from 0.6 percent on April 7. The forecast for first-quarter real consumer spending growth fell from 0.6 percent to 0.3 percent after this morning"s retail sales report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Consumer Price Index release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Putting the Atlanta Fed"s forecast in context, a 0.5% GDP would mark the weakest quarter in 37 years, or going back to 1980, in which the Fed hiked rates. Then again, considering today"s abysmal CPI and retail sales data, the narrative to focus on next is not so much hiking, or balance sheet normalization, but when the Fed will resume easing, cut rates (as per Donald Trump"s recent suggestion) and/or launch QE4.

Thousands Of Americans Are Fleeing The Big Cities In Preparation For The Coming American Apocalypse

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Why are so many people suddenly moving away from major U.S. cities?  Recently, I wrote about the mass exodus that is happening out of the state of California, but the truth is that what is happening there is just part of a national phenomenon.  The populations of some of our largest cities are steadily shrinking, and many experts are completely mystified by the seismic demographic shifts that we are now witnessing.  Of course there are a whole host of reasons why people would want to move away from huge cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore and Cleveland.  For some families, it simply comes down to wanting a better life for their children.  But as you will see below, there are others that believe that things in this country are about to take an apocalyptic turn, and the big cities will not be a place that you want to be when economic collapse, rioting, looting, civil unrest and crime are all spiraling out of control.

According to data just released by the U.S. Census Bureau, Chicago took the prize for the biggest population loss from 2015 to 2016, and it was followed by Detroit and Baltimore…

The counties containing Chicago, Detroit and the independent city of Baltimore were the biggest population losers in the United States from 2015 to 2016, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.

Cook County, Ill., where Chicago is the county seat, had the largest population loss of any county in the country from 2015 and 2016.

Cook County alone had a “domestic migration” loss of more than 66,000 people.  That is a staggering number of people to lose in a single year.

Cleveland and Milwaukee were also very high on the list, and some are pointing out that all of these cities are in relatively colder climates and are all struggling economically.

So you certainly can’t blame people living in these cities for wanting to find somewhere warmer and more economically prosperous to live.

But others that are moving away from large cities are deeply concerned about where things are ultimately headed in this country.  It doesn’t take a genius to see that anger, frustration and hatred are rising all around us, and many believe that conditions are ripe for civil unrest and civil conflict.  In fact, best-selling author Doug Casey believes that we could soon see a “civil war” that is set off by a “financial collapse”…

Best-selling author Doug Casey wrote “Crisis Investing” at the time when the U.S. political landscape was transitioning from the Carter Administration to the Reagan Administration. Now, Casey sees a coming crisis that is equal or worse than the Civil War.  Casey explains, “In the U.S. right now, there seems to be so much antagonism it’s almost like pre-Civil War.  There is actually hatred in the U.S. at this point.  It used to be the Republicans and Democrats could disagree, but they could have a civil conversation about a difference of opinion.  Now, it’s active hatred between these two groups.  This is not going to end well.”

Casey thinks the coming financial collapse will be the trigger. Casey says, “It’s going to come down eventually.  I am worried about that, but we are in a situation where the country seem like it is just before a civil war.  It will be more serious than just a financial collapse, and it is likely to be set off by a financial collapse.”

Without a doubt, our financial system is certainly primed for a financial collapse, and when things get really, really bad in this country how will people respond?

Many have decided that they want to get away from the major population centers before we find out the answer to that question.

For example, not too long ago the Chicago Tribune ran a story about why so many preppers are moving to the Great Northwest.  One of the individuals profiled was an ex-resident of California named Trevor Treller who moved up to north Idaho prior to the recent election…

Trevor Treller, 44, who carries a small Smith & Wesson pistol on his hip, moved to north Idaho last year from Long Beach, California, and recently paid a little less than $400,000 for a defensible three-bedroom house on five wooded acres.

Treller, a sommelier at a local resort, said Obama was a key factor in his decision. He said the president has inflamed racial tensions in America, presided over a dangerous expansion of the national debt, been “hostile” to Second Amendment rights and failed to curtail the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran.

Treller said any one of those factors could lead to crippling chaos, so he and his wife have laid in food, weapons and ammunition and are installing an iron gate across their long gravel driveway.Of course it isn’t just ordinary Americans such as Treller that are deeply concerned about what is coming.

Less than a week ago, CNN ran an article entitled “Billionaire bunkers: How the 1% are preparing for the apocalypse“…

Many of the world’s elite, including hedge fund managers, sports stars and tech executives (Bill Gates is rumored to have bunkers at all his properties) have chosen to design their own secret shelters to house their families and staff.

Gary Lynch, general manager of Texas-based Rising S Company, says 2016 sales for their custom high-end underground bunkers grew 700% compared to 2015, while overall sales have grown 300% since the November US presidential election alone.

So why are Bill Gates and his billionaire friends so interested in buying luxury survival bunkers if everything is going to be just fine?

Can someone explain that one to me?

Everywhere you look, retail stores are closing and economic warning signs are flashing red, but those that sell survival bunkers to the elite are making tremendous amounts of money.

And I certainly wish that I could afford one of these survival bunkers, because they sound quite appealing…

One of those shelters, Vivos xPoint, is near the Black Hills of South Dakota, and consists of 575 military bunkers that served as an Army Munitions Depot until 1967.

Presently being converted into a facility that will accommodate about 5,000 people, the interiors of each bunker are outfitted by the owners at a cost of between $25,000 to $200,000 each. The price depends on whether they want a minimalist space or a home with high-end finishes.

The compound itself will be equipped with all the comforts of a small town, including a community theater, classrooms, hydroponic gardens, a medical clinic, a spa and a gym.

These elitists plan to ride out the coming American apocalypse in style while the world above them is literally going insane.

Meanwhile, most of the general population continues to be completely oblivious to what is about to happen to them, and so the events that are coming will close upon them suddenly like a trap and there will be no escape.