This is what a collapse looks like...

Just as our universe is believed to be expanding at an ever increasing rate with no end in sight, even though the Big Bang happened 20 billion years ago, so too are the effects of the economic collapse gaining momentum :

• There will be more unemployed - not statistically the way our government likes to count - but realistically on the ground. Millions who are without work are not being counted.
• There are over 4 million homes in the shadow inventory right now, just waiting to be foreclosed on in 2011, plus the millions of others that just started defaulting on payments.
• The US Government and Europe are taking on trillions in debt. Just in the US, the stimulus and bailouts have been estimated at over $23 trillion. And, this doesn’t include the future liabilities amounting to some $200 trillion in debt. $23 trillion and nothing to show for it except for worse economic news than in 2008.
• Our economy, contrary to the government’s estimates, is not growing. It is contracting. While the mainstream tells us growth is near 3%, the Shadowstats alternative data from economist John Williams suggest it is -2%.
• The cost of everything, except debt based goods like homes, is rising at an alarming rate. Two years ago we (alternative media) warned of coming inflation, and even hyperinflation. The media would have none of it. But the writing is on the wall, with many essential commodities up nearly 100% from two years ago. Even today, right now, Ben Bernanke continues to argue that inflation is under control at 2%. Soon, it will be clear that this is and was a lie. When retail food costs are double what they were in 2008, the rest of America may start waking up to what the Egyptians and Tunisians have been rioting about.
• As people lose jobs, credit, and everything that they value, they will have no choice but to take to the streets. They’ll either do this in the form of protests, riots or violent crime. What choice will they have when they can’t feed their families. Sound impossible? Then you haven’t seen this chart of food stamp participation increases over the last 2 years. It’s on the verge of doubling from 26 million in 2007 to over 50 million sometime in the next 18 months.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a collapse looks like.