29/7/11 - Coming Crisis Alert -- America Approaching Debt Default

WARNING AREA AND DURATION:

United States of America, until Monday, August 1st 2011, Midnight EST.

EVENT INFORMATION:

The United States of America is rapidly approaching a sovereign debt default. The inability of America's political parties to reach a debt ceiling deal, and Thursday night's failure to even hold, let alone pass a house bill vote indicate that no solution has yet been reached. As of Thursday Night, the US Treasury will begin announcing its emergency plans. While an American debt default may ultimately not take place as there are still a few days left to reach an agreement, events and signs now indicate there is a possibility of a default occurring. This page will be updated as further negotiations unfold.

EMERGENCY INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Those possessing American financial products of any kind, or equities of any kind, should immediately get in contact with their financial advisers.

2) Those possessing house, car or student loans should immediately contact their financial advisers for further instructions, as a default will significantly affect interest rates.

3) While a US debt default would not be immediately dangerous, the most concerning after effects may be social and civil. Austerity measures may be put into place, and the public response may be less than favourable, as was demonstrated over recent months in Europe. Please stay tuned to your radio or television for information on events of unrest so that you may avoid them.

4) As with emergency events of any kind, entitlement payment programs and supply chains may be temporarily disrupted, so it is recommended to have a reasonable stock of food, water and medicines, as well as any other required safety materials on hand. Being prepared also allows individuals to avoid venturing out more often than needed in order to avoid violent or unpredictable situations.

28/7/11 - Broke! 10 Facts About The Financial Condition Of American Families That Will Blow Your Mind

The crumbling U.S. economy is putting an extraordinary amount of financial stress on American families.  For many Americans, "flat broke" has become a permanent condition.  Today, over half of all American families live paycheck to paycheck.  Unemployment is rampant and those that do actually have jobs are finding that their wages are rising much more slowly than prices are.  The financial condition of average American families continues to decline and this is showing up in all of the recent surveys.  For example, according to a new Gallup poll, "lack of money/low wages" is the number one financial concern for American families.  To make ends meet, many American families are going into even more debt and more American families than ever are turning to government assistance.  Right now, more Americans than at any other point since World War II are flat broke and have lost hope.  Until this changes, the frustration level in this country is going to continue to grow.

The following are 10 facts about the financial condition of American families that will blow your mind.....

#1 Only 58 percent of Americans have a job right now.

#2 Only 56 percent of Americans are currently covered by employer-provided health insurance.

#3 The median yearly wage in the United States is $26,261.

#4 The average American household is carrying $75,600 in debt.

#5 Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

#6 At this point, American families are approximately 7.7 trillion dollars poorer than they were back in early 2007.

#7 The poorest 50% of all Americans now own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#8 According to one study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States were living below the poverty line in 2010.

#9 Today, there are more than 44 million Americans on food stamps, andnearly half of them are children.

#10 According to Newsweek, close to 20 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 54 do not have a job at the moment.

So what is causing all of this?

Where in the world did all of the good jobs go?

Well, the truth is that millions of them have been shipped overseas.

Our politicians promised us that merging our economy with the economies of other nations where it is legal to pay slave labor wages to workers would not create more unemployment inside America.

They were dead wrong.

Now we are being told that we just need to accept a lower standard of living.

For example, billionaire Howard Marks says that it is time for all of us to just accept that the standard of living of American workers is inevitably going to decline to the level of the rest of the world....

"In addition to balancing the budget and growing the economy, I think we have to accept that the coming decades are likely to see U.S. standards of living decline relative to the rest of the world. Unless our goods offer a better cost/benefit bargain, there’s no reason why American workers should continue to enjoy the same lifestyle advantage over workers in other countries. I just don’t expect to hear many politicians own up to this reality on the stump."

Are you willing to accept that?

Well, most Americans appear to be willing to accept this "new reality" because they keep sending most of the exact same bozos back to Washington D.C.

Meanwhile, the job losses continue to get worse.  As I wrote about the other day, as the U.S. economy has started to slow down again we are starting to see another huge wave of layoffs all over America.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out where all of our jobs are going.  But unfortunately, most Americans don't understand what is happening because neither the mainstream media nor our politicians are telling them the truth.

For much more on how millions of our good jobs are being shipped out of the country, please see another article I recently published entitled "How Globalism Has Destroyed Our Jobs, Businesses And National Wealth In 10 Easy Steps".

But it is not just the globalization of the economy that is destroying our jobs.

The federal government bureaucracy has become so oppressive that it is amazing that anyone is still willing to hire workers in this day and age.

Hiring workers has become so complicated and so expensive that many small business owners want to avoid it at all cost.

For example, a small business owner identified as "007" recently left the following comment on one of my recent articles....

Speaking as a small employer, I would rather have a root canal than another employee. Let’s see. You first have to hire someone you trust without some labor lawyer suing you for some type of discrimination. Then you have OSHA to make sure your work place is safe. Then you have workmans compensation insurance, unemployment taxes, health insurance, liability insurance, now Obamacare. Oh be careful not to be deemed to have a “hostile work environment”. Then you have to negotiate the labor laws. The Department of Labor is constantly cranking out regulation.

Then you get the pleasure of paying payroll taxes both state and federal along with the required filing of a multitude of payroll forms. Miss filing or paying these taxes and you will be crushed with interest and penalties.

Of course, you are competing with businesses that can hire at a fraction of the cost of American Labor and with very little regulations. In this economy, no one in their right mind is hiring into this unstable and declining economy.

If business turns down all you have to worry about is laying off workers. Of course your unemployment insurance tax will go up 200% for years. Then you only have to then worry about a wrongful termination law suit.

The entire system is stacked against American workers.

If you are a blue collar worker, you should give up hope that things are going to get better.  The system has failed you.

You can stop waiting for the "good jobs" to come back.

They aren't coming back.

That is one reason why I try to encourage everyone to become more independent of the system.

As our economic system continues to degenerate, Americans are going to become increasingly desperate.

Sadly, desperate people do desperate things.  Already we are starting to see signs that the fabric of American society is starting to be ripped to shreds.

So what is going to happen if the economy gets even worse?

There is a limit to how many people we can actually put in prison.  The reality is that the number of Americans in prison has nearly tripled since 1987.

Our prisons are already dangerously overcrowded.  As society falls apart, many communities will simply not be able to shove more people behind bars.

Even with our prisons stuffed to the gills, many of our largest cities continue to be transformed into absolute hellholes.

Detroit is now the 3rd most dangerous city on the entire planet and New Orleans is now the 9th most dangerous city on the entire planet.

So what are our leaders doing about all of this?

Well, they appear to be too busy fighting with each other and cheating on their wives to do much about our problems.

According to Politico, U.S. Representative David Wu is the latest member of Congress to be accused of a sex scandal....

Rep. David Wu has been accused of an “unwanted sexual encounter” with the teenage daughter of a longtime friend, the latest scandal to engulf the troubled Oregon Democrat.

This country is a complete and total mess.  Tens of millions of American families are flat broke and are about to slip into poverty.  Meanwhile, our politicians continue to prove that they are some of the most corrupt on the planet.

There are many out there that still believe that America has a bright future ahead.

It is getting really hard to see why anyone could possibly believe that.

24/7/11 - The Shadow Gold Price: $10,000 An Ounce

We realize that experts the world over say gold is not money, but we can’t help but consider that if central banks are stocking up (ex-US), pension funds are stocking up, big money investors are stocking up, and individuals on the street are moving to diversify into something other than stocks and bonds, that there might be something to this whole “gold is money” theory:

QB Asset Management calculates the so-called “Shadow Gold Price” (“SGP”). It divides the US Monetary Base by U.S. official gold holdings, the same formula actually used during the Bretton Woods regime to fix the exchange value of the dollar at USD 35.00/ounce. It would be the theoretical price of gold today were the Fed to depreciate the USD to a level that would cover systemic bank liabilities (transform a debt-based into a asset backed currency). The current Shadow Gold Price would be just under USD 10,000. This figure illustrates the magnitude of monetary inflation already embedded into the system, sitting latent and threatening to increase the general price level.

At the moment less than 2.6% of US government debt is covered by gold, which is clearly below the long-term median of 5%. Should the gold price therefore double, the coverage would only rise to the long-term median. But this would also require stable government debt, which is less than likely. The highs of the ratio dating from the 1980s would only be reached at a price of about USD 15,000.
If one were to fully cover the current debt with gold, the price would have to increase to USD 57,000/ounce. That said, a full coverage is extremely unlikely; at its highs the ratio was at 55% in 1915 and at slightly less than 25% in 1980.
Source: Zero Hedge

We find the following quote from Horace most applicable given the chart above:

Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque revenit.
-Horace (65-8 BC)
(You may drive nature out with a pitchfork, she will nevertheless come back)

The manipulators can play with precious metals all they want, but thousands of years of historical precedence simply cannot be erased by the ideologies of a handful of central bankers and politicians.
We would certainly advise our readers to prepare for future calamity by investing in long-term food storage, water reserves, tools, equipment, skills development and other preparedness supplies, but the future potential value of gold in a collapsing economy cannot be discounted. For those with the ability to do so, we recommend looking into silver first, and then gold, as a wealth preservation asset.

After the SHTF, those with real money will be able to use it to acquire assets that will have reached their bottom – for example real estate – and then ride those assets to higher values as the global economy resets and recovers. And in a worst case, even if the entire grid goes down and stock exchanges no longer function, there will always be a buyer for precious metals somewhere.

24/7/11 - Economic Collapse a Mathematical Certainty - Top 5 Places Where Not To Be

20/7/11 - Is China facing an American future?

Posted by MICHAEL SCHUMAN Wednesday, July 20, 2011 at 6:33 am

At first glance, that may sound like a crazy question. The two giants of the global economy appear to be heading in opposite directions. China is the world's up-and-coming superpower, propelled forward by stratospheric growth, advancing industry, a goal-oriented political system and a supposedly superior form of economic management, “state capitalism.” On the other side of the Pacific, the U.S. looks like a bumbling behemoth, its competitiveness on the wane, its political system paralyzed and its future direction uncertain. What could these two economies possibly have in common?

More than you think. Very rapidly, China is beginning to encounter the same economic pressures as the U.S. Some are simply the natural outgrowth of China's supercharged development. Others are being brought about by policy errors – similar, in fact, to those made by the West before the 2008 financial crisis. All of these new pressures are serious and, if not handled properly, could alter the course of China's economic progress.

First of all, China, like the U.S., is facing a challenge from competitors with lower wages. As my colleague Bill Powell recently pointed out, the era of cheap labor in China is over. Wages are growing about 12% a year (in real terms). As a result, China is losing its competitiveness in labor costs to other emerging economies. That puts at risk the low-end, labor-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing (apparel, shoes, electronics) that has created countless jobs and jumpstarted China's rapid growth. Just like the U.S. has lost factories to lower-wage economies like China, China is already seeing neighbors like Vietnam eat into its dominance in these types of industries.

Such an outcome was an inevitable result of China's economic advancement. But if that advancement is to continue, the Chinese economy is going to have to move “up the value chain” into higher-tech, more innovative industries. This is exactly what the U.S. needs to do to maintain its competitive edge. Yet that's a tough leap to make. Building factories where people stitch together blue jeans or build iPhones is easy. China doesn't require either the technology or design and marketing expertise to generate exports. But to compete in more technologically advanced industries, Chinese firms will have to innovate, improve quality and create brands – just like American companies. If not, China could get stuck in a “middle-income trap,” in which it is more and more difficult to raise the welfare of the middle class – another challenge the U.S. is experiencing today.

Secondly, China is contending with the fallout from fiscal irresponsibility. As Washington is consumed by negotiations over America's massive national debt, the Chinese are in the process of getting a handle on their own sovereign debt problem. As Roya Wolverson detailed in this space recently, China's government debt relative to its GDP has escalated alarmingly in recent years. An audit revealed that local governments, which legally aren't supposed to be able to take on debt at all, have managed nevertheless to amass liabilities equivalent to some 30% of GDP. It is not clear that the Chinese government has a full grasp of how big its debt burden actually is. Premier Wen Jiabao says that the country's national debt is manageable, which could well be the case. But that doesn't mean it isn't a problem that could plague the economy.

And, much like the U.S., repairing national finances comes with major political risks. As politicians in Washington haggle over what to do with middle-class entitlement programs like Medicare, the Chinese are in the process of expanding a much-needed social safety net (improving healthcare, for example) that will continue to put pressure on China's budget.

Third, China's overall debt level is on the rise. Just as the U.S. built up an excessive mountain of debt before the financial crisis (mainly among consumers), China today seems to be making the same mistake. A recent report by rating agency Fitch outlined that debt continues to rise precipitously in China, despite government efforts to slow credit expansion. Here are the scary figures:

Fitch estimates that total net new financing in China could reach 38% of GDP in 2011, down from an average of 42% of GDP in 2009-2010 but still well above the pre-global crisis average of 22%. Fitch estimates that by end-2011 total financing/GDP could reach 185%, up 61pp from 2007. Increases of similar magnitude have been seen elsewhere in the years leading up to banking stress, underscoring the agency's cautious outlook on the Chinese banking sector.

It is difficult to determine with any certainty at what point debt levels become dangerous. But economic expansions driven by expanding debt inevitably come to some kind of bad end, especially for the financial system. I don't see how China can avoid much higher levels of bad loans at its banks. Or the country could run into something even more destabilizing, like a banking crisis. And at some point, China could be looking at a growth-suppressing process of deleveraging, which the U.S. is suffering through now.

Fourth, China is becoming heavily dependent on its property market for growth. Any American can tell you the dangers inherent in that. Though it is difficult to determine if China's housing market is in a bubble (prices have started to soften in some cities), the construction of houses is the major engine of Chinese growth. Here's how UBS economist Jonathan Anderson explained it in a very smart recent study:

Real estate and housing construction pervade the entire mainland growth model. They are the most important determinant of commodity demand, a very big marginal driver of China's external surpluses, and indeed a crucial key to real understanding of household balance sheets, saving and investment behavior and the debate around Chinese rebalancing. In other words (and with only the mildest exaggeration), from a macroeconomic perspective if you don't understand Chinese property, you probably don't understand China.

The mainland gross investment share of its own economy has risen dramatically over the past decade, to a stunning 47% or 48% of GDP as of last year on an estimated basis; this is an absolute record for any economy of significant size in the post-war era, and almost single-handedly explains China's explosive real growth over the same period…The biggest contributor to the trend increase in the investment ratio has been property construction, which rose from 6% of GDP on average during the 1990s to more than 13% of GDP last year when measured on an annual completions basis… And when we talk about property construction what we really mean is residential housing construction;…housing accounted for nearly 75% of total building completions last year. While it's not a mistake to say that China is an investment-led economy, it is arguably more correct to call it a “housing-led” economy.

And much like the American housing bust sent shockwaves through the global economy, a downturn in China's property market could do the same. Anderson proclaimed that China's property industry is “The Most Important Sector in the Universe.” The property sector in China is a primary source of demand for all sorts of things the country buys from the world – like iron ore – as well as a big part of consumer spending. New homeowners loading up their new apartments with furniture and appliances are a key factor behind increases in Chinese consumer spending. So a slowdown of China's property sector would not only slow down the entire economy – and thus act as a drag on global growth – it would also ripple through global supply chains and suppress business for all kinds of commodities and products.

How Beijing deals with these very American-style challenges in coming years will determine the course of China's economy. Will China collapse into crisis, as the U.S. has? Who knows. In some ways, China might be better equipped to tackle these problems. For example, its authoritarian government could prove more efficient in controlling its debt level (though there is no guarantee). But China's corporate sector lags American companies in the kind of skills and expertise necessary to innovate and stay ahead of low-cost competition. And China's policymakers clearly have some tough decisions to make to decrease the economy's reliance on the housing market for growth and control rising debt. So far, they don't seem either able or willing to tackle these issues head on, a problem Washington has had again and again. If China's leaders don't learn from the U.S. experience – something they don't appear to be doing – they could end up facing an American future.

16/7/11 - Euro crisis could cause global markets to crash

Markets around the world could crash by more than a third if Europe fails to resolve its debt crisis, Deutsche Bank analysts have warned.

If Europe fails to resolve its debt crisis markets around the world could crash by more than a third. Photo: Reuters

By Emma Rowley

10:00AM BST 16 Jul 2011

303 Comments

A disorderly end to the turmoil would "inevitably" lead to a global recession, crushing companies' profitability, they believe.

"Global equities could lose up to 35pc of their value if the situation deteriorates into a full-blown financial crisis on the scale of the fallout from the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008," the analysts said in a note.

Even in the "milder" scenario where the crisis does not spill over into the wider economy, would see markets fall by 12pc.

The warning came as EU president Herman Van Rompuy said eurozone nations will hold a special summit in Brussels on Thursday over a second bail-out for Greece.

The announcement came after the International Monetary Fund urged officials to act with a "greater sense of urgency".

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The flight from Italian and Spanish bonds in recent days has stoked fears that countries "too big to bail" could become embroiled.

Division in the eurozone over to how to tackle its debt woes were thrown into sharp relief by statements from Germany's finance ministers on whether the shared currency is under threat.

There is "no crisis of the euro", according to Germany's deputy finance minister, Joerg Asmussen, calling it "a crisis of public debt and competitiveness".

Meanwhile Wolfgang Schaeuble, his finance minister, told a newspaper: "The crisis in confidence ... prompted by Greece is now endangering the euro as a whole."

14/7/11 - U.S. national debt: dancing on the brink of a world crisis

U.S. President Barack Obama

© AFP/ Nicholas Kamm

12:04 14/07/2011

RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin

Related News

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Budget and debt problems are once again racking America. Barack Obama has failed to persuade the Republican majority in Congress to raise the national debt ceiling. That much is nothing new, and similar attempts will be unlikely to succeed in the future. Since July 10, the White House has been holding daily consultations on raising the ceiling. The current ceiling of $14.3 trillion must be raised by several hundred billion, or the Department of the Treasury will run out of money by August 2.

Looming crisis

The Americans raise their debt ceiling on a regular basis. Since 1993, they have come close to defaulting 16 times. In 1995, the government even shut down for a week. In the past, the world perceived these exercises as a matter of course, whereas now the unwritten rule of the U.S. budget is increasingly becoming a sore subject.

The times have changed, and the national debt and deficit have become too astronomical to be treated as an American eccentricity, especially considering the U.S.-bred financial crisis of 2008 and the backdrop of failing finances in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal (likely to be followed by Spain and Italy) and the patently pre-crisis condition of the Euro.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has not yet announced who will be the hardest hit if worst comes to worst – the secretaries of departments, other officials, congressmen, senators, the Pentagon, intelligence, teachers, transportation workers, the IRS, NASA, museums, or janitors. That much, at least, is of little concern to Europe.

The problem is not salary cuts for specific agencies but U.S. solvency. Nobody is saying that the United States will immediately default on its entire sovereign debt – it remains the most reliable debtor in the world.

The trouble lies elsewhere:

a)     The national debt continues to swell (in reality, it exceeded the ceiling of $14.3 trillion in May).

b)    The federal government has come too close to being unable to pay interest on its debt too often.

c)     Due to the uncertainty surrounding American debt and financial upheaval in parts of Europe, interest rates are growing on all financial markets;

d)    Insurance rates on credit are growing.

e)     The stock exchanges are getting nervous.

Put together, these factors may constitute a volatile mixture that could flare into another global financial crisis. It may start with minor market convulsions that erupt into something much larger.

The extent of European frustration with American debt is aptly expressed in one telling commentary. The British journal The Economist, a well-known guru of the free market, free trade, and sound conservatism, supports Obama’s position and calls Republican grievances with the budget proposals of a Democratic president “a gamble where you bet your country’s good name.” It considers such conduct shameful and absurd for Republicans who advocate reductions in government spending.

Cuts in social spending and higher taxes are still the only way of reducing budget expenditures and a country’s sovereign debt. This is exactly what Obama suggests, but the Republicans object to any such tax increases. Meanwhile, they are ready to reduce the budget by only $2 trillion instead of the $4 trillion that Obama suggests.

To cut is to heal

In European eyes, these developments in the White House are a farce rather than a tragedy. It is something akin to taking the world’s financial and economic players hostage and making them the captive audience to an American soap opera that has evoked little but bewilderment and confusion.

It is clear that the Republicans do not want to come to Obama’s aid on the eve of the 2012 presidential elections, but it is unclear why they insist on keeping the rest of the world in suspense.

America is far from being a champion of the ratio between its GDP and national debt. That debt amounts to 65% of its GDP and ranks 37th on the list of major global debtors. Yet many European countries fare worse: Greece (144%), Iceland (123%), France (83%), Germany (78%), and Britain (77%).

A look at the information provided by the CIA (or IMF – they are only slightly different) makes it clear that Japan is worst off in terms of debt: 226% of the GDP! Only St. Kitts and Nevis come close with 186%.

The debt section of the CIA’s yearly periodical is the only economic publication in which we are pleased to see Russia in 123rd place (out of 132). We seem to have left everyone behind with a debt of only 9.5% of our GDP.

In fact, we are among the leading creditors of the U.S. government, although we cannot yet afford to talk to Washington or ignore its opinion like China, its biggest creditor. Washington owes $1.154 trillion to Beijing, amounting to 25.8% of U.S. external debt. Japan is the runner-up with $890.3 billion in U.S. treasury bonds. Put together, Tokyo and Beijing account for 45.7% of total U.S. debt. Russia’s share is some $130.5 billion or a mere 2.9%.

American debts are still considered the most reliable in the world. U.S. bonds have almost the same liquidity as dollars on the debt security markets. But Moody’s has already hinted that if the United States delays payment on its debt, there will be consequences for its credit rating. Moody’s Spokesman Steven A. Hess put it succinctly when he said that if a debtor delays interest payments once, it may do so again, adding that it will automatically remove the debtor from the top category of the credit rankings.

There is still hope that these problems will dissipate by the August 2 deadline. The world is counting on the fact that a new and massive “Greek dilemma” is not on the horizon. But the longer this situation lasts, the greater the risk that America’s debt problems will cause a chain reaction. If so, the storm clouds of a new crisis will form again in earnest and on an unprecedented scale.

The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

13/7/11 - One World, One Money: The Quest for a Single Global Currency « Forcing Change

By Carl Teichrib (www.forcingchange.org)

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This report was originally published in late 2007 in Forcing Change, and was reprinted as a chapter in the book, A Single Global Currency (Icfai University Press, 2009). Since it was first released, there have been numerous developments in the quest for a single global currency. One World, One Money, although a few years old, is an essential read in that it provides a framework to understanding this critical monetary agenda.

“A global economy requires a global currency.” – Paul Volcker, former Chair of the US Federal Reserve.[1]

—————-

“I fully support a single global currency.”

Flabbergasted, I waited for an explanation.

“That way farmers in Africa get the same pay as farmers in North America, and workers in Asia would receive the same as their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere.”

Hmmm…an interesting perspective. I asked the gentleman sitting across the lunch table; “Have you ever seriously studied banking or the historical role of money?”

His response to the negative didn’t surprise me; after all, wage equality and production values are not currency issues per se, albeit currency matters do play a role. Much of our lunch hour, therefore, was spent reviewing the relationship between money, banking, and power.

This provocative discussion, enjoyed over a steaming bowl of soup, took place at the annual meeting of a multi-million dollar Christian-based relief organization. And the person I was dining with wasn’t just an interested attendee; he was a board member representing a significant regional arm of this organization. Granted, he was only one man in a large administrative structure, but his decisions – combined with other board members – impact projects around the globe. Thus, I found his supportive statement for a world currency even more disturbing; here was an individual involved in economic decisions that impacted projects around the globe, yet he didn’t understand what he was asking for.

During the course of our lunch-hour, it was obvious that he had no conception of the incredible power-shift that would occur under such a scheme, a shift that would effectively create a global master of untouchable proportions. All he could see was an international-sized band-aid solution, “a single global currency,” to address the problem of world poverty….

read the rest via One World, One Money: The Quest for a Single Global Currency « Forcing Change.

13/7/11 - Car Sleepers – The New American Homeless

Santa Barbara boasts a classic laidback Californialifestyle, with uncongested beaches, wholesome cafes and charming Spanish-style architecture.

Of course there’s a hefty price tag: nestled between the gentle Santa Ynez mountains and the inviting Pacific Ocean are multi-million dollar homes.

But in this sun-washed haven of wealth, many live far from the American dream.

In a car park across the street from luxury mansions, the evening brings a strangesight.

A few cars arrive and take up spaces in different corners. In each car, a woman, perhaps a few pets, bags of possessions and bedding.

Across the street from homes with bedrooms to spare, these are Santa Barbara’s car sleepers.

Homeless within the last year, they are a direct consequence of America’s housing market collapse.

4×4 homes

In this woman-only parking lot, Bonnee, who gives only her first name, wears a smart blue dress and has a business-like demeanour.

A year ago, she was making a healthy living as, ironically, a real estate agent. But when people stopped buying houses, her commission-based income dried up, and, like many clients, she too was unable to pay her mortgage.

Soon she found herself with nowhere to live but her 4×4.

Piles of blankets are in the back of the vehicle. Personal documents are stuffed into seat pockets. Books litter the back seat. A make-up bag and gym membership card (she washes at the gym) are in the front. With her constantly, are photos of her former life.

She can’t quite believe her situation.

“My God, America’s heart is bleeding,” she tells me.

Tears fill her eyes.

“I know it’ll get better. But it feels sad. I really fought hard.”

A medium-sized 4×4 pulls into the parking lot and 66-year-old Barbara Harvey gets out.

She opens the back door and two large Golden Retrievers jump out.

Barbara begins her nightly routine. She moves a few bags from the boot to the front seat and takes out pyjamas and a carton of yoghurt (her dinner). She then arranges blankets in the back of the car.

Barbara used to work in housing finance – this is the double whammy of the housing collapse where many who worked in the sector lost their jobs and their homes.

But since April, she and her dogs, Ranger and Phoebe, have spent every night in her car. It’s cramped, but she says if they sleep diagonally they can all fit.

New trend?

The car park lets the car sleepers enter from 7pm, local public toilets close at dusk.

As a result, Barbara says she doesn’t drink any liquids after she arrives. In the mornings, she showers at a friend’s house.

Dressed in clean, comfortable clothes and wearing sunglasses, she is far removed from the stereotypical image of homelessness.

“I don’t think I fit into anybody’s image,” she says.

“There’s going to be lots of homelessindividuals who are middle-class, there can’t be anything but. We’re in an awful mess economically. I don’t think we’ve seen half of what’s going to happen in this country.”

This new phenomenon of middle-class homelessness is hard to quantify, but New Beginnings, an organisation that runs the car park sleeping scheme in Santa Barbara, says they accommodate some 55 people in a dozen parking lots.

Outreach worker Nancy Kapp, once homeless herself, says there is a waiting list for car park spaces and she is getting more and more calls each day from people about to lose their homes.

She identifies it as a new breed of homeless emerging in America.

‘American nightmare’

“Being poor is like this cancer, and now this cancer is filtering up to the middle-class,” she says. “I don’t care how strong you are, it’s a breakdown of the human psyche when you start to lose everything you have.”

“These people have worked their whole lives to have a house and now it’s crumbling and it’s in ashes and how devastating is that?” she says.

“It’s not an American dream, it’s an American nightmare.”

California house prices fell by 30% in the year to May. Few parts of America have been hit as hard.

But national housing groups say they have seen a rise in homelessness across the US since the foreclosurecrisis began last year.

In another car park in Santa Barbara, Craig Miller, his wife Paige and their two children say they feel cramped in the small mobile home where they have been living for several months.

“It’s hard to keep things clean,” says Paige. “It’s hard to feel complete and whole.”

Originally from Florida, the family used to own a four-bedroom house with a pool. But when Craig’s businessfailed, they lost it.

Undeterred, the family embarked on a dream to drive across America and make a new start in California. But unable to find full-time work, and unable to afford rent, as Craig puts it “we got stuck”.

He says it was like a holiday at first but now it is much harder.

“Getting money for food, it’s not something we’ve had to think about before,” says Craig.

“We’re definitely looking forward to getting out and getting a place. And we’re working hard at getting there. This is just the journey, it’s not the destination.’

As darkness falls on Santa Barbara, the car sleepers settle in for the night.

They’ll have to be up early: they are not allowed to stay in the car parks beyond 7am. Some work, others spend their days driving from one spot to another.

When evening comes around again, they return to their car park homes.

In comparison to other countries, and indeed America’s own long-term homeless, they are still fortunate.

But as America’s economic crisis deepens, could there soon be more of them?