Economics analyst warns economic, civil unrest is rising: 'This won't end pretty'

(NaturalNews) A noted economics analyst, using historical data and his keen sense of observation, says civil unrest will only increase due to deteriorating conditions around the globe and in the U.S., declaring that it "won't end pretty."

"The greatest problem we have is misinformation," wrote Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics, at the ZeroHedge.com financial news blog. "People simply do not comprehend why and how the economic policies of the post-war era are imploding. This whole agenda of socialism has sold a Utopian idea that the State is there for the people yet it is run by lawyers following their own self-interest."

He notes that in many Western countries the cost of taking care of government and public-sector workers that is charged back to taxpayers is becoming exceedingly difficult to maintain, but so too are the welfare states. Also, anyone of better means is systematically demonized as being the real problem with failing economies and societies, even though government master planners and social engineers behind the scenes are the ones responsible.

In the end, Armstrong reasons, everything has to come crashing down in order to make things right.

'Who is really responsible for the mess we're in?'

"The pensions created for those in government drive the cost of government up exponentially with time," he wrote. "The political forces blame the rich and this merely creates a class warfare with no resolution for the future. Even confiscating all the wealth of the so-called rich will not sustain the system. Consequently, we just have to crash and burn and start all over again."

To illustrate his point, Armstrong pointed to a recent report in Britain's The Guardian newspaper in which some 50,000 people marched in the streets of London to protest government austerity measures (cutting back on welfare benefits because they are no longer affordable -- a measure that eventually will have to be taken by the United States government as well).

Journalist Owen Jones shouted to the crowd of marchers: "Who is really responsible for the mess this country is in? Is it the Polish fruit pickers or the Nigerian nurses? Or is it the bankers who plunged it into economic disaster -- or the tax avoiders? It is selective anger."

Governments' exploitation of bankers has really been a disaster, but in part they have been responsible for it themselves, Armstrong observes.

"They have been their own worst enemy and in the end, they have become the symbol that inspires class warfare if not revolution. They are not the representatives of those who produce jobs. They are merely those who wanted to trade with other people's money for free. When they win, it is their's [sic], but any losses are passed to the taxpayers. Bankers should be bankers -- not hedge fund managers who keep 100% of the profits using other people's savings."

'This won't end pretty'

All across Europe, especially in some of the hardest economically hit countries like Greece, Spain and Ireland, protests against government-mandated cutbacks of social welfare and pension programs have abounded.

For now, the U.S. government has yet to cut into our massive welfare state, a humongous entity funded by a shrinking pool of taxpayers that gobbles up two-thirds of annual federal revenues. Each year, the federal debt grows exponentially larger, by trillions of dollars when you count the benefits that have been promised to current and future generations of Americans. As of this writing, unfunded liabilities totaled more than $122 trillion; there isn't that much money on the planet, so just how is it supposed to be paid?

But as Armstrong points out, the "solution" that governments always rely on only make the problems of debt and obligations worse, especially for liberty:

The solutions from politics will always be the same -- grab more power. We are in a downward spiral of liberty and how far we go down this path to the future will be determined by the people and if they at least wise up and see this is not class warfare, it is the people against government. This is why I say career politicians are dangerous for they can be bought way too easily....

"This is not going to end pretty," he concludes. "The question is when does society wake up? Just how high will this price be that we have to pay? They will blame the rich and the idiots will cheer -- 'get them!' What will happen when there is no more wealth to hunt? We end up with a communist state by default -- no wealth, just career politicians who blame everyone but themselves."

Sources:

http://www.zerohedge.com

http://www.theguardian.com

http://usdebtclock.org