It's being called "The Facebook Rule," - allows up to 1,000 investors to hold shares in a private company -

It's being called "The Facebook Rule," - allows up to 1,000 investors to hold shares in a private company - 




It's being called "The Facebook Rule," and it's designed to shut you and me out of at least one social network.
Wildly hyped private firms like Facebook want to raise more private money without going public -- or divulging all their secrets and potentially giving some control to outside shareholders. These days there's a lot of money chasing a few private high-tech companies, but who's in on the deal before they go public a la Groupon?


Many tech companies today are running up against "the 500 rule," a regulation that says a private company like Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare that has issued private stock to 500 or more investors must either make their financial records public or go public. Companies typically issue stock privately to compensate early investors and employees who later may reap the rewards in an IPO.
But late last month, the House Financial Services Committee approved "The Facebook Rule," which would allow up to 1,000 investors (rather than the current 500) to hold shares in a private company before the business is required to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and go public.
So what, you ask?
So such a rule change could create an even bigger Internet bubble than the one we experienced a decade ago.
It could make private investments even riskier. Worse, it would perpetuate a largely secret market in stocks that is subject to little regulation and is closed to 99 percent of investors -- like you and me.
Stock in Facebook and many other hot private tech companies is already aggressively traded in something called the secondary market, which pairs those who own private stock with those who would like to have an inside, pre-public piece of a company.
Say you're an early employee or private investor who doesn't want to wait for an IPO (or thinks the IPO might tank). You can sell your stock now through companies such as SecondMarket, SharesPost, or Gate Technologies. Those firms match sellers with buyers in a closed, private -- some would even say clandestine -- exchange. Venture capitalists admit it lacks "transparency."
These exchanges are secretive because no one knows what the companies' financials really look like, so they can't really tell what the shares are worth. Some companies have said they were making money, for example, but when the firms went public it was discovered they were actually losing money.
Worse, the only people allowed to participate besides the inside sellers are so-called accredited investors, which means when it comes to individuals, those who have made $200,000 in each of the past two years and have a reasonable expectation of making $200,000 this year -- or those with at least $1 million in assets (and your house doesn't count, by the way).
So unless you're already a millionaire, you can't get in on these deals. The paternalistic rationale behind this rule is that simple folks like you and me aren't smart enough to invest in such equities without losing our shirts. Only the wealthy are sophisticated enough to take such risks -- and get in on the action early.
Raising the 500 rule to 1,000 would at least double the size of this elite, secondary market (depending on how other related rules are changed). And it's already a big market where the wealthy make big bucks.




Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/11/08/new-facebook-rule-ipos-only-for-1-percent/?test=latestnews

Peacocks and prostitutes, found in Mexican prison during surprise search -

Peacocks and prostitutes, found in Mexican prison during surprise search - 

Authorities say a surprise search at an Acapulco prison has netted two peacocks, 100 fighting cocks, 19 prostitutes and two sacks filled with marijuana.

Police in the Mexican resort city also found dozens of televisions, several bottles of alcohol and knives.

Guerrero state spokesman Arturo Martinez says federal and state police searched the prison before dawn Monday.

Martinez didn’t say how the women, birds and the other banned objects got into the prison. He referred to the peacocks as “pets.”

The resort city has been plagued by crime since last year when gangs began fighting for control after the arrest of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, also known as “La Barbie.”

Cock fighting is popular in parts of Mexico.

Read more - 

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1083091--peacocks-prostitutes-found-in-mexican-prison-during-surprise-search?bn=1

Johnson & Johnson Formaldehyde use prompts boycott of baby shampoo -

Johnson & Johnson Formaldehyde use prompts boycott of baby shampoo - 




A consumer advocacy group is taking aim at Johnson & Johnson for failing to remove a cancer-causing chemical from its baby shampoo two years after it was first pressured to do so.


The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics says laboratory testing shows the manufacturing giant is still including the formaldehyde-releasing preservative quaternium-15 in its flagship Baby Shampoo product sold in the U.S., Canada, China, Indonesia and Australia.


Quaternium-15 releases tiny amounts of formaldehyde as a bacteria-fighting preservative. Formaldehyde is considered a carcinogen in large doses but is legally acceptable as an ingredient in the U.S., in small doses.


In Denmark, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and the U.K., quaternium-15 has been replaced with non-formaldehyde preservatives.


Because of this "double standard" the organization is calling for parents to boycott the product.


"In light of the new information that Johnson & Johnson is already successfully using non-formaldehyde preservatives in other baby products and in other countries, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and allies are urging the public to express their concerns to the company and to not buy Johnson and Johnson products," says a report from the consumer group.






Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20111107/formaldehyde-baby-shampoo-boycott-johnson-111107/

14 Reasons Why We Should Nationalize The Federal Reserve -

14 Reasons Why We Should Nationalize The Federal Reserve - 

One of the most important steps that we could take to bring prosperity back to America would be to nationalize the Federal Reserve.  Doing so would allow the federal government to quit borrowing money, dramatically reduce taxes and eventually pay off the entire U.S. national debt.  Instead of inheriting the largest debt in the history of the world, future generations would actually have a chance at economic prosperity because they would not be forced to pay off the horrific debt of previous generations.  The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine, it has almost completely destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar and it has an absolutely nightmarish track record of incompetence.  There are no good reasons to keep the status quo.  Our current debt-based monetary system will inevitably lead to a complete and total economic collapse.  We desperately need to make a change while we still can.  As you will see below, there are a ton of good reasons why we should nationalize the Federal Reserve.
Right now, most Americans believe that the Federal Reserve is actually an agency of the federal government.  But that is simply not the case.  The truth is that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is.
The Federal Reserve openly admits as much.  For example, in defending itself against a Bloomberg request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve stated in court that it was “not an agency” of the U.S. government and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
So who owns the Federal Reserve?
As the Federal Reserve’s own website describes, it is the member banks that own it….

The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation’s central banking system, are organized much like private corporations–possibly leading to some confusion about “ownership.” For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year.

The debt-based monetary system established by the Federal Reserve has greatly enriched the big banks and the people that own them.  This has been at the expense of the American people.
A private central bank should not issue our currency, set interest rates and run our economy.  Rather, we need to return control over the currency to the American people where it belongs.
The following are 14 reasons why we should nationalize the Federal Reserve….
#1 The U.S. Constitution says that the federal government is the one that should be issuing our money.
In particular, according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, it is the U.S. Congress that has been given the responsibility to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.
#2 Our current debt-based monetary system is a perpetual debt machine.  It is absolutely imperative that we nationalize the Federal Reserve and begin to issue debt-free money.
In a previous article about money and debt, I explained how more government debt is created whenever the U.S. government puts more money into circulation….

When the government wants more money, the U.S. government swaps U.S. Treasury bonds for “Federal Reserve notes”, thus creating more government debt.  Usually the money isn’t even printed up – most of the time it is just electronically credited to the government.  The Federal Reserve creates these “Federal Reserve notes” out of thin air.  These Federal Reserve notes are backed by nothing and have no intrinsic value of their own.

This process creates a huge problem.  When each new dollar is created, the interest owed by the federal government on that new dollar is not also created at the same time.
Therefore, more debt is actually created than the amount of money that the federal government receives from the Federal Reserve.
This is a Ponzi scheme that is designed to drain wealth from the American people and transfer it to the banking system.
This is why I call the Federal Reserve system a perpetual debt machine.  Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 5,000 times larger than it was 100 years ago.
Back in 1910, prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, the national debt was only about $2.6 billion.
By going to a system of debt-free money, the U.S. government would never have to borrow a single dollar ever again.
#3 Our current debt-based monetary system requires very high personal income taxes to pay for it.  It is no accident that the personal income tax was introduced at about the same time that the Federal Reserve system came into existence.
If we nationalized the Federal Reserve and capped federal government spending at a reasonable percentage of GDP, it would be entirely possible to massively cut taxes and still keep our promises regarding Social Security and other important social programs at the same time.
I believe that eventually the entire personal income tax system could be completely wiped out and the IRS could be totally shut down.  This would save our economy billions upon billions of dollars in income tax compliance costs.
However, as an initial first step, I believe that we should eliminate all payroll taxes, all “self-employment taxes” and all taxes on the first $100,000 earned by every American.
This would provide much needed relief to the millions of poor and middle income families that have been hurt so badly by this economic downturn.
Also, I believe that we could instantly reduce the corporate tax rate to levels that would be competitive with the rest of the world, while closing corporate tax loopholes at the same time.  This would remove the temptation for companies to leave the United States in order to escape our brutally high corporate tax rates.
Yes, the proposals above would definitely cut taxes.
So where would we make up the difference?
Well, the U.S. Constitution provides one clue.  According to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress has the right to impose “duties, imposts and excises” on goods sold in this country.
For way too long, big corporations have been taking advantage of sweatshops in the third world.  For way too long, other nations have used predatory trade practices to take unfair advantage of us.  For way too long, we have allowed nations with horrific human rights records to ship their goods into our country for free.
Well, we need to bring that to an end.  By raising tariffs we would raise money for the federal government and we could potentially start to reverse the flow of jobs and businesses that have been leaving this country.
Access to the U.S. market is a privilege, not a right.  High tariffs would be imposed on goods from any country that allows slave labor wages to be paid.  Very high tariffs would be imposed on goods from any country that is using predatory trade practices against us.  Extremely high tariffs would be imposed on any nation that does not respect basic human rights.
However, please keep in mind that none of this would work if we did not nationalize the Federal Reserve.  The tax cuts proposed above would be suicidal under our current debt-based monetary system.  But if we nationalize the Fed, we really could do this.  It may sound crazy, but it really would work.
#4 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, there would be no more budget deficits.  If the federal government was a bit short one year, it would just print up a little bit of extra money in order to make up the difference.
It would also be very important to cap federal government spending as a percentage of GDP so that we don’t have crazy Congress critters creating a lot of inflation by spending us into oblivion.
Just because we would be adopting a debt-free monetary system does not mean that we could throw spending discipline out the window.  Rather, it would actually become more important than ever.
#5 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we would instantly reduce the national debt by 1.6 trillion dollars.  That is the amount that is currently on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve.  The Federal Reserve just created this money out of thin air anyway, so it was never their money to begin with.  Some members of Congress have already proposed cancelling the debt held by the Federal Reserve, and it is a great idea.
#6 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we could eventually get rid of the entire national debt.
Under our current system, the U.S. national debt will never, ever be paid off.  We are 15 trillion dollars in debt, and at this point we add more than a trillion dollars to that number every year.
As I have written about previously, if the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
But under our current system we are not paying it off.  Rather we keep piling up more debt at an astounding pace.
In a system of debt-free money, there would be no more budget deficits, and we could actually start slowly paying off the national debt with newly issued “United States money”.
This would have to be done very slowly so as to not shock the financial system, but it could be done.  As U.S. debt becomes due, a small percentage of it could be retired each year.
It is entirely conceivable that within 30 to 40 years we could pay it off entirely without causing tremendous damage to the financial system.
#7 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we will eventually totally eliminate the interest on the national debt.  Most Americans don’t understand this, but each year we spend hundreds of billions of dollars just on interest on the national debt.  For example, the U.S. government spent over 454 billion dollars on interest on the national debt during fiscal year 2011.
Under a debt-free monetary system, that number would eventually go to zero.  That would save the federal government a ton of money.
#8 While there is certainly a danger that we would have inflation under a debt-free monetary system, the reality is that we are absolutely guaranteed inflation under the Federal Reserve system.
Most Americans believe that inflation is a fact of life, but the sad truth is that the United States has only had a major, ongoing problem with inflation since the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.
If you do not believe this, just check out this chart.
Sadly, the U.S. dollar has lost well over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created.
So, yes, there would be a need for monetary discipline under a debt-free monetary system, but it would be hard to do worse than the Federal Reserve has already been doing.
#9 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we would eliminate all of the financial bubbles that the Federal Reserve has been creating.
For example, there would not have been such a bad housing crash if the Federal Reserve had not created such perfect conditions for a housing bubble in the first place.
We should eliminate the Federal Reserve and allow the market to set interest rates.  Having a central authority that sets interest rates is just simply wrong and it creates all sorts of problems.
#10 The Federal Reserve has not been doing a good job.
In case anyone has not noticed, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has a very long track record of incompetence.  Nearly every major judgment that he has made since taking over that position has been dead wrong.
We are always told that we need someone to run the economy and that the Fed is there to keep depressions from happening.
Well, the truth is that the Fed actually greatly contributed to the Great Depression and it was at least partly responsible for the financial crash of 2008.
Now we are right on the verge of yet another massive financial implosion.
If someone keeps wrecking your car, you don’t let them keep driving it, do you?
#11 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we could potentially transition to “sound money” at some point.
There is great debate about this of course.  But it is a debate that we need to have.
But before we go to “hard money” we need to do something about this horrific debt that we have piled up for future generations first.  We simply cannot lock this debt in and expect them to pay for our mistakes.
We made this mess, so we need to clean it up.
Going to a debt-free monetary system would allow us to do that.
#12 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, our local banks will have much more freedom.  Most Americans simply do not understand just how much power the Federal Reserve actually has over our local banks.
For example, just last year Federal Reserve officials walked into one bank in Oklahoma and demanded that they take down all the Bible verses and all the Christmas buttons that the bank had been displaying.
#13 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we won’t have trillions of dollars of secret loans being made to big financial institutions on Wall Street and in foreign countries.
Most Americans don’t realize this, but the Federal Reserve made $16.1 trillionin secret loans to their friends during the last financial crisis.
Meanwhile, hundreds of small banks were left out in the cold and the American people got no help.
This is rampant corruption and it needs to be stopped.
#14 The Federal Reserve needs to be nationalized because it is an unelected, unaccountable “fourth branch of government” that has gotten completely and totally out of control.  Even some members of Congress are now openly complaining about how much power the Fed has.  For example, Ron Paul told MSNBC last year that he believes that the Federal Reserve is now more powerful than Congress…..

“The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this. They’re more powerful than the Congress.”

To learn much more about the Federal Reserve and how it is destroying prosperity in America, there is a great animated documentary on YouTube entitled “The American Dream” that you can watch right here.
It is absolutely imperative that the American people get educated about the Federal Reserve and about why a debt-based monetary system is bad for us.
In 1922, Henry Ford wrote the following….

“The people must be helped to think naturally about money. They must be told what it is, and what makes it money, and what are the possible tricks of the present system which put nations and peoples under control of the few.”

The U.S. government does not need to go into debt to anyone.
The U.S. government is a sovereign nation.
So why in the world are we 15 trillion dollars in debt?
We have allowed ourselves to become willingly enslaved.
In the book of Proverbs, it tells us the following….

The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

By allowing ourselves to become enslaved to debt, we have become the servants of the international banking system.
Our founding fathers attempted to warn us about this.
For example, Thomas Jefferson strongly believed that when the federal government borrows money in one generation which must be paid back by future generations it is equivalent to stealing….

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.

Not only that, Thomas Jefferson also once stated that if he could add just one more amendment to the U.S. Constitution it would be a ban on all government borrowing….

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

If we had implemented that advice, how much better off would we be today?
We can still do this.
We can take back control of our financial system.
We can nationalize the Federal Reserve.
We can dramatically cut taxes and eventually shut down the IRS.
We can give our children and grandchildren a future that is debt free.
We can escape the tyranny of the international bankers.
The choice, America, is up to you.

Read more -

http://www.blacklistednews.com/14_Reasons_Why_We_Should_Nationalize_The_Federal_Reserve_/16434/0/0/0/Y/M.html

NASA prepares for moon tourism -

NASA prepares for moon tourism - 


Does Smokey Bear need a space helmet? NASA isn't headed back to the moon anytime soon, but some day space tourists may be on the way to the Apollo mission lunar landing sites.
And you know the one thing that tourists love to bring home.
"Looting, that would be pretty bad," says archaeologist Beth O'Leary of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. Looting is the bane of archaeological sites and O'Leary has spearheaded efforts to declare moon landing sites as historic preserves or national parks, seeking to head off similar depredations before before tourists leave Earth for the moon. "I put landing people on the moon up there with creating fire as a technological achievement."
From 1969 to 1972, NASA sent 6 manned space missions to the moon. Each one landed in a different spot, but in each case American astronauts left behind various artifacts. The first, Apollo 11, for instance, left things ranging from a "Camera, Lunar TV" to a "Urine Collection Assembly (Small)".
NASA isn't expecting the sites to generate the kind of traffic we see at national parks on Earth, but the prospect of future tourists could affect plans to inspect the sites and artifacts in the future. So, the space agency released guidelines this summer on protecting lunar landing sites and artifacts. They call for a 1,200 acre "no-fly" zone around the first Apollo 11 landing site, and final Apollo 17 one. Tourists could only walk within 82 yards of the Apollo 11 landing site where Neil Armstrong first took "One small step for man," on July 20, 1969, under the guidelines.
What's the rush? NASA had started to get questions from the two dozen or more teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize for the "first privately funded teams to safely land a robot on the surface of the Moon." NASA officials suddenly had nightmares of private spaceships landing on top of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong's "Defecation Collection Device (4 bags)" left at the Apollo 11 site. Part of the prize involves driving a robot rover about a third of a mile on the moon, as well. And no one wants to see Armstrong's footprints obliterated by a robot tourist.
"This really is unprecedented," says NASA's Robert Kelso of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, who headed the guideline effort. "We went looking at NASA for guidelines on this (preservation), and we really didn't have anything."
Famous exploration sites have been looted before, such as the 1911 hut belonging to South Pole explorer Robert Falcon Scott, looted after its 1956 rediscovery. "What we don't want to happen is what happened in Antarctica at Scott's Hut," space historian Roger Launius of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., told Science Magazine in September.
"We want to protect all the lunar sites, but the Apollo landing sites carry particularly important cultural, historical and heritage value," says Kelso. "They are key sites in Cold War history."
Apollo 17's recommended protection site is bigger than Apollo 11, because the lander mission featured a moon buggy, which is on the list of items that NASA might like inspected. The buggy allowed the astronauts to travel farther.
The guidelines aren't meant just to keep people out, but also to let researchers in selectively, Kelso adds, so that the space agency can learn how artifacts degrade on the moon. The only clues now come from 1969's Apollo 12 mission, which landed near the 1967 Surveyor 3 unmanned lander. The Apollo 12 landing about 500 feet away from Surveyor 3 scattered dust all over its landing site, to the surprise of scientists, according to Kelso, raising similar fears about astronaut footprints from historic missions being erased by Google Lunar X Prize contestants.


Read more -
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/story/2011-11-06/apollo-moon-space-tourism/51084312/1

One Year of Prison Costs More Than One Year at Princeton - 

One year at Princeton University: $37,000. One year at a New Jersey state prison: $44,000. 

Prison and college "are the two most divergent paths one can take in life," Joseph Staten, an info-graphic researcher with Public Administration, says. Whereas one is a positive experience that increases lifetime earning potential, the other is a near dead end, which is why Staten found it striking that the lion's share of government funding goes toward incarceration.

The comparison between higher education spending and correction spending highlighted in the following chart is not perfect. Universities have means to fund themselves; prisons rely on the government. So it makes some sense that a disproportional amount of money flows to the correction centers. Also, take note, comparing African


Americans in college and African Americans in dorms is not completely fair. For one, college implies an 18-22 age range, and incarcerated adults can be of any age. Also, it doesn't take into account African Americans who commute to school.

Despite these shortcomings, this chart helps illustrate a large discrepancy in this country: America has the highest incarceration rate by population, but is only 6th in the world when it comes to college degrees. Our government's spending reflects that fact accordingly.

Read more -

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/chart-one-year-of-prison-costs-more-than-one-year-at-princeton/247629/#

Have We Raised An Entire Generation Of Young Men That Do Not Know How To Be Men? -

Have We Raised An Entire Generation Of Young Men That Do Not Know How To Be Men? - 




Have we completely and totally failed an entire generation of young men?  Have we failed to equip them with the tools that they need?  Have we raised an entire generation of young men that do not know how to be men?  Today, young adult men are nearly twice as likely to live with their parents as young adult women are, and young adult men are much less likely to go to college than young adult women are.  Now I want to make something perfectly clear before we proceed.  The point of this article is not to slam women or drag them down.  Not at all.  Rather, the goal of this article is to point out that we have a real problem with our young men and that they are lagging way behind.  Vast numbers of them don't want to go to college, don't want to pursue careers, don't want to get married and don't want to take on any serious responsibilities.  Of course there are always exceptions.  In fact, there are some young men out there that are absolutely outstanding.  However, what this article is trying to say is that the overall trends all point to the fact that our system has raised up a crop of young men that are generally weak, directionless, wimpified and unwilling to take responsibility.  This is not a good thing.


What comes to your mind when you think of men under the age of 30 in America today?  Does an image of an irresponsible, sex crazed, beer swilling slacker come to mind?


Unfortunately, that stereotype is way too true.  We have failed our young men.  We did not teach them how to be men.  Yes, as I noted earlier, there are definitely exceptions to this, but in general we have a real problem on our hands.


Let take a look at some of the hard numbers.


As a recent CNN article noted, young men between the ages of 25 and 34 are almost twice as likely to live with their parents as young women the same age are....


The number of adult children who live with their parents, especially young males, has soared since the economy started heading south. Among males age 25 to 34, 19% live with their parents today, a 5 percentage point increase from 2005, according to Census data released Thursday. Meanwhile, 10% of women in that age group live at home, up from 8% six years ago.


Among the college-aged set, the 18- to 24-year-olds, 59% of males and 50% of females lived with their parents, up from 53% and 46%, respectively.


So what in the world is causing this?


Men that are between 25 and 34 should be in their prime working years.  Instead, almost one out of every five of them is living with mommy and daddy.


This is a major problem.  Rather than working hard, taking responsibility and building their own lives, we have way too many young men that are living in our basements and that spend much of their time watching television or playing video games.


The lack of ambition among many of our young men is absolutely appalling.  Today, young women are far more likely to pursue a college education than young men are.  According to the New York Times, approximately 57 percent of all young people enrolled at U.S. colleges are women.  That means that only about 43 percent are men.


As I have written about previously, unemployment is also rampant among our young people.


Only 55.3% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 were employed last year.  That was the lowest level that we have seen since World War II.


Today, there are millions of young men that are sitting around with no job, no hope and no direction in life.


But even many of those that do have jobs are not making much money.  The number of the "working poor" in America is rapidly increasing, and this is especially true among young adults.  Since the year 2000, incomes for U.S. households led by someone between the ages of 25 and 34 have fallen by about 12 percent after you adjust for inflation.


In the past, women always complained about the "gender gap" when it came to wages, but today we are actually seeing that reversed among our young people.  In fact, author Guy Garcia says that women in their twenties now earn more money than men of the same age in the ten largest cities in the United States.


This current generation of men also seems to be extremely hesitant to take on the responsibilities of marriage and family.  Today, an all-time low 44.2% of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 are married.


Instead, most young men seem to want to run around "hooking up" with as many women as possible without any consequences.


But there are consequences.  The irresponsible behavior of our young men is putting an incredible amount of strain on our young women.


For example, in 2010 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps.


So what is causing all of this?


Well, certainly there are a lot of factors, but it certainly does not help that men are almost always portrayed as weak, irresponsible, sex-crazed idiots on television and in our movies.


This point was made very well in a recent article in The Washington Times....


If the fall TV season is any guide, the sexual revolution that was supposed to liberate men and women from traditional sex roles seems to have resulted instead in a straight-up role reversal. The male characters are messes — insecure, jobless, barely able to dress themselves without a wife or girlfriend and/or living in mom’s proverbial basement. Their female counterparts, meanwhile, are flaunting the same selfish, boorish ways that once got men called “chauvinist pigs.”


Today, our society generally does not teach young men that they should be strong, noble, ambitious and eager to take responsibility.


Instead, we are constantly sending our young men the message that we expect them to act like idiots, drink lots of beer, chase women and pretty much be as lazy as possible.


I fear that we have failed this entire generation of young men.  Yes, there are many that have turned out great, but in general we have a real mess on our hands.


So what can we do about all of this?


Read more -
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/have-we-raised-an-entire-generation-of-young-men-that-do-not-know-how-to-be-men