Eventually the world’s big shots will be forced to admit that their repeated announcements about a “recovery” from the world’s economic “recession” have been just smoke screens. The “recession”, which was first acknowledged by Mr. Bernanke in 2006 – in spite of repeated attempts by the media to cover up that 2006 declaration – gradually progressed into a depression, and if you’re not aware of that fact, you’ve had your head buried in the sand.

The folks in Europe have been feeling the pain for some time, and have been reacting in a number of ways to the austerity measures being imposed – tragic suicides being the most notable. Mass demonstrations and mob violence are daily occurrences among EU member states, and things are getting worse by the day. But that’s all child’s play compared to the noise that will eventually be made by the 300 million occupants in the sleeping giant on this continent.

But that sleeping giant is about to wake up. The mainstream media has been keeping a lot of horrible statistics under wraps but the truth is beginning to leak out. Up to now a large segment of the U.S. population still believes the spinnage being fed to them by the media, but when the following facts become more widely known, the normally complacent and shy U.S. citizens will likely express their anger in some very unpleasant ways.

Do you suppose Americans will remain shy when they realize that:

– The percentage of Americans that own homes is dropping rapidly. According to Gallup, the current level of ownership in the U.S. is the lowest that Gallup has ever measured.

– Home prices in the U.S. continue to drop like a rock as well. They have declined for six months in a row and are now down a total of 35% from the peak of the housing bubble.

– Last year, an astounding 53% of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.

– Back in 2007, about 10% of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for 52 weeks or longer. Today, that number is above 30%.

– The average duration of unemployment in the U.S. is about three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.

– Despite what the mainstream media would have us believe, the truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed is not increasing. It’s decreasing because of the addition of more than 120,000 young people that attain working age every month.

– Back in 1950, more than 80 % of all men in the U.S. had jobs. Today, less than 65% of all men in the U.S. have jobs.

– According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time.

– Incredibly, one out of every four jobs in the U.S. pays $ 10 an hour or less.

– In November of 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, more than 46 million Americans, including 25% of all American children, are on food stamps.

– Over the next 75 years, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars. That comes to $ 328,404 for each and every household in the U.S.

– Today, the U.S. national debt is rising by more than 2 million dollars every single minute.

– The U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars since the day Barack Obama first took office. In a little more than 3 years, he has added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents combined.

So, tell us, Mr. Maritime Big Shots, how in the world do you expect your industry and the rest of the world to “recover” from this “recession” when American shoppers – the world’s economic catalyst – can’t even pay the rent?

So far, your responses have bordered on imbecility. Design and purchase bigger and bigger ships, right? Oh, that hasn’t worked out yet? Well, how about “slow steaming”? That’s not working out either? Well, an expanded Panama Canal should have some effect on gullible Americans – after all, they’re the ones that will be tricked into paying for it. And sure, in the meantime we can insist that all U.S. harbors must be dredged to accommodate those leviathans that are due for delivery and will surely be the way we get to those hungry U.S. buyers. And to get the books back in the black, let’s scrap a few hundred more ships. And we can even raise our rates again while we’re at it.

Those “hungry U.S. buyers” are hungry, alright – but not for containers full of foreign-made products. That’s history. Those hungry Americans are concerned only about their next meal – or maybe enough money to cover next month’s rent.

How can shipping moguls view the poverty and austerity measures in their own countries and not realize that U.S. society – the backbone of international trade – is not on the verge of an implosion? Throughout America, people are becoming aware of fundamental changes. Businesses that have been around for generations are being forced to shut down. Millions that have been thrown out of work have no prospects of ever finding work again.

The media, however, as well as the maritime industry bigwigs, continue to tout the “recovery”. They’ve been lying all along and the public is slowly beginning to catch on. Jobs, jobs, jobs! The only solution to this worldwide disaster is to create employment opportunities. Or else.

300 million people could make an awful lot of noise.