Sadly, what we are experiencing right now is so similar to what we witnessed in 2007 and early 2008.  The stock market had been on a great run, people were flipping houses like crazy and most people were convinced that the party would never end.

But then it did end – very painfully.

The signs of trouble were there, but most people chose to ignore them.

Sadly, the exact same thing is happening again.

On Monday, the price of oil hit a brand new five year low.  As I write this, U.S. oil is sitting at a price of $53.76 a barrel, which is nearly a 50 percent decline from the peak earlier this year.

There is only one other time in history when the price of oil has declined by more than 50 dollars a barrel in such a short time frame.  That was back in the middle of 2008, shortly before the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression.

Unless the price of oil starts really bouncing back, the U.S. economy is going to be hit really hard.

Since 2009, oil industry employment has risen by 50 percent.  And jobs in the oil industry pay quite well.  One figure that I saw put the average weekly wage at about 1700 dollars.

But now we aren’t going to be gaining those types of jobs.  Instead, we are going to rapidly start losing them.

Already, the oil rig count has dropped for three weeks in a row and is now at an 8 month low.  And as the oil industry suffers, all of the industries that it supports are also going to start feeling the pain.  In fact, Business Insider is reporting that Texas business executives are “freaked out” about what is happening…

Business executives in Texas are worried about the drop in oil prices.

On Monday, the Dallas Fed’s latest manufacturing survey showed that activity in Texas was slowing down.

The latest composite index came in at 4.1, widely missing expectations and down big from November’s reading. Expectations were for the index to come in at 9, down from 10.5 last month.

So while most Americans are feeling really good about the coming year, many of those with an inside view are becoming quite alarmed.  One Texas business executive went so far as to say that the stunning decline in oil prices was “going to make things ugly … quickly.“

Meanwhile, the 9 trillion dollar U.S. dollar carry trade is starting to unwind.

The following is an excerpt from a recent Zero Hedge article…

Oil’s collapse is predicated by one major event: the explosion of the US Dollar carry trade. Worldwide, there is over $9 TRILLION in borrowed US Dollars that has been ploughed into risk assets.

Energy projects, particularly Oil Shale in the US, are one of the prime spots for this. But it is not the only one. Economies that are closely aligned with commodities (all of which are priced in US Dollars) are getting demolished too.

Just about everything will be hit as well. Most of the “recovery” of the last five years has been fueled by cheap borrowed Dollars. Now that the US Dollar has broken out of a multi-year range, you’re going to see more and more “risk assets” (read: projects or investments fueled by borrowed Dollars) blow up. Oil is just the beginning, not a  standalone story.

If things really pick up steam, there’s over $9 TRILLION worth of potential explosions waiting in the wings. Imagine if the entire economies of both Germany and Japan exploded and you’ve got a decent idea of the size of the potential impact on the financial system.

And that’s assuming NO increased leverage from derivative usage.

Ouch.

And yes, as that last excerpt mentioned, derivatives could soon become a massive problem.  The big banks are holding trillions in commodity derivatives that could blow up if the price of oil does not rebound.  Overall, there are five U.S. banks that each have more than 40 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives of all types, and the total global derivatives bubble is at least 700 trillion dollars at this point.

At the same time, many are becoming concerned that the unprecedented bond bubble that we are witnessing could soon implode and trillions of dollars of “wealth” could disappear into thin air.

In fact, Bloomberg says that we should “get ready for a disastrous year” for bonds…

Get ready for a disastrous year for U.S. government bonds. That’s the message forecasters on Wall Street are sending.

With Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen poised to raise interest rates in 2015 for the first time in almost a decade, prognosticators are convinced Treasury yields have nowhere to go except up. Their calls for higher yields next year are the most aggressive since 2009, when U.S. debt securities suffered record losses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

That certainly does not sound very optimistic, does it?

Anyone with even a minimal amount of intelligence should be able to see the massive financial bubbles that the central banks of the world have created, and anyone with even a minimal amount of intelligence should be able to see that we are heading for a massive financial implosion which will be extraordinarily painful.

Unfortunately, as I wrote about yesterday, the American people have become “zombiefied“.  Instead of thinking for themselves, they let “the matrix” do their thinking for them.  And right now “the matrix” is telling them that everything is going to be just fine in 2015.

If you do not think that there is a propaganda machine that tells us what to think, I want you to watch the video posted below very carefully.  This video makes it so obvious that even a small child can understand it…

The post The American People Are Utterly Clueless About What Is Going To Happen As We Enter 2015 appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Perhaps she thought that she could just tell a little white lie about how wealthy Bill and her truly are.  After all, 66 percent of Americans believe that when it says “natural” on a food label that it actually means something.  It seems like people will fall for almost anything these days.

Unfortunately for Clinton, people are not letting this one go.  In fact, CNN anchor Alison Kosik recently burst out laughing on air in response to Clinton’s claim that she is not “truly well off”…

For instance, just consider what the BBC found when they interviewed two young kids being raised by a single mother in Iowa.

10-year-old Kaylie Haywood and her brother spend much of their time desperately hungry and thinking about food…

But Hillary Clinton and politicians like her usually only interact with those kinds of people when it is time to win another election.

And that goes for most politicians from both political parties.

For the moment, life is good for the elite.  In places such as New York City, Washington D.C. and San Francisco, unemployment is relatively low and home prices are soaring.

But for the bottom half of the country, things just continue to get even worse.  Just consider the following numbers…

-According to one recent survey, 26 percent of all Americans have absolutely no emergency savings whatsoever.

–Approximately two-thirds of all Americans do not have enough money saved up to cover six months of expenses if an emergency arose.

-Close to half of those living in Detroit cannot pay their water bills.  It is being reported that the United Nations may step in to help.

-One report discovered that 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

-One out of every three grocery store workers in the state of California is currently receiving public assistance.

-According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty.  The number of Americans living in poverty is now at a level that has not been seen since the 1960s.

-Even if you do have a job that does not mean that you are able to escape poverty in the United States today.  In fact, about one out of every four part-time workers in America is now living below the poverty line.

-According to numbers provided by Wal-Mart, more than half of their hourly workers make less than $25,000 a year.

-At this point, one out of every four American workers overall has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.

-It is a number that does not seem right, but it is actually true that half the country makes $27,520 a year or less from their jobs.

-Right now, one out of every six men in America in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job.

-Half of all college graduates are still financially dependent on their parents even when they are two years out of school.

-One study discovered that nearly half of all public students in the United States come from low income homes.

-It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.

-It is hard to believe, but right now 1.2 million students that attend public schools in America are homeless.  That number has risen by an astounding 72 percent since the start of the last recession.

-According to a Feeding America hunger study, more than 37 million Americans are now being served by food pantries and soup kitchens.

-Numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that 49.2 percent of all Americans are now receiving benefits from at least one government program.

But if you still feel sorry for Hillary Clinton after reading all of this, there is a way that you can help.

For just pennies a day, you can contribute to “The Hillary Clinton Fund For Broke Politicians”.  In the video posted below, you can see how ordinary Americans respond when they are asked to donate to the fund…

Are we being too harsh on Hillary Clinton or does she deserve the flak that she has been getting?

Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…

The post Hillary Clinton Has Got To Be Joking – This Is What ‘Dead Broke’ Actually Looks Like… appeared first on The Economic Collapse.