The Economy

How To Live Your Best Life In America In 2021 (In A Van Down By The River)

February 17, 2021 by Michael

One of the hottest new trends in the U.S. is to get rid of your house and live in a van. Of course many people have had “van life” forced upon them by current economic conditions, but for an increasing number of Americans “van life” has become a choice. Personally, I am old enough to remember when “living in a van” was a running joke in this country. But now we are being told that it is “cool” to live like a hobo. In fact, USA Today insists that life in a van “is particularly well suited” for the COVID pandemic because it allows for much easier social distancing…

But for those who can afford it, #vanlife is particularly well suited for this crisis because it’s socially distanced, can be done on a budget and fosters outdoor activities, which are safer during the outbreak than indoor environments where air doesn’t circulate well.

When you smell like a skunk after not showering for a week, it is true that not too many people will want to get near you, and so I would agree that living in a van will help with social distancing.

Since the start of the pandemic, van sales have risen dramatically, and this has happened even though overall sales for the auto industry are way down…

Mercedes, whose Sprinter van is the vehicle of choice for many #vanlife followers, appears to be the biggest winner. Mercedes-Benz U.S. van sales soared 22.5% in 2020 to 274,916, even as the brand’s overall sales fell 8.9%.

“Everybody’s trying to get their hands on a van,” says Stefanie Doemel, who manages upfit solutions for vans at Mercedes-Benz USA.

Of course most of those that choose to embrace “van life” cannot afford a Mercedes.

If you are fortunate enough to encounter someone living the “van lifestyle”, it is more likely that they will own a junky old Chevy van that has had the interior ripped to shreds over the years.

But the good news for van residents is that they never have to stay in one place and there is always something new to see.

USA Today interviewed one “van life” advocate named Abby Rodriguez who says that when her work for the day is done she can just “go refresh in nature”…

“You feel more relieved from some of the mental stress that others are going through by being trapped in one place,” Abby says. “We have wheels so we can change up our scenery, and after the workday, I can go refresh in nature.”

That is all well and good, but I just hope that she brings a shovel with her when she “refreshes”, because it isn’t polite to leave your droppings right out in the open.

In a companion article, USA Today shared five key tips for those that are considering making the switch to “van life”…

1. Consider buying a used van
2. Budget for upgrades and teach yourself how to do them
3. Stay at public campgrounds or national parks
4. Make sure you’ve got a bathroom solution
5. Plan for fixed and unexpected expenses

Personally, there are two more things that I would add to the list.

Number one, make sure that you are able to secure a good spot down by the river.

Number two, you may want to consider supplementing your income with some public speaking gigs.

As the U.S. economy continues to rapidly deteriorate right in front of our eyes, another one of the hottest new trends is to dig around for discarded food in dumpsters behind large supermarkets.

The trendies like to call it “dumpster diving”, and it has become particularly popular with impoverished Millennials living in core urban areas.

In fact, it has become so popular that some supermarkets are now calling out the police to guard their dumpsters. For example, approximately a dozen police officers were guarding the dumpsters behind a Fred Meyer in Portland on Tuesday…

Roughly a dozen Portland police officers faced off with a small group at a Northeast Portland Fred Meyer on Tuesday after people tried to take food that had been thrown away.

Workers at the Hollywood West Fred Meyer threw away thousands of perishable items because the store, like many others, had lost power in an outage brought on by the region’s winter storm.

We are being told that a riot almost ensued, but of course riots happen at the drop of a hat in Portland these days.

For a while the police were successful in keeping the hungry people away from the dumpsters, but eventually the police got tired and went home.

When the coast was finally clear, hungry Millennials descended upon the dumpsters like a pack of ravenous wolves…

Simonis said police eventually left and those waiting to get food made their way over to the dumpsters. As of 6:30 p.m., about two dozen people were at the dumpsters, taking a few items each.

Simonis noted that all the food was still in good condition, given the cold weather. One person picked up a carton of juice with an expiration date in March.

This is America in 2021. Poverty is growing with each passing day, and people are becoming increasingly desperate.

And if things are this bad already, how bad is the desperation going to become once our economy finally plunges into freefall mode?

On Wednesday, millions of Americans were deeply saddened to hear that Rush Limbaugh had passed away. He will be deeply missed, and nobody will ever be able to fill his shoes.

One of the things that always stood out to me when I listened to Rush was how much he truly loved the United States. He was zealously patriotic, and he truly embodied the ideals that our founders held so dear when they originally established this nation.

So as sad as it was to see him go, I am also glad that he is not going to have to see the nightmarish chapters that are ahead for this country.

Recent political events were already weighing very heavily on him, and to watch the U.S. completely fall to pieces would have absolutely broken his heart.

If we had made much different choices, America could have been on a much different path today.

But instead we continue to steamroll toward oblivion, and many Americans will be doing so inside a clunky old van.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

The Economic Crisis Caused By This Pandemic Has Dramatically Altered How Americans Are Living Their Lives

February 14, 2021 by Michael

This seemingly endless COVID pandemic is causing immense stress for millions of ordinary Americans. In past articles, I have discussed the fact that surveys have shown that Americans are drinking more alcohol and taking more drugs during this pandemic. Even more alarming, we have seen suicide rates spike over the past 12 months as well. Sadly, this isn’t just happening here in the United States. All over the globe, more people are ending their own lives during this pandemic. But of course most people aren’t going to go that far. Instead, most people are just going to quietly struggle along, but in the process many of them are making huge changes to their lifestyles.

For example, this pandemic appears to be greatly affecting both marriage and divorce rates. Here are just a couple of examples…

In Oregon, divorces in the pandemic months of March through December were down about 24% from those months in 2019; marriages were down 16%. In Florida, for the same months, divorces were down 20% and marriages were down 27%.

I can understand why so many Americans are putting off marriage right now. A wedding can be extremely expensive, and many Americans may be hesitant to permanently tie the knot with so much economic uncertainty in our future.

But why are divorce rates down by so much?

That is a very good question. Limited access to courts during the lockdowns was certainly one factor, and many Americans are also concerned about what a divorce would mean for them financially…

One reason for fewer divorces: In many states, access to courts for civil cases was severely curtailed during the pandemic’s early stages. Another reason, according to marriage counselors, is that many couples backed off from a possibly imminent divorce for fear it would only worsen pandemic-fueled financial insecurity.

Meanwhile, this pandemic has also caused more Americans than ever to put off having children.

In fact, birth rates are way down all over the country…

According to a Bloomberg analysis, births decreased by 19 percent in California between December 2019 and December 2020. Data from Florida, Hawaii, Arizona, and Ohio show large declines in birth rates since the pandemic started compared to the previous year’s data, too. A survey conducted by Modern Fertility, a company that sells fertility tests directly to consumers, found that 30 percent of nearly 4,000 people surveyed stated they changed their fertility plans due to COVID-19. One in four of those respondents said they’ve become unsure about having children at all; the most commonly cited reason was uncertainty about the world.

At the beginning of this pandemic, some had suggested that we may see a “baby boom”, but it appears that we are experiencing a “baby bust” instead.

The rising cost of living is causing a tremendous amount of stress for ordinary Americans as well.

Thanks to the crazy spending that Congress has been doing and the reckless money printing that the Federal Reserve has been engaged in, the money supply is skyrocketing and prices are aggressively rising all over the country.

Just look at what has been happening to natural gas prices. The recent cold snap has created a dramatic spike in demand, and this has pushed natural gas prices to unprecedented levels. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

… we hit the proverbial offerless market where any natgas that was available would be purchased at virtually any price, which is why midcontinent prices such as the Oneok OGT nat gas spot exploded from $3.46 one week ago, to $9 on Wednesday, $60.28 on Thursday and an insane $377.13 on Friday, up 32,000% in a few days. This is one of those places where having a limit up circuit breaker could actually be useful, even though there simply is nowhere near enough product to satisfy demand at any price hence the explosive move.

Hubs across the Midcontinent led the surge in prices again Feb. 12 as weather forecasts predicted the coldest temperatures in more than a decade would hit the region over the upcoming holiday weekend. Platts reported that at locations across Kansas, Oklahoma and Eastern Arkansas, hub prices were trading at single-day record highs around $200 to $300/MMBtu. Regional hubs, which typically service only limited local demand, saw fierce competition among shippers, utilities and end-users looking to meet weekend requirements.

This is a reminder of what can happen when things get crazy.

If a short-term cold spell can cause this much chaos, what would happen during a long-term national emergency?

That is something to think about.

Other Americans don’t need to worry about heating their homes, because this pandemic has forced them to live in their vehicles…

Americans are being driven into their vehicles by pandemic-fueled woes. And their ranks are likely to grow as the government safety net frays and evictions and foreclosures rise.

“It’s in times of crisis that the fragility of our systems are laid bare,” said Graham Pruss, a postdoctoral scholar with the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the UC San Francisco Center for Vulnerable Populations.

Particularly on the west coast, government officials have been setting up huge parking lots where those that live in their vehicles can sleep safely at night.

Many of those that are now sleeping in their vehicles were once living comfortable middle class lifestyles, but now this crisis has changed everything. Nicholas Atencio and Heather Surovik are two examples…

For months, Nicholas Atencio and girlfriend Heather Surovik spent nearly every minute of their lives together in a 2000 Cadillac Escalade.

After Atencio, 33, lost his job as a plumber in May, he and Surovik, 36, delivered for Grubhub by day and at night curled up with their puppy on an air bed in the back of their car parked in a lot in Longmont, Colorado, dreaming of being reunited under one roof with Surovik’s teenage son who was living with his grandmother.

Have you ever spent a night in a vehicle?

If you have, then you already know that it isn’t pleasant.

Unfortunately, once eviction moratoriums are finally lifted all over the country we are going to see the largest tsunami of evictions in American history.

So that means that a lot more people are going to end up sleeping in their vehicles.

These are very troubled times, and they are about to get even more troubled…

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

8 Million More Living In Poverty, 9 Million Small Businesses In Danger Of Closing, 10 Million Behind On Rent…

February 9, 2021 by Michael

The economic downturn that we are currently experiencing is making the last recession look like a Sunday picnic. Yes, 2008 and 2009 were bad, but they weren’t anything like this. Unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve has allowed the rich to get even richer during this crisis, but meanwhile millions upon millions of ordinary Americans are deeply suffering. Unfortunately, what we have gone through so far is just the beginning.

As a child, I was a big fan of Sesame Street, and one of the characters that really stood out to me was Count von Count. I loved the fact that he was always counting things, and that is what I am going to do in this article in order to illustrate how bad economic conditions have now become.

Let’s start with the number 7. According to the Congressional Budget Office, approximately 7 million more Americans would have jobs right now if the COVID pandemic had never happened…

But in fact, what the CBO is projecting is dire: around 7 million people out of work in 2021 whom CBO thought before the pandemic would be working. That’s dire – and a call to immediate action, not calm, not wait-and-see.

Personally, I think that estimate is way too low.

In fact, the Federal Reserve says that 152 million Americans were working before the pandemic started, and only 142 million Americans are working now.

So the CBO estimate appears to be off by about 3 million.

Count von Count would not be happy.

Let’s try another number. According to Bloomberg, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen by 8 million during this crisis…

Support is rising among policy makers to address America’s child-poverty crisis, which is getting worse as the pandemic drags on.

More than 8 million Americans — including many children — fell into poverty during the second half of last year, exacerbating the racial and income inequalities that are holding back the U.S. economy.

In this case, I think that this is a reasonable estimate, but that number will inevitably keep growing in the months ahead.

One of the big reasons why it will continue to rise is because hordes of small businesses will be collapsing, and that brings us to our next number.

According to a study that was recently released by the Fed, 9 million small businesses in the U.S. say that they “won’t survive” in 2021 without more government assistance…

Three in ten small businesses — or 9 million out of the estimated 30 million in the United States — fear they won’t survive in the coming year without additional government assistance, according to a survey recently published by the Federal Reserve.

The Small Business Credit Survey, which was conducted last September and October and released last week, showcased the incredible burden the coronavirus pandemic has placed on America’s small businesses, as 88% of the businesses surveyed reported that sales had not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Can you imagine what our country would look like if almost a third of all small businesses permanently disappeared?

If you watched the Super Bowl, you were bombarded with messaging about the plight of our small businesses. We have never seen anything like this before, and that is because our small businesses have never had to face a crisis of this magnitude.

With each passing day, more small businesses are folding, and nothing that the federal government is going to do will completely stop this trend.

Our next number is 10. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 10 million renters were behind on their rent payments in January, and many more people anticipated not paying rent in February…

An estimated 10 million renters were behind on their rent and at risk of eviction in the middle of January, according to a Census Bureau survey. And an estimated 16 million renters had little to no confidence they could pay rent in February.

Overall, U.S. renters now owe at least 30 billion dollars in back rent.

This has created extreme financial pain for America’s landlords, and when the rent moratoriums are finally lifted we are going to see the largest tsunami of evictions in all of U.S. history by a very wide margin.

Before I wrap up this article, let me leave you with just one more number. So far in 2021, the number of passengers at U.S. airports is down by more than 60 percent compared to 2019…

Over the past seven days, not quite 707,000 passengers per day on average passed TSA checkpoints at US airports, a measure of how many passengers in the US are flying somewhere. This was down by 61.6% from the same period in 2019, the last full year of the Good Times. At the end of January, the drop from 2019 was over 65%.

I honestly do not know how the airline industry is going to survive this without government help.

Speaking of not surviving, Democrats have introduced a bill in Congress that would essentially deal a death blow to the gig economy…

The legislation at the core of their agenda is the PRO Act, which Democrats just re-introduced with sponsors including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer. Among many other things, the bill would severely restrict the legal definition of independent contractors in a way that would largely end the gig economy as we know it.

The legislators’ stated intention is to protect workers and bolster their rights under law. Through the reclassification of independent contractors, Democrats hope to force gig economy companies to hire workers as full employees and thus provide them the accompanying salaries and benefits.

If this bill passes, it would absolutely devastate Uber, Lyft and countless other companies that rely on gig workers.

Basically, millions of jobs would go “poof” with one stroke of Joe Biden’s pen.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 50 million Americans are currently employed by the gig economy. It is great to want those workers to have higher pay and more benefits, but if those companies go out of existence there won’t be any jobs at all.

These are very dark times for the U.S. economy, and the outlook for the future is exceedingly bleak.

However, in the short-term economic conditions should stabilize somewhat thanks to the huge stimulus payments that the government will be sending out.

But that bubble of hope will be very brief, and everyone should be able to see that much more pain is on the horizon.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Americans Have Never Been More Dissatisfied With How The Country Is Functioning Than They Are Right Now

February 7, 2021 by Michael

Are you satisfied with life in America right now? Before you answer that question, consider more than just politics. Taking an overall view that encompasses every aspect of our society, are you generally satisfied with how our society is functioning at this moment or not? Needless to say, we are coming off a very tough year, and 2021 has not started smoothly either. The COVID pandemic continues to drag on, we are mired in the worst economic downturn in more than 70 years, and there is civil unrest in our streets on an almost nightly basis. All of these trials and tribulations have taken a great toll on us emotionally, and so perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that a new Gallup survey has found that the American people are less satisfied with how our nation is functioning than they ever have been before…

Americans’ satisfaction with seven broad aspects of the way the country functions is collectively at its lowest in two decades of Gallup measurement. This includes satisfaction with the overall quality of life in the U.S., assessments of government, corporate and religious influence, and perceptions of the economic and moral climates.

The average percentage satisfied with these seven dimensions has plunged to 39% at the start of 2021. That compares with 53% a year ago, the highest average in more than a decade amid strong economic confidence and before the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the U.S.

For the survey, Gallup specifically asked Americans about the following seven areas…

-The overall quality of life
-The opportunity for a person in this nation to get ahead by working hard
-The influence of organized religion
-The size and power of the federal government
-Our system of government and how well it works
-The size and influence of major corporations
-The moral and ethical climate

Satisfaction for every one of those areas was way down.

In fact, for six of those categories the decline from last year was in double digits. Shockingly, the only category that declined by just single digits was “the size and power of the federal government”.

Of course whenever economic conditions are harsh, the overall population is not going to be happy, and we have been through a really tough stretch economically.

According to Gary Halbert of Halbert Wealth Management, last year was the worst year for the U.S. economy in 74 years…

Last Thursday the Commerce Department released its first estimate of 4Q Gross Domestic Product showing the economy grew at an annual rate of 4.0% in the final three months of last year. That followed the 3Q record expansion of 33.4% (annual rate) as the economy rebounded strongly following the COVID-19 lockdowns.

2Q GDP plunged by a record-shattering 33.4% (annual rate) following the 1Q slide of 5% in the first three months of the year. For all of 2020 the economy shrank by 3.5%, the worst annual decline in 74 years (WWII).

Sadly, this year has not started very well either. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits each week continues to be at nearly four times the pre-pandemic level…

The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits last week edged down but remained elevated as the coronavirus pandemic continues to trigger a high number of layoffs.

Figures released Thursday by the Labor Department show that 779,000 Americans filed first-time jobless claims in the week ended Jan. 30, lower than the 830,000 forecast by Refinitiv economists.

And the percentage of those without jobs that are considered to be “long-term unemployed” is approaching a record high…

Almost 40% of jobless workers in January were long-term unemployed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

The share has grown steadily since the spring and is approaching the record set in April 2010, in the aftermath of the Great Recession. At that time, nearly 46% of the unemployed were out of work at least six months.

Our system is supposed to provide a helping hand to those that are out of work, but the help doesn’t always get to those that need it.

Even though I write about our economic problems on a regular basis, even I was shocked by a brand new survey that discovered that “just 30% of unemployed individuals are being reached by the unemployment system”…

Congressional Democrats are trying to fast-track a nearly $2 trillion coronavirus relief proposal that would extend the existing supplemental unemployment benefits, but new research suggests that the jobless aid is not reaching millions of out-of-work Americans.

At most, just 30% of unemployed individuals are being reached by the unemployment system, according to a report published this week by Eliza Forsythe, a labor economist at the University of Illinois. That means roughly three out of every four jobless workers aren’t receiving aid — or about 8 million of the 11 million people counted as unemployed in December.

But for millions of deeply hurting Americans, there is good news in the short-term. Congress is about to pass another COVID relief bill, and soon more stimulus payments will be going out to the American people.

Of course borrowing and spending another 1.9 trillion dollars that we do not have will make our long-term debt problems even worse and will push us even farther down a highway to hyperinflation.

In the end, most Americans don’t really care that we are literally committing national suicide. They just know that they are in pain and they want some help as soon as possible.

If economic conditions begin to significantly improve in the weeks ahead, the American people will start to feel better about how the country is doing.

But even if there is some sort of a short-term boost, the long-term outlook is bleaker than ever, and the American people are not going to be able to handle the long-term pain that is coming very well at all.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

It’s Like Magic! Lockdowns Are Ending All Over America Just Days After Biden’s Inauguration…

January 25, 2021January 25, 2021 by Michael

Isn’t it amazing how all of the lockdowns can now be lifted now that Donald Trump is no longer president? It has been less than a week since Joe Biden was inaugurated, and COVID restrictions are being ended in Michigan, Chicago, California and New York. What an odd coincidence, eh? Now that Democrats are running everything, it turns out that there is no longer any need for such fear-based control mechanisms. At this point, we are being told that happy days are here again and that the next four years are going to be just great.

Of course the economic devastation that was caused by all of the lockdowns is going to be with us for a while. The lockdowns permanently destroyed more than 100,000 small businesses, they plunged us into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and they sent suicide rates skyrocketing all over the globe.

But at least our rightful rulers are now back in control, and so it was a small sacrifice to make.

Sometimes I use sarcasm to express my frustrations, and there is much to be frustrated about these days.

After putting Michigan residents through hell for most of 2020, two days after Biden was inaugurated Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced that the restrictions in her state would start to be lifted…

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Friday that the restrictions worked, COVID-19 infection rates are declining, and indoor dining can resume Feb. 1.

The very next day, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot proudly announced that COVID restrictions were also being rolled back in her city…

“Due to recent progress in the fight against COVID-19, Chicago is now operating under Illinois’ Tier 1 mitigations—which includes limited indoor dining and more.”

Then on Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom “lifted regional stay-at-home orders across the state”…

California lifted regional stay-at-home orders across the state Monday in response to improving coronavirus conditions, returning the state to a system of county-by-county restrictions, state health officials announced. CBS San Francisco reports the move opens the way for a return to limited restaurant dining, religious services and other activities.

Somehow, major Democratic politicians all over the nation have simultaneously come to the exact same conclusion about the COVID lockdowns.

Isn’t that strange?

Of course there are some that are suggesting that all of this is a little bit too convenient. For example, this is what Steve Cortes posted on Twitter…

Michigan, Chicago, now California.

It’s almost as if the “science” changed, once Biden became president? How convenient for Whitmer, Lightfoot, and Newsom?

Using small businesses, churches, schools, and citizens as pawns in a crass political game is evil.

Steve must not have heard the latest, because we just got big news out of New York…

The spread of Covid-19 has slowed enough in New York that Gov. Andrew Cuomo plans to ease the extra restrictions some parts of the state have been living under for months.

Cuomo said today he expects to announce changes to the state’s Covid cluster zones soon. It would be the first update to the cluster zones in weeks.

They could have at least waited for a couple of weeks to make it look better.

Many Americans are going to be convinced that these lockdowns were a political ploy all along, and it is going to be extremely difficult to convince them otherwise.

Meanwhile, we are left with a nation in which the gap between the wealthy and the poor is now greater than ever thanks to the lockdowns.

According to Bloomberg, we just witnessed the largest yearly increase in poverty in the United States since the 1960s…

Economists Bruce Meyer, from the University of Chicago, and James Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame found that the poverty rate increased by 2.4 percentage points during the latter half of 2020 as the U.S. continued to suffer the economic impacts from Covid-19.

That percentage-point rise is nearly double the largest annual increase in poverty since the 1960s. This means an additional 8 million people nationwide are now considered poor. Moreover, the poverty rate for Black Americans is estimated to have jumped by 5.4 percentage points, or by 2.4 million individuals.

Of course we have also seen poverty rates explode elsewhere around the world, and Oxfam is warning that on a global basis we just witnessed the “greatest rise in inequality since records began”…

As featured in a recent Oxfam study which also sought to assess the financial impact of the pandemic — up to 500 million people globally have been newly pushed into poverty, while at the same time the world’s 10 richest men made a combined $540 billion over the same time frame.

Oxfam is calling it evidence of the “greatest rise in inequality since records began.”

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Meanwhile, the horrific civil unrest that I warned was coming is now raging all over the planet.

In fact, one group of protesters in the Netherlands just blew up a bridge.

When faith in our leaders and in our institutions is gone, it is going to be exceedingly difficult to ever restore it.

Perhaps “the science” really does indicate that our politicians should suddenly be lifting COVID restrictions all over the United States. But even many Democrats are going to admit that it looks incredibly suspicious for them to be doing this in coordinated fashion just days after Biden was inaugurated.

In life, and especially in politics, perception can be everything.

However, even if there is funny business going on, we should all be glad that the lockdowns are finally starting to end because that will definitely help the economy.

Let us hope that economic conditions in this country will improve for at least a short period of time as we wait for the next shoe to drop.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

We Are Suffering Through The Most Painful Economic Crisis Since The Great Depression Of The 1930s

January 21, 2021 by Michael

I warned that an economic collapse was coming, and an economic collapse is exactly what we got. 2020 was a “personal financial disaster” for 55 percent of all Americans, approximately 12 million U.S. renters are “at least $5,850 behind in rent and utilities payments”, the Aspen Institute is projecting that up to 40 million people could be facing eviction when the rent and mortgage moratoriums finally end, and more than 70 million new claims for unemployment benefits have been filed since the COVID pandemic began.

Nobody can point to a time since the Great Depression of the 1930s when the U.S. economy was in worse shape than it is right now.

Unfortunately, there are no indications that this nightmare is going to end. Last week, another 900,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits…

Another 900,000 people filed new unemployment claims last week, President Donald Trump’s last in office, a snapshot of the significant labor market challenges facing President Joe Biden.

An additional 423,000 people in 47 states filed new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program created to help gig and self-employed workers.

Prior to 2020, the all-time record for new unemployment claims in a single week was just 695,000, and that old record was set all the way back in 1982.

We shattered that old record early in 2020, but the bigger story is what has happened since we broke it.

At this point, the number of new claims for unemployment benefits has been above 695,000 for 44 weeks in a row.

That is starting to come close to a full year.

If that does not qualify as a “collapse”, then you are probably using a completely different definition of the word than I am using.

This unemployment crisis has hit low wage workers particularly hard. At this point, even Fed officials are being forced to admit that the unemployment rate for low wage workers “is above 20%”.

Many of those low wage workers used to be employed in the restaurant industry, but the restaurant industry continues to be mired in the worst stretch that it has ever encountered…

The number of “seated diners,” a daily measure with which OpenTable tracks walk-ins and diners with reservations, in the week through January 20 in the US was down on average by 57% from the same period last year.

The hospitality industry also typically employs large numbers of low wage workers, and we are being told that last year was the “worst year on record” for that industry…

According to STR, Inc, a hotel industry market data firm, 2020 was absolutely the worst year on record for hotels as industrywide profits fell to zero, as the virus pandemic and resulting government-enforced social distancing measures kept travelers at home.

STR’s latest report said the US hotel occupancy rate was 44% for the year, down from 66% in 2019. This was the lowest occupancy rate on record. In an earlier STR report, we noted weeks ago that the industry had one billion unsold room nights for the first time, surpassing the record of 786 million in 2009.

Countless numbers of small business owners have also been absolutely devastated by this economic downturn.

Each month, thousands of small businesses die a permanent death, and the outlook for the months ahead is not good at all.

The Epoch Times recently interviewed one small business owner in Minnesota who admitted that “the fallout by this time next year will be shocking”…

The ramifications of the forced shutdowns on thousands of small businesses in Minnesota is going to be huge, says Julie Schroeder, who owns two craft stores in the Minneapolis metro area.

“The fallout by this time next year will be shocking,” she told The Epoch Times on Dec. 30, 2020.

Meanwhile, north of the border small businesses are being destroyed at a staggering rate as well…

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business is warning that more than 220,000 businesses across the country are at risk of permanently closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CFIB, a lobby group that represents small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Canada, released a new report on Thursday that surveyed 4,129 members about business prospects through the pandemic. The survey found that 181,000 businesses – or one in six – are seriously contemplating permanently closing. That’s up from a similar survey conducted in July, which found that 158,000 businesses were at risk of closing.

In the end, if we can keep the amount of small businesses in the U.S. and Canada that go under to less than 20 percent that should be considered a major victory.

Because I have a feeling that the final number is going to be well above that threshold.

And the Biden administration does not seem too sympathetic to the needs of small businesses at this point. For example, one new law that Biden is likely to sign would absolutely cripple small truckers…

Trucking industry experts expect Joe Biden’s presidency to seriously jeopardize many small American trucking companies, and the prospects of truck drivers who work as independent contractors.

Biden is poised to sign a transportation law passed in the Democratic House and stalled in the then-Republican Senate in 2019. The Moving Forward Act had required commercial motor vehicles to maintain more than $2 million in insurance liability, more than doubling the existing $750,000.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our representatives in Washington were forced to take a basic course in economics before they were allowed to serve?

The blind are leading the blind, and the economic nightmare that we are currently experiencing is eventually going to get a whole lot worse.

But hopefully we can at least have a short period of time where things will plateau a bit before the next major trigger event happens.

So many people out there are really hurting right now, and it is not just financial pain that they are dealing with.

The past several months have been excruciatingly painful for tens of millions of Americans, and the truth is that there are countless people out there that are emotionally shattered at this moment.

If you are one of those people, just keep hanging in there.

It will take some time, but you will get through this and you will recover.

And I will continue to be here pumping out articles as I do my very best to try to help everyone make sense of a world that is going completely mad.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Now That Universal Basic Income Checks Have Started, The American People Will Go Mad If They Don’t Continue

January 17, 2021 by Michael

We crossed a line that should have never been crossed when we sent “stimulus payments” directly to the American people during the very early stages of the COVID pandemic. Even many Republicans that supported the measure acknowledged that what they were doing was pure socialism, but they defended the payments by insisting that we were in the middle of a major national emergency. At the time, I warned that once the government started issuing such checks, the American people would always keep demanding more. When it was announced that the latest round of “stimulus payments” would only be $600 per person, angry activists vandalized Nancy Pelosi’s house. Of course they got Mitch McConnell’s house too. In both cases, the vandals made it exceedingly clear that they wanted more government money.

Sadly, it wasn’t just a handful of activists that went ballistic. Literally millions of enraged Americans posted angry messages on social media that expressed how “insulting” the $600 figure was.

But prior to this pandemic, the U.S. government had never sent out “universal basic income” checks in the entire history of our country.

So you would think that most people should be grateful for an extra $600, but instead there was a tremendous amount of rage.

President Trump wanted the payments raised to $2000 and many Democrats did as well. But Republicans still had control of the Senate, and Mitch McConnell initially blocked that effort.

But now Democrats will shortly have control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, and one of the first things they plan to do is to deliver $2,000 checks to the American people…

Even while $600 stimulus checks are being deposited in tens of millions of bank accounts, congressional Democrats are laying the groundwork for even greater stimulus payments, which some call “survival checks.” As Senate democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently said, “One of the first things that I want to do when our new senators are seated is deliver the $2,000 checks to the American families.” With Democrats preparing to take power in Washington, a critical question will be whether such survival checks will be one-time payments or recur each month “for the duration of the pandemic,” as Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and others have suggested.

That may pacify the socialist mobs for a month or two, but eventually they will be back for even more payments.

As the voices get angrier and angrier, do you think that anyone in Washington will be willing to stand up and say no?

The incoming Vice-President, Kamala Harris, previously proposed giving out monthly $2,000 checks for the duration of this pandemic…

Recurring monthly $2,000 checks would mirror the payments proposed in the “Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act” that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris (D-CA) introduced in the Senate in May 2020.

If you are married with three kids, you would have gotten $10,000 every month under her plan.

Considering where we are as a society today, I think that most Americans would have been very eager to sign up for that.

Of course the price tag for such a plan would be nightmarish. It would have been approximately $600 billion every month, and that would mean that it would add more than 7 trillion dollars to our national debt over the course of an entire year.

But since we are liquidating the Republic anyway, who really cares?

Harris insisted that her plan would end once the crisis was over.

Other politicians, however, are ready to start giving citizens “universal basic income” checks on a permanent basis starting right now. For example, Andrew Yang is making this the signature promise of his campaign as he runs for mayor of New York City…

Former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has officially started his run to succeed Bill de Blasio as Mayor of New York City with a call for a universal basic income for half-a-million of the city’s poorest residents.

Yang insists that by giving everyone free money every month he can “eradicate poverty” in NYC…

“We can eradicate extreme poverty in New York City,” Yang said. “If you put just a little money in their hands it can actually be what keeps them in their home and, again, avoids them hitting city services that are incredibly expensive.”

That sounds good, but who is he going to tax in order to pay for it?

After all, hundreds of thousands of wealthy people already left the city during 2020.

The truth is that it is a pipe dream, but that pipe dream is going to win him a whole lot of votes.

Benjamin Franklin once made the following statement…

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”

Sadly, we have now reached that point.

And this comes at a time when tens of millions of Americans are in desperate need because the real economy continues to implode all around us.

For example, we just learned that Christopher & Banks has gone belly up…

Apparel retailer Christopher & Banks, which caters to women over 40, is the latest clothing chain to file for bankruptcy protection amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Minneapolis-based company announced Thursday it filed for Chapter 11 in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey. Christopher & Banks said in a news release it “expects to close a significant portion, if not all, of its brick-and-mortar stores.”

Thousands of businesses have been dying every month. As I discussed the other day, the U.S. has lost more than 110,000 restaurants alone.

And to make sure that most of the businesses that have died can never possibly make a comeback, Joe Biden wants to institute “a national minimum wage of $15 an hour”.

Promising people more money is a great way to win elections, but at the end of the day someone always has to pay.

As the U.S. economy continues to come apart at the seams, finding sources of tax revenue will become increasingly difficult.

Perhaps the big tech companies can step up and offer to dramatically enlarge their contributions to the U.S. Treasury.

After all, they were quite instrumental in giving control of the federal government to the Democrats, and so you would think they should be quite willing to help pay for their promises.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

America’s Slide Into Economic Oblivion Is Already Starting To Accelerate Here In 2021

January 15, 2021 by Michael

Isn’t it fun to live in a rotting, decaying society that is coming apart at the seams all around us? The latest economic numbers are extremely depressing, but now that free speech is being abolished and the elite are consolidating control over every aspect of our society, we are being assured that better days are right around the corner. We have just got to be willing to accept the “new normal” which includes living in “tiny homes”, snacking on worms, and never expressing any independent thoughts which diverge from official mainstream narratives. So with that in mind, I will try to share the horrible economic news that we have been getting in the most positive light possible.

This week, we learned that another 965,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits during the previous week…

The number of people seeking unemployment aid soared last week to 965,000, the most since late August and evidence that the resurgent virus has caused a spike in layoffs.

The latest figures for jobless claims, issued Thursday by the Labor Department, remain at levels never seen until the virus struck. Before the pandemic, weekly applications typically numbered around 225,000. Last spring, after nationwide shutdowns took effect, applications for jobless benefits spiked to nearly 7 million – 10 times the previous record high. After declining over the summer, weekly claims have been stuck above 700,000 since September.

But we are being told that this is only because of the failed policies of the outgoing administration and that things will definitely be much better under the next socialist administration.

2020 was particularly a tough year for low paid workers. At this point, even officials at the Federal Reserve are admitting that the unemployment rate for low paid workers “is above 20%”…

Unemployment for the lowest-paid workers in the U.S. is above 20%, a figure that Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said underscores the importance of policy help for the economy.

The figure indicates how uneven the recovery has seen since efforts to control the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the biggest quarterly GDP drop since the Great Depression.

How can we put a positive spin on this?

Well, at least more of them have had an opportunity to stay home and not catch COVID.

So I guess you could say that this unemployment crisis has actually had a positive impact for public health.

And more Americans are getting the opportunity to “stay home” with each passing day. Here is just one example…

Dropbox is cutting its global workforce by about 11%, the company said in an 8K filing released Wednesday. The company’s stock was down more than 4.5% in late-morning trading.

The move will affect 315 people, who will be notified by the end of the business day.

Of course as fear of COVID continues to rise, American consumers are doing less shopping at Walmart and other corporate behemoths, and U.S. retail sales just fell for a third month in a row.

But that problem will soon be fixed, because more universal basic income checks are on the way.

All of the previous socialist “stimulus packages” weren’t enough, and so Joe Biden has unveiled “a $1.9 trillion plan to prop up the economy”…

Friday offered the first chance for traders to act after President-elect Joe Biden unveiled details of a $1.9 trillion plan to prop up the economy. He called for $1,400 cash payments for most Americans, the extension of temporary benefits for laid-off workers and a push to get COVID-19 vaccines to more Americans. It certainly fit with investors’ expectation for a big and bold plan, but markets had already rallied powerfully in anticipation of it.

Doesn’t that sound great?

And Biden is also calling for “a national minimum wage of $15 an hour”.

Don’t worry, that won’t hurt the restaurant industry at all.

I don’t know why that statement is true, but that is what the “fact checkers” want us to say.

And since Republicans and Democrats both abandoned any pretense of fiscal responsibility long ago, nobody is really pointing out that we are already 27.6 trillion dollars in debt and that we simply can’t afford any more “stimulus packages”.

In fact, thanks to all of the reckless spending that we have already done, the budget deficit for the month of December 2020 was more than 10 times larger than the budget deficit for the month of December 2019…

The U.S. government posted a December budget deficit of $144 billion – a record for the month – due to far higher outlays with coronavirus relief spending and unemployment benefits, while revenues ticked slightly higher, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

The Treasury said the December deficit compares with a $13 billion deficit in December 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic started in the United States.

Overall, the U.S. national debt increased by more than 7 trillion dollars under the outgoing administration, and even CNN is admitting that “it will go much higher under Biden”.

But the adherents of Modern Monetary Theory assure us that “deficits don’t matter” and that we can borrow and spend as much money as we want.

Since that is true, why don’t we make the stimulus payments much larger?

If we are liquidating the Republic anyway, why not send a billion dollars to everyone?

Seriously though, there are millions upon millions of Americans that are deeply hurting as the U.S. economy melts down all around us.

I hope that you enjoyed my attempt at injecting some humor into our situation, but what many Americans are facing right now is not humorous at all.

At this point, most Americans are barely scraping by from month to month, and some are literally facing life or death financial decisions…

A mother’s tearful confession that she can’t afford her son’s insulin despite working full-time has left commenters deriding the American healthcare system.

Katie Schieffer’s ten-year-old son was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and requires insulin every two hours — but the North Carolina mother was left in tears when she couldn’t afford his $1,000 prescription.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be in her shoes?

Our entire system is failing, and things are only going to get worse in the months and years ahead.

For decades, America has been running in the wrong direction and our leaders have been making incredibly foolish decisions.

Now there is deep pain everywhere around us, and the level of suffering is only going to increase as the U.S. slides even faster toward economic oblivion.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

+ More