The Economy

This Explosion Of Bankruptcies And Layoffs In The United States Is Unlike Anything We Have Ever Seen Before

The U.S. economy was supposed to be turning a corner by now, but instead it looks like we are headed for an exceedingly painful winter.  All over the country, big companies are laying off thousands of workers, and in some cases the numbers are even larger than that.  As you will see in this article, Disney just announced that they will be laying off tens of thousands of workers, and the airline industry is warning that 100,000 workers could soon permanently lose their jobs if the federal government doesn’t bail them out.  Meanwhile, we have been seeing businesses fail at a pace that is absolutely stunning.  According to the Wall Street Journal, this year we are on pace to set new records for retail stores closings, retail bankruptcies, and retail liquidations…

Retail store closings in the U.S. reached a record in the first half of 2020 and the year is on pace for record bankruptcies and liquidations as the Covid-19 pandemic accelerates industry changes, particularly the shift to online shopping, according to a report on the downturn’s severity.

Apparel retailers have been hit particularly hard during this pandemic, and it has been extremely sad to see some of the most iconic brands in the entire industry reach the end of the line…

Among the notable companies that went belly-up over the summer are Lord & Taylor and its subsidiary, Le Tote; Tailored Brands, which is the parent company of Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank; and Ann Taylor’s corporate parent Ascena Retail Group.

But it isn’t just the retail industry that is being utterly devastated.

According to Zero Hedge, there has been a “40% eruption in bankruptcy filings” in New York City so far in 2020, and one bankruptcy lawyer is warning that “there will be an avalanche of bankruptcies” as we approach the end of the year…

While Wall Street panic buys stocks again, on hopes Washington can pass the next round of much-needed economic stimulus, the broader commercial real estate market continues to implode and nowhere more so than the epicenter in New York City, where nearly 6,000 business closures, has resulted in a 40% eruption in bankruptcy filings across business districts of all five boroughs this year, reported Bloomberg.

Al Togut, a bankruptcy lawyer who has handled insolvencies for small firms to mega-corporations, said, “by late fall, there will be an avalanche of bankruptcies … When the cold weather comes, that’s when we’ll start to see a surge in bankruptcies in New York City.”

So does that sound like things will be getting better or does that sound like things will be getting worse?

I know that the answer is obvious.  I am just trying to make things crystal clear for those that have been deluded into thinking that we are headed for some sort of a “recovery”.

As more businesses collapse, more workers will lose their jobs.  So even though we have already seen more than 60 million American workers file new claims for unemployment benefits in 2020, more waves of unemployment are still on the way.

For example, we just learned that KPMG will be eliminating 1,400 jobs.  Those are good paying jobs and they will not be easy to replace.

Not to be outdone, Disney has announced that they will be laying off 20 times as many workers…

Disney is set to lay off around 28,000 employees in the United States as prolonged closures and limited attendance have decimated its theme park business.

The announcement was made in a letter to employees Tuesday from Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s head of parks, who detailed several ‘difficult decisions’ the company has been forced to make amid the ongoing pandemic.

Personally, I think that it is very cruel for Disney to do this.

They have made countless billions of dollars off of all of us over the past several decades, and they are in absolutely no danger of going bankrupt.

So can’t they come up with a little bit of cash to pay those workers during these tough months?

On the other hand, the airline industry is actually on the verge of a historic implosion, and we are being told that 100,000 workers could soon lose their jobs if they don’t get a massive bailout from the federal government.  The following comes from Wolf Richter…

October 1 is the day US airlines that accepted their portion of the $25-billion bailout under the CARES Act can start involuntary layoffs of their employees. They’ve been shedding large numbers of employees since March but through voluntary buyouts, early retirements, and other programs that induced employees to temporarily or permanently leave. Now the airlines are engaged in a desperate lobbying effort to get legislation signed into law that would provide the next $25-billion bailout package. Threats have been flying, so to speak, to motivate Congress to get this done.

American Airlines CEO Doug Parker told CBS News on Sunday that if there isn’t a new bailout program, “there are going to be 100,000 aviation professionals who are out of work, who wouldn’t be otherwise.” This would include the 18,000 employees American Airlines has threatened to lay off.

With everything that is going on, I don’t have any idea how so many Americans can still feel so confident about the economy right now.

It just doesn’t make any sense.

Perhaps this is another sign of how self-involved we have all become.  If you haven’t lost your job and nobody you know personally has lost a job, perhaps things still seem okay in your little world.

But for many Americans, this economic downturn has quickly become a horror show.  In Philadelphia, a housekeeper named Kat Payne was “furloughed” from her hotel job back in March, and now trying to figure out how to survive has become part of her daily routine…

Most mornings, Kat Payne calls a family meeting and talks with her children about how — or if — they are going to be able to pay their bills each month. It’s a routine she began after she was furloughed from her job as a housekeeper at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown in March.

Payne, along with her 27-year-old daughter Kipati and 28-year-old son Atrayu, gather in their North Philadelphia living room, with the household bills in hand. She reviews the mortgage payments and her retirement and savings accounts with her children.

At this point, Payne has not been able to pay her mortgage for four months in a row, and she just received a letter with some more devastating news…

Payne, 51, a single parent, recently received a letter from Marriott, which she reads out loud to her children: “We’re extending your layoff until December 31, 2020.”

Could you imagine being in her shoes?

What would you do?

Unfortunately, there are tens of millions of other Americans just like her that are deeply hurting right now, and economic conditions are only going to get worse in 2021 and beyond.

With each passing month, more businesses are going to crumble, more workers are going to lose their jobs, and more financial stress is going to be put on the system.

All of the dominoes are starting to fall, and every day there are more headlines that tell us that our society is coming apart at the seams.

I have been warning my readers for a very long time that this was coming, and now that it is here there will be no escape.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, 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.

Why Is The Mainstream Media Signaling That A Much Larger Stock Market Decline Is Coming?

Why would the mainstream media want all of us to believe that stock prices are about to fall dramatically?  Just like we witnessed earlier this year at the beginning of the pandemic, the corporate media is full of reports that seem to imply that it is a virtual certainty that stock prices are going to go even lower.  Of course it would make perfect sense for stock prices to go down because they are incredibly overvalued right now, but normally the mainstream media does not try to tell us where stock prices are going next.  And the fact that so many news outlets are repeating the same mantra right now is particularly troublesome.

Without a doubt, the momentum of stock prices is taking us in a downward direction at the moment.  All of the major stock indexes have posted declines for three weeks in a row, and it looks like this week could make it four.

As I write this article, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 4.5 percent for the month, the S&P 500 is down over 6 percent, and the Nasdaq has fallen about 8.5 percent.  Overall, the market is on pace for the worst September in 18 years, but the corporate-controlled media seems convinced that things are going to get even worse.  For example, the following comes from a CNBC article entitled “Stock sell-off accelerates and is expected to get worse before it gets better”…

Stock investors focused on new worries about the coronavirus and economy, selling into a market Monday that was already technically shaken and set for further declines.

I looked for evidence that would back up the assertion that the market is “set for further declines” in the remainder of that article, but I didn’t see any.

Without a doubt, I definitely agree that stock prices have a long, long way to fall, but there is no reason why they couldn’t bounce back for the rest of this week.

So it seems odd that CNBC would be so dogmatic.

And USA Today just posted an article that suggested that we are facing “a looming global financial crisis”…

“Massive fiscal and monetary policy stimulus” that came together to prop up the economy has caused debt to balloon and stocks to become potentially overvalued, posing “the serious risk of a looming global financial crisis as central banks begin to shift away from easy (monetary) policy at some point in the years to come.”

Once again, I definitely agree that a global financial crisis could erupt at any time.

But normally we don’t see the mainstream media using such language.

At this point, we are less than a month and a half away from the election, and many have suggested that uncertainty about the outcome could weigh heavily on the market.  In fact, CNN is telling us that we should anticipate “that volatility will be high” during the period surrounding election day…

Market experts have warned that volatility will be high toward the end of the year and around the election, especially because many expect the winner won’t be known immediately.

Could it be possible that there will be an attempt to disrupt the market in an attempt to make one of the candidates look bad?

I know that would sound absurd during normal times, but these are definitely not normal times.

And ultra-wealthy insiders definitely seem to believe that something is coming, because they have been selling stocks like crazy recently.  According to Zero Hedge, “during the week ended September 11, insiders sold $473 million in shares while only buying $9.5 million.”

I don’t know about you, but those numbers definitely got my attention.

Of course stock prices should have never, ever gotten so high in the first place.  The unprecedented market rally that we have witnessed in 2020 has occurred during a time when we have actually plunged into a new economic depression.  Almost every day I share more horrific economic numbers with my readers, and here are some more from the New York Post…

Nearly 90 percent of New York City bar and restaurant owners couldn’t pay their rent in August, heightening the continued crush the coronavirus shutdown has inflicted on Gotham’s economy.

Eighty-seven percent of bars, restaurants, nightclubs and event spaces in the five boroughs could not pay their full August rent, according to data from 457 businesses surveyed between Aug. 25 and Sept. 11, in a new study released Monday by the nonprofit NYC Hospitality Alliance.

How in the world can anyone possibly use the phrase “economic recovery” when we are seeing numbers like that?

We have never seen an economic downturn of this magnitude in all of modern American history, and many believe that what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

With each passing day, we see more societal turmoil in the headlines, and the upcoming election threatens to bring our societal tensions to a thundering crescendo.

In such an environment, a huge stock market crash would not be surprising at all, and some are suggesting that the shove that pushes us over the edge could actually happen on purpose.  In his most recent video, Greg Mannarino warned that the upcoming financial crash “is going to be epic”, and he told his audience that our largest financial institutions could collapse the market any time that they want…

“They can crush the global economy or the market. The global economy, which is the middle class, is already crushed, ok. They can destroy the stock market like this [snaps fingers.] And you can see it playing out right now. So all to of this is more than likely going to get brushed under the rug as it always does,” Mannarino says of the banks controlling the world.

It is not unusual for pundits such as Mannarino to make such bold predictions, but what alarms me is that the mainstream media is also strongly suggesting that a market crash is coming.

Even if the mainstream media is not attempting to do it on purpose, their words can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as countless investors spooked by their reports pull money out of the marketplace.

Sadly, this is one instance in which the mainstream media will ultimately be proven correct.  Whether it happens in the immediate future or not, the truth is that we are heading for a financial meltdown that will be absolutely horrifying.

In recent months, the Federal Reserve was able to reinflate our financial bubbles one more time, and hordes of investors eagerly jumped aboard the rally train.

But now that train is in danger of being derailed, and those that do not hop off in time could find themselves plunging into a nightmarish financial abyss.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, 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.

2020 Has Been A “Nightmare Year” For America, And The Economic Fallout Is Just Getting Started

Most of us have never experienced a year that has been as tough as 2020 has been for our nation.  It has just been one major crisis after another, and the month of September has brought us even more trouble.  The worst wildfire season in the history of the state of California has been making headlines day after day, and now the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg threatens to escalate the political turmoil in this nation to an entirely new level.  Many had such high hopes for 2020, but at this point this year has been such a disaster that USA Today is calling it “an American nightmare”, and it is difficult to argue with their reasoning…

First the pandemic, which divided us, economically devastated us, and has killed nearly 200,000 of us. Then the racial unrest, erupting at the deaths of more Black Americans at the hands of police: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, Daniel Prude.

Now the extreme weather. For only the second time in history, the National Hurricane Center has moved into the Greek alphabet for storm names. This season’s wildfires are bigger, deadlier and more frequent than in years past. In the West, people can’t breathe.

And now a member of the U.S. Supreme Court has died with about a month and a half to go until we get to election day.

The shocking death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has stunned the entire country, and I will share my analysis on where things could go from here on The Most Important News later tonight.

In this article, I want to focus on the economic impact that all of this chaos is having.

Since the pandemic first started, more than 60 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and that is a threshold that has never been crossed before in all of our history.

And we have also seen businesses shut down at a pace that is hard to fully grasp.  If you can believe it, more than 160,000 businesses listed on Yelp say “that they have closed”…

Yelp on Wednesday released its latest Economic Impact Report, revealing business closures across the U.S. are increasing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic’s economic toll.

As of Aug, 31, 163,735 businesses have indicated on Yelp that they have closed. That’s down from the 180,000 that closed at the very beginning of the pandemic. However, it actually shows a 23% increase in the number of closures since mid-July.

I was most alarmed by that last sentence.

Things were supposed to be getting a lot better by now, but instead we have seen “a 23% increase in the number of closures since mid-July”.

That is not good.

And the percentage of businesses on Yelp that are indicating that their closures are “permanent” just keeps rising…

In addition to monitoring closed businesses, Yelp also takes into account the businesses whose closures have become permanent. That number has steadily increased throughout the past six months, now reaching 97,966, representing 60% of closed businesses that won’t be reopening.

So what this means is that none of us should be expecting a return to what we considered to be “normal” prior to 2020.

In fact, it is likely that we will see large numbers of businesses continue to fail in the months ahead.  According to Fox Business, a whopping 40 percent of all U.S. restaurants “could go under within the next six months”…

At least 40% of restaurant operators struggling to stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic believe their businesses could go under within the next six months if there is no additional stimulus package from the federal government, according to a new survey by the National Restaurant Association.

With one in every six restaurants closed permanently or for the “long term,” the industry is on track to lose $240 billion in sales by the end of the year, according to the National Restaurant Association’s findings on the impact COVID-19 has on the restaurant business.

So what do you think?

Should we bail out the restaurant industry?

By the way, the airline industry really wants a bailout too.

And just about every other industry is looking for government help as well.

The reason why almost everyone has their hands out is because we have plunged into a crippling economic depression, and everyone is starting to realize that there is no end in sight to this downturn.

Of course most average citizens also want another round of “stimulus checks” from the federal government, and we are being told that there is a really good chance that “the economy backslides” if that does not happen…

Lawmakers remain deadlocked over a measure to provide another round of $1,200 checks to most households and more aid to struggling small businesses and unemployed Americans. Most saw the money they received from Congress’s $2.2 trillion CARES Act run dry over the summer.

“If they don’t” approve another stimulus, “they’re taking a huge risk, says Mark Zandi chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “The odds are better than even the economy backslides.”

We have already stolen several trillion dollars from future generations of Americans so far this year to fund “stimulus packages”, and so a lot of people figure that it probably wouldn’t make that much of a difference if we stole several trillion more to fund another one.

And the Federal Reserve has been flooding the financial system with so much new money that it makes everything that they have ever done in the past look completely insignificant.

In the process, our authorities are systematically destroying the reserve currency that the entire globe depends upon, but at this point very few people seem to care.

So we continue to steamroll toward economic oblivion, and nobody is even thinking about hitting the brakes.

In the USA Today article that I quoted at the start of this piece, the author stated that it is “impossible to know if the worst is behind us or still lies ahead”…

Many of us are vacillating between horror and disbelief at what can only be described as an American nightmare. Devastation doesn’t cover it. It’s impossible to know if the worst is behind us or still lies ahead.

Of course that is not true at all.  In fact, it is exceeding clear that what is ahead of us is going to be much, much worse than what we have already experienced.

But most Americans don’t want to hear that.

Most of us just want to cling to the belief that someday we will wake up and everything will have returned to normal.

That may happen in fairy tales, but this is real life, and real life simply does not work that way.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, 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.

Charities “Have Lost Billions” And 1 Out Of Every 5 Churches In America “May Not Survive”

Whenever a major economic downturn happens, churches and charities always get hit really hard.  Cutting back on giving is often the very first step that people take when it comes time to reduce expenditures, and that is extremely unfortunate.  But of course you can’t get blood out of a rock, and there are tens of millions of Americans that have lost jobs in 2020 and so they don’t have any extra money to give at this point.  Approximately 59 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment over the past 24 weeks, and we are seeing absolutely massive lines at food banks all around the nation.  In such an environment, it was inevitable that there would be a collapse in charitable giving, and it is being reported that major U.S. charities have already “lost billions in revenue”…

Charity organizations have lost billions in revenue during the pandemic, making the sector one of many to seek support from Congress at a time when negotiations over another COVID-19 relief package show little sign of a breakthrough.

Traditional methods of fundraising for charities — concerts, festivals and galas — have all been canceled or significantly scaled back due to public health concerns.

What is ironic is that many of these charities actually serve the poor and unemployed, and so their services are in greater need than ever before at a time when their funding is rapidly drying up.

An organization that represents about 500 of these charities says that 83 percent of their members have reported that revenues are down in 2020…

Overall, 83 percent of charity organizations reported a decline in revenues during the pandemic, including a decline in earned revenue from events or other activities, and a reduction in individual giving and grants received, according to a recent survey by Independent Sector, which lobbies in Washington for about 500 nonprofits, foundations and corporate giving programs.

Of even greater concern is what is happening to churches all over America.  During the lockdowns, many churches experienced a precipitous drop in giving, and of course there are still some states that are putting very strict restrictions on church gatherings.  This has had an absolutely devastating impact on many church budgets, and there have been widespread cutbacks.

And even though most churches in the country are now meeting normally, giving is still way down in many areas because of the impact that the economic downturn is having.

We have never seen anything like this before, and things have already gotten so bad that Barna Group president David Kinnaman is projecting that 1 out of every 5 churches in America “could be forced to shut their doors in the next 18 months”…

The president of the Barna Group says it’s possible as many as 1 in 5 churches may not survive the shutdowns and changes brought on by the COVID virus and could be forced to shut their doors in the next 18 months.

In an interview on NPR’s program “Here And Now” earlier this week, Barna Group president David Kinnaman said their surveys show confidence among pastors that their churches will make it through the pandemic has declined from more than 70 percent in May to around 58 percent now.

Think about that for a moment.

20 percent of all U.S. churches gone – just like that.

Over the years, we have started to see Christians in the United States increasingly adopt an underground house church model, and I think that this crisis will accelerate that process.

During the boom years, many large churches went deep into debt to fund elaborate building programs that included bowling alleys, coffee bars and all sorts of other amenities that they didn’t necessarily need, and now that very hard times have arrived many of those churches will go belly up.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.  According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if honest numbers were being used the unemployment rate in this country would currently be sitting at 28 percent.  And as I keep detailing week after week, more layoffs are constantly being announced.

There are certain industries that are simply being eviscerated right now.  For instance, check out what is happening to the U.S. oil industry…

Texas, the largest oil-producing state in the U.S., had 440 land rigs at the end of August last year, according to Baker Hughes’ weekly count. That number had shrunk to 104 this year.

The story was the same in North Dakota, the second-largest oil-producing state: The rig count was down from 51 to 10, according to Baker Hughes.

Those numbers are so horrifying that they are hard to believe.

I know people that work in the oil industry, and those jobs can be extremely well paying.  But now much of the industry has completely shut down, and countless numbers of workers have been forced to file for unemployment.

In Wyoming, the oil industry has been at the core of the state’s economy since the 1800s, but in July the official rig count in the state actually fell to zero…

And, in Wyoming, where the oil and gas industry is the state’s economic backbone, the rig count dropped to zero for one week in July for the first time since 1884, Pete Obermueller, executive director of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming Executive Director, told USA TODAY.

We are in the midst of a major economic nightmare, and conditions are eventually going to get far, far worse than they are right now.

So that means that charitable giving will also be going down even more.

Because of what I do, I hear from a lot of ministries and Christian organizations.  So many of them are experiencing severe financial distress already, and we are still only in the very early chapters of this crisis.

If there are ministries and organizations that are doing great work that you regularly support, please try to keep supporting them for as long as you can.

In this hour, people are going to need hope, and they definitely are not going to get that from the government.

Unfortunately, so many bright lights that are giving hope to people are starting to go out, and that trend is only going to intensify as our economic problems become even more serious.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, 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.

Things Have Gotten So Bad That A Million New Claims For Unemployment Benefits In One Week Is Considered “Good News”

The Labor Department announced on Thursday that another 1.006 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week.  Prior to this year, the all-time record for a single week was just 695,000, and so the number of Americans that are losing their jobs each week continues to remain at a catastrophic level.  But this latest figure is actually being spun as “good news” because at least it was lower than the week before.  And I am willing to concede that point, because we should definitely welcome any sign that the numbers are starting to move in the right direction.  However, there is no doubt that what we have experienced up to this point in 2020 is nothing short of an economic cataclysm.  Over the last 23 weeks, more than 58 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits.  Even if zero workers filed for unemployment for the rest of 2020, this would still be the worst year for unemployment claims in all of U.S. history by a gigantic margin.  Vast hordes of workers have been losing their jobs week after week as the U.S. economy melts down right in front of our eyes.  This has truly been an economic horror show, and the most nightmarish chapters are still ahead of us.

When economic numbers start getting really bad, the government often decides to “modify” how they are calculated, and on Thursday the Labor Department announced that it will be “changing how it adjusts weekly jobless-claims figures for seasonal swings”.

Presumably, that should help the numbers look a bit better starting next week.

But no matter how much they massage the numbers, they can’t erase the fact that tens of millions of people are deeply hurting right now.  According to one new survey, 61 percent of Americans need “another relief bill”, and about two-thirds of Americans from the age of 24 to the age of 54 say that they are currently in financial distress…

The latest survey by MagnifyMoney reveals 61 percent of the country needs another relief bill to pay for expenses. Over 80 percent of workers who have been laid off or furloughed due to COVID-19 are counting on more assistance. The poll of 1,010 Americans adds 71 percent of Generation X (ages 40 to 54) and 65 percent of millennials (ages 24 to 39) say they are currently in financial distress.

If you are not in financial distress at this moment, you should be very thankful for your blessings, because you are definitely in the minority.

And more layoff announcements just keep on coming with each passing day.  On Thursday, we learned that Lord & Taylor will be laying off all their workers and closing every single store…

Lord & Taylor, the first department store established in the United States, is officially going out of business, ending a nearly 200-year run.

The bankrupt company announced Thursday that all of its 38 remaining stores and website have begun liquidation sales — a reversal from last week’s decision to keep 14 locations open.

When I was a kid, I was always so intimidated by Lord & Taylor when my mother would take me to the mall.

I always thought that was where the rich people shopped.

I never imagined that someday I would see it go out of business forever.

Of course countless other retailers are going belly up as the worst “retail apocalypse” in U.S. history rolls on.  According to Coresight Research, approximately 25 percent of all malls in the United States “will close over the next three to five years”…

Another new report out this week from Coresight Research estimates 25% of America’s roughly 1,000 malls will close over the next three to five years, with the pandemic accelerating a demise that was already underway before the new virus emerged.

Can you imagine what our country is going to look like if that actually happens?

Already, communities all over America are being blighted by one boarded up property after another, and this is especially true in many impoverished areas.

Of course our economic problems have been accelerated by a series of very unusual events that have been beyond our control.  It has been one thing after another here in 2020, and the latest major disaster to hit us was Hurricane Laura.  We were extremely fortunate that neither New Orleans or Houston took a direct hit from this storm, because it was enormously destructive.  Just consider what one survivor told the press about the devastation in his community…

“It looks like 1,000 tornadoes went through here. It’s just destruction everywhere,” said Brett Geymann, who rode out the storm with three family members in Moss Bluff, near Lake Charles, Louisiana. He described Laura passing over his house with the roar of a jet engine around 2 a.m.

Let us hope that we will have at least a little bit of time before the next major crisis comes along.  Many had been hoping that August would be a quiet month, but that didn’t turn out to be the case, and now September is just a few days away.

And as we approach the fall season, it is being reported that wealthy investors have been “hoarding cash”…

A group of multimillionaire investors in the U.S. are hoarding cash at unprecedented levels.

Tiger 21, a club of more than 800 investors, reported Thursday that its members have raised their cash holdings to 19% of their total assets on concerns over the economic consequences of the covid pandemic in the U.S. That’s up from about 12% since the start of the outbreak. About a quarter now expect the crisis to continue until the end of next June, the group said.

Is this a sign that many of them believe that trouble is ahead for the financial markets?

Of course it isn’t just the wealthy that are deeply concerned about the months ahead.  Our nation has been gripped by endless turmoil for most of this year, and now a very hotly contested presidential election is just over two months away.  Meanwhile, economic conditions will continue to deteriorate, and that means that tens of millions of Americans will become even more angry and even more frustrated.  If you believe that the U.S. is just going to snap out of all of this somehow and everything will turn out just fine in the end, then you simply do not understand the times in which we are living.

For so long we were warned that a “perfect storm” was coming, and now it is here.

And if you think that 2020 has been bad, just wait until you see what else is ahead.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, 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.

17 Facts That Prove The U.S. Economy Is A Complete And Total Disaster Zone At This Point

If you know people that actually believe that the U.S. economy is moving in a positive direction, just show them this article.  In all the years that I have been writing about the economy, I have never seen anything that even comes close to what we are experiencing now.  More than 100,000 businesses have permanently failed, and tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs.  If you still have a good job you should cling to it with all of your might, because there are so many families that have no idea how they are going to pay the bills next month, or the month after that, or that month after that.  When it gets to the point where you can’t even pay the rent or the mortgage, financial worries can absolutely consume your life.  If you have been there, you know exactly what I am talking about.  And if you have children, that just makes things even worse.  How do you explain to them that “home” is no longer “home”?

Another group of people that I feel really badly for are all the business owners that have had their dreams absolutely shattered.  Starting a small business from nothing and building it into a success takes a massive amount of work, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for anyone that is able to do that.

Unfortunately, so many once thriving small businesses have now been destroyed by the events of 2020.  For a lot of those small business owners, it isn’t just time and energy that have been lost.  When you make your small business your passion, it becomes a part of who you are, and a lot of small business owners will never be the same again after this.

So please keep in mind that there are real people and real dreams behind each of the numbers that I am about to share with you.  The following are 17 facts that prove the U.S. economy is a complete and total disaster zone at this point…

#1 According to the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, more than half of all the storefronts in the entire city of San Francisco are no longer in business.

#2 Just a few hours ago, New York City reported that it had an unemployment rate of almost 20 percent during the month of July.

#3 Speaking of New York, 83 percent of all restaurants in the city were unable to pay their full rent last month.

#4 In 2020, the state of Louisiana has lost twice as many jobs as it did after Hurricane Katrina.  By the way, many are concerned that Hurricane Laura could soon become a similar monster storm.

#5 In the state of South Carolina, an eye-popping 52 percent of all renters “are at risk of eviction”.

#6 Americans now owe more than 21 billion dollars in unpaid rent.

#7 Overall, 27 percent of all Americans did not make their rent or mortgage payment last month.

#8 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the delinquency rate on residential mortgages increased by 386 basis points last quarter.  That was the most rapid rise that we have ever seen by a very wide margin.

#9 U.S. bankruptcies are already at their highest level in 10 years and they are expected to surge dramatically as we approach the end of this calendar year.

#10 For companies with more than 1 billion dollars in assets, it is being projected that there will be a record number of bankruptcies in 2020.

#11 World trade plunged to the “lowest levels on record” during the month of June.

#12 The percentage of hotel mortgages that are 30 or more days delinquent soared to a whopping 23.4 percent last month.

#13 American Airlines just announced that they will be eliminating 19,000 jobs next month.

#14 31 percent of U.S. workers that were brought back to work after being laid off during the early stages of this pandemic have been laid off a second time, and another 26 percent have been told that layoffs may be coming soon.

#15 According to one recent survey, about half of all U.S. workers that have been laid off during this pandemic believe that their jobs losses are permanent.

#16 The IRS is projecting that it will receive 37 million fewer W-2 forms for this year than originally anticipated.

#17 Over the last 22 weeks, more than 57 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits.  In all of U.S. history, we have never seen anything that is even worth comparing to this.

Many of the numbers in that list are so catastrophic that it is difficult to believe that they are actually true.

What we experienced back in 2008 and 2009 was a “deep recession”, but what we are experiencing now is so much worse.

And at this point even the mainstream media is admitting that this new downturn will be with us for a long time.  For example, the following comes from a CNN article entitled “We’ll be stuck in this economic slump for years, economists say”…

America remains in a deep downturn and is running a serious risk of a worsening recession that will last at least another year, economists warned Monday.

About half of the National Association of Business Economics members expect US gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the economy — won’t return to its pre-pandemic level until 2022. A majority of those experts also say the US job market will be back to its February level in 2022 at the earliest.

Unfortunately, those projections are actually way too optimistic.  Industry after industry is in the process of unraveling, major economic bubbles are bursting all around us, and the economic pain that is on the horizon is going to dwarf what we are going through at this moment.

The mainstream media admits that a “collapse” has happened, but they still believe that eventually things will turn around and get back to where they were before.

And there are some people out there that actually believe that America’s greatest days of economic prosperity are still ahead of us.

You can go ahead and believe that if you want, and I definitely understand that many people would prefer to be optimistic about the future.

But sticking our heads in the sand won’t make the facts go away.  It has taken decades of catastrophic decisions to get us to this point, and anyone that thinks we can just snap our fingers and turn things around is just being delusional.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, 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.

2020 Is An Economic Nightmare – And Things Just Got Even Worse

More than a million Americans were not supposed to be losing their jobs every week by the time we got to the middle of August.  By now, vast hordes of unemployed Americans were supposed to be returning to their old jobs and economic activity was supposed to be returning to normal levels.  But it hasn’t happened that way.  Instead, the U.S. economy continues to unravel at a steady pace.  Every week more businesses go under, more layoffs are announced and more people get behind on their bills.  What we have already been through has been far worse than anything that we experienced during the last recession, and it appears that this new economic downturn is entering yet another new phase.  On Thursday, we learned that another 1.106 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week…

The number of people filing for unemployment benefits last week was greater than expected, raising concern about the state of the economy as lawmakers struggle to move forward on a new pandemic stimulus package.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial jobless claims for the week ended Aug. 15 came in at 1.106 million. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a total of 923,000. Initial claims for the previous week were also revised higher by 8,000 to 971,000.

Instead of going down as most analysts were anticipating, the number of initial claims shot way back above a million.

And this means that we have now gotten a number that is above a million for 21 of the last 22 weeks.

Prior to 2020, the worst weekly number in all of U.S. history was 695,000.  To absolutely dwarf that old record for 22 weeks in a row should be almost theoretically impossible.  If you would have asked me last year what it would take to have the kind of unemployment numbers that we are seeing now, I would have probably suggested that it would take something like a world war or a major asteroid strike to produce such figures.  The numbers that we keep getting week after week are simply absurd, but they just keep coming.

After all this time, the number of Americans filing for unemployment should be falling back below record levels, but instead last week we got a number that was more than twice as high as anything that we witnessed during the last recession…

“However, the number of individuals claiming benefits remains extraordinarily high – more than twice the peak of the great recession – underscoring that the labor market is a long way from being healthy,” economist Nancy Vanden Houten wrote in a note to clients.

It would be difficult to overstate the scale of the economic devastation that we are witnessing.

Do you remember Hurricane Katrina?  It was the worst natural disaster in the history of Louisiana, but in 2020 the state has lost twice as many jobs as it did after Hurricane Katrina.

Just think about how crazy that is.

Overall, 57.3 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits over the past 22 weeks.

57 million.

We’ve never seen anything like this in our history.  For a while, our unemployed workers were being kept afloat by a 600 dollar a week federal supplement, but now those extra benefits have expired…

Those recipients who are receiving unemployment on an ongoing basis are now getting far less aid because a $600-a-week federal benefit has expired, which means the unemployed must now get by solely on much smaller aid from their states.

The loss of the federal benefit has deepened the struggles for many, including a higher risk of eviction from their homes.

President Trump has signed an executive order that would provide payments of 300 dollars a week to unemployed workers, but many states have chosen not to participate in that program.

So we should expect the level of economic suffering in this country to go up even more.  At this point, tens of millions of Americans are unable to pay their bills, and that number will almost certainly increase in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, we are seeing businesses fail at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented.  For example, the hotel industry is warning that close to a quarter of all hotels in the United States “are at risk of foreclosure”…

In a desperate plea for help, the hotel industry said it faces a default disaster, in which 25% of hotels are at risk of foreclosure.

The report, sent to Congress this week and compiled by Trepp, shows that the percentage of hotel loans 30 or more days delinquent is 23.4% as of last month — the highest percentage on record. By comparison, the percentage of hotel loans that were 30 or more days delinquent at the end of 2019 was just 1.3%.

The hotel industry wants a federal bailout, but of course just about every other major industry wants one as well.

In the end, Congress is going to decide where the money goes, and not everyone will come out a winner.

The overall global economy is deeply struggling as well.  In fact, the level of merchandise trade around the world just fell to the lowest level on record…

“This reading – the lowest on record in data going back to 2007, and on par with the nadir of the 2008-09 financial crisis – is broadly consistent with WTO statistics issued in June, which estimated an 18.5% decline in merchandise trade in the second quarter of 2020 as compared to the same period last year,” the WTO said.

This is what an economic collapse looks like, and the entire planet is being hit extremely hard.

But at least the U.S. stock market is doing well.  Stock prices have been absolutely soaring in recent weeks, and according to Forbes the market is now “about 77.0% overvalued”…

According to the popular market cap to GDP ratio, the U.S. stock market, collectively, is about 77.0% overvalued. Despite the worst economic backdrop since the Great Depression, stocks have held up reasonably well since the March 23 bottom. While it’s true that the stock market has disconnected from the underlying economy, it has also done so in the past. With such an extreme level of overvaluation, it does beg the question, “Are we witnessing the formation of another bubble?”

So for the moment, America’s financial idol is safe.

Unfortunately, this stock market bubble is going to be a whole lot shorter than the last one.

Thanks to unprecedented intervention by the Federal Reserve, stock prices have been pumped up to record levels, but we are only in the early chapters of this economic storm.

Much worse is coming, and without a doubt the Fed will try to keep asset prices inflated, but in the end it will be a losing battle.

As we keep getting hit by one crisis after another, eventually investors are going to figure out that the future ahead of us is not a positive one, and when confidence about the future disappears so will the bubble.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, 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.

This Global Depression Will Be Brutal – Tens Of Millions Of Americans Can’t Pay Their Bills And Are In Danger Of Eviction

Most of us have never experienced anything like this in our entire lifetimes.  Fear of COVID-19, endless civil unrest in major U.S. cities and a whole host of other factors have combined to plunge us into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  On Friday, the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate in the U.S. fell to just 10.2 percent last month, and if that number was actually accurate that would be pretty good news.  Unfortunately, it simply does not square with all of the other numbers that we have been seeing.  According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, if honest numbers were being used the unemployment rate would actually be 30 percent right now, and I believe that figure is much closer to the reality that we are facing.  In February, 152 million Americans were working, and since that time more than 55 million have filed new claims for unemployment benefits.  Unless tens of millions of those people have been filing fraudulent claims, there is no way in the world that the unemployment rate should be about 10 percent right now.

Other numbers tell a similar story.  According to one recent study, 24 percent of all Americans have missed at least one bill payment since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic…

Indeed, paying off bills are an unavoidable part of life, even during a pandemic. Unfortunately, a new survey of 2,000 Americans finds that one in four (24%) have already missed at least one payment since the pandemic began.

Among that group, 26% say they haven’t paid their cell phone or cable bills. Another 25% failed to pay for streaming services, and perhaps more worryingly, some of their electricity or utilities bills.

That doesn’t sound like a recovery.

What that sounds like is an economic depression.

Americans are also missing their rent and mortgage payments at a staggering rate as well.  In fact, more than one-fourth of the entire country did not pay their rent or mortgage payment during the month of July…

An estimated 27% of adults in the U.S. missed their rent or mortgage payment for July, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau weekly over the last three months. Among renters alone, just over one-third (34%) said during the waning days of July that they had little to no confidence that they could make their August rent payment, a stark measure of the ongoing economic devastation for households stretched to the brink by coronavirus pandemic.

But we are supposed to believe that the unemployment rate is only about 10 percent right now.

Right…

In some states, the looming eviction crisis threatens to be absolutely catastrophic.

For example, we are being told that in South Carolina a whopping 52 percent of all renters “are at risk of eviction”…

In South Carolina alone, 52 percent of renter households can’t pay their rent and are at risk of eviction, according to an analysis of census data by the consulting firm Stout Risius Ross. About 185,000 evictions could be filed in the state over the next four months.

That doesn’t sound like a recovery.

What that sounds like is an economic depression.

And we see similar numbers when we look at businesses owners around the country.  If you can believe it, 83 percent of all New York City restaurant owners did not pay all of their rent in July…

The state of the New York City restaurant industry is in dire straits. July proved to be another disastrous month for restaurants, bars, and nightlife establishments across the city with a majority unable to pay rent in July, a new survey found.

NYC Hospitality Alliance surveyed about 500 owners and operators of eateries in the city, with 83% of respondents indicating they couldn’t pay the entire rent in July while 37% paid no rent at all.

83 percent.

Let that number sink in for a moment.

That doesn’t sound like a recovery.

What that sounds like is an economic depression.

And I am certainly not the only one using the “d-word”.  The following originally comes from a Time Magazine article entitled “The Next Global Depression Is Coming and Optimism Won’t Slow It Down”…

First, the current slowdown is without doubt global. Most postwar U.S. recessions have limited their worst effects to the domestic economy. But most were the result of domestic inflation or a tightening of national credit markets. That is not the case with COVID-19 and the current global slowdown. This is a synchronized crisis, and just as the relentless rise of China over the past four decades has lifted many boats in richer and poorer countries alike, so slowdowns in China, the U.S. and Europe will have global impact on our globalized world. This coronavirus has ravaged every major economy in the world. Its impact is felt everywhere.

You have probably noticed that things are really starting to get crazy out there.

People are getting very desperate, and very desperate people do very desperate things.

In one community in Texas, it is being reported that someone is actually killing horses and eating them…

At least five horses have been killed around Pearland, Texas since late May — but it’s the way they’re being killed and what’s being done to their carcasses that’s particularly disturbing to locals.

Pearland police made their first discovery June 10. Responding to an animal cruelty call along the 14000 block of Kirby Drive, they found a horse, dead and butchered.

You would have to be incredibly twisted to do such a thing, but as I have been warning for a very long time, we are going to see much crazier things in the years ahead.

Of course countless other Americans can also see that society is starting to come apart at the seams, and this has helped to fuel an unprecedented spike in gun sales…

Gun sales surged 135% year-over-year in July to about 2 million and have already matched all of last year, according to a report released earlier this week by research consultancy Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting. Sales were up 145% in June, 80% in May and 71% in April.

We live at a time when rioting, looting and violence are becoming commonplace, and crime rates are absolutely skyrocketing in our major cities.

And the worse economic conditions become, the worse the chaos is going to get.

So I would very much encourage you to set your affairs in order and to get prepared for what is ahead, because the time remaining to do such things is very limited.

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

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.  By purchasing the book 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.  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)  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 and Twitter, 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.

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