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Home prices are falling all over the nation.  Should we be cheering or should we be concerned?  In this article, I am going to discuss two distinct scenarios.  In one scenario, lower housing prices could be a really good thing for our economy.  But if another scenario plays out, we could potentially be looking at a repeat of the chaotic days of 2008 and 2009.

Zero Hedge is reporting that home prices in the 20 biggest cities in the United States declined for a 4th consecutive month in June…

Home prices in America’s 20 largest cities fell for the 4th straight month in June (the latest data available from S&P CoreLogic’s Case-Shiller data released this morning).

The 0.25% MoM drop was larger than expected and dragged the YoY price growth down to +2.15% – the weakest since July 2023…

Four months in a row is definitely a trend.

And other data points are confirming that a significant turning point has arrived.

According to Zillow, 27.4 percent of all home listings had their prices slashed during the month of July…

Home prices are falling in half of the nation’s largest markets, a new report reveals —sparking fears that a housing crash is looming.

Sellers are slashing prices at record rates to to lure hesitant buyers put off by soaring mortgage rates and economic uncertainty.

In July alone, 27.4 percent of listings had a price cut — the highest rate ever recorded in Zillow’s monthly data going back to 2018.

When more than a quarter of all listings have their prices cut in just one month, that is a tsunami.

If this continues, things are going to get pretty crazy.

Personally, I think that it is quite noteworthy that prices are being cut the fastest in areas that were “booming” not too long ago…

Florida and Texas, in particular, are home to former boomtowns where prices have fallen at the quickest rate over the past year.

Tampa prices are down 6.2 percent, Austin 6 percent, Miami 4.6 percent, Orlando 4.3 percent and Dallas 3.9 percent, according to Zillow.

‘Metros where price corrections are steepest are among those with the largest increase in inventory compared to before the pandemic,’ said Kara Ng, senior economist at Zillow.

Needless to say, we have seen this happen before.

And it didn’t end well.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, prices on new homes are being cut as well…

A closely watched gauge of builder sentiment tracked by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) fell in August to its lowest level in more than two-and-a-half years. More than a third of builders reported cutting prices by an average of 5 percent, while two-thirds offered incentives such as help with closing costs to attract wary buyers.

Many Americans that have been frozen out of the market are very excited that prices are starting to come down.

Homes have become so unaffordable in recent years, and one recent survey discovered that the average American is spending 42 percent of his or her annual income on housing costs…

Four in ten American parents say they don’t believe, or aren’t sure, their children will be able to afford to live in the same neighborhood where they grew up, according to a sobering new poll. In fact, the survey suggests that more than half of all Americans think they’re already paying too much for housing, with the average person reporting that 42% of their annual income goes toward housing costs.

The study of 1,000 Americans, conducted by Talker Research and commissioned by construction finance platform Built, highlights how concerns about housing affordability have become widespread. What was once viewed as a problem mainly affecting the poorest households is now seen as an issue facing a much broader slice of the population.

42 percent is a level that was never going to be sustainable.

It was inevitable that home prices would start to come down, and now it is happening.

If home prices decline in an orderly fashion, eventually more Americans will be able to purchase homes and that will be a great thing for the entire industry.

Let us hope that is how things play out.

But there is also another possible scenario.

If home prices in the United States crash hard, all of a sudden millions of Americans could find themselves underwater on their mortgages.

In such a scenario, large numbers of those homeowners could simply choose to walk away from their mortgages just like we witnessed in 2008 and 2009, and that would cause chaos for financial institutions all over the nation.

In addition, when prices are falling very rapidly it can cause hesitancy among potential buyers.

After all, who wants to buy a home when it might be worth $20,000 less next month?

And it appears that we are already starting to see some early warning signs.  Home purchases in the U.S. fell through at “the highest July rate on record”, and I think that the perception that home prices are starting to crash is contributing to this…

15% of home purchases fell through last month—the highest July rate on record—as high homebuying costs made buyers skittish. Cancellations were most common in Texas and Florida.

Roughly 58,000 U.S. home-purchase agreements were canceled in July, equal to 15.3% of homes that went under contract last month. That’s up from 14.5% a year earlier and marks the highest July rate in records dating back to 2017.

This is beginning to feel so much like 2008 and 2009.

And just like in 2008 and 2009, employers are conducting large scale layoffs all over the nation.

For example, employees at Paramount are bracing for “a massive round of layoffs”…

It will be a turkey of a Thanksgiving for thousands of Paramount employees.

The media giant is targeting early November for what one insider called an epic “bloodbath” — a massive round of layoffs following its merger with Hollywood studio Skydance Media, The Post has learned.

Jeff Shell — the former NBCUniversal boss tapped by Skydance as Paramount’s new president — has told managers at the home to Paramount Pictures, CBS, MTV and Showtime to start compiling “kill lists,” a source with knowledge said.

So many people are losing good jobs right now.

If you still have your job, you should consider yourself to be blessed.

I also wanted to mention that another large restaurant chain just declared bankruptcy…

Bravo Brio Restaurants LLC, the parent of Bravo! Italian Kitchen and Brio Italian Grille, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in five years, citing the “acute financial distress” facing the industry.

The company filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida on Aug. 18, aiming to restructure its debt, streamline and reduce operational expenses, shed underperforming leases, close underperforming locations and attract a new investor.

The worse that economic conditions get, the faster home prices are likely to fall.

And the faster that home prices fall, the more likely it is that we will see a financial panic.

The housing bubble that we are facing today is far, far larger than the housing bubble that burst in 2008 and 2009.

If you can’t see the storm clouds looming on the horizon at this stage, I don’t know what to say.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

If you listen long enough, people will eventually tell you exactly what they truly believe. Unfortunately, we have just learned what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky truly believes about the war with Russia, and it is not good news at all. Apparently Zelensky is convinced that there will not be a permanent state of peace until all of Donetsk, all of Luhansk and all of Crimea belong to his government. Needless to say, the Russians will never hand all of Donetsk, all of Luhansk and all of Crimea over to Ukraine willingly, and so they will need to be taken by force. Since the Ukrainians cannot do this alone, they will be seeking to enlist the help of others, and that is what should deeply alarm all of us.

The mainstream media’s fawning coverage of Zelensky’s Independence Day speech makes him sounds like some sort of a great peacemaker.  Here is just one example…

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine would continue to fight for its freedom “while its calls for peace are not heard,” in a defiant address to the nation on its independence day.

“We need a just peace, a peace where our future will be decided only by us,” he said, adding that Ukraine was “not a victim, it is a fighter”.

He continued: “Ukraine has not yet won, but it has certainly not lost.”

That makes him sound so incredibly reasonable.

But the mainstream media did not report on any of the troubling parts of Zelensky’s speech.

I went and found a transcript of the speech, and it reveals Zelensky’s real goals…

And now, in a full-scale war for independence, it is here, on Maidan, that one can find such important symbols. Symbols of how we fight, what we fight for, and how we are overcoming this war.

These symbols are all around us. In this Independence Monument. Inside, it has a reinforced concrete frame and can literally withstand a hurricane. In the same way, our Ukraine has withstood the great calamity that Russia brought to our land. In this “Zero Kilometer” point. It is the starting point where distances to Ukrainian cities are written: to our Donetsk, our Luhansk, our Crimea. Today, these markers have a completely different meaning. They are no longer just about kilometers. They remind us that all of this is Ukraine. And there are our people, and no distance between us can change that, and no temporary occupation can change that. One day, the distance between Ukrainians will disappear, and we will be together again as one family, as one country. It is only a matter of time. And Ukraine believes it can achieve this — achieve peace, peace across all its land. Ukraine is capable of it.

This is what started the war in the first place.

Western leaders gave Zelensky a green light to break the Minsk agreements, and so he gathered a 70,000 soldier invasion force along the borders of the DPR and the LPR.  The Ukrainians were shelling the living daylights out of the most heavily populated cities in the DPR and the LPR and were preparing to move in when the Russians intervened.

Zelensky’s obsession with conquering Donetsk and Luhansk precipitated this entire crisis, and now 1.7 million Ukrainians are dead.

But instead of being willing to accept the compromise deal that the Russians are now offering, in his speech Zelensky defiantly proclaimed that Ukraine will never accept any “compromise” that comes from the Russians…

This is Ukraine now. And this Ukraine will never again in history be forced into the shame that the “Russians” call a “compromise.”

Yes, Zelensky is calling for a temporary ceasefire along the current line of contact, because Ukraine has been steadily losing more territory.

But in Zelensky’s mind the purpose of such a ceasefire would be to regroup and rearm in preparation for taking all of Donetsk, all of Luhansk and all of Crimea.

That is why Ukraine’s plan is to bring as many western troops into Ukraine once a temporary ceasefire has been established.

Once they are there, it will be far easier to drag western nations into the war.

The Ukrainians aren’t stupid.  They have already lost 1.7 million soldiers and they know that the only way that they can militarily defeat Russia is with NATO’s help.

And so that is why Ukraine has been attempting to provoke Russia into doing something really dramatic over and over again.  The goal is to get the Russians to escalate matters so much that NATO will feel forced to come riding to Ukraine’s aid.

For instance, the Ukrainians just attacked a nuclear power plant deep inside Russian territory…

A fire has been put out at a nuclear power plant in Russia’s western Kursk region and air defences have shot down a Ukrainian drone, Russian officials have said.

The drone detonated when it fell and damaged a transformer, but radiation levels were normal and there were no casualties, a post from the plant’s account on messaging app Telegram said.

The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly called on both Russia and Ukraine to show maximum restraint around nuclear facilities in the war.

Why would the Ukrainians do such a thing?

The answer is obvious.

They want the Russians to strike back so hard that western leaders will finally feel compelled to join the conflict.

At one point the stunts that the Ukrainians have been pulling almost worked.  There were plans to strike decision making centers in Kyiv with Oreshnik missiles, but Russian President Vladimir Putin wisely vetoed those plans…

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday told reporters in an anecdote given to a press conference that Russian authorities had plans to directly attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office in Kiev, but that President Putin rejected the proposed action.

What’s more, Lukashenko said, is that it would have happened with the new Oreshnik missiles, which are medium-range hypersonics that Russian officials have touted as having the same destructive power as a low-yield nuclear strike.

But it is just a matter of time before the Ukrainians successfully push the Russians too far.

When that time arrives, we could find ourselves directly fighting a nation that has more nukes than we do…

Moscow continues to hold nearly 4,400 nuclear warheads, over 1,500 of which are “strategically deployed” while the U.S. possesses more than 3,700 warheads in its stockpiles with 1,400 deployed, according to the Arms Control Association.

And as I have extensively documented, Russian missiles are far superior to what we possess, and Russian anti-missile systems are far superior to what we possess as well.

We must not get into an apocalyptic conflict with the Russians.

But if the Ukrainians get their way, that is precisely what is going to happen.

Meanwhile, it appears that there will be no peace in the Middle East either.

On Sunday, the IDF conducted an enormous bombing campaign in the capital of Yemen…

Israel bombed Houthi rebel targets in Yemen’s capital on Sunday, including a military site near the presidential palace.

The attacks by the IDF, which also included strikes on the Asar and Hizaz power plants, came after the Houthis fired a “multi-headed” warhead at Israel for the first time on Friday.

The use of the munition presents a new challenge for the Israeli defence system, which up until now has successfully repelled most of the Houthis’ attacks.

Sunday’s attacks sent huge fireballs into the sky over Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, as the IDF said it had struck a “significant electricity supply facility for military activities” for the Houthis.

And it is being reported that a “defining battle” between Israeli troops and Hamas is imminent…

On Saturday, Israeli tanks and troops began maneuvering ever closer to Gaza City’s outskirts in preparation for a full-scale offensive. Eyewitness accounts reported intensified shelling as Israel is moving toward what could be the defining battle of its war against Hamas terrorists: the capture of Gaza City.

Israel’s security cabinet approved the operation, known as Gideon’s Chariots B, and has deployed up to five IDF divisions toward the city’s outskirts—a highly significant mobilization. Thousands of reservists—some 60,000—have been called up.

John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Madison Policy Forum and executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute, told Fox News Digital the scale of this operation is unprecedented. “This will be a bigger challenge than anything the IDF has faced, arguably ever. It is the densest location in Gaza, the heart of Hamas’s stronghold. And you don’t really know what the tunnels are until you get into them.”

If Hamas would have just released all of the hostages, so much bloodshed could have been avoided.

But that never was going to happen, was it?

Unfortunately, just about everyone seems to have come down with a really bad case of “war fever”.

Leaders all over the planet want to fight, and so that is what they will get.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

I have to admit that I am feeling pretty frustrated today.  Last week, there was so much optimism that we could finally see peace, but now “war fever” has returned with a vengeance.  The situation in the Middle East threatens to spiral out of control, there is a very real possibility that the U.S. military could soon be conducting operations in Mexico and Venezuela, and it appears that our last chance for peace with Russia could be going up in smoke.  I was writing about a coming war with Russia many years before it became fashionable, and I continue to warn in the strongest terms possible about what will happen if we do not reverse course.  But of course world leaders do not listen to people like us, and they continue to make decisions that could drag us into the unthinkable.

Last night, the Russians absolutely pummeled Ukraine with drone and missile strikes.  One of the targets that was hit was an American-owned manufacturing facility…

In its overnight attacks, Russia launched a total of 574 strike drones and 40 missiles on Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday, hitting as far west as the city of Lviv.

Missiles also struck an American-owned manufacturing company, Flex Ltd., in the western region of Zakarpattia, in an attack that injured at least 19 people, Ukrainian officials said. Flex is a American-Singaporean company that provides electronics manufacturing services and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

“Overnight, Russian missiles attacked one of the largest American investments in Ukraine – Flex – an active member of the American Chamber of Commerce,” said Andy Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. “Russia continues to destroy and humiliate US businesses in Ukraine, targeting companies that invest and trade on the US stock markets.”

I am very displeased that the Russians chose to target a U.S.-owned business, because they should have known that this would really upset the Trump administration.

Whoever authorized this attack is not thinking rationally, because it threatens to further derail the peace process.

Of course the Ukrainians are going to try to squeeze as much out of this incident as they possibly can…

“It was an ordinary civilian enterprise, an American investment,” Zelensky wrote. “They produced such familiar household items as coffee machines. And this is also a target for the Russians. Very telling.”

Russian forces “delivered this strike as if nothing had changed at all,” he said. “There is still no signal from Moscow that they are really going to go into meaningful negotiations to end this war.”

I think that it is a valid point that if the Russians were truly serious about peace they would not have done this.

Now President Trump is steaming mad, and he just posted an extremely ominous warning on his Truth Social account…

It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country. It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia. Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND. How did that work out? Regardless, this is a war that would have NEVER happened if I were President – ZERO CHANCE. Interesting times ahead!!!

What in the world does that mean?

Is Trump going to allow the Ukrainians to use long-range missiles provided by the U.S. to hit targets deep inside Russian territory?

If so, how will the Russians respond when long-range missiles provided by the U.S. start hitting Moscow?

Everyone needs to calm down and think very carefully about their next moves.

At the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, it really did seem like talks were moving in the right direction.

But since that time, both sides have hardened their positions.

Ukraine is demanding that any peace agreement must allow large numbers of European troops on Ukrainian soil in order to prevent the Russians from attacking again.  But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov just warned that European troops on Ukrainian soil would be “absolutely unacceptable for Russia” and that trying to arrange security guarantees without Russia’s approval is a “road to nowhere”…

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov followed up comments dismissing Europe’s bid to arrange security guarantees for Ukraine as utopian and a “road to nowhere” with fresh remarks on Thursday that may amount to a fresh bid to slow or derail peace talks by introducing new demands.

While President Trump had revealed on Monday that “President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine”, it was never made clear what it was Putin had signalled his consent to and now Russia is finessing its conditions in public. Lavrov said today that any foreign military deployment to Ukraine — the very core of what European nations have in mind for Ukrainian security guarantees — would be “absolutely unacceptable for Russia”.

The Russians are determined to keep NATO completely out of Ukraine.

That has never changed.

So why do western leaders keep talking about sending troops to Ukraine as part of any peace agreement?

And the Russians are also demanding that Ukraine must hand over the remaining portions of the Donbas that Russia has not conquered yet…

Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

For the Ukrainians, handing over the rest of the Donbas is a non-starter…

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly dismissed the idea of withdrawing from internationally recognised Ukrainian land as part of a deal, and has said the industrial Donbas region serves as a fortress holding back Russian advances deeper into Ukraine.

“If we’re talking about simply withdrawing from the east, we cannot do that,” he told reporters in comments released by Kyiv on Thursday. “It is a matter of our country’s survival, involving the strongest defensive lines.”

So the fighting will continue.

And if long-range missiles start hitting Moscow and other Russian cities, the war will greatly escalate.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military is preparing to conduct military operations against Mexican drug cartels inside Mexican territory…

Now, NORTHCOM has tasked its subordinate Special Operations Command (called SOCNORTH) to undertake “operational preparation of the battlespace” inside Mexico to set the stage for future military operations, and to prepare cartel-related “target packages” for potential strikes and “direct action” attacks on the ground against high-value individuals, compounds, and supply chain targets associated in particular with the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Direct attacks could also involve air and drone strikes.

“Direct action” is a term special operations forces use to describe small-scale offensive operations carried out by Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs, or Marine Corps raiders. Think of the airstrikes on Iran this summer as a kind of direct action, against a discrete target with a “strategic” or national purpose.

The Mexican government has already told us that it will not give us permission to do this.

But preparations are going ahead anyway.

And it also appears that we are getting dangerously close to war with Venezuela…

The White House confirmed 3 warships and 4,000 marines are being deployed toward Venezuela. When asked about the possibility of boots on the ground, officials said the President is ready to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into the US and hold those responsible accountable.

“The Maduro regime is not a legitimate government—it is a narco-terror cartel,” the statement added.

On top of everything else, Israel’s new offensive in Gaza has now begun…

Israel launched strikes on Gaza City overnight as it moved forward with a new offensive in the Palestinian enclave despite international condemnation and mounting domestic protests.

Explosions rocked neighborhoods in the city on Thursday, after Israel said its military had entered the first stages of a planned assault that includes calling up 60,000 reservists. The operation has sent civilians fleeing once again, intensifying fears about the starvation crisis unfolding in the territory.

Israel also carried out strikes on Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, and Deir al-Balah in the center of the territory on Thursday. Video from Deir al-Balah showed people running away from a large plume of smoke.

As I discussed yesterday, nobody can deny that we are in a time of “wars and rumors of wars”.

In a world that is absolutely teeming with weapons of mass destruction, flirting with an apocalypse is not wise.

We are literally dancing on the brink of disaster, and it won’t take much to push us over the edge.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Other than the early months of the pandemic, we haven’t seen anything like this for a long time.  Mass layoffs are happening all over the nation, major retailers and large restaurant chains are deeply struggling, and the cost of living is out of control.  I am going to share more numbers with you today that confirm that a very painful economic downturn is now upon us.  For example, a survey that was recently conducted by outplacement firm Careerminds discovered that 78 percent of HR leaders in the U.S. admit that their companies have been through multiple rounds of layoffs.  In fact, 40 percent of HR leaders in the U.S. say that layoffs are now occurring quarterly at their companies…

• Financial difficulties pushed 78% of U.S.-based HR leaders to conduct multiple rounds of layoffs within the past year, according to the results of a July survey by outplacement firm Careerminds, with many stating they oversaw “serial layoffs” that occurred in rapid succession.
• The survey of 600 respondents found that 75% of reported layoffs occurred within less than six months of one another, and 40% of HR leaders said layoffs happened quarterly at their organizations. Financial instability constituted the biggest driver of job cuts, followed by changing business priorities, market disruption and post-pandemic overstaffing.

If 40 percent of your large employers are conducting layoffs every quarter, you have a major economic crisis in your county.

There is no possible way to spin that number to make it look good.

We have been witnessing such a dramatic economic shift in recent months.

According to the latest numbers that were released by Target, store traffic has been declining nearly every single week since late January…

Target’s annual sales have been roughly stagnant for the past four years, and its inconsistent performance has tested the loyalty of shoppers and shaken the confidence of Wall Street. Store traffic at the big-box retailer has fallen almost every week since late January, according to Placer.ai, an analytics firm that uses anonymized data from mobile devices to estimate overall visits to locations. And shares of the company have tumbled about 60% from their all-time high in late 2021.

The reason why Americans are doing less shopping is because they have less discretionary income to spend.

And prices just keep going up and up.

At Walmart, many products have had their prices hiked by more than 20 percent this year…

At Walmart, a “Jurassic World” T. Rex figure had spiked by nearly 38% to $55 on May 21 from just a month ago. A heating pad costs 25% more to $24.96 this year, according to employees who posted photos of the price hikes on social media. A fishing reel at Walmart jumped to $83.26 from $57.37.

Joe — a regular Walmart shopper who also asked that his last name not be used — told The Post last week he was eyeing new air conditioners at the store in Cortlandt Manor, NY. Last year, he said, a small unit that cools off a 300-square-foot room cost $115 — up from $100 a year earlier.

Most U.S. consumers cannot afford these prices.

Unfortunately, now we are being warned that prices on many things will soon go quite a bit higher.

On Monday, a 50 percent tariff on steel and aluminum will start being applied to 407 categories of goods…

Butter knives, baby strollers, spray deodorants and fire extinguishers, considered “derivative” steel and aluminum products, were previously excluded from the 50% tariff, though they were still subject to the higher country-specific tariffs Trump enacted over the last several months.

However, on Friday, US Customs and Border Protection and a division of the US Commerce Department published notices informing US importers that 407 categories of goods containing steel and aluminum would immediately be subject to the 50% tariffs at 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday. The non-steel and non-aluminum components of the products face other applicable levies.

Thousands upon thousands of products that contain steel and aluminum that Americans purchase on a regular basis are about to get a lot more expensive.

Are you ready for that?

Meanwhile, beef prices continue to soar into uncharted territory…

Walter Avalos, a D.C.-based seller for a large U.S. deli producer, typically got instructions once a year to hike red meat prices. Now, it’s every week.

“We had to put at the bottom of our inventories that prices can change at any moment,” said Avalos, 34. “It never used to be like that.”

Red meat prices are skyrocketing in the United States, the world’s largest consumer and producer of beef. Beef and veal prices surged 11.3 percent in July over the year, according to the most recent consumer price index report.

When I read that line about prices rising “every week”, that reminded me of what the history books say about the Weimar Republic.

Sadly, there will continue to be pressure on beef prices for the foreseeable future because the size of the U.S. cattle herd has fallen to the lowest level since 1951…

One of the drivers of spiking beef costs is a drought that has ravaged U.S. cattle in key meat-producing states since 2022, causing cattle volumes to collapse this year to their lowest recorded levels since 1951.

In 1951, 154.8 million people lived in the United States.

Today, 340 million people live in the United States.

So we have the same amount of cattle that we did in 1951, but we are trying to feed more than twice as many people.

Just think about that for a while.

Switching to vegetables won’t bring relief either, because the price of vegetables in the U.S. went up by 38 percent from June to July…

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 38% surge in the wholesale price of vegetables in July.

This is the biggest price spike for any product category month-to-month.

“It’s insane. That’s why I’m growing a lot more myself this year,” said Dana Roads, who is visiting from Utah.

If you haven’t seen this figure before, I know that it may be difficult to believe that vegetable prices went up by 38 percent in one month.

But it is true.  This figure comes directly from the government, and if you want to learn more please see my previous article entitled “Are You Drowning Too?: Vegetables Are Up 38.9%, Coffee is Up 25%, And Electricity Prices Are Rising Twice As Fast As Inflation”.

And the really bad news is that vegetable prices are expected to continue to go up because there aren’t enough agricultural workers in the fields…

A shortage of workers could lead to lost crops down the line.

“A lot of the product is being lost because there’s nobody to work. So it’s the product that has been picked has been raised maybe 35 to 40%,” said Jaime Desales.

Unless you are independently wealthy, you are feeling the pain of higher prices.

When I was younger, I thought that anyone making $100,000 a year had it made.

But today a $100,000 income won’t even cover the average cost of living in 13 U.S. states…

In 13 states, a $100,000 salary isn’t even enough to cover average annual cost of living. On the other end of the spectrum, there are 15 states where making that amount would cover 120% or more of those expenditures.

In life, consequences are not always immediate.

When our leaders started borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have during the pandemic, a lot of people were convinced that it must be okay because we did not immediately experience severe consequences.

But now we are starting to experience severe consequences, and things will get a whole lot more painful if we stay on the path that we are currently on.

I am definitely one that likes to hope for the best, but I would strongly urge you to prepare for the worst because it appears that is exactly where things are heading in the months ahead.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

You may be quite shocked by the numbers that I am going to reveal in this article. So many people are bitterly complaining about the rising cost of living, and so I decided to do some investigating. What does it really cost for a family of four to live the “American Dream” today? As I was doing my research, what I discovered deeply alarmed me.

Obviously a family of four is going to need to eat, and grocery prices have been going through the roof.

According to the USDA, a realistic food budget for a family of four for one month ranges between $996 and $1,603…

The USDA estimates $297–558 for a monthly food budget for one person, $614–963 for a couple, and $996–1,603 for a family of four.

For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that we are being frugal and so we will go with the lowest number in that spectrum.

Health insurance is another major expense that U.S. households face on a monthly basis.

In 2023, an unsubsidized plan for a family of four through the ACA marketplace averaged $1,437 a month…

Family plan premium rates will vary based on family size. But, a family of four paid an average of $1,437 a month for an unsubsidized plan.

That figure is two years old, and premiums have continued to rise since that time, but for the purposes of this article we will go with it.

In order to pay the monthly bills, parents must go to work, and in order to go to work they will need at least one vehicle.

According to Experian, the average monthly payment for a new vehicle during the first quarter of 2025 was $745…

In Q1 2025, the average car payment for a new car was $745, and the average payment for a used car was $521. However, monthly payments can vary significantly based on many factors, including the loan amount, loan term, borrower credit history and more.

Most households have more than one vehicle, but for the purposes of this article we will include just one vehicle payment in the monthly budget.

Needless to say, a family of four also needs a place to live, and the median monthly mortgage payment in the United States has now risen to $2,259…

The median monthly mortgage payment for U.S. homebuyers is currently $2,259. This assumes a buyer making a 20 percent down payment on a $435,300 home — the median sale price for an existing home in June, according to the National Association of Realtors — at 6.75 percent interest, the current average for a 30-year loan based on Bankrate data.

Okay, now that we have our raw data let’s do some math.

If you add all four of our monthly expenses together, you get a grand total of $5,437 a month.

That is only for food, health insurance, one vehicle payment and a mortgage payment.

Of course there are many other things that a family of four must pay for as well.

Are you starting to understand why it seems like most people are just barely scraping by these days?

Most of us are stressed out about our bills, and the cost of living just keeps going up and up.

Many Americans are trying to cut corners any way that they can.

For example, it is being reported that 44 percent of U.S. adults admit that they have ordered a kiddie meal…

Apparently, grown-ups love a good kiddie meal, too.

That’s one of the takeaways from a new survey conducted by Lightspeed Commerce, a company that provides payment systems to the hospitality industry. The survey found that 44% of U.S. diners say they’ve ordered children’s meals for themselves at restaurants.

I suppose that is one way to save a little bit of money.

We are being told that the number of kiddie meals being ordered by adults is up 28 percent compared to 2019…

According to industry research firm Circana, the number of children’s meals placed by adults was up 28% in 2024 compared with 2019. Another data point, as the Wall Street Journal reports, is that Yelp reviews for kids’ meals were higher in December 2024 than any month since 2019.

“It’s satisfying, cheaper, less calories, and sometimes there’s a little prize or treat,” C.J. Person, a retired teacher in North Carolina, told the Journal.

Are adults technically allowed to order kids’ meals? Probably not. Most restaurants have an age limit policy, but they are rarely enforced.

This isn’t what “prosperity” looks like.

In fact, this is the opposite of “prosperity”.

And now mass layoffs are happening day after day.

Earlier today, I was saddened to learn that John Deere has decided to conduct mass layoffs at three facilities in the Midwest…

Legacy tractor maker John Deere has announced layoffs at three Midwestern facilities as the company grapples with declining sales and the effects of tariffs on its bottom line.

“The struggling ag economy continues to impact orders for John Deere equipment,” the company said in a media statement regarding the layoffs. “This is a challenging time for many farmers, growers and producers, and directly impacts our business in the near term.”

Farming is normally fairly recession-proof, and so the fact that demand for John Deere equipment is faltering is not a good sign at all.

The housing market is really struggling right now too.

According to Redfin, the average time that a house is spending on the market has now reached the highest level in 10 years…

The typical home that went under contract in July spent 43 days on the market — up from 35 days a year earlier and the longest span for any July since 2015, according to new Redfin data.

It’s another sign that buyers are gaining leverage after years of tight inventory, though the extent of that advantage varies by region.

In Florida, homes are taking much longer to sell, over 90 days in some cities. West Palm Beach (95 days), Fort Lauderdale (92 days) and Miami (86 days) were the slowest major markets in the country last month.

This feels so much like 2008 all over again.

And just like in 2008, the economy of Las Vegas is an early indicator of what is coming for the economy as a whole…

A retail expert has warned Las Vegas is in freefall with consumer spending slumping, with one recent visitor raising concerns over an outrageous tip demand.

The Nevada city, known for its lavish shows and around-the-clock gambling, has recorded a large drop in tourism and spending in recent months.

According to the Nevada Department of Taxation, sales at food and beverage outlets, clothing, shoes and jewelry retailers have all fallen in the last 11 months.

A lot of people out there still don’t seem to get it.

We really are moving into extremely difficult times.

The vast majority of the population is living paycheck to paycheck right now.

And so when a sudden job loss or some sort of an emergency happens, they have nothing to fall back on.

We are far more vulnerable than most people realize, and the months ahead will demonstrate that fact very clearly.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

What I am about to share with you is some of the clearest evidence yet that the middle class in America is being systematically destroyed.  Young adults are forming middle class households at an extremely depressed rate, and that is because the American Dream is simply out of reach for most of them in this very harsh economic environment.  If you can’t get a good job that pays an adequate wage, you aren’t going to be able to live a middle class lifestyle.  Sadly, many older Americans simply do not understand how difficult things have become for our young adults in this day and age.

The Census Bureau has produced a paper entitled “Changes in Milestones of Adulthood” that absolutely blew me away.

According to the Census Bureau, the 5 major milestones of adulthood are living away from your parents, completing your education, getting a job, marrying, and living with a child.  Since 1975, the success that our young people have had in attaining these milestones has declined dramatically…

According to the working paper, “Changes in Milestones of Adulthood,” almost half of all young adults in 1975 had reached four milestones associated with adulthood: moving out of one’s parents’ home, getting a job, getting married and having a child.

Five decades on, that progression has changed dramatically. The share of young adults that have followed the traditional pathway to adulthood has dropped to less than a quarter, according to the paper.

After reading that CBS News article, I had to go find the original paper.

I found it on the official Census Bureau website, and it says that in 2023 only 17 percent of young adults had attained the 5 major milestones of adulthood…

In 2005, the most common combination was young adults who had all five milestones (about 26% experienced all five milestones). By 2023, however, the proportion of young adults who experienced all five markers of adulthood declined to about 17%, and young adults who reported only experiencing the three economic milestones of living away from parents, completing education, and participating in the labor force was the modal combination. Finally, the residual category in Figure 2 representing the proportion of young adults who experienced any other combination of milestones declined from 36% to 30%, suggesting that the experiences of young adults have become more homogeneous for contemporary cohorts.

17 percent!

Just think about that.

If our society was in good shape, most of our young adults would be in a position to achieve all 5 milestones by the age of 25.

But our society is not in good shape.  According to the Census Bureau paper, the primary reason why young adults are not achieving these milestones is because they are “facing economic barriers”…

The reason for this, according to the paper, is that more young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are facing economic barriers compared with previous generations. Changing societal attitudes around family formation are also contributing to the sharp decline in the share of young people reaching what the U.S. Census Bureau considers to be “key milestones.”

If I keep hitting people with more evidence day after day, maybe the skeptics will finally start getting it.

Our young adults are not entering the middle class fast enough to replace the older middle class adults that are dying off.

As a result, the middle class is steadily shrinking.

To be a part of the middle class, you have to be able to get a middle class job.

And right now the competition for middle class jobs among our young people is extremely fierce.

If you doubt this, just consider what a 23-year-old college graduate recently admitted to NBC News…

“Every guy I know that is without a job right now wants to work, but they just can’t get it,” said Eli McCullick, who has been looking for a job for more than a year after he graduated with a degree in sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder. “It’s demoralizing for guys who really want to get ahead and it’s just not happening.”

McCullick, 23, said he hasn’t even been able to get an hourly job at a restaurant or doing cleaning work at a hotel in the Boulder area, where he’s living at a property his father owns. The only way he has been able to earn money to cover his food and daily expenses has been to do odd jobs for friends and relatives, like shoveling horse manure, mowing lawns and helping an older woman prepare for a yard sale.

There is no way that I would want to be a fresh college graduate looking for a job right now.

It is terrible out there.

Another recent college graduate told NBC News that nearly all of his friends are unemployed and living with their parents…

Sean Breen, who graduated this spring with a communications degree from California State University, Long Beach, said he and nearly all of his high school friends, both men and women, are back home living with their parents and unemployed. He said even those who went to top-ranked colleges and got seemingly in-demand degrees are unable to find work.

“It is like a high school reunion,” Breen said. “We’re all, we are back in Marin County this summer, all unemployed, all trying to find a barista job, a part-time something, because we haven’t found anything.”

After having applied to hundreds of jobs, he said, Breen now plans to go to graduate school in the fall at Trinity College in Ireland, where tuition is significantly lower and, he hopes, jobs will be more plentiful.

This is the reality of what is really going on out there.

Those that keep insisting that “everything is fine” just need to stop.

The job market is freezing up and layoffs have absolutely skyrocketed compared to last year…

Layoffs have risen 140 percent from a year ago, a new report reveals.

Companies have already announced more than 800,000 job cuts this year alone, the highest since the pandemic upended the economy in 2020.

US-based employers cut 62,075 jobs in July compared to 25,885 in the same month last year.

Those numbers are staggering.

Unfortunately, 62 percent of U.S. consumers believe that unemployment will continue to get even worse during the months ahead…

• About 62% of consumers believe unemployment will worsen in the year ahead, according to the University of Michigan’s latest monthly survey.
• That’s bounced around a little in the last few months, but consistently hung around levels not seen since the Great Recession.

Do you remember how difficult it was to get a good job during the Great Recession?

Well, now we are entering a similar time.

That may help to explain why “job hugging” has become a thing in 2025…

Job hugging is the act of holding onto a job “for dear life,” consultants at Korn Ferry, an organizational consulting firm, wrote last week.

The rate at which workers are voluntarily leaving their jobs — known as the quits rate — has hovered around 2% since the start of the year, according to data from the U.S. Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Outside of the initial days of the Covid-19 pandemic, levels haven’t been that consistently low since early 2016.

The quits rate is a barometer of workers’ perceptions of the broader labor market, said Laura Ullrich, director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab. In this case, they may be nervous about getting another job or aren’t enthusiastic about their ability to find one, she said.

If you have a job that you highly value, don’t let go.

Hold on to it as tightly as you can, because if you lose it you may not find work again for a long time.

A lot of people are shocked by what is happening, but the truth is that nobody should be surprised.

There was no way that we were going to be able to defy the laws of economics forever.

The inexorable march of time cannot be stopped, and our future is going to look a whole lot different than most people anticipated.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Do you feel knots in your stomach due to financial stress? If so, you certainly have lots of company. All of a sudden, everyone is talking about the cost of living and prices are rising by double-digit percentages all around us. There are so many people out there right now that feel like they are “drowning” because no matter how hard they try there simply isn’t enough money for everything. Unfortunately, we are being warned to brace ourselves for even more inflation in the months ahead.

When I heard that the cost of vegetables in the United States had gone up by 40 percent in one month, I thought that there was no way that it could be true.

So I looked it up, and I discovered that the cost of vegetables in the United States didn’t go up by 40 percent in one month.

The real figure was 38.9 percent…

A 38.9% increase in prices for fresh and dry vegetables from June to July was the major driver of a higher index for “final demand goods” (things that are done and ready to be sold to a consumer, as opposed to things that go into a later production process).

That is nuts!

How can the cost of vegetables go up by 38.9 percent in a single month?

Apparently this was the largest spike that we have ever witnessed in a summer month “in figures that go back to 1947”…

Per Bureau of Labor Statistics data, it’s also the largest monthly increase ever recorded in a summer month (June-August), in figures that go back to 1947.

The other day, I wrote about how beef has become so expensive that it is now considered to be a “luxury”.

Well, now vegetables are a “luxury” too.

And let’s not forget coffee.

The price of coffee went up by 25 percent in just three months, and that was before coffee exports from Brazil were hit with a 50 percent tariff…

Coffee prices were already up before a 50 percent tariff on Brazil, the top coffee importer to the U.S., went into effect last week.
Coffee prices sharply rose 25 percent over the past three months, according to inflation data released Tuesday. Reuters reported Tuesday that Brazilian coffee exports have started seeing postponements to their U.S. shipments.

About two-thirds of all U.S. adults drink coffee.

This is one of the most basic things that Americans buy.

But now a lot of people are either going to have to cut back or stop drinking it entirely because it has become so ridiculously expensive.

Air conditioning is rapidly becoming a “luxury” as well.

Electricity prices have been rising twice as fast as the overall rate of inflation, and some seniors must now choose between paying the electricity bill and paying for medication…

Across the country, electricity prices have jumped more than twice as fast as the overall cost of living in the last year. That’s especially painful during the dog days of summer, when air conditioners are working overtime.

In Pembroke Pines, Fla., Al Salvi’s power bill can reach $500 a month.

“There’s a lot of seniors down here that are living check to check. They can barely afford prescriptions such as myself,” says Salvi, who’s 63 and uses a wheelchair. “Now we got to decide whether we’re going to pay the electric bill or are we going to buy medication. And it’s not fair to us. You’re squeezing us between a rock and a hard place.”

As our leaders were borrowing trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have, I warned that this was going to cause rampant inflation, but a lot of people out there didn’t want to listen.

And as the Federal Reserve was pumping trillions upon trillions of dollars that they created out of thin air into the financial system, I warned that this was going to cause rampant inflation, but a lot of people out there didn’t want to listen.

At first it seemed like our leaders were totally getting away with it.

But now look at what has happened.

There are countless videos on TikTok right now of people breaking down emotionally over the rising cost of living.

In one video, a woman that feels like she is “drowning” explains that no matter how hard she works “she can’t afford to live anymore”…

The video made by “diannaallen5” for TikTok was shared on X by @WallStreetApes to their 1 million X followers, writing, “Americans are breaking down, a grown woman crying because she can’t afford to live anymore.”

The woman in the video, who said she is from Illinois, was distraught and in tears as she spoke, saying that “gas prices and the electric bills and the prices of food is just so overwhelming.”

“I’m wondering if anybody else is feeling like they’re drowning and they can’t get out,” she said. “I work overtime, and I cannot get above water. I mean, I literally have no gas for next week.”

“I’m just wondering if anybody else feels like they’re drowning,” she said is despair.

Can you identify with her?

I think that a lot of us can.

At this stage, 83 percent of all Americans are experiencing “stressflation”…

A LifeStance Health survey released today reveals “stressflation” is affecting most Americans, with 83% reporting financial stress driven by inflation, mass layoffs, the rising cost of living and recession fears. Millennials and Gen Z report the most significant mental health impacts.

The number of respondents who have been deterred from seeking mental health care due to financial constraints remains consistently high (60%), increasing two percentage points from 2024. Those experiencing high financial stress levels are more than twice as likely to forgo mental health treatment due to cost, highlighting a mental health gap where financial strain exacerbates mental health challenges while limiting access to care.

We should have seen this coming way in advance, because we were specifically warned that this was coming.

And if we stay on the same road that we have been traveling, conditions will get a whole lot worse.

A lot of people out there don’t seem to understand that consequences do not always show up immediately.

What we are experiencing now is the result of decades of bad decisions.

It took time for the consequences of those bad decisions to materialize, but now they have officially started to arrive.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Well, that was quite a shock.  We just got confirmation that inflation is starting to accelerate once again.  That is really bad news, because the cost of living has already been stressing people out all over the country.  In fact, one recent survey found that 86 percent of Americans are stressed out about grocery prices.  But it isn’t just the cost of food that has been going up.  We have been getting slammed by double-digit price increases in every direction, and that is having enormous consequences.  Our standard of living is eroding with each passing month, and as a result the middle class is steadily shrinking.

On Thursday, we learned that the producer price index increased by 0.9 percent last month.

That was the largest increase that we have seen since June 2022…

The producer price index, which measures final demand goods and services prices, jumped 0.9% on the month, compared with the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.2% gain. It was the biggest monthly increase since June 2022.

Excluding food and energy prices, core PPI rose 0.9% against the forecast for 0.3%. Excluding food, energy and trade services, the index was up 0.6%, the biggest gain since March 2022.

Such a large change in one month was very unexpected.

When Rick Santelli of CNBC heard the news, he totally flipped out…

Headline number is– WHOPPINGLY big! Oh my goodness!

Up 9 tenths of a percent. Up 9 tenths. And if you strip out food and energy, guess what? It’s still up 9/10ths. Boy, that equals June of 22!

You’re at the March of 22 on the headline to find a bigger number. On the core number, that would come to March of 22 since we’ve had a number of that magnitude when it was 1.2%. These are kind of COVID distorted numbers.

So what would happen if the producer price index rises by 0.9 percent every month for the next 12 months?

That would put us at a 10.8 percent annual rate, and we would officially be in Jimmy Carter territory.

Another point that I would like to make is that the government numbers always understate the true rate of inflation by a significant margin.

And we can clearly see evidence of this all around us.

Right now, electricity prices are spiking from coast to coast.  For example, New Jersey residents were just pummeled by price hikes of between 17 and 20 percent…

New Jersey residents are up in arms over huge spikes in their energy costs, leading to speculation it could prove fatal for Democrats.

The New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities (BPU) approved a 17-20 percent hike in June for the majority of households in The Garden State.

One local woman says that her electricity bill is now $200 more than it used to be…

“$200 more, I know my electrical bill,” one woman told Cotton in Rutherford, N.J., on Tuesday. “I was shocked. So to say the least, I’m very disappointed. This is killing us, and every time you turn around it’s something more. You only get little pleasures in life that you enjoy, and my air conditioner is one of them.”

New Jersey’s electric bills currently rank 12th highest in the nation, according to the Wall Street Journal, with prices sitting roughly 15 percent higher than the national average.

Air conditioning is rapidly becoming a luxury.

Not everyone will be able to afford it anymore.

Beef has also become a luxury item, and it is being reported that last month the price of beef soared to yet another new all-time high…

Beef prices surged to an all-time high in July as the market grappled with consistently strong demand and long-term issues in domestic production.

According to the latest consumer price index, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics published on Tuesday, the beef and veal index rose by 2.5 percent in July, compared to 0.2 percent for the broader food category. This capped an 11.3 percent increase over the past 12 months.

Meanwhile, the price of ground beef and uncooked beef steaks has risen by 11.5 and 12.4 percent, respectively, both now at record levels.

I am a meat and potatoes kind of guy, and so this really upsets me.

When I see the prices that supermarkets are trying to charge us now, it makes me feel sick.

The other day, a Twitter user known as “Molly Ploofkins” posted a truly alarming photo that she took at her local Publix…

45 dollars?

Seriously?

It is hard for me to believe the prices that we are seeing now.

But they are only going to go higher.

Speaking of going higher, millions of Americans are about to get slammed with much higher health insurance premiums…

A perfect storm of rising health care costs, expensive new drugs, and the scheduled end of enhanced federal subsidies could drive Obamacare’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace premiums to their steepest levels in years—and hit more than 24 million Americans in their wallets.

According to a new analysis of insurers’ 2026 filings by Peterson-KFF’s Health System Tracker, the median proposed premium hike across 312 marketplace insurers is 18%. Most increases range from 12% to 27%, with more than 125 insurers seeking hikes of 20% or more—the sharpest climb since 2018. Final rates will be locked in by late summer 2025.

Health insurance premiums are already wildly out of control.

And now they want to hit us with double-digit increases again?

This is the reality of the economy that we live in now.

In this environment, even sending your kids to summer camp can put you deep into debt…

Two-thirds of parents who need summer child care say they struggle to afford it, and 62% of parents go into debt to cover summer child care, camps and activities, according to a recent survey of more than 600 parents conducted by LendingTree, an online lending marketplace. Parents in the survey said they spend almost $900 per child on summer care, and nearly half said they cut back on other expenses like dining out and entertainment to offset the cost.

Today, most of the country is living on the edge financially.

And now that economic conditions are slowing down, we are seeing foreclosures start to spike just like we did in 2008 and 2009.

For example, in Clark County, Nevada there was a 32 percent increase in foreclosure notices in just 12 months…

Growing numbers of Las Vegas homeowners are falling into foreclosure as soaring prices and Trump boycotts decimate the city, a new report found.

In Clark County, 200 default notices were filed in June, an increase of 32 percent from the same month last year, a research report from the University of Nevada’s Lied Center for Real Estate found.

Default notices are filed after a property owner falls behind on their mortgage payments and indicates the start of the foreclosure process.

This is why it is so important to have an emergency fund.

If you lose your job, you have got to have something to fall back on.

Sadly, mass layoffs are now happening all over the nation and the competition for any good jobs that are available has become fierce.

Some people that are unemployed have been applying for hundreds and hundreds of jobs without any success.  I shared an example of this the other day, and here is another example…

Emanuel Barcenas feels like he’s falling behind. At 25, he’d like to be living in his own place, saving money for the future and making enough money to take a date out to dinner.

Instead, two years after he graduated with a computer science bachelor’s degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology, he’s unemployed and living with his parents in the suburbs of Chicago. Despite having applied to more than 900 jobs — from secretary positions to a role at a prison — he has gotten only a handful of interviews.

“I want to be an adult,” he said. “I need to lock in, I need to move forward, but right now, I’m just stunted. I’m trying my best, but I guess my best isn’t good enough.”

Sometimes I feel like we are all playing a very twisted game of musical chairs.

Every time the music stops, more seats are being removed and more people fall out of the middle class.

If you still have your seat in the middle class, hold on to it tightly, because even rougher times are ahead.

I warned for years and years about the damage that was being done to the middle class.

But we just kept going down the same path, and now look at what has happened.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.