Money

There is a tremendous disconnect between the economic numbers that the government is giving us and what most Americans are personally experiencing on a daily basis.  The government says that inflation is low, but the cost of living just continues to spiral out of control.  The government says that unemployment is low, but Challenger, Gray & Christmas says that the number of layoffs in the U.S. was up 98 percent last year.  The government says that the economic outlook for 2024 is positive, but companies all over America are acting as if extremely hard times are ahead.  So who are we supposed to believe?

Personally, I trust numbers that come from private sources far more than numbers that come from government sources.

For example, a survey that was just conducted by Bankrate discovered that 56 percent of all U.S. adults do not have enough money to handle an unexpected expense of $1,000…

A majority of Americans say a $1,000 emergency expense would be too great of a hit to their savings and that they could not afford it, according to new data released Wednesday.

Bankrate’s latest survey results found 56% of U.S. adults lack the emergency funds to handle a $1,000 unexpected expense and one-third (35%) said they would have to borrow the money somehow to pay for it.

More than half the country is literally living on the edge of financial disaster.

That is crazy.

Another survey has found that much of the nation barely keeps any money in their bank accounts…

Nearly half of Americans have $500 or less in their savings accounts, an amount that leaves them vulnerable to unexpected expenses, according to a GOBankingRates survey of 1,063 U.S. adults conducted in November 2023.

About 29% of respondents have between $501 and $5,000 in their savings accounts, while the remaining 21% of Americans have $5,001 or more.

Few hold much cash in their checking accounts as well. Of those surveyed, 60% report having $500 or less in their checking accounts, while only about 12% have $2,001 or more.

Most Americans would be financially wiped out by just one major accident or emergency.

The vast majority of us are just barely scraping by from month to month, and the rapidly rising cost of living is making that increasingly difficult to do.

One woman recently found a Taco Bell receipt from 12 years ago, and she discovered that prices are now approximately three times higher than they were back then…

A TikTok video by a user who found an old Taco Bell receipt has gone viral – as Americans realize prices are now almost three times higher.

The old receipt showed that – 12 years ago – Americans could buy TWO of the chain’s beefy five-layer burritos for $2.59 including taxes.

Today, those same burritos cost about $3.69 for just ONE. That doesn’t include tax, which can vary across the US. So too can the base price.

The government continues to insist that inflation is “low”, but everyone knows that is a big fat lie.

Insurance rates have been spiking at a particularly alarming rate.  One man in Las Vegas was horrified when his auto insurance bill shot up by 72 percent in just eight months even though he had no accidents and no tickets…

They say ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ – but the eye-watering auto insurance bill city resident Simon Edwards recently received is just one example of the staggering rises in premiums consumers are facing all across the US.

The 2012 Mazda 5 owner was shocked to find his monthly bill from Geico had rocketed up from $130 last April to $223 now – a rise of 72 percent in just eight months.

‘I’ve been in no accidents, no tickets, been with Geico for many years,’ a perplexed Edwards told the Wall Street Journal.

Another man recently posted a video on TikTok in which he ranted about how the cost of literally everything is absolutely soaring…

Four years ago my rent was $1,200 a month at a luxury apartment complex”

“It is NOW $2,100, not even including utilities”

“3 years ago my electric bill was averaging $45 now it’s averaging $125…”

“I went to the grocery store yesterday and got 3 bags of chips, some ground turkey and some vegetables and it was $67 DOLLARS?!”

U.S. consumers are being squeezed like never before, and as a result debt levels have been rising to unprecedented levels.

For example, unpaid residential utility debt in the U.S. rose to a new all-time record of 20.3 billion dollars last year…

Bloomberg cites a new report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association that reveals US household utility debt hit a record as an alarming number of Americans can no longer afford heating and cooling their homes.

NEADA said one out of every six ratepayers is behind on energy bills, adding residential utility debt hit a new record last year of $20.3 billion.

Please don’t let anyone tell you that the U.S. economy is in good shape.

Most Americans are really hurting in this economic environment, and conditions continue to get even worse.

As I discussed yesterday, large companies all over America are feverishly laying off workers.  In fact, earlier today we learned that even eBay is now laying people off…

Online retailer eBay Inc. will cut about 1,000 jobs, or an estimated 9% of its full-time workforce, saying its number of employees and costs have exceeded how much the business is growing in a slowing economy. It marks the latest layoffs in the tech industry.

CEO Jamie Iannone said in a message to employees on Tuesday that the company also will reduce how many “contracts we have within our alternate workforce over the coming months.”

The worse economic conditions become, the more crime we are going to see.

At this point, looting has already become a way of life in some areas of the country.

In Washington D.C., a CVS store is permanently shutting down because dozens of teens would literally loot the store multiple times per day…

A Washington D.C. CVS store is shutting its doors after being repeatedly ransacked by thieves, the chain has confirmed.

The pharmacy, located in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, went viral last October when videos emerged of it totally stripped of all its products after being targeted by a teen gang.

Staff claim more than 45 schoolkids would go into the store and steal chips and drinks in the morning, after their classes and late at night. It will close on February 29, according to WTTG-TV.

If this is what is happening now, what will we see once economic conditions get extremely bad in this country?

I would encourage you to get prepared while you still can, because so much chaos is ahead of us.

We are living at a time when most Americans are literally living on the edge of disaster, and disaster is coming.

Millions will be wiped out by the economic tsunami that is approaching, and you do not want to be among the victims.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  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.

Should any of us be surprised that the news industry is being hit by a massive wave of layoffs?  Survey after survey has shown that the American people have lost faith in the mainstream media, and millions of us have decided to turn to other sources for news and information.  Mainstream news outlets have been bleeding viewers and readers for years, and now many of the biggest names in the news industry are losing staggering amounts of money.  It was only a matter of time before we witnessed large scale layoffs, and now they are here.

Of course it isn’t just the mainstream media that is laying off workers.  According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of layoffs in the United States in 2023 was 98 percent higher than it was in 2022…

The pace of job cuts by U.S. employers accelerated in 2023, with the number of layoffs surging 98% compared with the previous year.

That is according to a new report published by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which found that companies planned 721,677 job cuts last year, a substantial increase from the 363,832 layoffs reported in 2022.

The problem could get worse in 2024 as the labor market continues to soften in the face of high interest rates and stubborn inflation.

But it is true that the news industry is being hit particularly hard.  For example, Time Magazine just announced that it will be laying off workers “across several departments including editorial, tech, sales, and TIME Studios”…

Time Magazine laid off an uncertain number of staffers across departments on Tuesday, a move CEO Jessica Sibley called “The necessary step we must take in order to drive our business forward and improve our financial position.”

In an internal memo to staff, obtained by Semafor’s Max Tani, Sibley announced the cuts.

“We have made the difficult decision to eliminate roles today across several departments including editorial, tech, sales, and TIME Studios,” Sibley wrote to staff. “We are immensely grateful for the contributions of these talented team members during their tenure at TIME.”

When I was a kid, Time Magazine was very highly respected and my parents would often have a copy of it on the coffee table.

But now it is dying just like the rest of the mainstream media.

Just look at what is happening to the largest newspaper in California.  The Los Angeles Times has decided to eliminate “slightly more than 20% of the newsroom”…

The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, facing what senior leadership described this week as a “financial crisis,” commenced a round of painful layoffs across the newsroom, a workforce reduction that is set to be one of the most severe in the newspaper’s 142-year history.

The cuts will impact at least 115 journalists, a person familiar with the matter told CNN, or slightly more than 20% of the newsroom. Some 94 of those cuts will be among unionized employees, union chief Matt Pearce said, meaning a quarter of the union will be laid off.

Should we be sad that the Los Angeles Times is imploding?

I don’t think so.

Elsewhere, Paramount plans to give the axe to hundreds of workers…

Amid speculation about its future, Paramount Global is proceeding with a new wave of staff reductions in February, sources tell Deadline. I hear the cuts will impact hundreds of employees across the entire company.

For the past several days, there has been chatter that Paramount layoffs of about 800 are imminent. It followed a WSJ report in December that the company was mulling the potential elimination of more than 1,000 jobs in early 2024 to rein in costs.

Paramount is the parent company of CBS, and so it is likely that the news division at CBS is about to get even smaller.

Of course the news division at NBC is shrinking as well…

NBC News has laid off several dozen staffers, the latest of dozens of companies to start off the new year with bad news for its employees, USA TODAY confirmed Friday.

A source familiar with the plans said that employees were given a 60-day notice and will get severance packages and outplacement.

Sports journalism has also fallen on hard times.

At this point, it appears that the future of Sports Illustrated is very much in doubt and many of the magazine’s employees will now be searching for new employment…

The future of iconic magazine Sports Illustrated looked dire Friday after the publisher announced mass layoffs.

The Arena Group — which had been roiled by reports that the fabled magazine published AI-generated content — admitted to failing to make a $3.75 million quarterly licensing payment to Authentic Brands Group due this week.

As a result, the publicly-traded Arena announced Thursday it would make a “significant reduction” in its workforce of more than 100 journalists.

All of the stories that I just shared with you have happened within the last seven days.

It is crazy how rapidly things are moving now.

Of course many other industries are shedding workers too.  Earlier today, we learned that SolarEdge will be laying off approximately 16 percent of its workforce…

SolarEdge, a company that makes inverters for solar panels, will shed about 16% of its workers.

The company said Sunday roughly 900 people will lose their jobs in a restructuring plan “designed to reduce operating expenses and align its cost structure to current market dynamics.” It called industry conditions “challenging” in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

And Vroom Automotive will be laying off “most of its employees” as it permanently shuts down its used vehicle operations…

In an SEC filing and an announcement on its website Monday evening, Vroom Automotive said that it shut down as used vehicle dealer after Ally suspended its credit line. Vroom will no longer retail any of its vehicles. It will sell its inventory on the wholesale market. It will lay off most of its employees. It will only keep its subprime auto-lending platform United Auto Credit (UACC), and its used-vehicle listing platform CarStory, both of whose clients are other used-vehicle dealers.

For many more layoff announcements, please see my previous article entitled “Alert! Here Is A List Of 20 Large Companies That Have Just Decided To Conduct Mass Layoffs”.

It appears that the U.S. economy has reached a critical tipping point.  The economic outlook for 2024 is not good at all, and employers are racing to cut payrolls in anticipation of what is coming.

If you currently have a good job that you value, hold on to it as tightly as you can.

Because a lot more layoffs are on the way, and you don’t want to be without a chair when the music stops playing.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  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 remember the supply chain problems that we experienced during the darkest days of the COVID pandemic?  Well, now we are being warned that the crisis in the Red Sea could actually disrupt global supply chains to an even greater degree.  Needless to say, this comes at a really bad time because the U.S. economy has really been struggling lately.  The U.S. and the U.K. are desperate to resolve this crisis, and so they have been bombing the living daylights out of the Houthis in Yemen.  We haven’t seen anything quite like this from the U.S. military since the early days of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  On Monday, there was yet another round of air and missile strikes…

The U.S. and U.K. conducted large-scale air and missile strikes on Houthi rebel facilities across Yemen on Monday, according to a joint statement, stepping up operations against the militant group as it vows to continue attacking ships in the Red Sea.

The U.S. and U.K. militaries, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, hit eight Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the Houthis’ continued attacks, according to a joint statement from the countries involved. The precision strikes were “intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of innocent mariners,” the statement said.

Unfortunately, so far the strikes don’t seem to be doing much good.

The Houthis continue to attack commercial vessels in the Red Sea, and this is greatly frustrating U.S. officials.

When asked about the air and missile strikes, Joe Biden admitted that they are not working but he says that they will continue anyway…

President Joe Biden and his top aides have repeatedly said strikes on Houthi targets alone won’t stop the Iran-backed militants from threatening commercial ships in the Middle East.

When asked by a reporter last week if the airstrikes were working, Biden responded “Well, when you say ‘working,’ are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”

In addition to air and missile strikes, will we soon see additional measures?

It is being reported that the Biden administration is now planning a “sustained military campaign” against the Houthis…

Over the weekend US officials told The Washington Post that the Biden administration is planning for a “sustained military campaign” against the Iran-backed Yemeni rebels, even after some seven rounds of major strikes have done nothing to deter or degrade their drone and missile attacks. Notably, US leaders have still refused at this point refused to use the word “war” in relation to the large-scale US coalition attacks on Houthis as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian.

That definitely sounds like a war to me, and Congress has not approved it.

But of course our federal government has not been following the Constitution for a very long time.

So what all of this means is that the crisis in the Red Sea is going to persist for the foreseeable future.  At this point, shipping giant Maersk is warning their customers that there will be “significant disruption to the global network”…

The situation around the Red Sea / Gulf of Aden continues to be closely monitored by our teams. In the interest of safety for our vessels, crew and customers’ cargo, all vessels previously due to transit the area have been diverted south around the Cape of Good Hope for the foreseeable future.

While we hope for a sustainable resolution in the near-future and do all we can to contribute towards it, we do encourage customers to prepare for complications in the area to persist and for there to be significant disruption to the global network. Our teams are on hand to support with your planning, should you need any assistance.

And at the World Economic Forum’s yearly gathering the CEO of Maersk actually admitted that we could see “disruptions of the supply chain for a few months at least”…

Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday that global shipping networks will be disrupted for at least a few months:

“So for us this will mean longer transit times and probably disruptions of the supply chain for a few months at least, hopefully shorter, but it could also be longer because it’s so unpredictable how this situation is actually developing.” 

This is very serious.

There will be delays and there will be shortages.

Many commercial ships are now being routed all the way around the continent of Africa, and that can add approximately 3,500 nautical miles to each journey…

Steering clear of the Red Sea and taking the lengthy detour around the Cape of Good Hope, however, adds around 3,500 nautical miles (6,500km) and 10-12 days sailing time to each trip. This requires extra fuel (an additional $1m/£790,000’s worth according to some estimates), possibly finding alternative ports of call, adjustments to delivery timetables, and rising costs. But many companies are making that choice rather than risk attack by missiles and hijackers.

Container lines have been left scrambling to rent enough ships for the lengthened journeys their vessels must now take to avoid the Red Sea, and there are fears that the crisis could have widespread economic impacts, pushing up prices of goods and delaying deliveries of high-value products by weeks or perhaps even longer.

What a mess.

And it isn’t going away any time soon.

One firm that has analyzed the crisis in the Red Sea is claiming that it is already damaging global supply chains more than the COVID pandemic did…

A leading ocean supply chain advisory firm is warning that the disruptions to shipping from the Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea are already more damaging to the supply chain impact than the early Covid-19 pandemic.

Sea-Intelligence analyzed current vessel delays compared to delays over the last several years in a report for clients. The data shows that the longer transit around the Cape of Good Hope as ships divert from the Red Sea is already having a more significant impact on vessels available to pick up containers at ports than during the pandemic. This supply chain measure is known in the industry as “vessel capacity.”

The vessel capacity drop is the second largest in recent years, according to Alan Murphy, CEO of Sea-Intelligence. The only single event with a bigger impact than the Red Sea crisis was the “Ever Given,” the giant cargo ship which got stuck in the Suez Canal for six days during March 2021.

Supply chains in Europe and Asia are being hit harder than supply chains in North America.

In fact, some automakers in Europe have already announced that they are “temporarily halting production”…

Due to the ongoing attacks on Red Sea shipping, major automakers such as Tesla and Volvo Car have announced that they are temporarily halting production in Europe due to component shortages. This development underscores the direct impact of the Red Sea shipping disruptions on regional industrial operations.

Tesla officials said production of most vehicles at its Berlin plant will be suspended from January 29 to February 11. Tesla cited parts shortages resulting from ships being diverted through Africa’s southernmost point as the main reason.

The increased travel time has caused disruptions in the supply chain, and component delays have affected the production of electric cars assembled for the European market. This is just one case that was reported.

But even though Europe and Asia will experience more disruptions than we will, the truth is that the entire globe will eventually feel the pain.

And if the war in the Middle East goes to an entirely new level later this year, that will make things many times worse.

So I hope that you have been getting prepared for the shortages that are coming.

Even now, “tightening supplies” of pork have pushed prices up to extremely alarming levels…

Since mid-December, wholesale spot prices for boxed pork belly 200 pounds jumped from $80 to more than $133, or about a 66% increase on tightening supplies.

The environment for pork producers was challenging in 2023, with many losing, on average, $32 per head. This trend is expected to continue this year.

Last month, Smithfield Foods, the world’s pork processor, revealed it would shutter 26 of its contracted hog operations across Utah.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Supplies of so many things are going to be getting tight in the months ahead.

Needless to say, our society is not going to handle any major economic disruptions very well.

Poverty, homelessness and hunger are all rapidly growing, and our cities are absolutely packed with vast hordes of extremely desperate people.

We now live in an environment where many of these extremely desperate people will get violent at the slightest provocation…

A man urinating on a parked car in Manhattan slashed the throat of a passerby who told him to stop, leaving the victim clinging to life, police said Monday.

The 66-year-old victim and two other passersby complained when they saw the stranger urinating on a car parked on E. 14th St. near First Ave. in the East Village about 5:05 p.m. Sunday, cops said.

That sparked an argument, during which the victim was slashed in the neck, causing what police described as a “severe laceration.”

If things are this bad now, what will conditions be like during the tremendous chaos that is ahead of us?

Everything that we have been through since the early portion of 2020 has just been a preview of coming attractions.

We are still only in the very early chapters of this “perfect storm”, but most people out there still believe that things will “return to normal” eventually.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  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.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  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.

Once upon a time, America’s cities were beautiful, clean and the envy of the entire world.  But now the rest of the world is literally laughing at how badly they have degenerated.  A stunning nationwide crime wave has combined with the greatest homelessness crisis in modern U.S. history, the greatest drug crisis in modern U.S. history, and the greatest migration crisis in modern U.S. history to produce absolutely deplorable conditions in the streets of our largest cities.  For example, if you find a plastic cup on the ground in New York City, you may want to carefully examine what is inside before you decide to pick it up.  The following comes from the New York Post…

“There was a cup of what I thought was somebody’s discarded hot chocolate that turned out to be not hot chocolate,” said street cleaner John Cashvan.

“On warmer days, it can smell like a toilet over here — and not a well kept-toilet.”

In the past week, locals and volunteers said they’ve spotted cups filled with urine around the park’s entrance near the former school, along with human-sized poop in tree beds and between parked cars.

“Most of them want to pee in plastic cups rather than the ground, and they leave them on people’s door steps,” said longtime resident Garrett Rosso, 64, who said he spotted a dozen cups filled with urine.

One migrant had no problem taking an al fresco whiz on a tree Wednesday afternoon as The Post surveyed the stomach-churning scene.

Authorities in the Big Apple have run out of places to put all of the people that have come flooding into the city.

And more are arriving with each passing day.

Of course the same things could be said about Los Angeles.

At this point things are so bad that even the Hollywood Walk of Fame “has become overrun with homelessness and violent crime”…

The Hollywood Walk of Fame has become overrun with homelessness and violent crime, leaving tourists and locals feeling unsafe.

The iconic LA landmark, once the epitome of glitz and glamour, is disappointing visitors with its dirty sidewalks and repulsing locals who have experienced violent attacks.

Decades ago, the streets of Los Angeles were very safe and very clean.

But now if you wander the streets of Los Angeles by yourself you are literally putting your life at risk…

One local, Amy Michele, said she was punched in the face when running errands on the boulevard.

‘I’ve seen people with machetes and knives just slicing the air in front of them hoping to get someone who passes by,’ she said in a TikTok video warning others.

‘I’ve seen people sell drugs out of the back of a truck.

‘I’ve witnessed a hostage situation at one of the apartment complexes on Hollywood Boulevard.

‘I’ve been punched in the back of the head by a homeless person’ she added.

At this stage, virtually the entire city is becoming just like Skid Row.

Los Angeles is an extremely dirty city, and all of that filth has spawned a massive explosion in the rat population.

But Los Angeles is not “the rattiest city” in America.  For the ninth year in a row, Chicago has taken that title…

Orkin Pest Control named Chicago the Rattiest City for the ninth year in a row. Los Angeles follows Chicago in second and New York City finishes in third place.

More than 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, and so what is happening to our cities really reflects what is happening to the country as a whole.

In Oakland, auto theft has increased almost 50 percent during the past year, and there is one square mile near the airport that has become world famous for how lawless it is.

In particular, there are three gas stations where criminals steal from rental vehicles dozens of times a day, and the police seem powerless to do anything about it…

Less than a mile away from the Chevron, a Shell gas station on Hegenberger Road is also plagued by thefts. Around five hundred yards from the Shell, another Chevron is another hotspot. And next to that, the parking lot of an In-N-Out Burger is hit daily.

Police say the criminals, who operate in well-organized groups, follow the same playbook: a spotter keeps watch for targets, usually rentals headed to or from the airport, as they pull up at the gas stations.

They then alert accomplices, who pull up in a vehicle when the targets start to pump fuel. Often, they smash a rear window or pop the trunk of unlocked vehicles before making off with luggage and valuables. The thefts take just seconds.

The spike has earned the Shell the nickname ‘America’s most dangerous gas station’. The two Chevron sites are also top contenders for the unwanted title.

There are police that patrol the area, but they are restricted from chasing non-violent criminals, and so the thieves know that they will be able to get away if they flee rapidly…

But the officer, who’s picked up an overtime shift to keep watch and act as a deterrent, wasn’t just referring to the theft epidemic when he made the strikingly blunt assessment.

He was referring, in his words, to the ‘restrictive’ policies passed by city and state lawmakers which mean police officers can’t even pursue the thieves because smash-and-grab theft is a ‘nonviolent crime’.

‘We can’t do a car chase on nonviolent crime,’ he told DailyMail.com from the seat of his police cruiser. ‘I can go behind the cars and try and turn on my lights, but why would they stop?’

I would strongly advise not visiting Oakland.

But of course most of our other major cities are not much better.

In Denver, so many migrants have been pouring into the city that the city’s primary public hospital is on the verge of financial collapse…

The migrant crisis in Denver has plunged the city’s main public hospital deep into the red after patients received $136 million in treatment they couldn’t pay for.

Denver Health lost $2 million in 2022 – but that was substantially-reduced by a $20 million cash injection from the state.

In 2022, the hospital system lost $35 million, with bosses warning of ‘dire consequences’ for the hospital if 2024 is as bad as the previous two.

Our cities were already filled with hordes of extremely desperate people, but over the past few years our politicians have allowed millions more to enter this country.

Now we live in a permanent atmosphere of lawlessness, and our society is absolutely teeming with predators.

Earlier this month, I was absolutely horrified to read about what seven of those predators did to two children at a mall in Houston, Texas…

Very few things shock me in this age of social media extremism, live-streamed terror and international permacrisis.

But the headline last week truly forced the bile to rise in my throat:

Seven Texas men filmed themselves gang-raping two toddlers in a bathroom of Houston’s Galleria Mall.

Sickening, indescribable evil.

A 29-year-old mall worker Arthur Hector Fernandez was identified as the suspected ‘ringleader’ and arrested in December, charged with assault. His accomplices are yet to be identified.

This is what America has become.

That story actually didn’t stay in the news cycle for very long at all, because this sort of thing has become very common in our society.

The truth is that the fabric of our culture really is coming apart at the seams all around us and we really are on the brink of societal collapse.

I believe that 2024 will be the most chaotic year that any of us have ever seen, and I believe that the years beyond 2024 will be even more chaotic.

If we had made much different choices as a society, we could have gotten much different results.

But now our cities are being turned into open sewers, and our entire nation is becoming a little bit more lawless with each passing day.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  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.  You can connect with Michael on social media on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  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.

How in the world can anybody possibly claim that the U.S. economy is in good shape?  Honestly, I don’t see how anyone can make a rational argument that this is the case.  Actually, the only people that seem to be trying to claim that the U.S. economy is heading in the right direction are those in the upper tiers of the economic food chain.  At this stage, those in the lower tiers of the economic food chain are very well aware of how much they are suffering.  Poverty, homelessness and hunger are rapidly growing all over America right now.  But if you still have plenty of money and those around you still have plenty of money, you may be wondering what all of the fuss is about.  If you are one of those people, hopefully this article will be a wake up call for you.

Let’s start with the housing market.  On Friday, we learned that sales of previously owned homes in December 2023 were 6.2 percent lower than they were in December 2022…

Sales of previously owned homes fell 1% in December compared with November to 3.78 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales were 6.2% lower than in December 2022, marking the lowest level since August 2010.

For 2023 as a whole, sales of previously owned homes were the lowest that we have seen in 28 years…

Home sales fell to their lowest level in 28 years in 2023 as soaring mortgage rates and red-hot prices dampened buyer demand.

Figures from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) show sales of existing properties slid 19 percent last year to 4.09 million – their lowest level since 1995.

Can anyone out there come up with a way to put a positive spin on those numbers?

I certainly can’t.

Meanwhile, 2023 was a year when Americans got further behind on their credit card bills “in 49 of the 50 states”…

The number of people falling behind on their credit card bills increased in 49 of the 50 states last year, a sobering new report reveals.

As inflation took its toll on household budgets, Americans in their millions became delinquent on credit card debt – with some states much more badly affected than others.

According to analysis by WalletHub, the number of borrowers struggling to keep on track of their credit card bills has risen the fastest in Oregon. Between September 2022 and September 2023, delinquencies in the state soared by 51 percent.

Delinquency rates on all forms of credit have been steadily rising from coast to coast.

This will be an important trend to watch in 2024.

Meanwhile, large layoff announcements continue to pile up at a very frightening pace.

For example, Macy’s just announced that it will be laying off a total of 2,350 workers…

Department store chain Macy’s is planning to lay off about 13% of its corporate staff and close five stores in an effort to trim costs and redirect spending to improve the customer experience.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news on Thursday, adding that the job cuts will total about 2,350 positions, or about 3.5% of Macy’s overall workforce excluding seasonal hires.

And Wayfair is telling us that somewhere around 1,650 of their workers will soon be hitting the bricks…

Wayfair is cutting 13% of its global workforce as the digital home goods retailer continues its efforts to trim down its structure, cut out layers of management and reduce costs after going “overboard” with corporate hiring during the Covid pandemic, it announced Friday.

The company plans to lay off around 1,650 employees, including 19% of its corporate team, with a focus on people in management and leadership positions, Wayfair said.

I apologize in advance if there are some major layoff announcements that I miss in the days ahead.

We are witnessing such a large tsunami of layoffs now that it is virtually impossible to keep up with them all.

On the west coast, employees of the Los Angeles Times are extremely upset about the “massive” layoffs that are reportedly coming…

With “massive” and “significant” layoffs coming soon, “the L.A. Times Guild announced a one-day walkout from both its L.A. and Washington D.C. offices this Friday,” reports TheWrap.

Staffers are “abstaining from work for the entire day while also staging a rally. It’s the first union work stoppage in the newsroom’s history, according to the union, dating back to when it started printing in 1881.”

This act of suicide is called the “Rally to Save Local Journalism” and will take place Friday at noon.

And earlier today I was stunned to learn that the entire staff of Sports Illustrated is being terminated…

Following through on a warning earlier this month, Authentic Brands Group has revoked Sports Illustrated‘s license to publish due to a missed payment.

As a result of the move, the entire staff of the 70-year-old print and online publication was notified on Friday that their jobs were being eliminated.

“We appreciate the work and efforts of everyone who has contributed to the SI brand and business,” SI operator The Arena Group wrote in a memo to employees that set off outrage on social media.

Once upon a time, Sports Illustrated was a truly great magazine.

Sadly, those days are long gone.

There is so much bad news these days.

At this point the economic outlook is so troubling that even Google is getting ready to conduct yet another round of layoffs…

Google has laid off over a thousand employees across various departments since January 10th. CEO Sundar Pichai’s message is to brace for more cuts.

“We have ambitious goals and will be investing in our big priorities this year,” Pichai told all Google employees on Wednesday in an internal memo that was shared with me. “The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices.”

So far, those “tough choices” have included layoffs and reorganizations in Google’s hardware, ad sales, search, shopping, maps, policy, core engineering, and YouTube teams.

Of course what I have shared with you above is just a small sampling of what is really going on out there.  For many more recent layoff announcements, please see my previous article entitled “Alert! Here Is A List Of 20 Large Companies That Have Just Decided To Conduct Mass Layoffs”.

Before I end this article, I wanted to update all of you on the horrifying stock market crash in China.

Zero Hedge is reporting that Chinese stocks just experienced their “worst weekly loss since March 2023″…

Amid ‘snowball derivative liquidations‘, China’s stock market is falling faster than its population.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index crashed 6.5% this week – its worst weekly loss since March 2023 with Wednesday seeing the biggest daily loss since Oct 2022 as the index plummeted to key support levels around the Oct 2022 lows…

The phrase “snowball derivative liquidations” really got my attention, and a lot of you know why.

I have been warning about the derivatives bubble in my books for over a decade.

Derivatives are going to become a very hot topic the closer we get to a full-blown implosion of the global financial system.

We are in far more trouble than most people realize.

2024 is going to be such a tumultuous year, but many of the “experts” will continue to insist that everything is “just fine” for as long as they can.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s highly controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  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.  You can connect with Michael on social media on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  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.

Are you convinced that we are headed for societal collapse?  If so, you are definitely not alone.  Survey after survey has shown that faith in all of our major institutions is dropping, and there is a growing consensus that very challenging times are ahead of us.  Here in 2024, we will be facing the most chaotic election season in our entire history, multiple wars are erupting all over the planet, economic problems are rapidly growing, destructive natural disasters are becoming more frequent, global authorities are warning us to brace ourselves for the next pandemic, and our cities are being absolutely overwhelmed by endless waves of new migrants.  The stage is set for a societal implosion of epic proportions, and many Americans are feverishly preparing for a coming collapse that they believe is inevitable.

For a long time, many people had faith that the government would be able to keep society stable, but now that has changed.  In fact, one recent survey discovered that a whopping 71.2 percent of all Americans “have no faith in the U.S. government to save them or prevent a doomsday event”…

According to a survey of 6,200 Americans conducted by BonusFinder.com, 71.2 percent of Americans say they have no faith in the U.S. government to save them or prevent a doomsday event. Even more unnerving, many respondents believe Doomsday could come within the next year.

If you actually believe that the government will be there to rescue you when things really start hitting the fan, you are just being delusional.

If it was equally divided up among the entire population, the emergency supplies that the government has on hand would last less than a day.

Many Americans are realizing that they will be forced to rely on themselves as society collapses, and so an increasing percentage of the population is spending significant money on emergency preparedness…

Last April, the financial-services firm Finder found that the number of Americans who said they’d recently spent money on emergency preparedness jumped from 20% in 2020 to 29% in 2023. They spent an average of $150 on items such as nonperishable food, medical supplies, and cases of water. Today you can’t turn on a streaming platform without catching recommendations for popular survivalist reality shows such as “Alone” or “Naked and Afraid,” and on social media, homesteading and disaster-prepping influencers have amassed millions of followers across various platforms.

Disaster preparedness is on the rise, in large part, because disasters are as well: from the supply-chain shortages caused by COVID-19 lockdowns to the climate crisis, from wars in Ukraine and Gaza to tech-driven loneliness, from runaway disinformation to intractable political polarization. More people are asking: Am I better off being hyperdependent on the global industrial economy? Would it be safer to grow my own food, store my own water, and not depend on complex systems I don’t understand?

I am glad that more people are waking up and getting prepared.

But spending a couple hundred dollars on some emergency preparedness items simply is not going to be enough to survive what is eventually coming.

In Missouri, one woman named Rowan MacKenzie has literally spent $90,000 to prepare her family for what she believes is ahead of us…

A woman who has built a doomsday bunker says the door will remain closed to anyone outside her home, including family.

Rowan MacKenzie, from Missouri, who became a social media phenomenon after revealing she’s been prepping her home for 12 years, believes it’s necessary to prepare for the end of the world.

She previously hit the headlines after revealing she spent over $90,000 on her hidden bunker stockpile.

The 38-year-old began stocking up her cupboards 13 years ago and initially, bought lifelong essentials, such as beans and rice, which she taught herself to preserve through trial and error.

Do you agree with her approach?

When things get really bad, will you shut your door to those that are requesting help?

Of course there are many that will just try to take whatever they need.  Crime rates are already spiking all over the nation, and violent predators are seemingly everywhere.  Earlier this week, Zero Hedge posted an excellent article about the vast hordes of psychopaths that are coming out of the woodwork these days…

Discussions on collapse often turn to signs and signals – The economy, politics and social tensions have become increasingly unstable for many years now, and much like adding more and more weight to a man standing on a frozen lake, eventually the ice is going to break. The question is, how do we know when that moment will be?

As cultural systems begins to dissolve due to political clashes and economic decline the real evil tends to slither out of the woodwork. It happens slowly at first, then all at once. A sure sign of accelerating collapse is the growing prevalence of psychopaths and psychopathic behavior in the open.

The US appears to have entered the middle stages of such a collapse with many sociopaths and psychopaths beginning to feel that they might be able to act out their worst impulses without consequences. They are beginning to test the waters to see what they can get away with.

Those paragraphs really resonated with me, because they are so true.

I am sure that you have noticed the same thing.  Evil is literally growing all around us, and the inmates are taking over the asylum.

And I am entirely convinced that 2024 is going to be a historic turning point.

Are you ready for the tremendous chaos that is coming?

If you have not figured out where you want to be located during the chaotic years that are ahead, that is the first thing that you need to do.

Once you have settled on a location, then you need to store up enough food and supplies for yourself and for everyone that will be depending upon you for as long as you plan to stay alive.

Of course you will also need to determine how you will protect all of your food and supplies as well.

This is not a game.

The collapse of society really is coming, and most of the population will find themselves completely and utterly unprepared when it finally happens.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s highly controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  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.  You can connect with Michael on social media on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  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.

How does it feel to have the largest government that the planet has ever seen?  When I was growing up, I was taught that we had a capitalist system and that we had a limited federal government.  Of course neither of those things has been true for a very long time.  Today, the United States has the biggest government in the history of the world, and it gets even bigger with each passing year.  Running that gigantic government requires more money than we actually have, and so we are going into staggering amounts of debt.  But there is no way that our politicians will ever agree to reduce the size of the federal government to an appropriate size.  So we are stuck with this system until the day when it finally collapses.

Let me give you some numbers that illustrate what I am talking about.

-Approximately 3 million people work directly for the federal government.

-The federal government spent 6.13 trillion dollars in 2023.  That figure is larger than the GDP of every nation on the entire planet except for the U.S. and China.

-More than 70 million Americans are on Social Security.

-More than 65 million Americans are on Medicare.

-More than 81 million Americans are on Medicaid.

-More than 41 million Americans are on food stamps.

Of course there are many more programs that hand out money to the population on a regular basis.

We have reached a stage where most U.S. households are at least partially dependent on the federal government.

We very much prefer not to call ourselves “socialists”, but that is precisely what we are.  Sadly, if we attempted to go back to the way things were 100 years ago, most Americans would not know how to survive.

The massively bloated federal government that so many of us depend upon constantly consumes enormous mountains of money.

We cannot provide enough money to keep it going, and so the federal government has been piling up insane amounts of debt.

Since 1980, the size of the U.S. national debt has gone from 1 trillion dollars to 34 trillion dollars.

The combined wealth of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Ken Griffin, Mark Cuban, Ray Dalio and George Soros would not be enough to even pay the interest on our national debt for a single year…

The combined net worth of the most prominent billionaires in the United States would not be enough to pay a single year’s interest payment on America’s ballooning national debt, which currently stands at an astonishing $34 trillion.

The combined net worth of some of America’s most prominent billionaires, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Ken Griffin, Mark Cuban, Ray Dalio, and George Soros, adds up to approximately $726 billion according to data compiled by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Meanwhile, the net interest on our national debt is currently at $730.8 billion, dwarfing the sum for previous years.

We are now at a point where the national debt has become a major national crisis, and the percentage of Americans that believe that our politicians should do something about this has been going up…

A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 57% of Americans said reducing the budget deficit should be a top priority for the president and Congress, up from 45% the year prior.

But the politicians in Washington don’t have the stomach to do anything about the wild spending.

They know that if we tried to live within our means, it would instantly plunge the U.S. economy into a horrifying economic depression.

And voters wouldn’t like that at all.

So instead they are just going to try to keep the party going for as long as they can.

In fact, the size of the federal deficit in December was 52 percent larger than for the same month a year earlier…

The U.S. federal government posted a December deficit of $129 billion, up $44 billion or 52% from a year earlier as outlays rose while receipts fell from December 2022 levels that were swelled by pandemic-deferred tax payments, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday.

The Treasury said that outlays for December rose 3% to $559 billion, a December record, partly as a result of higher Social Security outlays and interest on the public debt. Receipts for the month fell 6% to $429 billion.

America’s “empire of money” really has reached the endgame.

Our debt spiral is out of control, our currency is rapidly losing value, and everyone can see that our entire system will inevitably collapse.

But for the moment, the talking heads on television continue to tell everyone that our leaders know exactly what they are doing, and millions of people actually believe that nonsense.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  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, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Is the financial chaos that is currently happening in China a harbinger of things to come here in the United States?  Today, the global economy is more interconnected than ever before, and economic warning signs have been popping up all over the planet in recent weeks.  Of course the U.S. has certainly not been an exception.  Employers are throwing workers out into the streets in very large numbers, and we have reached a point where hunger, poverty and homelessness are all growing at extremely alarming rates.  The U.S. economy has clearly entered a very troubled period, but for the moment U.S. stock prices are still stable.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Chinese stocks.  In fact, Newsweek says that China’s stock market “appears to be in free fall now”…

After a rocky couple of years for the Chinese economy, the country’s stock market appears to be in free fall now, with authorities asking institutional investors not to sell stocks in an attempt to stabilize share prices as foreigners are pulling out.

Compared to 12 months ago, the FTSE China 50 index is down almost 30 percent…

The FTSE China 50 index—a real-time tradable index comprising 50 of the country’s largest and most liquid stocks—has plunged by 1.77 percent between Monday and Tuesday as part of a long-term large decline over the past six months. Compared to one year ago, the index is down by 29.24 percent.

China’s market regulators have tried to stabilize the market by imposing restrictions that stop some investors from being net sellers of equities on certain days. This strategy—with authorities offering what’s known as “window guidance” in an attempt to help the country’s stock market bounce back—was first introduced in October.

Wow.

Nearly a third of the entire value of the FTSE China 50 index has already been wiped out.

Needless to say, we have not seen a similar crash in the U.S. yet.

But many believe that one is coming.

On Tuesday, the Dow was down 231 points, but that is nothing to get excited about.

It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see more down days in the near future, because stock prices are way too high right now.

In fact, one expert just told CNBC that the market “looks overvalued by about 9% to 10%”…

The market looks overvalued by about 9% to 10%, according to Aswath Damodaran.

“The expectation game has turned against the market,” the professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Tuesday.

A stock market decline of 10 percent certainly wouldn’t be the end of the world.

But what if the conflict in the Middle East evolves into a major regional war and the U.S. economy plunges into a very deep recession?

What would that do to stock prices?

Without a doubt, the U.S. economy is already heading in the wrong direction.  On Tuesday, we learned that the Empire State manufacturing survey for the month of January was absolutely abysmal…

Well, no one saw that coming…

The New York Fed’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey for January crashed from -14.5 to -43.7 – the worst print in the survey’s history outside of the COVID lockdowns…

The -43.7 print was a stunning 10 standard deviations below expectations of a bounce to -5.0…

Under the hood, it was a bloodbath. New orders slumped more than 38 points to minus 49.4, the weakest since April 2020, while shipments dropped by the most since August. Worse still, the index of prices paid for materials increased to a three-month high.

Take a moment to read that again.

It isn’t every day that we see a 10 standard deviation miss.

The truth is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than we are being told.

At this stage, things are so bad that even Pixar is conducting mass layoffs…

Disney-owned animation studio Pixar is poised to undergo layoffs this year, TechCrunch has learned and the company confirmed. While sources at the company said the layoffs would be significant and as high as 20% — or reductions that would see Pixar’s team of 1,300 dropped to less than 1,000 over the coming months — Pixar says those numbers are too high. Rather, the studio said the number of impacted employees is still being determined due to factors like production schedules and staffing for future greenlit films.

For many more examples of the mass layoffs that are happening all over America, please see the article that I posted yesterday.

The private sector has been hemorrhaging full-time jobs, but government hiring has helped to mitigate the damage.

Of course the level of government hiring that we have been witnessing is simply not sustainable.  The federal government, state governments and local governments are all drowning in debt, and so belts will need to tighten at some point.

If you can believe it, the federal government actually ran a 129 billion dollar deficit during the month of December alone…

The U.S. federal government posted a December deficit of $129 billion, up $44 billion or 52% from a year earlier as outlays rose while receipts fell from December 2022 levels that were swelled by pandemic-deferred tax payments, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday.

The Treasury said that outlays for December rose 3% to $559 billion, a December record, partly as a result of higher Social Security outlays and interest on the public debt. Receipts for the month fell 6% to $429 billion.

What we are witnessing is insane.

129 billion dollars in a single month is madness.

But they are just going to keep borrowing and spending until everything completely crashes.

We really are in the endgame.

Our leaders are going to try to keep the party going for as long as they possibly can, but it won’t be too long before the lights are finally turned off for good.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  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, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.