Money

Janet Yellen Just Poured Lighter Fluid On Every Small Bank In America

What in the world was she thinking?  When a bailout was hastily arranged for uninsured depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the implication was that the same thing would be done for uninsured depositors at any other banks that failed.  But now U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is telling us that is not actually what will happen.  She just admitted that depositors at a failed bank will only be protected if officials determine that a “failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences”.  So that means that depositors at big banks are likely to be protected and that depositors at small banks are much less likely to be protected.  In other words, Janet Yellen just poured lighter fluid on every small bank in America.

Why would anyone keep more than $250,000 in a small bank at this point when there is a very real risk of losing all of the uninsured money if the bank suddenly fails?

Wealthy people are not stupid.  They are going to move billions of dollars from small banks to large banks in the days ahead, and that is going to cause a tsunami of stress on those small banks.

Does Janet Yellen even understand what she just did?

During congressional testimony on Friday, Senator James Lankford asked Yellen the sort of question that many of us have been hoping that someone would ask…

Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma pressed Yellen about how widely the uninsured deposit backstops will apply across the banking industry.

“Will the deposits in every community bank in Oklahoma, regardless of their size, be fully insured now?” asked Lankford. “Will they get the same treatment that SVB just got, or Signature Bank just got?”

Incredibly, Yellen came right out and admitted that uninsured deposits will only be protected under certain circumstances…

Yellen acknowledged they would not.

Uninsured deposits, she said, would only be covered in the event that a “failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences.”

If your bank fails in the days ahead, bureaucrats in Washington will get together and take a vote to determine if the uninsured depositors at your bank are important enough to protect or not.

Needless to say, that means that wealthy individuals with very large balances at very small banks are at great risk.

Senator Lankford clearly understood that Yellen and her fellow bureaucrats have now created a two-tier banking system…

“I’m concerned you’re … encouraging anyone who has a large deposit at a community bank to say, ‘we’re not going to make you whole, but if you go to one of our preferred banks, we will make you whole.’”

If you have not seen the exchange between Lankford and Yellen yet, you can view it here…

We are in so much trouble.

Prior to Yellen’s testimony, banks were already being forced to rely on the discount window at the fastest pace that we have ever seen…

Data published by the Fed showed $152.85 billion in borrowing from the discount window — the traditional liquidity backstop for banks — in the week ended March 15, a record high, up from $4.58 billion the previous week. The prior all-time high was $111 billion reached during the 2008 financial crisis.

The data also showed $11.9 billion in borrowing from the Fed’s new emergency backstop known as the Bank Term Funding Program, which was launched Sunday.

But now this stampede threatens to evolve into an avalanche.

There are more than 4,000 banks in the United States right now, but if our leaders are determined to only protect the biggest institutions we could ultimately see hundreds of them fail.

Unless something changes, I cannot recommend keeping more than $250,000 in any small or mid-size bank.

Of course the vast majority of us do not have to worry about such things, but those that do have lots of money are paying very close attention to what is happening.

In fact, on Friday investors once again pulled lots and lots of money out of banking stocks…

Stocks fell Friday as investors pulled back from positions in First Republic and other bank shares amid lingering concerns over the state of the U.S. banking sector.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384.57 points, or 1.19%, to close at 31,861.98 points. The S&P 500 slid 1.1% to end at 3,916.64 points, while the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.74% to 11,630.51 points.

First Republic slid around 33% to end the week down nearly 72%.

I had hoped that the banking panic would settle down a little bit after the emergency measures that were instituted.

But now there is a great risk that the panic could escalate significantly.

Many are warning that this crisis could eventually grow to be even worse than the last financial crisis.  For example, Dave Kranzler believes that what we are facing “will be 2008 x five unless the Fed and the other big Central Banks print enough money to monetize the fraud in the banking system”…

I believe what is starting to unfold will be 2008 x five unless the Fed and the other big Central Banks print enough money to monetize the fraud in the banking system. But if the Fed takes that kind of action, the dollar will likely collapse. It may take bigger blow-ups for the Fed to act. In which case, I am confident that Blackrock (BLK), Citigroup (C) and Goldman Sachs (GS), among several others, are at risk.

You may not have any sympathy for the banks.

But a healthy banking system is absolutely critical for our economy as a whole.

For a moment, just imagine what our system would look like if nobody could get a mortgage, an auto loan or a credit card.

Relatively few people pay with cash or checks these days, and that is especially true for major purchases.

If banks start failing, the flow of credit will start drying up, and we will plunge into a full-blown economic nightmare.

So you better hope that our leaders can find a way to prop up our rapidly failing system.

Because economic conditions are already bad enough.  In fact, earlier today we learned that leading economic indicators have now fallen for 11 months in a row.

We are already in the midst of a substantial economic downturn, but if banks start collapsing left and right we will soon find ourselves in an economic horror show.

So I don’t know why Janet Yellen did what she just did.

It is madness.

She just put a target on every single small bank in America, and so now uninsured deposits will likely get pulled out of those banks at a rate that is absolutely breathtaking.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six 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 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.

The Big Banks Have Bailed Out First Republic, But Who Is Going To Bail Out The Big Banks When They Start Failing?

Every single day there are more twists and turns to this new banking panic.  In fact, we just learned that the big banks have gotten together to save First Republic.  That is good news, because a collapse of First Republic would have been a major catastrophe.  But First Republic is just one in a very long list of banks that are in very serious jeopardy.  For months, I relentlessly warned that our financial system could not handle higher interest rates.  It was inevitable that financial institutions would start to break, and that is precisely what has happened.    We are in far more trouble than most people realize, and we are still only in the very early chapters of this crisis.

Initially, there were rumors that a buyer was being sought for First Republic, but instead the “too big to fail” banks agreed on a plan to deposit a total of 30 billion dollars into the troubled institution…

A group of financial institutions has agreed to deposit $30 billion in First Republic Bank in what’s meant to be a sign of confidence in the banking system, the banks announced Thursday afternoon.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase will contribute about $5 billion apiece, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will deposit around $2.5 billion, the banks said in a news release. Truist, PNC, U.S. Bancorp, State Street and Bank of New York Mellon will deposit about $1 billion each.

They have all agreed to keep that money in First Republic for at least 120 days, and you can read the joint press release that they issued right here.

Needless to say, executives at First Republic are greatly relieved.  So much money had been pulled out of the bank in recent days, and at one point on Thursday the stock was selling for less than 20 dollars a share…

First Republic’s stock, which closed at $115 per share on March 8, traded below $20 at one point Thursday. The stock was halted repeatedly during the session and rose to $40 per share at one point, up more than 20% on the day.

Did insiders at First Republic know that this was coming?

It is being reported that top executives have sold off a staggering number of shares since the beginning of 2023…

First Republic Bank executives quietly sold nearly $12 million worth of its stock in just the past three months, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Executive Chairman James Herbert II sold the most of any of the other insiders, off-loading a whopping $4.5 million worth of shares since the start of the year.

In all, four of the struggling bank’s top executives sold $11.8 million worth of stock so far this year, at prices averaging just below $130 a share, the Journal found.

As I have always said, you only make money in the stock market if you get out in time.

And those guys got out in time.

So why was First Republic in so much trouble?

Well, just like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, they were sitting on enormous unrealized losses because the government bonds that they were holding had lost a ton of value thanks to rapidly rising interest rates.

Ultimately, those unrealized losses made a potential purchase of First Republic quite “unappealing” to the “too big to fail” banks…

In the great financial crisis, several struggling banks were bought for cheap by the larger firms in an effort to help calm the banking system. However, the unrealized losses on First Republic’s bond portfolio due to last year’s rapid rise in interest rates have made an acquisition unappealing, the sources said.

The markdown, which would involve the bank’s held-to-maturity bond portfolio, would amount to about a $25 billion hole on First Republic’s balance sheet, sources told Faber.

But the “too big to fail” banks are collectively sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars in unrealized losses themselves.

And they also have trillions of dollars worth of exposure to the derivatives bubble.

So who is going to bail them out when they start failing?

That is a question that we all need to start asking.

And as trouble increasingly shakes our banking sector, that is going to have enormous implications for our economy as a whole…

A fall in bank deposits will lead to less “high-powered” money, i.e. bank reserves, in the system, which means considerably tighter financial conditions than hitherto experienced. That would be the final straw for an economy that was already highly likely to enter a recession as soon as the summer.

In order for our current economic system to function effectively, we need stable banks, and we need people to have faith in those banks.

For the moment, most ordinary Americans say that they still have faith in the institutions where they are currently doing their banking…

Seven in 10 people surveyed said they still have faith in banks. That compares with two-thirds of customers who said they trust banks in February, the Morning Consult survey found.

But the same can’t be said for those at the top of the economic food chain.

In fact, many of them are now transferring vast sums out of their banks while they still can…

Wealthy investors and family offices are moving more of their money out of bank cash balances and into Treasurys, money markets and other short-term instruments, according to wealth advisors.

High net worth investors typically keep millions of dollars or even tens of millions in cash in their bank accounts to cover bills and unexpected expenses. Their balances are often way above the $250,000 FDIC insured limit. Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and potential cracks in the network of regional banks, wealth advisers say many clients are now asking fundamental questions about how and where to keep their cash.

This crisis is just getting started.

Every domino that falls is just going to make things even worse, and ultimately I believe that the entire system is headed for an unprecedented meltdown.

So I would encourage you to do whatever you need to do to protect yourself, because things are only going to get crazier from here.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six 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 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.

A “Too Big To Fail” Bank In Europe Is Literally On The Brink Of Collapse

Do you remember when wealthy people all over the world would stash their money in Swiss banks because there were so strong and so private?  Well, the second largest bank in Switzerland is literally on the brink of collapse.  As I discussed yesterday, Credit Suisse is a prime candidate to be one of the next dominoes to fall.  It has been on very shaky ground for a long time, and now the global banking panic has greatly accelerated the outflow of assets from the bank.  So why should you care if it fails?  Unlike Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, Credit Suisse is so critical to the worldwide banking system that it has officially been designated “as being systemically important by the international Financial Stability Board”…

Credit Suisse is one of just 30 global financial institutions designated as being systemically important by the international Financial Stability Board. In other words, it’s too big to fail.

A “too big to fail” bank has not collapsed in more than a decade.

If Credit Suisse does go under, the shockwaves will reverberate all over the planet.  Even though Credit Suisse is now smaller than it once was, it is still vastly larger than SVB…

Credit Suisse had total assets of $574 billion at the end of 2022 — down 37% from $912 billion at the end of 2020. Its asset-management arm supervises another $1.7 trillion in assets. Those numbers dwarf anything seen at Silicon Valley Bank, which had total assets of $212 billion.

So let us hope that Credit Suisse can be stabilized, because the alternative would be a complete and total nightmare.

Just like SVB, one of the reasons why Credit Suisse is in so much trouble is because it loaded up on government bonds that have now gone down in price dramatically…

The balance-sheet problems that took down SVB are probably even bigger at Credit Suisse. While SVB bought mortgage bonds at 1.5% yields, big European banks were forced to buy sovereign debt at sharply negative yields.

At this point, large European banks are holding mountains of such bonds, and that is truly an existential threat to the entire European banking system.

Unless emergency measures are implemented, a whole bunch of these institutions will inevitably implode.

As for Credit Suisse, the stock price hit yet another brand new all-time record low on Wednesday…

Shares of Credit Suisse on Wednesday plunged to a fresh all-time low for the second consecutive day after a top investor in the embattled Swiss bank said it would not be able to provide any more cash due to regulatory restrictions.

Trading in the bank’s plummeting stock was halted several times throughout the morning as it fell below 2 Swiss francs ($2.17) for the first time.

There had been hope that Saudi National Bank would come riding to the rescue, but those running Saudi National Bank have ruled that out…

The fresh losses came after the chairman of the bank’s top shareholder, Saudi National Bank, ruled out investing any more into the bank in a Bloomberg interview on Wednesday. The Saudi bank has just under a 10% stake in Credit Suisse, and crossing that threshold would subject it to new rules.

After that news broke, Credit Suisse default swaps soared to levels that are absolutely absurd…

The cost of insuring the bonds of Credit Suisse Group AG against default in the near-term is approaching a rarely-seen level that typically signals serious investor concerns.

The last recorded quote on pricing source CMAQ stood at 835.9 basis points on Tuesday. Traders were seeing prices of as high as 1,200 basis points on one-year senior credit-default swaps Wednesday morning, according to two people who saw the quotes and asked not to be named because they aren’t public.

If you can believe it, Credit Suisse default swaps are now “about 18 times the contract for rival Swiss bank UBS Group AG”…

The level recorded on Tuesday is about 18 times the contract for rival Swiss bank UBS Group AG, and about nine times the equivalent for Deutsche Bank AG.

That is nuts!

But that is where we are.

Things have gotten so bad at the bank that employees are reportedly “crying” and having “meltdowns”…

When your employees are weeping uncontrollably, that is clearly a sign that your days are numbered.

But the good news is that an emergency rescue plan has been announced, and so there is hope that the bank can be stabilized…

Switzerland’s central bank said Wednesday it was ready to provide financial support to Credit Suisse after shares in the country’s second biggest lender crashed as much as 30%.

In a joint statement with the Swiss financial market regulator FINMA, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) said Credit Suisse (CS) met the “strict capital and liquidity requirements” imposed on banks of importance to the wider financial system.

“If necessary, the SNB will provide CS with liquidity,” they said.

Just like the emergency rescue plan that we just witnessed in the United States, this isn’t being called a bailout because people hate that word.

But that is what it actually is.

Unfortunately, there are several other European banks that may soon need bailouts as well…

The share price rout renewed a broader sell-off among European lenders, which were already facing significant market turmoil as a result of the Silicon Valley Bank fallout. Some of the biggest decliners included France’s Societe Generale, Spain’s Banco de Sabadell and Germany’s Commerzbank.

Several Italian banks on Wednesday were also subject to automatic trading stoppages, including UniCredit, FinecoBank and Monte dei Paschi.

In the weeks and months ahead, I expect central banks all over the world to wildly create money in a desperate attempt to prop up their most important financial institutions.

But just because these central banks can create an “infinite amount of cash” does not mean that they should actually do it.

When you create crazy amounts of money, it leads to crazy amounts of inflation.

Just ask Argentina.  Right now, they are dealing with a triple-digit inflation rate…

Data released Tuesday showed annual inflation surpassed 100% for the first time since the early 1990s, bringing back memories of the hyperinflation that ravaged South America’s second-largest economy.

The United States and Europe are going down the exact same road.

And it is a road that we should not be too eager to travel.

In Venezuela, virtually everyone is a “millionaire” thanks to the rampant hyperinflation that has plagued that nation for years.

But just about everyone is also living in poverty because the money is almost totally worthless.

Having a stable currency is so important, and the U.S. dollar was once incredibly stable.

Unfortunately, our leaders have been treating our currency like toilet paper for many years, and so it is just a matter of time before it has similar value.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six 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 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.

The Dominoes Are Starting To Fall Very Rapidly Now – Could These Banks Be Next?

Welcome to the great banking collapse of 2023.  Please try to enjoy the ride.  When FTX crumbled, I explained to my readers that it was not the first domino to fall and that it certainly would not be the last.  Sadly, that prediction turned out to be completely accurate.  Within the last week, we have witnessed the second and third largest bank collapses in the entire history of our country.  But Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank are not unique cases.  The Federal Reserve created a 620 billion dollar blackhole in our banking system by aggressively raising interest rates, and our quadrillion dollar derivatives pyramid scheme is starting to tremble violently.  The Federal Reserve is desperately trying to fix things by recklessly spraying money around, but the truth is that Fed officials are ultimately going to need a much bigger hose.

The speed at which financial institutions can collapse in a digital economy is absolutely breathtaking.  It is being reported that 42 billion dollars was withdrawn from Silicon Valley Bank in one day alone…

Customers withdrew $42 billion in a single day last week from Silicon Valley Bank, leaving the bank with $1 billion in negative cash balance, the company said in a regulatory filing. The staggering withdrawals unfolded at a speed enabled by digital banking and were likely fueled in part by viral panic spreading on social media platforms and, reportedly, in private chat groups.

Signature Bank was also hit by a withdrawal tsunami, and right now many other regional banks are also seeing huge outflows.

So which banks will be the next to implode?

Well, on Tuesday Moody’s Investors Service suddenly slashed its outlook for the entire U.S. banking sector…

In a harsh blow to an already-reeling sector, Moody’s Investors Service cut its view on the entire banking system to negative from stable.

The firm, part of the big three rating services, said Monday it was making the move in light of key bank failures that prompted regulators to step in Sunday with a dramatic rescue plan for depositors and other institutions impacted by the crisis.

But what was far more troubling was the fact that Moody’s identified six specific banks for potential downgrades…

Moody’s also warned it was reviewing the rates of First Republic Bank, Zions, Western Alliance, Comerica, UMB Financial, and Intrust Financial. It said it had cut the rating on Signature Bank, which was seized by bank regulators over the weekend, to junk.

Needless to say, we will want to keep a very close eye on those six names.

Meanwhile, one of the most important banks in Europe has acknowledged “material weaknesses”…

Credit Suisse has acknowledged ‘material weaknesses’ in its internal controls as the Swiss bank released its annual report on Tuesday, in the latest blow to the scandal-hit bank.

The annual report was delayed following queries from U.S. regulators regarding its books. The bank was supposed to publish its report last week but it postponed the release after a last-minute call from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over revisions made to cash-flow statements for 2019 and 2020.

Shares of the bank just fell to an all-time low.

Overall, Credit Suisse is now down a staggering 97 percent since 2007.

But we have known that Credit Suisse has been in trouble for years.

Sometimes these things just take time to fully play out.  For example, insiders knew that Silicon Valley Bank was “technically insolvent for months” before it finally collapsed…

In fact, Silicon Valley Bank has been technically insolvent for months: the company had more assets than liabilities, but a huge chunk of those assets could not be liquidated without taking a major loss; everything would be ok, though, because those securities would mature in time, paying back their value in full. The big loser would be Silicon Valley Bank stock holders, who would forego all of the unrealized interest on the more attractive securities the bank could not buy in the meantime; small wonder the stock lost 66% of its value last year:

Many other banks that are “technically insolvent” right now may be able to survive for a while, but their days are numbered.

We are watching a slow-motion train wreck play out right in front of our eyes, and our leaders are not going to be able to stop it.

But they could at least try to make good decisions.

It turns out that there were private buyers for Silicon Valley Bank that had emerged, and having a private buyer purchase the bank would have solved a lot of problems.

Unfortunately, it is being reported that the Biden administration rejected those buyers, and if that is true than this is definitely “another Biden scandal”…

Kevin Hassett, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Trump, told Fox Business that “there were buyers who were willing to step in & buy [SVB, but] the radicals at the @FDICgov basically weren’t going to allow that to happen … the Biden Admin had a whitelist of companies that were allowed to buy the failed bank & companies that weren’t.”

“If this is true,” said Grabien founder Tom Elliott, “then this is another Biden scandal.“

Hopefully the truth will come out about this, because if the Biden administration purposely made this crisis worse for political purposes that should make all of us deeply angry.

We have a major crisis on our hands, and now is not a time to be playing politics.

All over the nation, economic activity is slowing down and large corporations are laying off workers.

In fact, Facebook just announced a second round of layoffs…

Another 10,000 employees of Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will be laid off, after the tech giant announced further cuts on Tuesday.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a message to employees said he “made the difficult decision” to make the cuts, adding that recruiting employees were expected to be impacted by the layoffs this week.

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008.

Through the end of February, announced job cuts in the United States were running 427 percent higher than they were at the same time last year.

A major economic meltdown is here, and eventually things will get a whole lot worse than they are right now.

So I would encourage you to brace yourselves for the incredibly challenging times that are ahead of us, because they will truly shake our society to the core.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six 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 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.

It’s Not Working! The Fed’s Emergency Rescue Plan Has Not Ended The Banking Panic!

The widespread panic that we just witnessed is definitely not what the bureaucrats at the Federal Reserve were anticipating.  Following the second largest bank collapse in U.S. history on Friday and the third largest bank collapse in U.S. history on Sunday, the Federal Reserve unveiled an unprecedented rescue plan that was supposed to end the banking panic.  If you have not seen it yet, you can view the details on the official website of the Federal Reserve right here.  The most important part of the plan is the Fed’s decision to fully guarantee all of the deposits at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.  As Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein explained on Twitter, this bold course of action was supposed to have “removed reasons for bank runs”…

But there was just one problem.

It didn’t work.

Right now, social media is being flooded with messages from ordinary Americans that withdrew money from their bank accounts on Monday.

Here is just one example…

When the Fed announced their plan, I understood that they were implicitly guaranteeing all of the deposits in the entire system.

But that is only because I am constantly writing about this stuff.

Needless to say, most Americans didn’t get the message, and so now Bill Ackman is calling on officials “to explicitly guarantee” all of the deposits in the entire system…

‘Our economy will not function effectively without our community and regional banking system. Therefore, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation needs to explicitly guarantee all deposits now. Hours matter,’ Ackman said.

‘We need to hear from our gov’t that it is explicitly committed to preserving our system of smaller banks. While each small bank is not “systemically important” like @jpmorgan or @Citi, collectively they are as, if not more, systemically important.’

Will an explicit guarantee work?

Maybe.

But what our leaders have tried so far has definitely not worked.

On Monday, Joe Biden publicly declared that the American people “can have confidence that the banking system is safe”, but that certainly didn’t reassure anyone.

Instead, regional bank stocks plummeted so dramatically that trading in dozens of them had to be temporarily halted…

Trading was temporarily halted in dozens of regional banks this morning as shares fell by up to 75 percent when the market opened after Joe Biden claimed ‘US banking is safe.’

The Biden administration has made it very clear that investors are not going to be bailed out when any of these banks fail, and the carnage that we witnessed on Monday was absolutely staggering…

San Francisco’s First Republic shares lost 61.8% on Monday after declining 33% last week. PacWest Bancorp dropped 45%, and Western Alliance Bancorp lost more than 47% as regional bank stocks fell sharply. Zions Bancorporation shed about 26%, while KeyCorp fell 27%. Other financial firms were also under pressure, as Bank of America slipped 5.8%, while Charles Schwab tumbled more than 11%.

Unless federal officials explicitly guarantee all of the deposits in the entire system, people are going to keep pulling money out of small and mid-size banks, and stock prices will continue to fall.

At this point, even CNBC’s Jim Cramer can see that this crisis is definitely “not over”…

“It’s so easy to transfer money to the banks that are ‘not in trouble,’ that we have to deal with something which says you cannot move, period, end of story,” Cramer said. “So it’s not over. I do want to caution that if you have money in some of these banks, well, they’re obviously going to punish you. We don’t know which ones are which, obviously, and I don’t want to cause any run. It is easy for any of us to cause a run at this moment.”

Thanks to rapidly rising interest rates, Treasury bonds worth hundreds of billions of dollars that are owned by U.S. banks have declined in value dramatically.

This has left a 620 billion dollar hole that will not be filled any time soon…

Fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse has directed attention to a $620 billion ticking time bomb in the banking system that has the potential to spell doom for the financial system.

SVB’s meltdown was partly caused by a chasm between its assets and what they were worth in the market. Eventually, SVB sold some of those assets, spooking investors and triggering a run on the bank. But SVB isn’t alone, as banks across the United States were sitting on $620 billion in unrealized potential losses at the end of last year, per the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Meanwhile, there is a much bigger problem that is looming.

As Michael Hudson has astutely observed, a major derivatives crisis is possibly brewing…

There is an even larger elephant in the room: derivatives. Volatility increased last Thursday and Friday. The turmoil has reached vast magnitudes beyond what characterized the 2008 crash of AIG and other speculators. Today, JP Morgan Chase and other New York banks have tens of trillions of dollar valuations of derivatives – casino bets on which way interest rates, bond prices, stock prices and other measures will change.

For every winning guess, there is a loser. When trillions of dollars are bet on, some bank trader is bound to wind up with a loss that can easily wipe out the bank’s entire net equity.

If the current chaos in the financial world causes the derivatives bubble to finally implode, it could potentially be an “extinction level event” for our deeply flawed financial system.

I have not written about the derivatives bubble in a while, but it truly is an existential threat to our entire society.  According to Investopedia, the total size of the derivatives market has been estimated to be “over $1 quadrillion on the high end”…

The derivatives market is, in a word, gigantic—often estimated at over $1 quadrillion on the high end. How can that be? Largely because there are numerous derivatives in existence, available on virtually every possible type of investment asset, including equities, commodities, bonds, and currency. Some market analysts even place the size of the market at more than 10 times that of the total world gross domestic product (GDP).

When this mountain of risk finally comes undone, there won’t be enough money in the entire world to fix it.

Anyone that tells you that our financial system is “fundamentally sound” is lying to you.

We really are on the verge of the unthinkable, and so you better hope that our leaders are able to find a way to rescue the system before it is too late.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six 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 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.

Can The Federal Reserve Stop The Avalanche Of Bank Runs That Has Already Begun?

What in the world just happened?  On Friday, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and was taken over by regulators, and then on Sunday regulators swooped in and shut down New York’s Signature Bank.  In a desperate attempt to prop up faith in our rapidly failing banking system, the Federal Reserve unveiled an emergency plan late on Sunday that is absolutely staggering.  All of the depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank will be protected, and all of them will have access to their money right away.  They aren’t calling this a “bail out”, but that is essentially what it is.  But will it be enough to stop the bank runs that are already happening?

Late last week, huge lines at Silicon Valley Bank quickly made headlines all over the nation.

The panic at Silicon Valley Bank quickly spread to other banks in California.  In particular, First Republic Bank was hit really hard…

Dozens of customers lined up outside of a First Republic Bank in southern California on Saturday eager to withdraw their funds in the wake of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

There had been fears following SVB’s demise for First Republic’s future when analysts pointed out the similarities between the estimated value of their assets versus the actual value.

As news of what was unfolding in California spread like wildfire on social media, soon there were lines at various banks all over the nation.

But most of those that have been pulling money out of U.S. banks over the past few days never stood in any line.

And that is because we now live in an era where most banking is done on phones and computers…

Question: How did $42 billion get withdrawn Friday alone without thousands in line?

Answer: your phone!

This is not the Bailey Savings and Loan anymore.

This should scare the hell of bankers and regulators worldwide.

We have never seen anything quite like what we witnessed on Friday.

When it became clear that Silicon Valley Bank was collapsing, unsecured depositors engaged in a mad scramble to get their money out while they still could.

And this wasn’t just happening in the United States.

Silicon Valley Bank had branches all over the planet, and so the panic that we were watching was truly global…

Startup founders in California’s Bay Area are panicking about access to money and paying employees. Fears of contagion have reached Canada, India and China. In the UK, SVB’s unit is set to be declared insolvent, has already ceased trading and is no longer taking new customers. On Saturday, the leaders of roughly 180 tech companies sent a letter calling on UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to intervene.

“The loss of deposits has the potential to cripple the sector and set the ecosystem back 20 years,” they said in the letter seen by Bloomberg. “Many businesses will be sent into involuntary liquidation overnight.”

This is just the beginning. SVB had branches in China, Denmark, Germany, India, Israel and Sweden, too. Founders are warning that the bank’s failure could wipe out startups around the world without government intervention. SVB’s joint venture in China, SPD Silicon Valley Bank Co., was seeking to calm local clients overnight by reminding them that operations have been independent and stable.

Of course not everyone that had money in SVB got burned.

For example, Peter Thiel and his minions got their money out in time…

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund had no money with Silicon Valley Bank as of Thursday morning as the bank descended into chaos, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Founders Fund withdrew millions from SVB, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. It joined other venture funds that took dramatic steps to limit exposure to the now-failed financial institution. Founders Fund also advised its portfolio companies that there was no downside to moving their money away from SVB, even if the risk was low.

And a number of key SVB executives conveniently sold off shares in the bank just last month…

But countless others did not pull the plug in time.

Apparently, that even included Harry and Meghan.

Oh the humanity!

There was no way that the Federal Reserve was going to allow Harry and Meghan to lose millions.

So now they have stepped in with mountains of fresh cash.

But is the Fed prepared to do this for all of the other banks that will soon be in trouble too?

According to CNN, U.S. banks “were sitting on $620 billion in unrealized losses” as of the end of last year…

Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse last week sent tingles of panic down investors’ spines as it highlighted a larger problem across the banking sector: The widening gap between the value large lenders place on the bonds they hold and what they’re actually worth on the market.

SVB’s downfall was tied, in part, to the plunge in the value of bonds it acquired during boom times, when it had a lot of customer deposits coming in and needed somewhere to park the cash.

But SVB isn’t the only institution with that issue. US banks were sitting on $620 billion in unrealized losses (assets that have decreased in price but haven’t been sold yet) at the end of 2022, according to the FDIC.

This crisis is far from over.

As I have been arguing for years, our deeply flawed system simply cannot survive without artificial support.

What has transpired over the past several days is clear evidence of this fact.

The Federal Reserve has decided to ride to the rescue once again, and the financial community is cheering.

But will it be enough to stop the wave of panic that has now been unleashed?

We shall see.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six 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 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.

2nd Biggest Bank Failure In U.S. History – “We Found Our Enron” – “On The Verge Of A Much Bigger Collapse Than 2008”

The wait for the next “Lehman Brothers moment” is over.  On Friday, we witnessed the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history.  The stunning collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is shaking the financial world to the core.  As of the end of last year, the bank had 175 billion dollars in deposits, and approximately 151 billion dollars of those deposits were uninsured.  In other words, a lot of wealthy individuals and large companies are in danger of being wiped out.  In particular, this is being described as an “extinction level event” for tech startups, because thousands of them did their banking with SVB.  I cannot even begin to describe how cataclysmic this is going to be for the tech industry as a whole.

There is so much to cover, and so let me try to take this one step at a time.

Rumors of trouble at SVB had sparked a massive bank run in recent days, and regulators moved quickly on Friday to permanently shut the bank down…

Financial regulators have closed Silicon Valley Bank and taken control of its deposits, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Friday, in what is the largest U.S. bank failure since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.

The collapse of SVB, a key player in the tech and venture capital community, leaves companies and wealthy individuals largely unsure of what will happen to their money.

We haven’t seen anything like this in a very long time.

In fact, it is being reported that this is the second biggest bank failure in all of U.S. history…

The closure marks the biggest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis and the second-largest in U.S. history after Washington Mutual collapsed during that industry-wide meltdown, according to FDIC data.

As of the end of December, the Santa Clara, California-based bank — the 16th largest bank in the country — had $209 billion in assets with more than $175 billion in deposits. As with other FDIC-member banks, SVB deposits are insured up to $250,000 per depositor.

The good news is that anyone that had less than $250,000 in the bank will be covered by FDIC insurance…

The FDIC’s standard insurance covers up to $250,000 per depositor, per bank, for each account ownership category. The FDIC said uninsured depositors will get receivership certificates for their balances. The regulator said it will pay uninsured depositors an advanced dividend within the next week, with potential additional dividend payments as the regulator sells SVB’s assets.

Whether depositors with more than $250,000 ultimately get all their money back will be determined by the amount of money the regulator gets as it sells Silicon Valley assets or if another bank takes ownership of the remaining assets. There were concerns in the tech community that until that process unfolds, some companies may have issues making payroll.

Unfortunately, as I noted above, the vast majority of the deposits with SVB exceeded the $250,000 threshold and were thus uninsured…

As we noted before, while the FDIC noted that SVIB had $175BN in deposits as of Dec 31, note that some $151.5BN of these are uninsured, which means they get exactly zero although a sizable number of them likely pulled their deposits in the past few days.

As SVB assets are liquidated, hopefully those that had uninsured deposits at SVB will eventually see some of their money.

But for now, many of them are facing a complete and total nightmare.

For example, one tech CEO named Ashley Turner is freaking out because she had “at least $10m deposited with SVB”…

Ashley Tyrner, CEO of Boston wellness firm FarmboxRx, said she had at least $10m deposited with SVB and has been frantically calling her banker. She said it had been ‘the worst 18 hours of my life.’

Can you imagine how she must be feeling at this moment?

Sadly, she is far from alone.

The CEO of YCombinator, Garry Tan, says that what we are looking at is an “extinction level event” for tech startups…

There are thousands of US startups that banked at SVB, often as their *sole bank*. $250K per account is not going to last long.

The #1 pressing issue for these startups is *payroll* – you can’t have people work if you can’t pay them.

This means mass furlough.

It might mean thousands of startups die before the FDIC gets through its receivership process and releases the funds.

From what I hear, there are venture debt options coming from providers like Brex, but we’re going to need *a lot* of options in order to avoid a mass shutdown of all American startups in the next few weeks.

This is an *extinction level event* for startups and will set startups and innovation back by 10 years or more.

I wish that I could tell you that he is wrong.

But I cannot.

When news of what was being done to SVB hit Wall Street, bank stocks started falling precipitously.

Is this the beginning of a horrifying new crisis for the financial industry?

Well, Michael Burry is suggesting that the collapse of SVB could be “our Enron”…

Michael Burry, the eccentric investor featured in the 2015 film “The Big Short,” warned: “It is possible today we found our Enron.”

And billionaire Bill Ackman is already suggesting that the federal government should bail out the bank…

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman says the US government should consider a “highly dilutive” bailout of Silicon Valley Bank amid jitters about its financial position.

The bank’s failure “could destroy an important long-term driver of the economy as VC-backed companies rely on SVB for loans and holding their operating cash,” Ackman said in a series of tweets on Thursday. “If private capital can’t provide a solution, a highly dilutive gov’t preferred bailout should be considered,” he said.

At this point, I doubt that Congress will be willing to do anything.

But if that doesn’t happen, Ackman is warning us that there could soon be bank runs at other major banks…

He added: “The risk of failure and deposit losses here is that the next, least well-capitalized bank faces a run and fails and the dominoes continue to fall.”

“That is why gov’t intervention should be considered.”

Once the dominoes start falling, it will be difficult to stop the process.

In fact, the situation is already so dire that Peter Schiff is proclaiming that we are “on the verge of a much bigger collapse than 2008”…

“The U.S. banking system is on the verge of a much bigger collapse than 2008,” said economist Peter Schiff, known for his dire predictions.

“Banks own long-term paper at extremely low interest rates. They can’t compete with short-term Treasuries. Mass withdrawals from depositors seeking higher yields will result in a wave of bank failures.”

Of course a lot of the “experts” in the mainstream media never saw this coming.

Just last month, CNBC’s Jim Cramer was actually telling his viewers that they should buy SVB stock…

CNBC analyst Jim Cramer is once again being pilloried on social media after a clip resurfaced showing the “Mad Money” host recommending viewers buy shares of Silicon Valley Bank’s parent company, which owns the tech-driven commercial lender that swiftly collapsed on Friday.

“The ninth-best performer to date has been SVB Financial (the bank’s parent company). Don’t yawn,” Cramer told viewers during a Feb. 8 episode of “Mad Money.”

Cramer listed SVB Financial among his “biggest winners of 2023 … so far” alongside blue-chip stocks such as Meta, Tesla, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Norwegian Cruise Line.

Unfortunately, SVB’s situation is not unique.

Thanks to rapidly rising interest rates, many other banks are also sitting on mountains of Treasury bills that have lost a lot of value…

Banks are big investors in assets like Treasury bills because they need lots of safe places to park their cash. Many financial institutions piled into these investments during a period of historically-low interest rates that spanned the early years of the pandemic, as banks took in tons of new deposits and lending was somewhat restrained.

But now the Fed is hiking rates at a rapid clip, with Fed Chair Jay Powell warning earlier this week the central bank may have to speed up the pace of its rate increases to cool the economy further. The problem that creates for banks is simple: higher rates lower the value of their existing bonds.

For an extensive break down of why this is causing so much distress for our banks right now, I would highly recommend reading this excellent article.

As I have been telling my readers, our system simply cannot handle higher rates at this point.

But the “experts” at the Fed assured all of us that they knew exactly what they were doing.

Now they have caused one of the biggest bank failures in U.S. history, and much worse is on the way if they do not reverse course.

But I don’t expect the “experts” at the Fed to listen to any of us.

They are just going to keep doing what they are doing, and we are all going to have to live with the consequences.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six 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 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.

So Far In 2023, Announced Job Cuts Are Running 427 Percent Higher Than They Were At This Time In 2022

Major employers all over America are announcing mass layoffs, but the mainstream media continues to insist that everything is just fine.  Every month the Biden administration gives us numbers that suggest that the economy is stable, and most mainstream reporters willingly go along with that narrative.  But anyone with half a brain should be able to see that we are headed for big economic trouble.  The housing bubble is imploding, food prices just keep rising, and we haven’t seen a wave of layoffs like we are currently witnessing since the days of the Great Recession.

One of the things that I appreciate about Challenger, Gray & Christmas is that they don’t have a political axe to grind.  They just report the facts, and their latest report tells us that announced job cuts in the United States are running 427 percent higher than they were at this time in 2022…

So far this year, employers announced plans to cut 180,713 jobs, up 427% from the 34,309 cuts announced in the first two months of 2022. It is the highest January-February total since 2009 when a total of 428,099 job cuts were announced in January and February.

Let those figures sink in for a moment.

When the number of planned layoffs is running 427 percent higher than a year ago, your economy is moving in the wrong direction very rapidly.

And the latest report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas doesn’t even include any of the job cut announcements that we have seen so far in March.

For example, it is being reported that General Motors will be offering a “voluntary” exit to the majority “of its 58,000 U.S. white-collar employees”…

General Motors will offer voluntary buyouts to a “majority” of its 58,000 U.S. white-collar employees, as it aims to cut $2 billion in structural costs over the next two years, according to a letter sent to workers Thursday from CEO Mary Barra.

The “Voluntary Separation Program,” or VSP, will be offered to all U.S. salaried employees who have spent five or more years at the company as of June 30. Outside of the U.S., the automaker will offer buyouts to executives with at least two years of time at the company.

General Motors is insisting that these are not “layoffs” because employees will get an opportunity to make a choice.

But we are also being told that workers will be “strongly encouraged to consider” the program.

In other words, nobody will be forced out the door, but a significant amount of arm-twisting will be taking place.

Meanwhile, I just learned that Johnson & Johnson has decided to lay off hundreds of workers…

Johnson & Johnson is letting go of nearly 350 employees in the surgical robotics space, according to layoff notices filed in California at the beginning of this month.

The WARN notices list layoffs involving 292 workers at Auris, 47 at Verb Surgical, and four at Ethicon Endo-Surgery. All of the jobs were based in Santa Clara County; the layoffs are effective April 30.

The “tsunami of layoffs” that we have been warned about is here.

It is really happening.

If you lose your job in the months ahead, you can blame the Federal Reserve.

After pushing interest rates all the way to the floor and flooding the system with unprecedented amounts of new money, the Federal Reserve has reversed course.

Now Fed officials are dramatically hiking interest rates and are rapidly reducing the size of their balance sheet.

As a result, money supply growth has actually turned sharply negative…

Money supply growth fell again in January, falling even further into negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. January’s drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years.

Our system is not designed to handle this sort of a rollercoaster ride.

So there will be more layoffs.

And the housing market will continue to crash.

And more major financial institutions will be in peril.

In fact, it is being reported that a very important bank in California could potentially be on the verge of collapse…

Is the bursting of the tech bubble finally spilling over to the financial system?

One day after the biggest crypto-focused bank, Silvergate Capital, announced plans to unwind and liquidate after a deposit run effectively killed its core business model, this morning its far larger peer – the parent company of the venerable Silicon Valley Bank, SVB Financial Group – saw its shares plunge the most in more than two decades after the company took “steps to bolster its financial position” that included not only a highly dilutive stock offering but also a panicked asset sale that sparked fears of a liquidity crisis at one of the biggest and original providers of funding to the Venture Capital industry.

The Santa Clara-based company’s shares sank by as much as 60% on Thursday, their biggest decline in the company’s history since going public in 1987.

This is a really big story.

It has even been suggested that this could possibly be another “Lehman Brothers moment” if the financial position of the institution cannot be stabilized.

This news was part of the reason why stock prices were way down once again on Thursday…

The S&P 500 slid 1.85% to end at 3,918.32, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dove 543.54 points, or 1.66%, to settle at 32,254.86. The Nasdaq Composite shed 2.05% to finish at 11,338.35.

Thursday’s losses brought the Dow to close below its 200-day moving average for the first time since Nov. 9. For the week and year, the 30-stock index is down 3.4% and 2.7%, respectively.

I am going to be watching the financial markets very carefully in the weeks ahead.

Trouble is brewing.

Hopefully the recent slide that we have been witnessing will not become an avalanche.

But if the Federal Reserve continues to go down this road, it will inevitably cause a tremendous amount of chaos.

For a very long time, the Fed artificially propped up our financial system.  Unfortunately, now the artificial support has been removed, and that is really bad news.

We all knew that a day of reckoning would arrive eventually, but hopefully we have at least a little bit more time before our financial system starts coming apart at the seams.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six 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 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.

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