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According to Joe Biden and the pundits in the mainstream media, the U.S. economy is in great shape and much better times are just around the corner.  In fact, CNN is actually scolding those of us that are warning that economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating.  A CNN article entitled “It’s time to chill with all the recession talk” is boldly declaring that the economic optimists were correct and that what our leaders are doing is working.  Of course that is music to Joe Biden’s ears, because he is trying very hard to convince all of us that the policies of his administration have the U.S. economy moving in the right direction.  Of course you will never hear Biden share any of the numbers that I am about to share with you.  The following are 16 signs that the U.S. economy is going to be “just fine”…

#1 74 percent of Americans believe that interest rates will go even higher in the next six months.

#2 67 percent of Americans believe that inflation will go even higher in the next six months.

#3 Only 36 percent of Americans expect that the U.S. economy will grow in the next six months.

#4 Only 31 percent of Americans expect that the stock market will go up in the next six months.

#5 Only 29 percent of Americans expect that unemployment will go down in the next six months.

#6 Boeing just announced that it will be giving the axe to 2,000 workers this year…

Boeing is planning to slash around 2,000 jobs this year, primarily in finance and human resources, to simplify its corporate structure.

The U.S. planemaker confirmed to FOX Business Digital on Monday that the job cuts will come through a combination of attrition and layoffs.

#7 Dell just announced that it will be laying off more than 6,500 workers…

Dell plans to lay off roughly 5% of its workforce, the company said in a regulatory filing Monday, in the latest example of tech companies cutting costs in an uncertain economic climate.

Dell has about 133,000 employees, the company told CNN. At that level, the 5% cut would represent more than 6,500 employees.

#8 Zoom just announced that it is reducing the size of its workforce by 15 percent…

Zoom is reducing its headcount by 15%.

The layoffs will affect about 1,300 of Zoom’s employees, CEO Eric Yuan said in a blog post published Tuesday on the video communication company’s website.

#9 The CEO of Zoom says that he is going to cut his own salary by 98 percent because the economic outlook is so grim…

The CEO of Zoom has said he will slash his own $1.1M salary by 98 percent after laying off about 1,300 employees, 15 percent of the company’s workforce.

#10 As a result of falling sales, Impossible Foods is being forced to lay off approximately 20 percent of their workers…

Sales have collapsed, however, which according to a recent Bloomberg report, has resulted in Impossible Foods planning to lay off around 20% of its workers.

#11 Bed Bath & Beyond just announced that it will be closing 150 more stores…

Bed Bath & Beyond is closing 150 more stores — just a week after the struggling retailer announced the closure of 87 locations.

The company’s brick-and-mortar footprint has already shrunk dramatically, a regulatory filing showed late Monday, and the new closings mean it will have shuttered 400 stores in the past year — almost half the 950 or so stores it had open in February 2022.

#12 The U.S. housing market continues to crash.  Existing home sales in the United States have now fallen for 11 months in a row.

#13 An economist that predicted the housing crash of 2008 says that it is likely that U.S. housing prices will soon fall by another 15 percent.

#14 At this point, 57 percent of all Americans cannot even afford to pay an unexpected $1,000 emergency expense.

#15 While Joe Biden has been in the White House, the average American family “has seen real annual earnings fall about $6,000”…

The average family has seen real annual earnings fall about $6,000 under Biden, while higher interest rates have increased borrowing costs another $1,400. That means a family effectively can buy $7,400 less today than it could in January 2021.

#16 One recent survey discovered that only 16 percent of Americans say that their finances are “better off” since Joe Biden entered the White House.

But the U.S. economy is “just fine”.

At least that is what our leaders would have us believe.

For example, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell just told the press that the U.S. labor market is “extraordinarily strong”…

The US labor market remains “extraordinarily strong” and Friday’s monster jobs report underscored that the central bank has more work to do to bring down inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday.

“We didn’t expect it to be this strong,” Powell said of the January jobs report, which showed the US economy added 517,000 jobs. “It kind of shows you why we think that this will be a process that takes a significant period of time.”

But what Powell didn’t explain is that the U.S. economy didn’t actually add “517,000 jobs” last month.

That is just the final figure that is given to the media after the bureaucrats in Washington are done with all of their “adjustments”.

The real, unadjusted number for last month was a loss of 2.5 million jobs.

But the pundits in the mainstream media are going to continue to insist that everything is just great.

Even though all of the evidence suggests otherwise, CNN is brazenly claiming that the economic optimists “were right all along”…

In 2021, a bunch of economists and policy makers underestimated the inflation that was taking root around the world. In 2022, as inflation hit 40-year-highs and the Fed ramped up interest rates, many of those commentators went full-on gloomy — predicting a recession was all but inevitable.

But in the (slightly) brighter light of 2023, it looks as if the optimists — those who called inflation “transitory” and believed the Fed could pull off a so-called soft landing — were right all along.

You can believe that if you want.

And you can also believe that Joe Biden is going to dress up in a Santa suit and visit you on the 4th of July this year too.

But just because you believe something doesn’t mean that it is actually going to happen.

So many of the long-term trends that people like me have been warning about for years are now reaching a crescendo during the Biden administration.

The truth is that we aren’t just heading into another recession.

Ultimately, what we are witnessing is a fundamental meltdown of our entire system, and that means that a tremendous amount of economic pain is ahead for this country.

***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 complete and utter devastation that we are seeing in Turkey right now should break all of our hearts.  Hundreds of buildings have collapsed, and thousands upon thousands of dead and injured people are trapped under the rubble.  The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that hit Turkey early on Monday is the largest earthquake that the region has experienced in a century.  Sadly, that giant quake was followed by a relentless series of aftershocks that included another giant quake.  The shaking continues even as I write this article, and there are some parts of Turkey that will never be the same again after this.

Back on January 4th, I warned that 2023 would be “a year of great natural disasters”, and unfortunately that is exactly what is happening.  Our planet continues to become even more unstable, and we have been witnessing large earthquakes and major volcanic eruptions occur with a frequency that is quite alarming.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that just struck Turkey is the most deadly seismic event that we have seen so far this year.  It is being reported that it could actually be felt all the way in Greenland…

Tremors from the powerful earthquake that rocked Turkey and neighbouring Syria on Monday were felt as far away as Greenland, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland said.

“The large earthquakes in Turkey were clearly registered on the seismographs in Denmark and Greenland,” seismologist Tine Larsen told AFP.

I was stunned when I first read that.

As buildings fell down all around them, some people in Turkey actually believed that “judgement day” had arrived.

As I write this article, we are being told that “at least 3,500 people” have died, but that number will inevitably grow much larger as more bodies are pulled from the rubble…

At least 3,500 people in both countries are known to have been killed – 2,316 of these in Turkey, more than 700 people in opposition-controlled Syria and 538 in government-held areas of Syria, reports Sky.

In Turkey entire apartment blocks crashed to the ground in a matter of seconds following the quakes, trapping families inside and killing thousands.

According to reports from the region, the magnitude 7.8 earthquake caused approximately 90 seconds of shaking, and social media is filled with videos of tall buildings collapsing into heaps in just moments.

In #Sanliurfa the moment a building collapsed recorded by mobile phone hours after 7.8 #earthquake hits Turkey. #deprem pic.twitter.com/YDc8DH9lbn

— JournoTurk (@journoturk) February 6, 2023

Subsequently, a series of large aftershocks did even more damage.

The largest aftershock was a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that was originally reported to be a magnitude 7.7 earthquake.

Turkey jolted by another 7.7 MAG Earthquake this morning.

Buildings are falling down all over the country.pic.twitter.com/ItVmQzXzSg

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) February 6, 2023

And even more huge earthquakes followed that one, and even more buildings fell down.

There is nowhere to hide.

Terrifying footage of buildings collapsing around panicked people in the streets.

Now reports of a third, 6.0 MAG earthquake striking Göksun, Turkey in the last hour.pic.twitter.com/TG6fZT6Da9

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) February 6, 2023

I have never seen anything quite like this.

There have been more than 60 large earthquakes in the region, and countless numbers of people that are trapped under the rubble are desperately hoping that rescuers can get to them in time…

Victims trapped in collapsed buildings have been pleading for help as rescuers desperately try to free them – with some people even broadcasting on Facebook Live while trapped to try and get aid.

Heartbreaking photos and videos have shown emergency services pulling the bodies of children from the rubble in multiple cities, as well as miraculous rescues with people somehow being carried out alive after the catastrophe.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.

One seismologist named Tyler Metcalf is warning that we could see a whole lot of shaking all over the planet over the next few days…

Seismologist Tyler Metcalf explains what’s likely to happen now:

The big #earthquakes in #Turkey have likely led to destabilization of fault lines across the world. There could be many earthquakes in many areas across the world over the next few to several days.

Metcalf’s warning is based on an Oregon State University study that discovered that a major earthquake in one part of the globe can cause large earthquakes in other parts of the globe…

But the OSU analysis of seismic data from 1973 through 2016 — an analysis that excluded data from aftershock zones — using larger time windows than in previous studies, provided discernible evidence that in the three days following one large quake, other earthquakes were more likely to occur.

Each test case in the study represented a single three-day window “injected” with a large-magnitude (6.5 or greater) earthquake suspected of inducing other quakes, and accompanying each case was a control group of 5,355 three-day periods that didn’t have the quake injection.

“The test cases showed a clearly detectable increase over background rates,” said the study’s corresponding author, Robert O’Malley, a researcher in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences. “Earthquakes are part of a cycle of tectonic stress buildup and release. As fault zones near the end of this seismic cycle, tipping points may be reached and triggering can occur.”

The higher the magnitude, the more likely a quake is to trigger another quake. Higher-magnitude quakes, which have been happening with more frequency in recent years, also seem to be triggered more often than lower-magnitude ones.

Speaking of large earthquakes in other parts of the globe, we just witnessed the largest earthquake that the Buffalo area has experienced “in 40 years”…

A 3.8-magnitude earthquake struck Monday morning near Buffalo, New York, the strongest recorded in the area in 40 years.

The quake hit 1.24 miles east-northeast of West Seneca, New York, with a depth of 1.86 miles around 6:15 a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey.

Yes, this is really happening.

As I discussed in my latest book, we are entering an era when there will be extremely powerful earthquakes in diverse places.

Our planet has never been a particularly stable place, and now it is becoming a lot less stable.

There will be many more major geophysical events in 2023 and beyond, and the death and devastation that we will see will be absolutely staggering.

But most people don’t want to hear this.

What most people want to hear is that everything is going to be just fine.

I could tell you that, but it wouldn’t be true.

What we have just witnessed in Turkey is just the beginning, because even greater shaking is on the way.

***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.

More kids are being sexually victimized in the United States than ever before in our entire history.  As you will see below, in some cases “kids are being raped 20 to 30 times a day” and very little is being done to prevent this from happening.  But this crisis is certainly not just limited to the hundreds of thousands of children that have been forced into sexual slavery.  In our society today, very young children are being constantly bombarded with extremely sick and twisted sexual messaging on television, in the movies, on the Internet and in their classrooms.  What we are doing to America’s children is beyond criminal, and if we do not reverse course our nation is not going to have a future.  Every society throughout history that has violated children like we are violating them has fallen.  If you actually believe that we will be able to get away with our heinous crimes, you are just being delusional.

Every single day, hordes of extremely young “sex workers” are being paraded in the streets of our major cities.  In fact, in East Oakland the pimps have become so brazen that they are actually forcing their girls to solicit men “right outside a Catholic grade school”…

Video showing women who appear to be sex workers soliciting right outside a Catholic grade school in East Oakland is raising concerns about human trafficking in the area.

Parents and city officials tell the I-Team young women, some police believe may be trafficked, are walking outside St. Anthony’s K-8 grade school off E. 15th Street in Oakland at all hours of the day.

This is even happening while school is in session, and it is being reported that some of the prostitutes are just 15 or 16 years old…

On the street, it’s a sad reality. We drove with Gallo along E. 15th.

Young girls are walking in the middle of the street, peaking into cars, and crowding the street corners.

“We’ve seen up to 20 women walking up and down this street,” Gallo said. “Young, young girls.”

“How young?” Sierra asked.

“I’ve seen some as young as 15, 16 years old,” Gallo said.

Further south, the sex industry in Los Angeles has been absolutely thriving.

One man named David Cox that helps to rescue those involved in the industry says that girls “as young as 11” are being victimized.

And he also says that some of the kids on L.A. streets “are being raped 20 to 30 times a day”…

Victims are sometimes brought in from other states or countries, said David Cox, COO for ZOE International, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that helps victims recover once rescued locally and internationally.

Cox said his organization, partnering with a similar Los Angeles-based nonprofit Saving Innocents, has cared for 489 youth victims of sex trafficking this past year, with some as young as 11.

“In our city, kids are being raped 20 to 30 times a day,” he said.

It is like hell on Earth for these children.

But most of our leaders don’t seem to care.

Every once in a while, someone does actually get busted for having sex with kids, but often those that do get busted are hit with extremely light sentences.

For example, a 20-year-old man that actually raped two girls under the age of 10 will only be serving 180 days in a local jail…

A 20-year-old from Rochester will serve no prison time after he was convicted of raping two girls between the ages of 4 and 9, according to Crime Watch Minneapolis.

During his Monday sentencing, presided over by Judge Jacob Allen, Mohamed Bakari Shei received 180 days in local jail and up to 30 years of probation on a felony criminal sexual conduct conviction.

Is this what passes for “justice” in modern America?

Of course if we really had a just society, millions of sexual predators would be serving hardcore prison time right now.

In a previous article, I shared some very sobering statistics that originally come from an excellent piece by John and Nisha Whitehead…

Consider this: every two minutes, a child is bought and sold for sex.

Hundreds of young girls and boys—some as young as 9 years old—are being bought and sold for sex, as many as 20 times per day.

Adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States alone.

In Georgia alone, it is estimated that 7,200 men (half of them in their 30s) seek to purchase sex with adolescent girls each month, averaging roughly 300 a day.

On average, a child might be raped by 6,000 men during a five-year period.

It is estimated that at least 100,000 to 500,000 children—girls and boys—are bought and sold for sex in the U.S. every year, with as many as 300,000 children in danger of being trafficked each year. Some of these children are forcefully abducted, others are runaways, and still others are sold into the system by relatives and acquaintances.

Child rape has become Big Business in America.

This is America now.

We have become a nation that is absolutely teeming with predators.

Sadly, way too often that includes men in positions of power and authority.  Earlier today, I came across yet another example…

A former producer for ABC News was arrested Tuesday on federal charges of transporting child pornography.

James Gordon Meek, who lives in Arlington, Va., had several devices seized from his home by the FBI last April, the Department of Justice said in a statement. According to court documents, they contained images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Authorities also found multiple chat conversations with users who expressed enthusiasm for sexually abusing children.

Quite a few news producers have been exposed as sexual predators over the past few years.

Is that just some sort of a bizarre coincidence?

Of course even if our kids are able to escape the clutches of these predators that still doesn’t mean that they are safe.

Our children are constantly being bombarded by harmful content on our televisions, in the movies, and on the Internet…

The average child in Britain begins consuming harmful pornography online at the age of 13 while as many as ten percent start watching the often violent and disturbed content at the age of nine, a government report has found.

A paper issued by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza this week said that there is an “urgent need to protect children from the harms of online pornography,” with the report noting that “by age nine, 10 percent had seen pornography, 27 percent had seen it by age 11 and half of children who had seen pornography had seen it by age 13.”

And even if we are able to successfully shield our kids from all of that material, they are still getting hit from other directions.

All over the United States, children as young as four years old are being taught extremely alarming things in their own classrooms.

This was shown to daycare owners in NC.

A teacher used a doll to teach gender identity to 4-5 year olds.

When a child brings up “non-binary,” the teachers say it’s “a huge testament to how much we’ve been talking about it in the classroom” & “it’s constantly in conversation” pic.twitter.com/ufpRTwkXO1

— Jordan Chamberlain (@jordylancaster) January 24, 2023

Why can’t we just let kids be kids?

At this point, America has gone so far downhill that it is hard to imagine a way back.

Every hour of every day, countless numbers of children are being viciously abused all over the nation.

And this crisis only gets worse with each passing year.

So what does our nation deserve for engaging in unspeakable evil on such a grand scale?

You might want to start thinking about that, because the clock is ticking.

***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.

I can’t take it anymore.  Fake numbers that are released by the government get turned into fake news by the corporate media, and many Americans don’t even realize that they are being conned.  Major news outlets all over the country are breathlessly trumpeting the “blockbuster jobs report” as if it is a sign from heaven that good economic times are ahead.  We are being told that the U.S. economy added 517,000 jobs last month, but that isn’t true.  Sadly, the truth is that the U.S. economy actually lost 2.5 million jobs in January.  Yes, you read that correctly.  So how in the world does a loss of 2.5 million jobs become a “gain” of 517,000 jobs?  Every month, government bureaucrats apply “adjustments” to the numbers that they believe are appropriate, and at this point their “adjustments” have become so absurd that they have turned the monthly employment report into a total farce.

As I have been documenting on my website for weeks, there has been a tremendous wave of layoffs over the last several months.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Lyft, Twitter, Walmart, McDonald’s, FedEx and countless other large corporations have decided to conduct mass layoffs.

But now the government expects us to believe that the U.S. economy is actually adding jobs at a very brisk pace?

That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Unfortunately, the corporate media is totally buying it.  For example, CNBC just posted an article that described the jobs report as “stunningly strong”…

The employment picture started off 2023 on a stunningly strong note, with nonfarm payrolls posting their biggest gain since July 2022.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 517,000 for January, above the Dow Jones estimate of 187,000 and December’s gain of 260,000, according to a Labor Department report Friday.

And a CNN article has quoted one expert as saying that “the labor market is more like a bullet train”…

“With 517,000 new jobs added in January 2023 and the unemployment rate at 3.4%, this is a blockbuster report demonstrating that the labor market is more like a bullet train,” Becky Frankiewicz, president and chief commercial officer of ManpowerGroup, said Friday.

Really?

After all of the layoffs that we have witnessed in recent months, does she really believe that?

Not to be outdone, Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi boldly declared that any concerns about a coming recession “should be completely dashed by these numbers”…

The January jobs report should “dash” concerns of recession, Moody’s chief economist said Friday, but warned that the numbers may overstate job growth.

“Any concern the economy is in recession or close to a recession should be completely dashed by these numbers,” Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi told CNN’s Matt Egan on Friday, adding that it would take “an awful lot” to send the US economy into a downturn.

Come on man.

You are smarter than that.

The U.S. economy did not add 517,000 jobs last month.

That is the “adjusted” number.

The “unadjusted” number actually shows that the U.S. economy lost 2.5 million jobs last month.  The following comes from Bloomberg…

For the establishment survey, the government’s updated seasonal factors may have impacted the headline payrolls figure. On an unadjusted basis, payrolls actually fell by 2.5 million last month.

That is actually what was measured.

But if you brazenly add more than 3 million jobs to the report that simply do not exist, it makes it look like the U.S. economy is doing just great.

Needless to say, Joe Biden was quite eager to take credit for the “spectacular” jobs report, and he also told reporters that he takes no responsibility for the raging inflation crisis that we are currently experiencing…

He replied with an emphatic ‘no’ when asked if he took any accountability for the price rises under his presidency. ‘It was already there when I got here, man.’

‘Remember what the economy was like when I got here? Jobs were hemorrhaging. Inflation was rising. We weren’t manufacturing the damn thing here. We were in real economic difficulty.’

Inflation in January 2021 when Biden took office was 1.4 percent. The latest December figures were 6.5 percent, down from a June 2022 peak of 9 percent.

For the next month, the Biden administration is going to endlessly boast that 517,000 jobs were added to the economy in January, and most Americans will never even know that it is a number that is entirely fictional.

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that economic activity is slowing down all around us, and many people are starting to become quite desperate…

Video out of Austin, Texas, shows desperate people climbing into supermarket dumpsters to retrieve food that may have been discarded due to a widespread power outage.

The shocking footage Thursday from behind an H-E-B grocery store in Southeast Austin featured people having a free-for-all from dumpsters, in what one commenter on Instagram described as a “dystopian hellscape.”

From now on, I really wish that the government would only release the raw, unadjusted employment numbers to the corporate media.

Because there is way too much guesswork that goes into the “adjustments” that the government bureaucrats are coming up with.

But that is never going to happen.

Every month they are just going to continue to tell us that things are better than they really are.

At least that will give me something to write about.

If anyone tries to shove the “517,000 jobs” number in your face, please share this article with them.

That figure does not reflect reality in any way.

The raw numbers show that 2.5 million jobs were actually lost last month, and that is absolutely horrible.

And as I continue to warn my readers, incredibly challenging economic times are on the horizon.

More layoffs are coming, the housing market is going to continue to crash, and global food shortages are going to continue to intensify.

So don’t let anyone fool you.  We really are plunging into a very serious economic downturn, and the months ahead are not going to be pleasant.

***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 worst case scenario that many of the experts feared is starting to play out right in front of our eyes.  Throughout 2022, I repeatedly warned my regular readers that there were all sorts of indications that the emerging global food crisis would go to entirely new level in 2023, and that is precisely what is happening.  In response to tightening supplies of food, prices are surging all over the planet and the number of desperately hungry people is exploding.  Unfortunately, this crisis is not going to be just temporary.  As I will explain at the end of this article, the global nightmare that we are facing is inevitably going to intensify in the years ahead.

Most of us in the western world simply do not understand how badly conditions have already deteriorated in much of the world.

For example, Reuters is admitting that the hunger crisis in Africa has now become “bigger and more complex than the continent has ever seen”…

Across Africa, from east to west, people are experiencing a food crisis that is bigger and more complex than the continent has ever seen, say diplomats and humanitarian workers.

Please let that sink in for a moment.

There have been many famines in Africa in the past, but things have never been as bad as they are right now.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East a severe shortage of wheat is forcing many Pakistanis to wait in line for hours “to receive a single bag”…

Pakistan is currently suffering from skyrocketing prices and a shortage of wheat flour, with people waiting in line for hours to receive a single bag.

Would you wait in line for hours for one bag of flour?

If you were desperately hungry you would.

In South America, seemingly endless civil unrest has intensified the very serious shortages that are happening in Peru…

As the anti-government protests in Peru show no sign of ending, the country is currently facing a shortage of basic products including food items and fuel.

And on the other side of the globe, Australians are growing increasingly frustrated about the very painful potato shortage that has gripped that nation…

Potatoes are among Australia’s favourite vegetables. However, we are facing a shortage of processed potatoes, especially of frozen chips. Coles introduced a two-item limit for shoppers seeking frozen potato products. Fish and chip businesses are under pressure and some are outraged McDonald’s is launching a new potato product in the middle of a crisis.

In previous decades, there have been times when there have been localized famines in various parts of the world.

But what we are facing now is global.

According to the New York Times, food shortages are “causing intense pain across Africa, Asia and the Americas”…

“We’re dealing now with a massive food insecurity crisis,” Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said last month at a summit with African leaders in Washington. “It’s the product of a lot of things, as we all know,” he said, “including Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”

The food shortages and high prices are causing intense pain across Africa, Asia and the Americas. U.S. officials are especially worried about Afghanistan and Yemen, which have been ravaged by war. Egypt, Lebanon and other big food-importing nations are finding it difficult to pay their debts and other expenses because costs have surged. Even in wealthy countries like the United States and Britain, soaring inflation driven in part by the war’s disruptions has left poorer people without enough to eat.

Have I convinced you yet?

This is serious.

Here in the United States, food prices continue to escalate to frightening levels.  For example, the price of orange juice just skyrocketed to a brand new record high because it is being projected that Florida citrus production will hit the lowest level since 1945…

OJ futures have hit a new high, surging 10 cents or 4.56% to $2.292/lb, surpassing the 2016 record of $2.2585, due to limited supply.

The USDA predicts Florida’s citrus production will reach 44.5 million boxes this year, which could result in the state’s smallest orange harvest since 1945. This is due to “greening disease” and hurricane damage in Florida’s citrus groves.

In 1945, there were 139 million people living in the United States.

Today, the population of the country has risen to 329 million.

So there are far less oranges per person now.

The size of the national cattle herd is also shrinking…

The latest figures from the US Department of Agriculture cattle-inventory report on Tuesday showed 89.3 million cattle as of Jan. 1, down 3% from a year ago. The decline wasn’t unexpected and was in line with a Bloomberg survey.

This means that beef prices are going to continue to go higher and higher.

You could try to switch to chicken or turkey, but thanks to the bird flu pandemic they certainly aren’t inexpensive either.

At this point, the bird flu has already killed more than 58 million chickens and turkeys in the United States.

If that wasn’t bad enough, now a lot of chicken farmers around the country are reporting that their hens have suddenly stopped laying eggs.  This is something that Tucker Carlson recently discussed…

Now healthy hens lay eggs on a regular basis, every 24 to 26 hours. But suddenly, chicken owners all over the country – not all of them, but a lot of them – are reporting they’re not getting any eggs or as many. So what’s causing that? Clearly, something is causing that. Some have concluded their chicken feed may be responsible.

Egg prices have already shot up to a level that most people never dreamed would be possible, and this is creating quite a bit of panic.

More Americans than ever before are suddenly interested in raising their own chickens, and this has sparked quite a buying frenzy at local hatcheries…

Google search interest in “raising chickens” has jumped markedly from a year ago. The shift is part of a broader phenomenon: A small but rapidly growing slice of the American population has become interested in growing and raising food at home, a trend that was nascent before the pandemic and that has been invigorated by the shortages it spurred.

“As there are more and more shortages, it’s driving more people to want to raise their own food,” Ms. Stevenson observed on a January afternoon, as 242 callers to the hatchery sat on hold, presumably waiting to stock up on their own chicks and chick-adjacent accessories.

Unfortunately, everything that I have shared in this article so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

That is because global food supplies are going to continue to get tighter in the years ahead no matter what we do now.

If we suddenly stopped using all fertilizer immediately, we would only be able to feed about half the world.

So the production of fertilizer is absolutely critical.

Unfortunately, almost all of the phosphorus that we use in our fertilizers comes from “non-renewable phosphate rock”, and 85 percent of the remaining supply is located in just five countries…

Without phosphorus food cannot be produced, since all plants and animals need it to grow. Put simply: if there is no phosphorus, there is no life. As such, phosphorus-based fertilisers – it is the “P” in “NPK” fertiliser – have become critical to the global food system.

Most phosphorus comes from non-renewable phosphate rock and it cannot be synthesised artificially. All farmers therefore need access to it, but 85% of the world’s remaining high-grade phosphate rock is concentrated in just five countries (some of which are “geopolitically complex”): Morocco, China, Egypt, Algeria and South Africa.

As supplies of non-renewable phosphate rock continue to get tighter and tighter, global food supplies will continue to get tighter and tighter.

Eventually there will simply not be enough non-renewable phosphate rock to go around, and at point we will be in all sorts of trouble.

The kind of horrifying global famine that I have been relentlessly warning about has become inevitable.

It is just a matter of time.

I would encourage you to learn how to grow your own food now, because we are moving into times that will be extremely “interesting” indeed.

***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.

All of the things that we would expect to see at the start of a major economic downturn are happening.  Retail sales are falling, auto sales have been way down, and the housing market is starting to crash like it did in 2008.  But unlike the last recession, we are also dealing with a raging inflation crisis, and this is one of the main reasons why real disposable income declined at the fastest rate that we have seen since the Great Depression last year.  At this point, close to two-thirds of the entire country is living paycheck to paycheck, and more than half the country cannot even afford to pay an unexpected $1,000 emergency expense.  We are in very dangerous territory, because most U.S. consumers are tapped out.

If we really are in the early chapters of a new recession, we would expect to see sales dropping throughout the economy, and that is precisely what is happening right now…

Retail purchases have fallen in three of the past four months. Spending on services, including rent, haircuts and the bulk of bills, was flat in December, after adjusting for inflation, the worst monthly reading in nearly a year. Sales of existing homes in the U.S. fell last year to their lowest level since 2014 as mortgage rates rose. The auto industry posted its worst sales year in more than a decade.

Everyone can see what is taking place.  The economy is really slowing down and there are very dark clouds on the horizon.

The Wall Street Journal recently asked a group of “business and academic economists” if a recession was coming within the next 12 months, and 61 percent of them said yes…

Consumer spending accounts for roughly 70% of the economy. A downshifting consumer is a key reason that business and academic economists polled by The Wall Street Journal, on average, put the probability of a recession in the next 12 months at 61%.

Of course we won’t know whether or not we are officially in a recession at this moment until several months from now.

But all the signs indicate that economic conditions have already deteriorated quite significantly.

For example, demand for cardboard boxes declined “sharply” during the fourth quarter…

Demand and output for cardboard boxes and other packaging material fell sharply in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to data released by the American Forest & Paper Association and Fibre Box Association on Friday.

It’s the latest indicator that consumer demand is eroding following the pandemic. Dwindling savings, inflation, rising interest rates and fears of a recession may all be swaying consumers to spend less.

To me, this is one of the clearest indicators of what is really going on in our economy.

When there is lots of economic activity, there is lots of demand for cardboard boxes.

And when economic activity drops off, so does demand for cardboard boxes.

So it should deeply alarm all of us that we just witnessed “the most severe quarterly decline since the Great Financial Crisis”…

U.S. box shipments fell by 8.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the Fibre Box Association. KeyBanc’s Adam Josephson, who leads the bank’s analysis of the packaging industry, wrote in a Sunday note that this was “the most severe quarterly decline since the Great Financial Crisis (2Q09).”

U.S. box operating rates fell to 80.9%, the Fibre Box Association said, which was also a low last seen in the first quarter of 2009. This means nearly 20% of the U.S. capacity to produce boxes was stagnant last quarter. Supply of containerboard, which is used to make corrugated boxes, stood at 4.3 weeks, according to the American Forest & Paper Association. That’s down from last quarter, but still historically high.

Another thing that happens when a recession strikes is that a lot of people get laid off.

In recent articles I have been providing lots and lots of examples of this, and today I have a couple of new ones that are quite interesting.

During booming economic times, shipping companies tend to bring on lots of extra workers, but when things get bad they start letting people go.

And so it should deeply alarm all of us that FedEx has decided to give the axe to “more than 10% of its global management staffers”…

FedEx Corp. is laying off more than 10% of its global management staffers as the delivery company faces a shipping slowdown.

In an email to staff Wednesday, Chief Executive Raj Subramaniam said the company was reducing the size of its officer and director ranks and consolidating some teams and functions. The company declined to say how many jobs were being eliminated.

To me, the fact that Paypal has just announced that it will be laying off “approximately seven percent of its workforce” is even more troubling…

Engadget reports that the leading online payment provider, PayPal, recently announced that it will lay off about 2,000 employees, or approximately seven percent of its workforce. The layoffs are anticipated to take place over the coming weeks and will have varying effects on different segments of the business. The company says the layoffs are in response to a difficult macroeconomic environment that has prompted similar responses from other technology giants like Google and Microsoft.

If even our largest and wealthiest tech companies are laying off workers now, are any jobs in the private sector truly safe?

Many that work in the private sector are deeply concerned that they might be next, because thanks to the rising cost of living their savings are almost totally gone.  For instance, consider the plight of 32-year-old Minnesota resident Benjamin DeLong…

Recent layoff trends worry Benjamin DeLong, a 32-year-old customer-account manager at an industrial manufacturer in southern Minnesota. His savings rose to $3,700 during the pandemic, thanks in part to government stimulus. He is now down to about 3 cents.

Mr. DeLong said he had to dip into his savings to cover the rising costs of his groceries, utilities and car insurance. He has found some relief in his grocery bills since he and his partner decided last year to purchase some pigs, jointly with other families, to be raised on a relative’s farm. Their portion of meat yielded nearly 150 pounds, saving them about $500 on groceries, Mr. DeLong estimated.

This is what life is like now in much of the country.

Millions upon millions of hard working Americans are living on the edge.

Now a very serious economic downturn has begun, and things aren’t going to get any easier in the long run.

It appears that 2023 is going to be such a tough year for the U.S. economy.

Hopefully you were able to build up a sizable emergency fund while times were relatively stable.

Unfortunately, most Americans did not, and so they find themselves completely unprepared for what is ahead of us.

***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.

Once upon a time the United States was known as a “Christian nation”, but now our country is moving away from those roots at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking.  I spend a lot of time writing about the ongoing collapse of our economic system, but the truth is that we are witnessing a collapse of faith as well.  In 1972, a Pew survey found that 92 percent of all Americans identified as Christians, but the most recent Pew survey that asked this question discovered that only 63 percent of Americans still identify as Christians at this point…

Pew Research Center has been measuring religious identity since 2007 using a slightly different question wording – “What is your present religion, if any?” – as well as a different set of response options. Since 2007, the percentage of adults who say they are atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” in the Center’s surveys has grown from 16% to 29%. During this time, the share of U.S. adults who identify as Christian has fallen from 78% to 63%.

If you look at this chart, you will see that the decline has greatly accelerated in recent years.

Assuming that this trend continues, it won’t be too long before we are under 50 percent.

And it is very important to note that many Americans that still identify as “Christians” want absolutely nothing to do with traditional Christian values.

Church attendance in the United States has been steadily falling for decades as well, and the shift that we have seen since the pandemic started has been particularly dramatic…

Protestant pastors reported that typical church attendance is only 85% of pre-pandemic levels, McConnell said, while research by the Survey Center on American Life and the University of Chicago found that in spring 2022 67% of Americans reported attending church at least once a year, compared with 75% before the pandemic.

As a result, large numbers of churches are being forced to close all over the nation.

In fact, a recent Guardian article claimed that “thousands of churches are closing each year”…

Churches are closing at rapid numbers in the US, researchers say, as congregations dwindle across the country and a younger generation of Americans abandon Christianity altogether – even as faith continues to dominate American politics.

As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year in the country – a figure that experts believe may have accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic.

We are going down the exact same road that almost every other western nation has already traveled.

At one time, virtually every nation in the western world was heavily Christian, but now most of them have been transformed into post-Christian societies.

It could be argued that the United States is already there as well, and one recent survey found that most parents do not consider it to be important to pass their faith on to their children…

“Parents place less importance on their children growing up to have religious or political beliefs that are similar to their own. About a third (35%) say it is extremely or very important to them that their children share their religious beliefs, and 16% say the same about their children’s political beliefs,” Pew researchers Rachel Minkin and Juliana Horowitz said in Parenting in America Today released on Tuesday.

Numbers such as these should make all of us very sad.

As Americans increasingly move away from what they have previously believed, it is inevitable that even more churches will close.

Meanwhile, many of the institutions that still remain are bitterly divided over sexuality.  Here is just one example…

The United Methodist Church announced a proposal Friday to split the denomination over what it called “fundamental differences” regarding its beliefs on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy.

The proposal, signed by 16 church leaders from around the world, will be voted on at the church’s 2020 general conference in May. If passed, it would allow for a “traditionalist” denomination to separate from the United Methodist Church, the second largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., with more than 12 million members worldwide.

And Roman Catholicism is also being torn apart by controversies related to sexuality…

Gay “clubs” operate openly in Catholic seminaries, the institutions that prepare men for the priesthood, the late Pope Benedict XVI has claimed in a posthumously published book scathing of Pope Francis’s progressive agenda.

In a blistering attack on the state of the Catholic Church under his successor’s papacy, Benedict, who died on Dec 31 at the age of 95, said that the vocational training of the next generation of priests is on the verge of “collapse”.

He claimed that some bishops allow trainee priests to watch pornographic films as an outlet for their sexual urges.

Our culture is being fundamentally transformed all around us, and many prominent Christian leaders are deeply concerned about where things are headed.

During a recent interview, Franklin Graham warned about what will happen if we do not change course…

Graham, who heads the Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, told CBN’s Faithwire he’s read Scripture and knows where culture is headed.

“I know where we’re going,” he said. “I’ve read Revelation. I know what’s getting ready to happen to this world. Judgment is coming.”

Graham continued, “God is going to judge this earth with the rejection of His Son, and there’s gonna be a great price to pay.”

Of course Franklin Graham is quite right.

These are the end times, and judgment is coming.

Unfortunately, most people are not interested in listening to the warnings.

But even though our society is rapidly moving away from religion, more evidence that validates the Christian faith continues to emerge.

For example, a team of researchers in France has determined that an ancient stone that is on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris actually contains references to King David from the Bible…

The stele includes phrases such as “House of David” and “Altar of David,” but the damage to the stone’s face made accurate translation of the text difficult.

By using newer technology, including enhancing techniques in digital photography, researchers verified that the text does refer to the biblical King David.

I was so excited when I first read that.

And all over the Middle East, vast numbers of Muslims are becoming Christians after having supernatural experiences with Jesus…

The Rev. Lazarus Yeghnazar, founder of Transform Iran, an organization preaching the Gospel to Iran and planting churches, told CBN’s Faithwire many Iranians find themselves enraptured by Christ following these apparitions.

“They cannot stop talking about it. Hence the severe persecution, the severity of the brutality,” Yeghnazar said of the persecution many Iranian Christians face. “[Believers will say], ‘I saw a vision of a man with a white robe, with a cross on his shoulder or on his heart, and he says, ‘I’m Jesus.’”

Just as He has done throughout the past two thousand years, Jesus is still showing people that He is alive.

Sadly, many Americans simply do not care.

Our nation is choosing to reject faith like never before, and right now there are no indications that this is going to turn around any time soon.

***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.

Economic conditions are much worse than you are being told.  Throughout the past year, prices have been rising much faster than most of our incomes have.  As a result, our standard of living has been rapidly declining.  It has become increasingly difficult for U.S. households to make it from month to month, and as you will see below, more than a third of all U.S. adults are actually relying on their parents to pay at least some of their bills at this point.  But even more alarming is what has been happening to real disposable income.  According to Fox Business, the most recent GDP report revealed that the decline in real disposable income that we witnessed in 2022 was the largest that has been measured since 1932…

The most troubling information in the GDP report is the precipitous drop in real disposable income, which fell over $1 trillion in 2022. For context, this is the second-largest percentage drop in real disposable income ever, behind only 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression.

Just think about that for a moment.

The last time real disposable income declined this quickly was literally during the peak of the Great Depression.

And as our incomes get squeezed tighter and tighter, more Americans are starting to fall behind on their bills.

For example, the proportion of subprime auto borrowers that are at least 60 days behind on their payments has just surged to the highest level that we have seen since 2008…

In December, the percentage of subprime auto borrowers who were at least 60 days late on their bills climbed to 5.67% — a major increase from a seven-year low of 2.58% in April 2021, according to Fitch Ratings. It marks the steepest rate of Americans struggling to make their car payments since the 2008 financial crisis.

We are already beginning to witness the largest tsunami of repossessions that we have seen since the “Great Recession”, and it is only going to get worse in the months ahead.

One woman in San Antonio that knows that her vehicle could be repossessed at any time has decided that hiding it is the best strategy for now…

For some, however, the only lesson is to try and outsmart the repo man: hardly the best long-term strategy. Take San Antonio native Zhea Zarecor who is currently trying to negotiate with her lender so her 2013 Honda Fit won’t get repossessed. In the meantime, she’s hiding it.

The 53-year-old, who is currently in school for her bachelor’s in information technology (and raking up massive student loans for an education she should have had some 35 years ago) splits the monthly bill for the car — about $178 — with her roommate. But then the roommate lost his job, and with prices for groceries and everyday items increasing, there just wasn’t enough for the car payments.

Zarecor is trying to make extra money with odd jobs like contract secretarial work and participation in medical studies, but it often feels hopeless, she said. “Our money doesn’t go as far as it used to,” she said. “I don’t see prices going down, so the only relief I see is when I get my degree.”

Sadly, most of the country is just barely scraping by at this juncture.

As I discussed in a previous article, one recent survey discovered that 57 percent of Americans cannot even afford to pay a $1,000 emergency expense right now.

And a different survey has found that a whopping 35 percent of all U.S. adults are still relying on Mom and Dad to pay at least some of the bills…

More than one third of adults (35%) admit they still have at least one bill on their parents’ tab. According to a new poll of 2,000 Americans, the top three expenses their parents still pay for are rent (19%), groceries (19%), and utilities (16%). In fact, almost one-quarter (24%) of millennials say their parents cover their rent.

Are things really this bad?

Unfortunately, economic conditions are only going to get even worse in the months ahead as countless more Americans lose their jobs.

On Monday, I was quite saddened to learn that electronics giant Philips will be giving the axe to another 6,000 workers…

Philips announced Monday that it’s cutting another 6,000 jobs worldwide as it works to boost profitability.

The workforce reduction will occur over the next two years with the first 3,000 cuts taking place this year, the Dutch consumer electronics and medical equipment maker said on Monday. In its earnings report, the company revealed it suffered a net loss of 1.6 billion euros in 2022, which is down from a net profit of 3.3 billion euros last year.

And it is also being reported that one of my favorite toymakers has decided to eliminate approximately “15% of its global full-time workforce”.

I could go on and on if you would like.

In fact, every day I could fill up my articles with nothing but job loss announcements.

We have entered a very painful economic downturn, and one prominent Wall Street economist is warning that the full impact of this crisis will not be felt until the second half of 2023…

According to one Wall Street economist, a looming recession this year will feel more like the 1970s than a 2008-07 slump.

“People are too focused on ‘08 and 2020. This is more like 1973, 74 and 2021,” Piper Sandler chief global economist Nancy Lazar said on “Mornings with Maria” Monday.

Lazar predicted feeling the full impact of a recession in the second half of 2023 as lag effects from the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes take hold.

Actually, it would be quite wonderful if her seemingly gloomy forecast is accurate.

Because I don’t believe that we are heading into a slowdown like we experienced during the early 1970s.

Rather, I see all sorts of evidence that indicates that we are in the very early stages of the economic equivalent of “the Big One”.

I believe that things will be very rough this year, and I believe that the long-term outlook is even worse.

Our leaders assured us that everything would be okay even as they were flooding the system with money and engaging in the greatest debt binge in all of human history.

Now a day of reckoning has arrived, and we will get to suffer the consequences of their very foolish decisions.

***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.