Money

We Are Witnessing An Enormous Wave Of Bankruptcies And Layoffs During The Early Stages Of 2023

January 18, 2023January 18, 2023 by Michael

Is your job safe? Right now, we are witnessing so much turmoil is so many different sectors of our economy. The housing market is crashing, the cryptocurrency industry has imploded, the tech industry is laying off workers at an extremely frightening pace, and some of our most important retailers are heading into bankruptcy. The information that I am about to share with you is deeply troubling. It has become exceedingly clear that our economy is in huge trouble, and I fully expect that our problems will accelerate even more as the year rolls along.

Let me start by pointing out what is currently happening at Microsoft. It is one of the wealthiest companies in the entire world, but due to a shift in “macroeconomic conditions” executives have decided that it has become necessary to lay off 10,000 workers…

Microsoft announced thousands of job cuts this week, becoming the latest tech company to pluck its workforce as the global economy slows.

The software company confirmed Wednesday its reducing workforce by 10,000 people through the end of the third quarter of the 2023 fiscal year.

The cuts come “in response to macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities,” the company’s CEO Satya Nadella released in a statement to its employees Wednesday.

If even Microsoft is laying off thousands of workers, is any job in the private sector truly safe?

Meanwhile, some of the biggest names in the retail industry are plunging into bankruptcy now that the holiday season is over.

On Tuesday, it was Party City’s turn…

Party City filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, weighed down by competition and years of financial losses.

The largest party goods and Halloween specialty retail chain in the United States said in a regulatory filing that it reached an agreement with debtholders to cut its $1.7 billion debt load.

Even more alarming is the fact that it is being reported that a bankruptcy filing for Bed Bath & Beyond has become “likely”…

Bed Bath & Beyond has been in discussions with prospective buyers and lenders as it works to keep its business afloat during a likely bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter.

The retailer is in the midst a sale process in hopes of finding a buyer that would keep the doors open for both of its major chains, its namesake banner and Buybuy Baby, said the people, who weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

So many brick and mortar retailers are really struggling right now, and many of them are blaming competition from Internet retailers such as Amazon.

But if Amazon is doing so well, why did they start laying off approximately 18,000 workers on Wednesday?…

Earlier this month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees in a blog post that the company was laying off about 18,000 people as it seeks to cut costs and would begin contacting impacted employees on Jan. 18.

“Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so,” Jassy said in the Jan. 4 post. “These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure.”

The wave of layoffs that we have been witnessing in the tech industry is truly unprecedented.

Prior to this week, more than 25,000 tech industry workers had already been laid off this year, and this comes on the heels of the massive layoffs that we saw last year…

According to the data tracking website, more than 101 tech companies around the world have laid off 25,436 employees so far in 2023. Most of the layoffs have taken place in the United States, accounting for 22,400 employees fired.

The number of workers being laid off from tech companies is a trend that is continuing since 2022, when 154,336 workers were fired from over 1,000 tech companies around the world, according to the data.

But at least the tech industry is in far better shape than the cryptocurrency industry is.

Let me share four major announcements that have all happened within the past 10 days…

#1 It is being reported that Genesis Global Capital “is laying the groundwork for a bankruptcy filing”…

Genesis Global Capital is laying the groundwork for a bankruptcy filing as soon as this week, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

The cryptocurrency lending unit of Digital Currency Group has been in confidential negotiations with various creditor groups amid a liquidity crunch. It has warned that it may need to file for bankruptcy if it fails to raise cash, Bloomberg previously reported.

#2 Crypto.com announced that it will be laying off “20% of its workforce”…

Crypto.com announced plans to lay off 20% of its workforce Jan. 13. The company had 2,450 employees, according to PitchBook data, suggesting around 490 employees were laid off.

CEO Kris Marszalek said in a blog post that the crypto exchange grew “ambitiously” but was unable to weather the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire FTX without the further cuts.

#3 Coinbase has decided “to cut about a fifth of its workforce”…

On Jan. 10, Coinbase announced plans to cut about a fifth of its workforce as it looks to preserve cash during the crypto market downturn.

The exchange plans to cut 950 jobs, according to a blog post. Coinbase, which had roughly 4,700 employees as of the end of September, had already slashed 18% of its workforce in June saying it needed to manage costs after growing “too quickly” during the bull market.

#4 The founder of cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato has actually been arrested. Apparently he was laundering money on a scale of epic proportions…

The founder of the Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato was arrested early Wednesday in Miami in connection with a vast money laundering operation, accused of transmitting more than $700 million in illicit funds in the past four years.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Anatoly Legkodymov, 40, a Russian national, oversaw a major “high-tech financial hub that catered to known crooks,” including cybercriminals and drug dealers seeking to process dirty money.

The cryptocurrency industry will never look the same again after all of this turmoil.

On top of everything else, the Saudis appear to be poised to make a major move that could literally change everything.

At the yearly gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Saudi finance minister decided to drop a bombshell…

Saudi Arabia is open to discussions about trade in currencies other than the US dollar, according to the kingdom’s finance minister.

Needless to say, this could potentially completely undermine the dominance of the petrodollar.

Of course we cannot afford to have that happen, because the dominance of the dollar is one of the only things that is keeping our system afloat.

At this point just about everything is moving in the wrong direction for the U.S. economy, but most people still do not understand the bigger picture.

A lot of the “experts” assume that we will just suffer through a temporary recession and then things will eventually return to normal.

I wish that was true.

Unfortunately, our entire system is starting to crack and crumble all around us, and those that are currently running things are not going to be able to put it back together again.

***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.

Is The War In Ukraine About To Go To An Entirely New Level?

January 17, 2023 by Michael

If Russia intends to make a major move to win the war in Ukraine, it needs to do it very soon. As you will see below, representatives from over 50 different nations will gather this week for a historic meeting in Ramstein, Germany. The goal of that meeting will be to implement a plan to absolutely flood Ukraine with tanks and missile systems in an attempt to turn the tide of the war. At the moment, the Russians have regained the initiative and the Ukrainians are steadily losing territory in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainians are hoping to buy enough time for the next massive influx of military aid to arrive, because it could potentially change everything.

Most of you have probably not heard about the meeting that will be held in Ramstein, Germany on Friday. The following originally comes from the Wall Street Journal…

Representatives of more than 50 countries supporting Ukraine are set to gather in Ramstein, Germany, to discuss provisions for Kyiv and pledge fresh supplies later this month. The U.S.-led assembly, known as the contact group, includes all countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and allies, including Japan, South Korea and Australia, offering lethal and nonlethal aid.

Ukraine is expected to receive Patriot missile systems, which Ukrainian officials say would hobble Russia’s missile attacks that have wreaked havoc on Ukraine’s civilian and critical infrastructure. Some Western officials also said that the first-ever shipment of Western-made main battle tanks could also be announced at the Friday meeting in Ramstein.

The only way that the Russians will be able to stop all of this equipment from getting to Ukraine would be to launch an enormous new invasion from the north that completely cuts off the flow of aid from the western powers.

Russia has been moving troops and equipment into Belarus for months, and many believe that such an offensive will soon happen.

And it is interesting to note that Russia and Belarus just initiated “a series of air-force exercises” on Monday…

Russia and its ally Belarus launched a series of air-force exercises Monday along the border with Ukraine in an effort to boost cooperation ahead of what Ukrainian officials and military analysts believe could be a fresh effort by Moscow in the coming months to retake battlefield momentum.

Throughout history, military exercises have often been used as a cover for major military operations.

But that doesn’t mean that the Russians will pull the trigger in this case.

Perhaps the Russians are just bluffing and are simply trying to hold a large number of Ukrainian forces along the northern border as the main push happens in the east.

At this point we just don’t know.

But many analysts in the western world do believe that the Russians will launch some kind of new offensive in the coming months…

“The Kremlin is likely preparing to conduct a decisive strategic action in the next six months intended to regain the initiative,” said a note from the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank that publishes daily reports on the war in Ukraine.

Actually, I think that if the Russians are going to make a move it will happen soon.

When the mud returns in the spring, it will be much more challenging for Russian tanks to move around efficiently.

So if a major offensive is going to take place, it will almost certainly be conducted within the next several weeks.

Meanwhile, Russian television continues to be filled with talk of nuclear war…

One of Vladimir Putin’s allies has claimed World War Three has already started as he called for Russia to launch a nuclear missile strike on Britain, France and Poland.

TV propagandist Vladimir Solovyov told Russians that Moscow should target the West to disrupt NATO countries from sending supplies to Ukraine.

You don’t hear this sort of talk on television here in the United States.

In fact, at this point most Americans still believe that the risk of nuclear war is extremely low.

But they see things very, very differently inside Russia.

These remarks by Solovyov were in response to reports that NATO powers are getting ready to ship large numbers of tanks and armored vehicles to Ukraine…

It comes as Britain is poised to supply Challenger II main battle tanks to Kyiv, in the first such move of the war.

France is shipping French AMX-10 reconnaissance vehicles, Germany is sending 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, and the US is promising 50 M2 Bradley fighting vehicles.

Both sides just continue to escalate matters, and that has brought us dangerously close to nuclear conflict.

Earlier this month, Dmitry Medvedev made headlines all over the globe when he “threatened the United States of America with hypersonic cruise missiles”…

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev threatened the United States of America with hypersonic cruise missiles and compared the American government’s policies to that of Nazis in a Thursday Telegram post in response to a US embassy appeal to Russian citizens for peace.

“The main gift of the New Year was the arsenal of Zircon missiles that went yesterday to the shores of NATO countries,” said Medvedev, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who currently serves as Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council.

The nuclear warhead-capable Zircon missiles were reported by Reuters Wednesday to have been placed on the frigate Admiral Gorshkov to be deployed to the Indian and Atlantic oceans.

By the way, we have absolutely no way to defend against those hypersonic cruise missiles.

If the Russians launch them, they will hit their targets.

If our leaders were sane, they would be trying to find a peaceful way out of this mess while there is still an opportunity to do so.

Sadly, that window is rapidly closing.

If the Russians launch another massive invasion of Ukraine from the north, there will be no going back.

Both sides will just keep escalating the conflict until someone crosses a line that will never be able to be uncrossed.

On Russian television, they are already talking about the inevitability of a nuclear conflict.

Unfortunately, most Americans don’t even realize that our leaders have us on the brink of the unthinkable.

Hopefully people will start to wake up before it is too late, 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.***

The Clock Is Ticking For Humanity As A Horrifying Fertility Crisis Looms

January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 by Michael

Is humanity running out of time? Based on the growth of the global population during the last century or so, you wouldn’t come to such a conclusion. In 1900 there were about 2 billion people living on this planet, and now there are about 8 billion. But some experts are now suggesting that we have reached a very significant turning point. Global population growth has slowed dramatically, and birth rates have actually fallen well below replacement level in many industrialized nations. Couples are having a more difficult time producing babies, and there are many that are blaming our highly toxic environment for this.

A twitter thread about our looming fertility crisis has gotten a tremendous amount of attention over the past few days.

There’s a deluge of chemicals today poisoning us:

if you’re an average person using regular soaps, deodorants, shampoos, body washes, conditioners, hair products, makeup, you’re ingesting over 200+ chemicals + heavy metals a day, all linked to infertility

— Carnivore Aurelius © (@AlpacaAurelius) January 14, 2023

There are some pretty bold claims being made in that thread, and I decided to fact check three of the most startling…

#1 “1 in 4 couples cannot conceive naturally”

According to the official CDC website, 19 percent of women aged 15 to 49 in the United States are not able to get pregnant…

In the United States, among heterosexual women aged 15 to 49 years with no prior births, about 1 in 5 (19%) are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying (infertility). Also, about 1 in 4 (26%) women in this group have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term (impaired fecundity).

So that would suggest that it is actually around 1 in 5 couples that are not able to conceive naturally.

However, it should be noted that the infertility rate has been steadily rising, and the number on the official CDC website reflects data that is a bit old.

If current trends continue, it is just a matter of time before “1 in 4 couples cannot conceive naturally” if we are not there already.

#2 “Sperm counts are down 60%”

This claim appears to be right on the nose. As I noted last week, a study that was recently released found that sperm counts have fallen by about 60 percent since 1973…

The latest analysis added seven years of sample collection and 44 study results to the 244 included in the earlier 2017 analysis. That study, in its analysis of data trends between 1973 and 2011, found an average decline in mean sperm concentration of 1.6% per year, and an overall decline of 59.3%. The latest study found an even steeper decline – to 2.64% post-2000 and an overall fall of 62.3% among unselected men. This, add the authors, represents a decline of –4.70 million/year, and indicates that this world-wide decline is continuing into the 21st century at an accelerated pace.

If sperm counts continue to plunge this rapidly, it won’t be too long before a majority of human males are infertile.

If that happens, the global population will begin to decline very rapidly.

#3 “if you’re an average person using regular soaps, deodorants, shampoos, body washes, conditioners, hair products, makeup, you’re ingesting over 200+ chemicals + heavy metals a day, all linked to infertility”

This claim was much harder to verify.

On the official NIH website, we are told that “pregnant women in the United States are exposed to 43 or more different potential chemical toxins”…

Environmental toxins are ubiquitous and sometimes implicated in infertility development, either through anatomical abnormalities or endocrinological dysfunction. Based on a National Health and Nutrition Survey from 2003 through 2004, pregnant women in the United States are exposed to 43 or more different potential chemical toxins.[3]Knowledge and experience in evaluating exposure to environmental toxins are critical for any reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist.

Environmental toxins affect individuals throughout the lifespan, including prenatally, and can have various effects, from increasing cancer risk to ovulatory dysfunction to altered semen quality.

Of course the NIH has not exactly been a beacon of truth in recent years.

Without a doubt, we are all endlessly exposed to extremely hazardous toxins in our food, in what we drink, in the air that we breathe and in the products that we put on our bodies.

A lot of those toxins have been linked to infertility, and many believe that this is one of the primary reasons why birth rates have been falling all over the world year after year…

It’s happening to men and women and as well, I should add, non-human species. And what we see is that the decline in the number of children that people have is one percent per year worldwide over the past 50 years. That’s true of developed countries and underdeveloped countries. And the same rate of decline, one percent per year, is what we see for the declining sperm count, what we see for the decline in testosterone, we see for the increase in miscarriage rates, and we’ve examined in our book “Count Down,” how each of these endpoints is deteriorating, if you will, at the same rate, about one percent per year, which is another bit of evidence, although not conclusive, that these are related to a common cause.

What do you think is going to happen to us if these trends continue?

Already, the fertility rate in the United States is way below replacement level…

According to the US Census Bureau, the fertility rate – which measures how many children an average woman will give birth to during her life – was 1.6 in 2020.

This falls far below the level of 2.1 needed to maintain current population levels.

As I detail in my new book, this crisis is an existential threat to the future of humanity, but most people simply do not care.

Most of us are just going to continue to bombard ourselves and our children with highly dangerous toxins no matter what information comes our way.

Sometimes I think that we are simply too stupid to continue as a species for much longer.

pic.twitter.com/fEboX7O5QZ

— Darwin Awards (@DarwinAwards_) January 10, 2023

Instead of trying to figure out how to avoid extinction, we have become an “idiocracy” in which our young people are constantly devising increasingly bizarre ways to get the most social media views possible…

Man attempts to paraglide with couch pic.twitter.com/iSkgN4gUXY

— Weird and Terrifying (@weirdterrifying) January 16, 2023

The clock is ticking for humanity, and we cannot save ourselves from the historic catastrophe that is in front of us.

Hopefully we will realize how desperate our situation has become before time runs out completely.

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

The Mainstream Media Admits That We Are Facing “The Worst Food Crisis In Modern History”

January 15, 2023January 15, 2023 by Michael

People on the other side of the planet are dropping dead from starvation right now, but most people don’t even realize that this is happening. Unfortunately, most people just assume that everything is fine and dandy. If you are one of those people that believe that everything is just wonderful, I would encourage you to pay close attention to the details that I am about to share with you. Global hunger is rapidly spreading, and that is because global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter. If current trends continue, we could potentially be facing a nightmare scenario before this calendar year is over.

Pakistan is not one of the poorest nations in the world, but the lack of affordable food is starting to cause panic inside that country. The following comes from Time Magazine…

Last Saturday in Mirpur Khas, a city in Pakistan’s Sindh province, hundreds of people lined up for hours outside a park to buy subsidized wheat flour, offered for 65 rupees a kilogram instead of the current, inflated rate of about 140 to 160 rupees.

When a few trucks arrived, the crowd surged forward, leaving several injured. One man, Harsingh Kolhi, who was there to bring a five kg bag of flour home for his wife and children, was crushed and killed in the chaos.

We are seeing similar things happen all over the planet.

Just because you still may have enough food to eat doesn’t mean that everybody else is okay.

In fact, things have already gotten so bad that even CNN is admitting that we are facing “the worst food crisis in modern history”…

Yet the world is still in the grips of the worst food crisis in modern history, as Russia’s war in Ukraine shakes global agricultural systems already grappling with the effects of extreme weather and the pandemic. Market conditions may have improved in recent months, but experts do not expect imminent relief.

That means more pain for vulnerable communities already struggling with hunger. It also boosts the risk of starvation and famine in countries such as Somalia, which is contending with what the United Nations describes as a “catastrophic” food emergency.

Sadly, it isn’t just in Somalia where the food crisis has reached “catastrophic” proportions.

According to Reuters, the entire continent is now dealing with the worst food crisis that Africa “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 go back and read that statement again.

Do you remember all those years when Sally Struthers was begging us to feed the starving children in Africa?

Well, the truth is that conditions are now far worse than when she was making those commercials.

At one hospital in Somalia, grieving mothers are regularly bringing in very young children that have literally starved to death…

“Sometimes mothers bring us dead children,” said Farhia Moahmud Jama, head nurse at the paediatric emergency unit. “And they don’t know they’re dead.”

Weakened by hunger, camp residents are vulnerable to disease and people are dying due to a lack of food, said Nadifa Hussein Mohamed, who managed the camp where Isak’s family initially stayed.

“Maybe the whole world is hungry and donors are bankrupt, I don’t know,” she said. “But we’re calling out for help, and we do not see relief.”

UN officials are doing what they can to help, but the truth is that they are being absolutely overwhelmed by the scope of this crisis.

Over the past 12 months, the number of Africans that are dealing with “acute food insecurity” has absolutely exploded…

The number of East Africans experiencing acute food insecurity – when a lack of food puts lives or livelihoods in immediate danger – has spiked by 60% in just the last year, and by nearly 40% in West Africa, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Sadly, a lot of Americans are simply not going to care about what is going on over there as long as we have enough food over here.

Of course food supplies continue to get tighter on our side of the planet as well.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, our corn harvest this year was the smallest in 15 years…

Last year was a bad year for corn — the latest US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report shows drought conditions and extreme weather wreaked havoc on croplands.

USDA unexpectedly slashed its outlook for domestic corn production amid a severe drought across the western farm belt. Farmers in Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas were forced to abandon drought-plagued fields.

The agency estimated farmers harvested 79.2 million acres, a decline of 1.6 million acres versus the previous estimate — the smallest acres harvest since 2008.

That wouldn’t be so bad if our population was still the same size that it was back in 2008.

Other harvests have been extremely disappointing too, and that is one of the factors that has been steadily driving up food prices.

At this point, the average U.S. household is spending 72 more dollars on food per month than it was at this same time a year ago…

As inflation continues to decimate the budgets of American families, the December report from Moody’s Analytics showed that families are spending an estimated $72 more on food per month than they were a year ago.

That figure is pulled out of a report that says the typical US household is shelling out $371 on goods and services more than they were a year ago.

In particular, the price of eggs has gone completely nuts.

I recently came across an article about one small business owner that is now paying three times as much for eggs as she once did…

It just seems like the cost of everything is going up these days and that includes egg prices, which are affecting local businesses. “We used to buy 15 dozen eggs from Sam’s for 23 dollars. They are now 68 dollars,” said Cindy Gutierrez, the owner of Creative Cakes. “Now it’s about 63-ish for 15 dozen and it’s also hard to get 15 dozen,” said Caitlyn Wallace, the owner of Catie Pies.

The prices for eggs have surged three times their original price. According to the consumer price index, egg prices increased by 10% in October 2022 and that increase has continued to rise. This is causing a domino effect for restaurants, businesses, and bakeries who use eggs.

Economic conditions are changing so rapidly now, and nothing will ever be quite the same again.

As we move forward, the widespread use of “beetleburgers” is one of the “solutions” that the global elite are starting to push…

Beetleburgers could soon be helping to feed the world, according to new research. The creepy crawlers’ larvae — better known as mealworms — could act as a meat alternative to alleviate hunger worldwide. The process uses a fraction of the land and water and emits a smaller carbon footprint in comparison of traditional farming.

To make this a reality, French biotech company Ynsect is planning a global network of insect farms, including nurseries and slaughterhouses. A pilot plant has already been been set up at Dole in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comte region of France.

Doesn’t that sound yummy?

Of course these “beetleburgers” will just be a drop in the bucket.

No matter what the global elite try, they will not be able to stop “the worst food crisis in modern history” from getting a whole lot worse.

So I would encourage you to stock up while you still can.

Global food supplies are getting a little bit tighter with each passing day, and I have a feeling that 2023 will have lots of “unexpected surprises” for all of us.

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

We Won’t Be Fooled Again – Inflation Is Most Definitely Not “Under Control”

January 12, 2023January 12, 2023 by Michael

Inflation is going down! Let’s all celebrate! We all knew that when the Federal Reserve began aggressively hiking interest rates it would have an impact on inflation. Higher rates have caused a new housing crash, they have crushed the tech industry, and they have sparked the biggest wave of layoffs that we have seen since the Great Recession. We have entered a significant economic downturn, so it was inevitable that the annual rate of inflation would start to moderate. But as I will explain below, that doesn’t mean that inflation is now “under control”. The real rate of inflation is much higher than we are being told, and people all over the country are being absolutely crushed by the rising cost of living.

Let’s start with the good news first. According to the Labor Department, the annual rate of inflation is rising at the slowest pace since October 2021…

Consumer prices increased 6.5% from a year earlier, down from 7.1% in November and a 40-year high of 9.1% in June, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index, a measurement of what people pay for goods and services, which labor released on Thursday.

The rise last month marks the slowest annual gain since October 2021 and matches economists’ estimates.

Okay, but Fox Business has just reminded us that the annual rate of inflation “remains about three times higher than the pre-pandemic average”…

Still, inflation remains about three times higher than the pre-pandemic average, underscoring the persistent financial burden placed on millions of U.S. households by high prices.

So we are still definitely in a high inflation environment.

But let’s dig deeper.

Most Americans don’t realize that the way that the inflation rate is calculated has literally been changed more than two dozen times since 1980.

And every time it has been changed, the goal has been to make inflation appear to be lower than it actually is.

If the rate of inflation was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the real rate of inflation would be close to 15 percent right now.

That would be comparable to the peak inflation that we witnessed during the Jimmy Carter era.

So don’t let anyone try to convince you that inflation is “low” or “under control” or anything like that.

The main reason why the rate of inflation moderated somewhat during the month of December is because energy prices have been falling…

Americans saw some real reprieve last month in the form of lower energy costs, which fell 6.1% in December. Gas prices dropped 12.5% over the month, the biggest contributor to the overall headline decline in inflation in December.

That is great news, but it is already being projected that gas prices will rise significantly later this year.

And once war in the Middle East erupts, gas prices will go to heights that most people never even dreamed was possible.

Meanwhile, services inflation has just spiked to a level that we haven’t seen in decades.

The cost of living has become extremely oppressive, and the American people are becoming increasingly frustrated by this.

I would like to share a video with you that illustrates what I am talking about.

The woman in this video doesn’t understand all of the numbers that I have just shared in this article. All she knows is that when she goes to the grocery store, prices are way higher than they once were. This video contains some graphic language, and I apologize for that in advance. But I want you to see her anger, because this is how millions upon millions of Americans are feeling about inflation right now.

$120,000 combined household income and can barely afford groceries… pic.twitter.com/qjune1aKyk

— Finance L’s (@TerribleFinance) January 10, 2023

Would you like to be the one that tries to convince her that inflation is “under control” now?

Sadly, the truth is that over the past few years the cost of living has been rising faster than our paychecks have, and so U.S. families have steadily been getting poorer…

The average American family has lost the equivalent of more than a month’s salary in annual income since President Biden took office as high inflation and rising interest rates eat away at their finances, according to research by the Heritage Foundation.

Experts at the conservative think tank analyzed consumer prices and interest rates and found in their latest report released Thursday that the average American household has lost the equivalent of $7,400 in annual income since Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20, 2021. The income loss represents an increase of $200 from September, when the think tank’s research found a $7,200 decline in annual income for the average American household dating back to the start of Biden’s term.

Prior to the pandemic, we were in a low inflation and low interest rate environment.

Now that the Federal Reserve has dramatically hiked interest rates, we now find ourselves in a high inflation and high interest rate environment.

And higher interest rates are also hammering our standard of living…

While their elected representatives in D.C. struggle to pay the nation’s bills, Americans are facing a similar challenge as their household budgets are stretched thin due to inflation and higher borrowing costs. Those financial challenges led more than one-third of households to rely on credit cards or loans to buy necessities in December. Average credit card interest rates reached a new record high of 19.14% APR compared to a Bankrate.com database.

“Americans are increasingly relying on credit cards to make it from paycheck to paycheck, resulting in higher levels of indebtedness. Rising credit card balances in an era of rising interest rates is a path to insolvency,” Antoni told FOX Business. “The average interest rate on credit cards is now around 20 percent while half of Americans cannot pay off their credit cards each month, and balances are growing at a 16 percent annual rate.”

We are getting hit from both ends.

We have to pay more to buy the things that we need, and we have to pay higher interest rates when we borrow money to pay for those things.

The Federal Reserve has lost control, and we are careening toward the sort of historic economic crisis that I have been warning about for years.

But those that are under the spell of the corporate media will continue to assume that everything is fine and that our leaders have a plan to get us out of this mess.

I truly wish that was true.

Unfortunately, the short-term economic outlook is extremely dismal, and prominent voices all over Wall Street are warning that 2023 will be a really rough year.

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

Grocery Stores In New York City Are Considering Locking Up Food Because Theft Has Become So Rampant

January 11, 2023 by Michael

Food has become a prime target for thieves, and that should deeply alarm all of us. Once upon a time, shoplifting was a minor nuisance for most retailers in the United States. But today the game has completely changed. Highly organized gangs of thieves are systematically looting stores all over the country, and this is costing retailers billions upon billions of dollars. Authorities call it “organized retail crime”, but I call it complete and utter lawlessness. When you have large groups of people storming retail stores all over the nation on a regular basis, that is a major crisis.

Originally, a lot of these gangs were primarily targeting goods that could be resold on the Internet very easily. But now a lot of grocery stores are being targeted, and food is being stolen on a scale that we have never seen before.

In New York City, things have gotten so bad that some stores are thinking of implementing dramatic measures. The following comes from a Fox News article entitled “NYC grocery stores consider locking up food due to rampant theft; workers are ‘traumatized'”…

Shampoo, toothpaste, and razor blades are all items that grocery stores have increasingly started locking behind counters. Soon, that list might include food.

“People have no fear of coming to your store and stealing,” said Nelson Eusebio of the National Supermarket Association.

“Our employees are terrified,” Eusebio continued. “We have young people that come to work, young cashiers who work part-time, these kids are 16-17 years old. They’re traumatized.”

When I first started warning that we are becoming a “Mad Max society”, a lot of people thought that I was exaggerating.

Sadly, the breakdown of law and order just continues to accelerate in many of our largest cities. In fact, it is being reported that grand larcenies “were up 80% in New York City last year”…

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has made a point of combating the repeat offenses. “Criminals believe our criminal justice system is a joke,” Adams said in comments referring to a serial intruder who was arrested and released 26 times. “Those arrested for grand larceny go to court, get released and on their way home from court, they’re doing another grand larceny.”

According to the New York Police Department, grand larcenies, thefts of over $1,000, were up 80% in New York City last year.

Only an 80 percent increase?

Yes, that sounds perfectly “normal” to me.

In other areas of the country, shortages are the big news right now.

I never imagined that Costco would totally run out of eggs in early 2023, but this has actually happened at many of their stores.

This Costco is now completely sold out of eggs.

2020 was toilet paper.
2023 is going to be a run on eggs. Get yours now.

Part of this is avian flu and reduced numbers production.

sound … pic.twitter.com/GfyyEu2dpz

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) January 10, 2023

As I discussed yesterday, bird flu is one of the factors that is causing supplies of eggs to get tighter.

But as the farmer in this video explains, it is certainly not the only factor.

The real reason for the egg shortage is NOT avian flu.

According to this farmer … the producers can’t cover their costs, so there are now millions of fewer hens, and many millions of fewer eggs produced PER DAY.

sound …

pic.twitter.com/GcYd1pHPZ0

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) January 10, 2023

No matter how high interest rates go, people still need to eat.

So the Federal Reserve can hike rates to the moon, but food prices are still going to remain ridiculously high.

However, higher rates will crush many other areas of the economy, and some of the biggest names in the corporate world are now conducting mass layoffs…

Goldman Sachs is just the latest firm to reduce its size in recent months. Morgan Stanley announced that it would cut two percent of its staff in December, Amazon plans to cut over 18,000 jobs, and Salesforce announced it would cut ten percent of its workforce and close some offices last week.

While white collar workers were less affected by the COVID-19 pandemic lock-downs than their blue collar counterparts, many jobs were simply done remote instead of being cut, professionals are now bearing the brunt of the economic headwinds America faces.

When are people going to finally understand that we have a major league crisis on our hands?

When Goldman Sachs lays off large numbers of workers, that is a red flag.

When Morgan Stanley lays off large numbers of workers, that is a red flag.

When Amazon lays off large numbers of workers, that is a red flag.

Facebook, Twitter, McDonald’s and Walmart are also laying off workers.

As they used to say in the 1980s, it is time to wake up and smell the coffee.

At this point things are so grim that the World Bank is warning that the entire global economy could plunge into a recession this year…

The global economy is just one more knock away from a second recession in the same decade, something that hasn’t happened in more than 80 years.

That’s the latest warning from the World Bank, which on Tuesday sharply lowered its forecast for global economic growth.

As economic conditions deteriorate, people are going to become increasingly desperate.

And desperate people do desperate things.

So if you think that organized retail theft is bad now, just wait until you see what is ahead.

The social deterioration that we have been witnessing over the past several years will soon accelerate significantly, and that is really bad news for all of us.

Many retail stores on both coasts have already closed due to the epidemic of theft that we are experiencing, and a whole lot more will soon be permanently shut down.

We really are in the process of becoming a “Mad Max society”, and we only have ourselves to blame.

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

Let’s Talk About The Catastrophic Rise Of Egg Prices…

January 10, 2023January 10, 2023 by Michael

Do you remember when you could buy a dozen eggs for 99 cents? It seems like it was only yesterday, but unfortunately those days are now gone for good. Thanks to a variety of factors, egg prices have risen to levels that we have never seen before, and in some areas of the country significant shortages are being reported. In fact, things are so bad that Whole Foods is apparently “now limiting egg carton purchases to two per person”. This is extremely alarming, because millions of U.S. households have traditionally relied on eggs as a cheap source of protein. Unfortunately, it appears that eggs will not be “cheap” for the foreseeable future. According to an article that originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the average price of a dozen eggs in California actually reached $7.37 this week…

Egg cases were bare across Los Angeles County this week, from Trader Joe’s in Long Beach to Amazon Fresh in Inglewood, Target in MidCity to Ralphs in Glendale. Those such as Hodges who found cartons were shocked by the sudden spike in price.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Anna Sanchez, 32, who scoured the half-empty shelves at a Smart & Final in University Park looking for a dozen eggs for less than $10. “The cheaper ones just aren’t there.”

The average retail price for a dozen large eggs jumped to $7.37 in California this week, up from $4.83 at the beginning of December and just $2.35 at this time last year, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show.

Can you imagine paying 7 dollars for a carton of eggs?

I certainly cannot.

Thankfully, prices are not quite as high elsewhere in the nation. One of the reasons why egg prices in California are so absurd is because of a new law that went into effect last January…

Since the law went into effect last January, all eggs sold in California have to be produced in cage-free settings. But cage-free production takes much more space than conventional egg production, and California producers aren’t able to keep up with demand.

“They’re selling everything they can possibly grow,” Mattos said.

Of course egg prices have also been skyrocketing in states that do not have such laws.

All over the nation, people are now paying 4 or 5 dollars for a dozen eggs, and many believe that our ongoing bird flu pandemic is the primary factor that is causing prices to go completely nuts…

But egg prices are up significantly more than other foods — even more than chicken or turkey — because egg farmers were hit harder by the bird flu. More than 43 million of the 58 million birds slaughtered over the past year to control the virus have been egg-laying chickens, including some farms with more than a million birds apiece in major egg-producing states like Iowa.

More than 50 million chickens and turkeys have also been wiped out in Europe.

So when you combine the two totals, so far well over 100 million chickens and turkeys have been killed in just the United States and Europe.

And there is no end to the bird flu pandemic in sight.

This is a major crisis, but up to this point the mainstream media has not been focusing on it very much.

On top of everything else, egg farmers have had to deal with rapidly rising costs in recent months.

In fact, there are some in the industry that insist that the huge cost increases that egg farmers have been hit with over the past year are even a bigger factor than the bird flu…

But the president and CEO of the American Egg Board trade group, Emily Metz, said she believes all the cost increases farmers have faced in the past year were a bigger factor in the price increases than bird flu.

“When you’re looking at fuel costs go up, and you’re looking at feed costs go up as much as 60%, labor costs, packaging costs — all of that … those are much much bigger factors than bird flu for sure,” Metz said.

Many anticipate that these costs will only go higher in 2023.

And that will mean even higher prices for the rest of us.

I really feel badly for small bakeries. They use lots and lots of eggs, and if egg prices continue to go up many small bakeries could soon be forced to close…

“Small businesses especially, you live and die by what your food costs are,” said Tracy Ann Devore, owner of KnowRealityPie in Eagle Rock, who recently let go a dishwasher to stem rising costs. “If this keeps up for another three to six months, it could be a tipping point for some bakeries to close.”

For Devore and many others, the new egg crisis, combined with uncertainty about when it could ebb, has been more unsettling than the gradual price creep of dairy products, flour and produce.

“At some point, you can’t raise the price anymore,” Devore said. “There’s been points where I’ve cried recently, because I thought, ‘How are we going to keep going with this?'”

Our food industry was stable for so many years, but now we are witnessing a dramatic shift.

Costs are going through the roof, and supply problems just keep popping up.

Just like we have witnessed at other times, empty shelves are starting to be reported at certain supermarkets around the nation…

Social media is brimming with reports of missing food items at Kroger supermarket locations across the country.

A repeat of early 2020 when toilet paper and other essentials ran bare, the start of 2023 is seeing “a lot of empty shelves” at Kroger, according to numerous reports, some containing video evidence of lingering supply chain problems.

We are getting dangerously close to the days that I have been warning about.

As we are hit by one crisis after another throughout 2023, I expect our supply chain problems to continue to intensify.

So I would encourage you to stock up while you still can.

Yes, prices may seem ridiculously high now, but the truth is that they aren’t going to be getting any lower than they are at this moment.

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

Will The Implosion Of The Tech Industry Bring Down The Entire U.S. Economy?

January 9, 2023 by Michael

The tech industry has become one of the central pillars of our economy, and tech stocks led the way up during the stock market boom. But now tech stocks have been crashing and many of our biggest tech industry companies have been laying off large numbers of workers. If the strongest sector of our economy continues to rapidly deteriorate in 2023, what will that mean for our weaker sectors? I think that the answer to that question is obvious. The truth is that we are in far bigger trouble than “the experts” realize, but most people still assume that everything will work out just fine somehow.

If economic conditions were really about to “return to normal”, the tech industry would not be laying off thousands upon thousands of workers. The following comes from a CNN article entitled “Silicon Valley layoffs go from bad to worse”…

At Amazon and other tech companies, the second half of last year was marked by hiring freezes, layoffs and other cost-cutting measures at a number of household names in Silicon Valley. But if 2022 was the year the good times ended for these tech companies, 2023 is already shaping up to be a year when people at those companies brace for how much worse things can get.

Did you catch that last part?

Even CNN is admitting that 2023 will be even worse for the tech industry than 2022 was.

Of course last year was really, really bad for the tech industry. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, tech layoffs “were up 649% in 2022”.

I was floored when I first saw that figure.

649 percent is a pretty big shift.

And one prominent private equity CEO just warned Fox Business that we could see a “bloodbath” for tech stocks during the months ahead…

In an interview with FOX Business on Friday, Eric Schiffer, CEO of the private equity firm, The Patriarch Organization, said: “Because tech is so oversold, there might be potential exits for a limited short-term bear rally, but there is a danger facing shareholders.”

“Shareholders should brace themselves for a deeper brutal tech bloodbath driven by the Fed and its ‘Terminator’ like mission to raise rates and wipe out inflation,” he warned. “Many tech companies will enact job carnage in the first quarter, with Salesforce and Amazon just the start.”

The tech-heavy Nasdaq is already down by about a third from the peak of the market, and trillions of tech stock wealth has already been wiped out.

So what will things look like if we actually see another “bloodbath” for tech stocks this year?

At this point, I don’t think that most Americans realize what is coming.

Mass layoffs are already starting to happen all over America, and one economist that was just interviewed by CNN believes that conditions will be even worse “by the end of the first quarter”…

“I think we’re seeing an inflection point; the rate of jobs growth is slowing and a lot of these tech layoffs that we’re hearing about, I think are going to start materializing across the broader economy by the end of the first quarter,” John Leer, chief economist at Morning Consult told CNN’s Chief Business Correspondent Christine Romans in an interview Friday.

Sadly, the truth is that the U.S. economy has been bleeding good jobs for quite some time now.

According to Fox Business, the official numbers that the government has been giving us show that the U.S. economy has been losing an average of 2,100 full-time jobs since May…

But there are more disturbing trends present in the data. The economy has been losing full-time jobs at an alarming rate: 2,100 every day since May. Employers are shifting from full-time to part-time jobs, which often occurs before those businesses stop hiring altogether. Then, layoffs arrive.

This is often what we see as our economy heads into a major downturn.

First, many employers start shifting from full-time employees to part-time employees, and then when things get bad enough they just start dumping workers.

And at this point we are already starting to see some of the wealthiest companies in America let people go. In fact, Goldman Sachs is going to be giving thousands of highly paid employees the axe starting on Wednesday…

The global investment bank is letting go of as many as 3,200 employees starting Wednesday, according to a person with knowledge of the firm’s plans.

That amounts to 6.5% of the 49,100 employees Goldman had in October, which is below the 8% reported last month as the upper end of possible cuts.

Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to go even higher.

Earlier today, I was stunned to learn that natural gas bills for many residents of southern California could soon double…

Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric have issued stark warnings to customers that their January natural gas bills could double, citing factors for historically high wholesale costs that include sinking inventories, supply constraints and a cold start to winter that has soaked the West Coast.

And even though the Federal Reserve has been taking extreme measures to fight inflation, food prices just continue to soar to absurd heights.

Survey after survey has shown that a solid majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck right now.

As the cost of living becomes increasingly oppressive, more Americans are turning to their credit cards for help…

New data released by the Census Bureau this week found that more than 35% of households used credit cards or loans in December to assist with spending needs in the past week. That marks an increase from 32% in November and just 21% in April 2021, according to the Household Pulse Survey.

The rise in credit card usage is somewhat concerning because interest rates are astronomically high right now. The average credit card APR, or annual percentage rate, set a new record high of 19.14% last week, according to a Bankrate.com database that goes back to 1985. The previous record was 19% in July 1991.

The greed of the credit card companies seemingly knows no bounds.

As I have repeatedly warned my readers, you do not want to be carrying a lot of debt during the hard economic times that are coming.

19.14 percent is the average rate on credit card balances now, and that means that half of the country has rates that are even higher than that.

Ouch!

If you are currently carrying credit card debt, I would encourage you to get that paid off as soon as you can.

Because economic conditions are only going to get harsher from here, and you definitely don’t want to be financially crippled by high interest debt during the severe crisis that is rapidly approaching.

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

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