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According to the absurd numbers that the government feeds us, the unemployment rate is very low and there are lots of jobs available.  But if what they are telling us is true, why are so many Americans not able to find work?  As you will see below, some people haven’t been hired even though they have literally applied for hundreds of jobs.  There seems to be an enormous disconnect between what is actually happening in the real economy and the economic narrative that they are constantly pushing.  By the time you are done reading this article, I think that you will agree with me.

Earlier this week, I received an email from a reader that has not been able to find work after seven months of searching.

He gave me permission to share part of that email with you, and it is certainly quite heartbreaking…

Hi Michael,

I am a long-time reader of theeconomiccollapseblog.com, and your recent article comparing the economy to the movie “Weekend at Bernie’s” really stood out to me.

I’m really trying to figure out WHY it is so hard to find a job.

I was laid off from my job as a Custodial Foreman in September 2023, and have had ZERO results for my countless hours spent searching for comparable work.

I don’t know if you want to use any of this for an article or not, but if you do, please just keep doing what you normally do: Praising Jesus Christ. Without my faith in him I don’t know what I’d do.

When I wake up, I make coffee and turn on the computer and go through the state’s unemployment job search sites they provided me when I was laid off. I have been looking and also applying for jobs DAILY since September 2023. And these are not “rocket science” positions; I’m simply looking for Maintenance or Custodial or Groundskeeper type jobs. You know, “normal working class” type jobs.

But after ~300 applications (And these are all just to the jobs that I not only have experience for but also would actually want to do), I have had 1 interview. One interview in 7 months of applying and sending tailored cover letters with, daily!

If the economy is doing so “great”, why can’t he find employment?

Some of you may be tempted to think that he is just an isolated case.

Well, here is another example of an experienced worker that has applied for approximately 300 jobs without any success…

Royal Siu, who lives in Seattle and is trained as a pharmacist, likes to make his friends guess how many jobs he’s applied to. They’ll often toss out some number around 40, he told BI. He’ll tell them to keep going. Most give up by the time they reach 100. That’s when Siu drops that he’s applied to about 300 jobs. “It’s usually a shock factor to them,” he said.

Siu, who’s trying to use his pharmacy degree to work in other parts of healthcare, is finding it harder to land interviews than in a prior job search. The 28-year-old was getting more phone screenings and first and second interviews in the past. This time, it’s been a couple of months since he had a screening call. So he continues to turn to his network but also doesn’t stop applying.

What in the world is going on here?

I thought that there were “millions” of good jobs just waiting for someone to step into them.

Something definitely does not add up.

Even Americans with advanced degrees from top schools are increasingly finding themselves out of work.

If you doubt this, just check out these numbers…

Even at some top business schools, the number of recently minted M.B.A.s without jobs has roughly doubled from a couple of years ago, when U.S. companies were rushing to hire as many workers as they could, according to data from the schools.

At Harvard Business School, 20% of job-seeking 2023 M.B.A. graduates didn’t have one three months after graduation, up from 8% in 2021. At Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, 18% didn’t, compared with 9% in 2021. About 13% of those at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management didn’t have a job within three months, up from about 5% in 2021.

How are those numbers possible if the unemployment rate is hovering near “historic lows”?

Of course the truth is that we have been sold a lie.

If you do not have a job, you are classified by the U.S. government as either “unemployed” or “not in the labor force”.

In 2008 and 2009, the combined total of those two categories never even reached 90 million.

Today, the combined total of those two categories is over 106 million.

The Biden administration says that only 6,429,000 Americans are officially “unemployed”.

The other 99,989,000 Americans without a job are considered to be “not in the labor force”.

And more will be lumped into those two categories soon, because large employers all over the nation continue to conduct mass layoffs.

For example, thousands of Tesla workers in California and Texas were just notified that they will be losing their jobs…

The notifications in California and Texas, where the electric vehicle (EV) maker has large presences, came in the form of WARN notices, according to reports.

In California, the planned Tesla headcount reductions will hit approximately 3,300 workers, The San Francisco Standard reported Tuesday.

They will apparently occur at locations in a total of four different cities in the Golden State.

Meanwhile, Texas will see almost 2,700 employees in Austin lose their jobs, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

Sadly, the pace of layoffs is likely to increase during the months ahead, because business activity in the U.S. is declining…

The U.S. economy lost momentum in April, a pair of S&P surveys found, as businesses reported a decline in new orders and reduced employment for the first time since the pandemic.

The flash U.S. manufacturing purchasing managers index slipped to a four-month low of 49.9 in April from 51.9 in March.

The S&P flash U.S. services PMI fell to a five-month low of 50.9 this month from 51.7 in March.

The surveys are the first indicators of each month to give a sense of how the U.S. economy is performing.

Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis just continues to escalate.

Shockingly, at one station in California gasoline now costs $7.29 per gallon…

Soaring gas prices have skyrocketed to a whopping $7.29 per gallon in some parts of California – which is above the current the national hourly minimum wage.

While the average price for a gallon of gas varies from state to state – drivers in a certain Silicon Valley town are facing particularly extortionate rates that set them back almost $150 for a full tank.

The Chevron gas station in Menlo Park was exposed on Sunday by a bewildered customer who posted on X that the price per gallon was four cents ‘above the federal hourly minimum wage.’

If you think that this is bad, just wait until the war in the Middle East transforms into the apocalyptic conflict that I believe it will become.

I am entirely convinced that inflation will continue to be a major problem even as economic activity in the U.S. slows down even more.

We are already experiencing “stagflation”.

What is eventually coming will be so much worse than that.

Of course the economic pain that we are going through is just one of the factors that is systematically destroying our nation.

A Warning to America: 25 Ways the US is Being Destroyed | Explained in Under 2 Minutes pic.twitter.com/qwmBO8DmMt

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) April 22, 2024

Just about all of our major institutions are crumbling, just about every sector of our society is in the process of melting down, and conditions are rapidly getting worse all around us.

And now we are heading into the most chaotic election season in the entire history of our country.

This is a recipe for disaster, but there is no turning back now.

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

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

When I was a kid, “Weekend at Bernie’s” was one of my all-time favorite movies.  In that film, two guys worked really hard to convince everyone that their boss was still alive so that they wouldn’t get into trouble.  I remember laughing throughout that entire movie.  Today, the Biden administration is working really hard to convince all of us that the U.S. economy is still alive, and that isn’t funny at all.  A horrific cost of living crisis is absolutely crushing millions of U.S. households, large companies are conducting mass layoffs all over the nation, and the real estate industry is in a gigantic mess.  But Joe Biden and his minions would have us believe that everything is just fine.

What we are witnessing is so similar to a very shocking incident that recently happened in Brazil.

A very disturbed woman, seeking a loan, actually wheeled a corpse into a local bank…

Now Joe Biden, seeking another term, is wheeling out the corpse of the U.S. economy and pretending that it is still alive.

But no matter how many fake numbers they give us, we all know the truth.

Last week, I came across a very sad post by an elderly man on a popular Internet forum, and it was one of the most heartbreaking things that I have read in a very long time…

For the first time ever, the wife went to the local food bank yesterday. We had dinner last night because she did. My heart is crushed. I have always been able to keep food in our house. We met in 84 , married in 92 and we have had some tough times sure enough. But it’s never been like this. I don’t know how people are making it. Our bills are all paid. So we are indeed fortunate. The past two years has been an ever increasing decline in our ability to make ends meet. The cost of literally everything has taken what we use to put in the bank for road trips to the coast or mountains. Now we can’t afford to even feed ourselves.

How much more are you going to take from us? You democrats have brought us low. Now we can’t even afford to eat. The wife and I are thin anyways. The wife, she weighs maybe 95 pounds. I can not let her go without food. Now I will never retire. I will die with my work boots on.

Am I alone in this? Am I the only one who has lost so much just in the last two years? Are we the only couple going without food? In all my years things have never been this bad.

Are you democrats proud of yourselves? Is this what you wanted? An elderly couple who worked their whole lives Now begging for food?

This elderly man is employed.

But the cost of living crisis has gotten so bad that he and his wife literally cannot afford enough food to eat.

This is our economy now.

And with each passing day, even more American workers are being laid off.

In fact, we just learned that Nike has decided to lay off hundreds of workers at their world headquarters…

US athletic footwear and apparel company Nike announced late in the cash session on Friday that it is undergoing a restructuring effort to trim costs at its World Headquarters (WHQ) located in Beaverton, Oregon.

Michele Adams, VP of People Solutions at Nike, might be the most hated person at the company this afternoon. In a letter to staff, she wrote that “approximately 740 employees at WHQ” will be “permanently” laid off by late June.

No job in the private sector is truly safe at this point.

In recent months, we have seen dozens of large companies in the U.S. conduct mass layoffs.

And a lot more layoffs will be coming in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, the real estate industry continues to tank.

Last month, sales of previously owned homes were down 4.3 percent…

Sales of previously owned homes dropped 4.3% in March compared with February, to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.19 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales were 3.7% lower than in March 2023.

High interest rates are killing home sales, and they are absolutely devastating the commercial real estate industry.

But the Federal Reserve is scared to reduce interest rates at this point, because that will just make our cost of living crisis even worse.

They have trapped themselves in a no win situation.

After years of incredibly bad decisions, those that are running our economy are out of good options.

But even though economic conditions are so bad right now, Joe Biden and his minions would like us to believe that everything is just great and that a new golden age of prosperity is right around the corner…

It is mind-blowing that Biden’s campaign ads still claim he helped the ordinary American worker. The economic bad news just keeps coming, as inflation climbs up and up in spite of propaganda to the contrary, real wages drop, and the value of the dollar goes down both at home and abroad. And even while real wages are decreasing, inflation is costing Americans an estimated $1,000 extra every month.

The rich are doing well, but the rest of us are struggling. The wealthiest Americans reportedly increased their fortunes by $195 billion just in Biden’s first 100 days in office back in 2021, and it didn’t stop there. Economist Dave Brat noted on April 10 that the wealth of America’s top 1% hit a record $44 trillion. The top 1% own half of our country’s individually held stocks, while 87% of such stocks and mutual funds belong to the top 10% of Americans.

Biden’s economy helps the uber-rich, but it is absolutely disastrous for ordinary Americans.

If you are ultra-wealthy, you are probably doing extremely well in this economic environment.

But just about everyone else is really struggling.

We really do have a “Weekend at Bernie’s economy”, and the Democrats really do have a “Weekend at Bernie’s candidate”…

That video would be a lot funnier if it wasn’t so true.

By now, most of you realize that this story is not going to end well.

In my latest book entitled “Chaos”, I included a lot of practical tips that will help you get prepared for what is ahead of us.

A major economic meltdown has already begun, but we are still only in the early chapters.

And it has become exceedingly clear that the guys that are currently running the show are definitely not equipped to lead us out of this mess.

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

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

How it is possible that initial claims for jobless benefits have been exactly the same for five of the past six weeks?  As Jim Blanco has pointed out, there is no way that this is statistically possible.  Honestly, I don’t know any other way to explain this other than to say that the numbers are being cooked.  It appears that the bureaucrats in Washington have gotten so lazy that they aren’t even bothering to change the fake numbers that they are giving us.  Even though large companies are conducting mass layoffs all over America, week after week we are given laughable numbers that indicate that everything is just fine.  At this point, the charade has become such a farce that even CNBC has published an article about this…

Calling the state of the U.S. jobs market these days stable seems like an understatement considering the latest data coming out of the Labor Department.

That’s because most of the past several weeks have shown that first-time claims for unemployment benefits haven’t fluctuated at all — as in zero.

For five of the past six weeks, the level of initial jobless filings totaled exactly 212,000. Given a labor force that is 168 million strong, achieving such stasis seems at least unusual if not uncanny, yet that is what the figures released each Thursday morning since mid-March have shown.

Jim Bianco, the head of Bianco Research, was the first one to call attention to the absurdity of getting the exact same number for five of the past six weeks…

“How is this statistically possible? Five of the last six weeks, the exact same number,” market veteran Jim Bianco, head of Bianco Research, posted Thursday on X.

“Initial claims for unemployment insurance are state programs, with 50 state rules, hundreds of offices, and 50 websites to file. Weather, seasonality, holidays, and economic vibrations drive the number of people filing claims from week to week,” he added. “Yet this measure is so stable that it does not vary by even 1,000 applications a week.”

He is right.

Something definitely does not smell right about all of this.

Below is the number of initial filings for unemployment insurance.

How is this statistically possible?

Five of the last six weeks, the exact same number.

Effectively the same number in the last 11 weeks, except for the holiday weeks (President’s Day and Easter).
—
Consider… pic.twitter.com/vZbWWC7DRr

— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) April 18, 2024

Of course it isn’t just for the past few months that we have been given fishy numbers.

For a couple of years, jobless claims have stayed within a certain range no matter what has been happening in the real economy.

I simply do not have any faith in the official numbers that they give us any longer, and I don’t understand how anyone else can either.

According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of announced job cuts in the U.S. in March was 7 percent higher than the already elevated level that we witnessed in February…

Employers in the U.S. announced 90,309 job cuts in March — a 7% increase from February, according to data released Thursday from executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

That amount of planned layoffs mark the highest monthly total since January 2023, when employers announced 102,943 cuts. Companies are cutting jobs as a result of store closures, bankruptcies, organizational restructuring or general cost-cutting, Challenger said. The cuts suggest that “many companies appear to be reverting to a ‘do more with less’ approach,” Senior Vice President Andy Challenger said in a statement.

“While technology continues to lead all industries so far this year, several industries, including energy and industrial manufacturing, are cutting more jobs this year than last,” he said.

But all of these layoffs haven’t even made a blip in the initial jobless claims numbers.

How is that possible?

And the BLS says that the unemployment rate actually went down in February…

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday showed the labor market added 303,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in March, significantly more than the 214,000 expected by economists. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate decreased to 3.8% from 3.9% in February.

If the unemployment rate in the U.S. really was just 3.8 percent, I would certainly be celebrating.

But that is another number that is so manipulated that it has essentially become meaningless.

If you are not working in America today, you are put into one of two categories.

Either you are classified as “unemployed” or you are classified as “not in the labor force”.

According to the most recent BLS number, 6,429,000 Americans are considered to be officially “unemployed”.

But another 99,989,000 Americans are considered to be “not in the labor force”.

When you add those two numbers together, you get more than 106 million U.S. adults that do not have a job right now.

During the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, that combined figure never even reached 90 million.

But we had a horrifying “unemployment crisis” in 2008 and 2009, and today everything is just fine.

Give me a break.

They are gaslighting us really hard, and the vast majority of Americans are going right along with it.

After all, if the government is telling us something it must be true, right?

Sadly, the truth is that we are in the terminal phase of the largest debt crisis in the history of the world.

When Barack Obama entered the White House, we were about 10 trillion dollars in debt.

Now we are 34 trillion dollars in debt…

The U.S. national debt is climbing at a rapid pace and has shown no signs of slowing down, despite the growing criticism of massive levels of government spending.

The national debt — which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors — increased to $34,576,488,508,928.92 as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the latest numbers published by the Treasury Department. That is down about $14.5 billion from the $34,591,001,330,876.91 figure reported the previous day.

By comparison, just four decades ago, the national debt hovered around $907 billion.

About every 100 days, we are adding another trillion dollars to the debt.

We are stealing gigantic mountains of money from future generations of Americans in order to make the present more pleasant.

Our politicians are injecting trillions upon trillions of borrowed dollars into the economy, and so our economy should be going gangbusters.

But it isn’t.

So what would things look like if the borrowing stopped and we actually tried to live within our means?

You might want to think about that for a while.

Because this debt cycle is coming to an end, and the crash that is ahead of us is going to be far more horrible than most people would dare to imagine.

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

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

In the entire history of the United States, we have never witnessed an urban collapse of this magnitude.  During the pandemic, millions of Americans started working from home, and many of them have never returned to the office.  Meanwhile, rapidly rising levels of crime, homelessness and migration have transformed many of our inner cities into extremely dangerous places.  As a result, thousands upon thousands of businesses have left our core urban areas in search of greener pastures.  So now there is lots and lots of commercial real estate space that is sitting empty, and commercial real estate prices have absolutely plummeted.

At this moment, we are in the midst of a meltdown that I believe will eventually be regarded as the worst commercial real estate collapse that America has ever seen.

In fact, we just learned that the number of commercial real estate foreclosures in March was 117 percent higher than it was during the same month in 2023…

The commercial real estate market is starting to buckle under the weight of higher interest rates and remote work.

There were 625 commercial real estate foreclosures in March, up 6% from February and 117% from the same time last year, according to a new report published by real estate data provider ATTOM.

Things are particularly bad on the west coast.

The struggles of San Francisco and Los Angeles are well documented, and so it is not much of a surprise that last month commercial real estate foreclosures in the state of California were up 405 percent compared to the same month last year…

California had the highest number of commercial foreclosures in March, with 187 properties. While that marked an 8% decrease from the previous month, it is a stunning 405% jump from the previous year.

“California began experiencing a notable rise in commercial foreclosures in November 2023, surpassing 100 cases and continuing to escalate thereafter,” the report said.

But it isn’t just the west coast that is facing a nightmare.

This is what St. Louis looked like at the time of the World Fair in 1904…

I know this may be hard to believe, but at that time it was a glorious city.

But now it looks like a hellhole.

Recently, a vacant office building in the downtown area sold for 98 percent less than it did in 2006…

A vacant office building in downtown St. Louis just sold for $3.6 million — a nearly 98% discount from its 2006 sales price, signaling a concerning course for the Midwestern city’s downtown area.

The former One AT&T Center, which at 44 stories is the third-tallest building in St. Louis, sold for $205 million in 2006 and recently sold for $3.6 million to the Goldman Group, a real-estate investment firm, according to CoStar News.

Very few people want to live or work in downtown St. Louis these days, because it has become “a very dangerous place”…

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday published a story on the “real estate nightmare” and detailed stories of boarded-up properties and occasional raids by police and firefighters searching for squatters and missing people.

“It’s a very dangerous place,” St. Louis Fire Department Chief Dennis Jenkerson told the paper.

As things continue to get worse, more people want to leave.

At this point, just about everyone acknowledges that St. Louis is trapped in an “urban doom loop”…

The cycle is often called the “urban doom loop,” which the Atlantic describes as the cycle of people moving away from city as things get worse, then things getting worse because more people moved away.

Business Insider’s Eliza Relman described the doom loop afflicting Midwestern cities: “Commercial property taxes make up a large chunk of many city budgets, so as office vacancies rise, the decreased revenue could force leaders to curtail municipal services or make cuts to key programs. Declining services and quality of life in turn pushes residents out, leading to a self-reinforcing exodus. Without serious changes, these midsize cities in the middle of the country could be quietly sliding into oblivion.”

Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would still want to be in St. Louis.

Violence is a constant threat, and it has experienced the largest decline in foot traffic of any major U.S. city…

Locals said they are often depressed and scared by the sight of empty shops and restaurants, according to the WSJ. Sidewalks are left barren as fewer people choose to commute into the downtown area, and recently installed signs urge visitors to “park in well-lit areas.”

According to the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, the business district of St. Louis experienced the greatest drop in foot traffic of 66 major U.S. cities between the start of the pandemic in 2020 and the summer of 2023.

Sadly, this is the road that almost all of our major cities are now going down.

New York was once one of the finest cities on the entire planet, but now the streets are littered with open air markets that are selling stolen goods, drugs and sex services…

Roosevelt Avenue near 91st Street is littered daily with migrant vendors hawking goods they ripped off from shopkeepers just steps away, while prostitutes proposition passersby at all hours — and frustrated merchants and residents say they’re helpless to do anything about it.

“It’s relentless,” said Milton Reyes, who manages Mi Farmacia pharmacy on the avenue. “You should see it on Saturdays. It’s so heavy, you can’t even step onto the sidewalk. There are a lot of doctors’ offices right around here and my customers don’t even want to get dropped off.

What a nightmare.

The police do patrol the streets, but as soon as they are out of sight the open air markets resume business as usual…

In Jackson Heights, the hookers now share the landscape with shoplifting migrants who mob and ransack local retailers, then brazenly sell their stolen merchandise for 20% or 30% less just steps from the stores, retailers said.

“They are stealing,” Francisco O’Porta, a security guard at Lot-Less, told The Post. “They rip it out of the box, but it’s ours. You can see. It is brand new, but they are selling it as used. It’s our stuff.

“They have been training people,” said O’Porta, 55, of Long Island City. “They have lookouts, you know, people to yell so they can pick up and leave when police come. I am catching a lot, a lot of them stealing. I caught 20 people last week. Twenty in one week. They are hurting business.”

If New York authorities cannot get crime under control, the mass exodus out of the Big Apple will get even worse.

According to the video that I have posted below, the city now has “a $4.4 billion shoplifting economy”…

This is what societal collapse looks like.

And you definitely do not want to be in an environment like that when things really start hitting the fan.

The moral character of our country really matters.

Sadly, it has been declining for decades, and now we have a complete and utter horror show on our hands.

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

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

Why are they being so quiet about this?  On Friday, the UN Security Council will take a vote which will determine whether or not “the State of Palestine” will be granted full UN membership.  If this vote is successful, that will formally create a Palestinian state that will have full recognition by the international community.  So this is a really big deal.  Algeria is the nation that has put this draft resolution forward, and it is scheduled for a vote at 3 PM Eastern time on Friday afternoon…

The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to vote Friday on a Palestinian request for full U.N. membership, said diplomats, a move that Israel ally the United States is expected to block because it would effectively recognize a Palestinian state.

The 15-member council is due to vote at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) Friday on a draft resolution that recommends to the 193-member U.N. General Assembly that “the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the United Nations,” diplomats said.

It is being projected that 13 of the 15 members of the Security Council could vote in favor of this resolution, and so Israel is counting on the Biden administration to veto it…

A council resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the U.S., Britain, France, Russia or China to pass. Diplomats say the measure could have the support of up to 13 council members, which would force the U.S. to use its veto.

Just think about this for a moment.

The only thing standing in the way of a Palestinian state is Joe Biden.

Of course he actually wants a Palestinian state to be established, but he wants it to happen as a result of peace negotiations.

And after the current war in the Middle East is concluded, there will be an all-out push to achieve that goal.

For now, the war in the Middle East is poised to go to a dangerous new level.

Israel is preparing to retaliate against Iran, and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is promising that even the “slightest action” by Israel will provoke a “painful response”…

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has warned Israel it will face a “painful response” if it takes the “slightest action” in response to Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile barrage against the Jewish state over the weekend.

Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel on the night of Saturday-Sunday came in response to an April 1 air strike on Tehran’s embassy compound in Damascus that has been widely blamed on Israel.

So what would that “painful response” look like?

Well, Raisi has also said that “nothing would remain from the Zionist regime” after Iran was finished…

Raisi said Saturday’s attack was a limited one but that “nothing would remain from the Zionist regime,” should it escalate the current situation, the official IRNA news agency reported.

What he is describing is all-out war.

Right now, there are government billboards in Tehran which ominously declare that “Tel Aviv is our battleground”.

The Iranians are known for their bold talk, but in this case I don’t think they are bluffing.

I believe that they really will try to hammer Israel if there is any sort of an attack on Iranian soil, and one Iranian official is even warning that his nation is “prepared to use a weapon that we have never used”…

But Iranian security chief Abolfazl Amouei last night warned that if Israel does respond then Tehran is “prepared to use a weapon that we have never used”.

It is unclear what weapon Amouei was referring to, but he warned Israel to “act wisely” as it considers its next steps.

There has been a lot of debate about how hard the Israelis should hit Iran.

But the truth is that Iran is going to strike back really hard no matter what form the attack takes.

And it appears that a decision has already been made.  In fact, on Wednesday British Foreign Secretary David Cameron openly admitted that it is “clear the Israelis are making a decision to act”.

During a visit to Israel, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Wednesday that while Israel has clearly decided to retaliate against Iran, he and other diplomatic leaders hope Israel shows restraint in its action. He added that, through sanctions, Iran “needs to be given an unequivocal message” by the G7, a forum of advanced economies that includes the U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Italy.

“It’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act,” Cameron said in Jerusalem. “We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible.”

After meeting with Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he appreciates their support and advice, but said Israel alone will decide how to protect itself and how to respond to the Iranian attack.

I think that it is true.

I think that the Israeli government has decided on a course of action.

But at this point I have a hard time believing that something is imminent.

Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are coming up very quickly, and virtually the entire nation of Israel shuts down to celebrate.

The Israeli government knows that Iran will strike back really hard once an attack happens, and having Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread ruined by Iranian missiles would be very unpopular politically.

So my guess is that any Israeli retaliation against Iran will be delayed until May.

Of course I could be wrong.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, on the northern front Israel and Hezbollah continue to pummel one another.

On Wednesday, mass casualties were caused when a Hezbollah drone hit a community center in northern Israel…

Israeli emergency authorities are reporting that casualties from a suicide drone attack on a northern Israeli village have risen to at least 18 people wounded.

Hezbollah took responsibility for launching the suicide drone which ultimately scored a direct hit on a community center, with Israeli media noting that air warning sirens failed to sound during the attack. However, Hezbollah claimed it was targeting a building used by the Israeli military.

According to Times of Israel, “The victims were taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. which said that one victim was listed in critical condition and two others were seriously wounded.”

In response, the IDF conducted an airstrike in northeastern Lebanon…

The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that it carried out an airstrike against a site belonging to Hezbollah’s air defense unit in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek, hours after the terror group carried out an explosive drone attack on northern Israel, wounding 14 soldiers and four civilians,

In a short statement, the IDF said fighter jets struck Hezbollah air defense infrastructure north of the city of Baalbek, almost 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Israeli border.

It appears that it is just a matter of time before there is all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.

And we are also on the verge of seeing all-out war between Israel and Iran.

The great Middle East conflict that I have been warning my readers about has arrived, and I believe that in the months ahead events will spiral completely out of control.

Once thousands of missiles are flying back and forth, the opportunity for restraint will be gone.

And at this absolutely critical moment in human history, Joe Biden and his minions are running things in the White House.

We are in so much trouble.

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

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

The middle class in the United States has been steadily shrinking, and the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us has grown to absurd proportions.  But it wasn’t always this way.  When I was growing up in the 1980s, it seemed like almost everyone was middle class.  Of course there were wealthy people and poor people in the 1980s too, but the vast majority of the population was comfortably somewhere in the middle.  Sadly, things have changed so much since that time.  Today, most of the people that I know are struggling.  According to a report that was just released, in all 50 states it now takes an income of more than $100,000 in order for a family of four to live “the American Dream”…

A new report from GOBankingRates used that framework to analyze how much money a family of two adults and two children would need in each state to own a home, a car and a pet. The report tallied estimated annual essential expenses for such a family and then doubled that figure.

Using that framework, GoBankingRates found that all 50 states require more than a $100,000 annual income, according to the report, with 38 states needing more than $140,000.

Is your family bringing in more than $100,000 a year?

If not, “the American Dream” is not for you.

Sorry.

Our leaders purposely pursued policies that they knew would cause inflation, and when new money enters the system most of it tends to flow into the hands of those at the top of the economic food chain.

So the ultra-wealthy have been doing very well in this economic environment, but high inflation is absolutely eviscerating all the rest of us.

At this point, it takes the average U.S. household an extra $1,069 per month just to purchase the same goods and services that it did three years ago…

Inflation is once again gaining steam, forcing the average American to shell out a lot more money for everyday necessities.

The typical U.S. household needed to pay $227 more a month in March to purchase the same goods and services it did one year ago because of still-high inflation, according to calculations from Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi shared with FOX Business.

Americans are paying on average $784 more each month compared with the same time two years ago and $1,069 more compared with three years ago, before the inflation crisis began.

What we are witnessing is the collapse of the middle class.

The cost of living has been rising faster than incomes have been, and that is putting an extraordinary amount of financial stress on U.S. households.

For example, the cost of auto insurance has risen more than 22 percent over the past 12 months…

The cost of auto insurance rose 2.6% in March, bringing the total annual gain to 22.2% — the fastest yearly rate on record. When compared with the beginning of 2021, before the inflation crisis began, motor vehicle insurance is more than 50% more expensive.

Housing costs have been increasing at an even faster pace.

If you can believe it, the average monthly mortgage payment on a newly purchased home has risen by 96 percent in just four years…

The real estate firm Zillow reports that since January 2020, the monthly mortgage payment on a typical U.S. home has nearly doubled. It’s up 96% in just four years.

According to Zillow, a typical buyer will now pay nearly $2,200 a month, with a 10% down payment. Meaning, homeownership now costs well above the 30% of median income that was once thought to equate to “affordable” housing cost in America.

Home ownership is now out of reach for a huge chunk of the population.

Needless to say, that isn’t a good thing.

Why aren’t the American people more upset about all of this?

In a desperate attempt to maintain a middle class standard of living, many Americans are piling up enormous amounts of debt.

According to CNBC, some economists believe “that debt growth has become a substitution for income growth”…

Economists have suggested that debt growth has become a substitution for income growth. Student loan debt reached an all-time high of $1.77 trillion in the first quarter of 2023 and Americans collectively owe $1.13 trillion on their credit cards as of the fourth quarter of 2023. This debt can have a ripple effect, especially when entire generations are starting their adulthoods with thousands of dollars in debt.

In many cases, people that have greatly overextended themselves now find themselves absolutely drowning in debt.

One 28-year-old woman that purchased a Chevy Tahoe three years ago still owed $74,000 to GM Financial and was eventually forced to sell the vehicle…

Three years ago, 28-year-old Blaisey Arnold entered a local auto dealership and came away with the keys to an $84,000 Chevy Tahoe.

But this month, the wedding photographer and mother shared a video to TikTok describing how she was forced to sell her dream car.

Despite paying $1,400 a month in payments totaling more than $50,000, she still owes a balance of $74,000 to her lender – GM Financial.

Can you believe that?

Of course she is far from alone.

At this point, millions upon millions of Americans have gotten into trouble with debt, and credit card delinquency rates have risen to unprecedented levels…

Delinquency rates among American credit card holders are at an all-time high, while at the same time a record number of “active accounts” have “a balance of over $2,000,” according to a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia report.

If Americans really understood what our politicians in Washington and the “experts” at the Federal Reserve were doing to us, there would be massive protests in the streets right now.

These days, a lot of Americans that had actually retired are now heading back to work due to the rapidly rising cost of living.  Hope Murray is one of those people…

Hope Murray retired in 2013 after a 50-year career that ranged from game show producer to Hollywood party planner to casino executive.

She settled into a life of golf, game nights and pickleball in her San Diego community, her daughter living nearby.

Then things got more expensive. Gas was nearly $5 a gallon, medication costs were adding up, the grocery bill was increasing.

Can you imagine going back to work when you are 80 years old?

That is what she had to do, and now she spends her retirement years handing out samples at Costco…

So last October, at the age of 80, Murray ended her retirement and got a job giving out samples at Costco.

She likes observing the people – some go grocery shopping in heels and a full face of makeup and others wear pajamas and slippers. Some people take one sample and others gobble three or four.

“It just comes into my checking account every other week, and I can pay for everything,” she said of her $18-an-hour paycheck.

In recent months, prices have started to surge once again.

It has become clear that the cost of living crisis is not going away any time soon.

The middle class in the United States is going to continue to shrink, and that is not good news for any of us.

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

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

Can you imagine paying seven dollars for a gallon of gasoline?  It could soon happen, because it appears that Israel is about to strike Iran, and that is likely to cause events in the Middle East to spiral completely out of control.  Right now, approximately one-fifth of all oil used in the world goes through the Strait of Hormuz.  An apocalyptic war in the region could potentially close the Strait of Hormuz until the conflict is resolved one way or the other.  In addition, oil infrastructure could be destroyed in Iran and other nations in the Middle East as the fighting rages, and that could substantially reduce global oil production for an extended period of time.  Our way of life depends on cheap oil, and so if a major regional war in the Middle East causes the price of oil to go skyrocketing that is going to deeply affect all of us.

On Monday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was just $3.63…

The average price for a gallon of regular gas in the U.S. was $3.63 as of Monday, according to AAA, up almost 4 cents from a week earlier and 22 cents from a month ago.

Even though the average price of a gallon of gasoline has risen more than 20 cents in a month, I would still consider it to be at a very low level, especially compared to what is eventually coming.

One expert that was interviewed by MarketWatch is warning that the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. could hit $5.40 this summer…

Colas estimated that a spike in oil prices pushing U.S. gasoline to $5.40 a gallon this summer would make a recession later in 2024 “a genuine possibility.” U.S. gas prices averaged $3.634 a gallon at the pump on Monday, according to AAA, at last check.

And that same expert also warned that if the price of oil reaches $125 a barrel it could push the U.S. economy into a recession…

“Crude prices are our chief concern, but we are a long way” from $125 a barrel — a level of West Texas Intermediate oil that “would almost certainly cause a recession if sustained,” said Colas. “Gasoline prices are the transmission mechanism between Mideast conflict and the US economy: when pump prices increase quickly, consumers must cut back on other spending.”

Personally, I think that such a projection is wildly optimistic.

If Israel and Iran start lobbing thousands of missiles at one another, we could easily see the price of oil surpass $150 a barrel, and it is likely that the average price of gasoline in the U.S. would shoot past $7.00 a gallon.

And if nuclear weapons are used in the Middle East, there is no telling what might happen.

Right now, the financial markets are waiting to see if Israel chooses to retaliate.

If the Israelis strike Iran, and oil infrastructure is targeted, that will definitely “send oil prices up”…

If Israel does retaliate, and it becomes a full-fledged conflict, that’s a different story. “And maybe Iran’s oil platforms, refineries are taken out,” he said. “That would send oil prices up.”

I think that is what is going to happen.

At this moment, it is being reported that Israel is preparing to retaliate.

When that occurs, the price of oil will go nuts, and people all over the U.S. will blame Israel for the high price of gasoline.

But instead, they should blame Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

If they would have just left Israel alone, things could have turned out much differently.

Iran could have lived in peace.  The Iranians are one of the largest producers of oil in the world, and during the Biden administration they have been able to dramatically increase oil exports…

Iran has steeply raised oil exports, its main source of revenue, during the Biden administration after they were severely reduced due to measures taken by the Trump administration.

The White House has argued it isn’t encouraging Iran to raise exports and is enforcing sanctions. Lower Iranian exports would lead to a further rise in oil prices and the cost of gasoline in the U.S., which would be a politically sensitive issue ahead of this fall’s presidential elections.

Instead of using their oil money to fund terror organizations, the Iranians could have lived in luxury.

To be honest, Iran could have been one of the most prosperous countries on the entire planet.

But instead they have foolishly chosen a much different path.

If an all-out war between Israel and Iran erupts, it is probably inevitable that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed, and that will be catastrophic for the entire global economy…

Potential impacts on the shipping transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about one-fifth of the world’s total oil consumption, will also factor into markets’ pricing.

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s navy said on Tuesday that Iran could close the strait if deemed necessary, and earlier on Saturday Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said an IRGC helicopter boarded a vessel, the Portuguese-flagged MSC Aries, and took it into Iranian waters.

Just think about that.

One-fifth of all the oil the world uses goes through the Strait of Hormuz.

We are in uncharted territory, and we could soon see a level of panic in the financial marketplace that we haven’t seen in a very long time.

Meanwhile, economic conditions in the U.S. just continue to deteriorate.

Earlier today, I was saddened to learn that even Tesla has decided that mass layoffs have become necessary…

Tesla has announced layoffs of “more than 10%” of its global workforce in an internal company-wide email. We exclusively reported yesterday that Tesla was prepping a massive layoff.

For the last few months, it has looked like Tesla might be preparing for a round of layoffs. Tesla told managers to identify critical team members, and paused some stock rewards while canceling some employees’ annual reviews. It also reduced production at Gigafactory Shanghai.

Things are definitely not good now, but they will get a whole lot worse if a major regional war does erupt in the Middle East.

It takes energy to make products, transport products and sell products.

The price of oil has an enormous impact on literally every sector of our entire economy.

If an apocalyptic war in the Middle East were to cause the price of oil to double, it would send us into a horrific economic tailspin.

So let’s hope for the best, but let’s also prepare for the worst.

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

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