Money

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

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

But there was just one problem.

It didn’t work.

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

Here is just one example…

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

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

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

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

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

Will an explicit guarantee work?

Maybe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Answer: your phone!

This is not the Bailey Savings and Loan anymore.

This should scare the hell of bankers and regulators worldwide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But countless others did not pull the plug in time.

Apparently, that even included Harry and Meghan.

Oh the humanity!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This crisis is far from over.

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

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

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

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

We shall see.

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

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sadly, she is far from alone.

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

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

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

This means mass furlough.

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

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

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

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

But I cannot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unfortunately, SVB’s situation is not unique.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

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

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

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

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

Let those figures sink in for a moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is really happening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So there will be more layoffs.

And the housing market will continue to crash.

And more major financial institutions will be in peril.

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

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

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

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

This is a really big story.

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

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

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

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

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

Trouble is brewing.

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

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

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

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

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

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

We Just Witnessed An Economic Red Flag That We Haven’t Seen Since 1981

The mainstream media continues to tell us that the economy is in fine shape, and you can believe that if you want.  But evidence continues to mount that indicates that we are headed for very serious trouble.  Inflation is out of control, home sales have fallen for 12 months in a row, large corporations all over America are conducting mass layoffs, and hunger is spreading like wildfire as economic conditions rapidly deteriorate.  If this is “fine”, I would hate to see what “bad” would look like.  Virtually everything that normally occurs during the early stages of a major economic downturn is happening right now, and that includes an inversion of Treasury yields…

On Tuesday, the difference in the yield on 2-year and 10-year Treasury notes further inverted, with the yield on the 10-year falling 103 basis points, or 1.03 percentage points, below the yield on the 2-year yield. This dynamic has preceded each of the last eight U.S. recessions.

Please read that last sentence again.

This has happened for eight recessions in a row.

Do you think that by some miracle we won’t have a recession this time?

At this point, we are actually witnessing the deepest inversion that we have seen “since September 1981”…

The spread between the monetary policy-sensitive two-year U.S. Treasury yield (US2Y) and the 10-year (US10Y) UST yield reached the deepest inversion since September 1981, as bond-market investors priced in higher-for-longer interest rates following Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s Senate testimony earlier in the session.

Wow.

1981 was more than 40 years ago.

As one analyst told his clients, this is “a big psychological level” that has just been breached…

“We are not sure that -100bps means anything different than -80bps or -90bps did, but it is likely a big psychological level that many will notice,” BTIG analyst Jonathan Krinsky wrote in a note to clients.

But don’t worry.

CNN says that everything will be just fine.

You believe them, don’t you?

Needless to say, a lot of Americans don’t believe them.

In fact, at this point the amount of confidence that Americans have that their finances will improve in the next year has dropped to a depressingly low level…

Americans’ confidence in their finances is at its lowest level in at last 13 years, as inflation and fears of a recession cast a pall of uncertainty over the economy.

In February, just 31% of Americans believed their personal financial situation would improve in the next year, the lowest figure on records dating back to 2010, according to Fannie Mae’s monthly survey released on Tuesday.

The bureaucrats in Washington can radically “adjust” the economic numbers that they are giving us in a desperate attempt to make us feel better, but they can’t hide the fact that mass layoffs are happening all around us.

For example, a historic paper mill in North Carolina that has been in business for more than a century is now shutting down and laying off all of their employees…

Union representatives with Smokey Mountain Local 507 were reportedly called to a meeting with Pactiv Evergreen officials Monday and told about the plans to close the paper mill.

It employs 1,100 people and is considered a keystone of the local economy.

The words are simply not enough,” Canton Mayor Zeb Smathers said, according to local outlet ABC15. “When I was downtown and I saw grown men with tears in their eyes, there are not words, and no one was prepared on this dark Monday to deal with that.”

What can you possibly say to those men to convince them that everything is going to be okay?

That town will never be the same again after this.

A massive economic implosion is already happening all around us, but as long as stock prices remain elevated many people will be fooled into thinking that conditions are normal.

But the financial markets are starting to show cracks too.

In fact, one expert just told Fox News that the indicators that he closely watches are pointing to “one of the highest probabilities of a crash in the stock market looking out 60 days”…

After Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated the bank isn’t finished raising rates, one market expert has warned a crash could come in a matter of days.

“They’re playing catch up, and while they were doing quantitative easing in 2021, inflation started to rage and now they’re trying to catch up,” The Bear Traps Report founder Larry McDonald said Wednesday on “Mornings with Maria.”

“Our 21 Lehman systemic risk indicators that look at equity and credit point to one of the highest probabilities of a crash in the stock market looking out 60 days,” McDonald, who is also known for writing a best-selling book on the Lehman Brothers collapse, cautioned.

I really hope that he is wrong.

I really hope that we have more time.

But the reality of what is now taking place should be evident to everyone.

A major economic meltdown has begun, and it will eventually get a whole lot worse.

We aren’t just witnessing the end of an economic cycle.

What we are actually witnessing is the end of a deeply corrupt, deeply flawed system.

The greatest debt bubble in the history of the entire planet is starting to burst, and the whole world will soon be experiencing severe pain as a result.

***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.

Widespread Civil Unrest Is Suddenly Erupting All Over The Globe

Angry citizens are taking to the streets all over the world, and often they are lashing out in wild and unpredictable ways.  The eruptions of civil unrest that you will read about below are all happening for different reasons, but they all have one thing in common.  People are deeply frustrated with the direction that things are going, and they have lost faith in the ability of their elected representatives to solve their problems.  Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.  For years I have been warning my readers that we will eventually see civil unrest on a scale that we have never seen before.  Could it be possible that we are now entering the leading edge of that storm?

On Tuesday, the streets of Paris were turned into a war zone as French citizens expressed their displeasure with the pension reforms that French President Emmanuel Macron seems determined to implement…

Violence erupted on the streets of Paris today as thousands took to the streets across France to protest against pension reforms.

Riot police fought running battles with demonstrators in the capital city on a so-called Black Tuesday of industrial action across the country.

The worst trouble was close to the Port Royal metro station, where hundreds of riot police used tear gas and baton charges. As projectiles rained down on them, bins were set on fire and bus stops destroyed by so-called Black Bloc anarchists.

A lot of people out there believed that Emmanuel Macron would emerge as a great leader that would be capable of uniting all of Europe behind him.

That is obviously not going to happen.

A few days before the protests in Paris, farmers in Belgium literally rolled 2,700 tractors into the heart of the capital of the European Union…

Convoys of tractors brought traffic in Brussels to a standstill Friday, as thousands of Belgian farmers protested the Flemish regional government’s plans to limit nitrogen emissions from agriculture.

Some 2,700 tractors rolled into Brussels from the Flanders region, according to police estimates, filling the streets with a cacophony of honks as farmers vented their anger over the planned cuts, which they say threaten to put many of them out of business.

I fully support what those farmers are trying to do.

What the EU is doing to farmers is literally insane, and I can definitely understand why they are so upset.

Elsewhere in Europe, demonstrations against NATO involvement in the war in Ukraine are getting larger and larger…

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Brussels and Paris to show support for Ukraine on Saturday, while a demonstration against supplying Ukraine with weapons attracted 10,000 people in Berlin and London

If the American people actually understood what was at stake, we would see similar anti-war protests here in this country too.

Hopefully our citizens will wake up before this conflict goes nuclear.

Down in South Africa, an unprecedented energy crisis literally has the entire nation on the verge of “collapse”…

South Africa is on the verge of “collapse” amid rolling blackouts and warnings a total power grid failure could lead to mass rioting on the scale of a “civil war”.

Western embassies including the United States and Australia have advised their citizens in the country to stock up on “several days worth” of food and water and be on high alert during extended blackouts sweeping the country.

Sadly, what I have shared so far is just the tip of the iceberg.  Economic conditions continue to deteriorate all over the globe, and we are being warned that a lot more civil unrest is on the way…

Growing social inequality and the cost-of-living, foundering faith in governments and institutions and increasingly polarized politics, together with a rise in activism and environmental concerns, are the main factors expected to fuel ongoing incidences of unrests, strikes, riots and civil commotion (SRCC) around the world, according to a new report from insurer Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS).

Here in the United States, a “frenzied 150-strong mob” of Antifa radicals viciously attacked a police facility in the Atlanta area on Sunday…

A frenzied 150-strong mob of Antifa ‘terrorists’ descend on Atlanta’s ‘Cop City’ construction site before hurling Molotov cocktails and destroying machinery in newly-released aerial footage of Sunday’s riots.

The group, filmed by a police chopper’s heat-sensitive cameras, march through scrub and woodland around the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center before unleashing havoc and setting fire to a power line.

Police officers protecting the site are forced to stand off as the mask-clad attackers overrun the site, which has been a hotbed for Antifa violence since last spring, and target machinery. The officers are then pelted with rocks and fireworks by the thugs, many of whom travelled from outside of Georgie to take part in the violence.

Democrats run Atlanta, and we have a Democrat in the White House.

But the Democrats appear to be incapable of controlling their own people.

Meanwhile, crime continues to spiral out of control in major cities all over the nation.

In New York City, the police are actually asking businesses to require customers to take off their masks before entering because masked thieves have become such a problem…

The New York Police Department is advising businesses to ask patrons to take off their masks before entry in light of the high number of thefts and robberies across the city.

Removing masks should be made a “condition of entry,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said at a press conference last week, noting that criminals have been taking advantage of masks to avoid detection on surveillance cameras.

“People are coming up to our businesses, sometimes with masks, sometimes masks, hoods and latex gloves, and they’re being buzzed in, they’re being allowed to enter into the store and then we have a robbery or some kind of property being stolen,” Maddrey said.

Isn’t that ironic?

For such a long time, authorities in New York were so determined to get everyone to put masks on.

But now they are desperate to get everyone to remove the masks because crime has gotten so bad.

This is the world that we live in now.

The thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing, and chaos in the streets will be a normal part of life from this point forward.

***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.

Countless Americans Plunge Into Despair As Hunger Spreads Like Wildfire All Across America

We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time.  A couple of factors are combining to push millions of Americans into a state of food insecurity.  First of all, food prices have been rising aggressively throughout the past year, and so our money does not go nearly as far as it once did.  Meanwhile, food stamp benefits are being slashed.  The federal government had greatly enhanced food stamp benefits for many Americans during the pandemic, but now that emergency program is coming to an end.  So what this means is that many Americans are going to have very little money to spend on food at a time when economic conditions are starting to get really rough.

The Washington Post recently sent a reporter named Tim Craig to Kentucky, and he discovered that poor people are waiting in “a mile-long line” just to get some free food…

As he claimed the first spot in a mile-long line for free food in the Appalachian foothills, Danny Blair vividly recalled receiving the letter announcing that his pandemic-era benefit to help buy groceries was about to be slashed.

Kentucky lawmakers had voted to end the state’s health emergency last spring, by default cutting food stamp benefits created to help vulnerable Americans like Blair weather the worst of covid-19. Instead of $200 a month, he would get just $30.

Blair actually gets up at 4 AM in the morning so that he can be first in line for these handouts.

On the Friday that the reporter from the Washington Post interviewed him, he ended up staying in that line for nine hours.

I couldn’t imagine waiting in line for that long, but Blair feels like this is what he and his wife must do in order to survive…

He crumpled up the letter and threw it on the floor of his camper.

“I thought, ‘Wow, the government is trying to kill us now,’” said Blair, 63, who survives on his Social Security disability check and lives in a mobile home with his wife after their house burned down five years ago. “They are going to starve us out.”

Blair and his wife hop into their truck twice a month at 4 a.m. to ensure they get a few staples at the Hazel Green Food Project’s giveaway. On a recent Friday, they waited nine hours until local prisoners on work duty started loading bags of meat and vegetables, potato chips and cookies into vehicles in one of the nation’s most impoverished communities.

Sadly, there are countless others out there that are in the same position.

The Post also interviewed another man named Henry Tolsen that openly admitted that he is so poor that the day before he “only ate a bowl of cereal and a can of peaches”…

“Yesterday, I only ate a bowl of cereal and a can of peaches,” said Tolsen, as he turned off his truck to save gas until the line started moving again. “I would like to be able to eat bacon and eggs, biscuits and gravy for breakfast, a decent lunch, and a homegrown supper like I used to.”

This is the country that we live in now.

Once upon a time, we had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now the middle class is being systematically destroyed.

The cost of living is increasing faster than our paychecks are, and that means that our standard of living is going down.

For example, it is being reported that housing is more unaffordable right now than it was at any time during the last housing crash…

The Atlanta Fed’s Housing Affordability Monitor, which compares median home prices and other housing costs with median household income, shows that housing affordability is worse today than during the peak of the 2008 housing bubble. As of December, the median American household would have to spend about 42.9% of their income to afford the median-priced house, according to the index.

Auto loans have become extremely oppressive as well, and now that the economy is going downhill the number of Americans getting behind on their payments is rapidly increasing…

Borrowers with low credit scores are falling behind on their car loan payments as inflation eats away at consumer spending power.

A report from Cox Automotive found 1.89% of auto loans in January were “severely delinquent” and at least 60 days behind payment, the highest rate since 2006.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.

We are in the early chapters of a major economic downturn, and the tsunami of layoffs that we have been witnessing is going to get a lot worse.

In fact, we just learned that Salesforce will be giving the axe to approximately 8,000 highly valued workers…

Salesforce, the cloud-based “customer relationship management” software colossus co-helmed by the definitely-not-Hawaiian Marc Benioff, is the latest in a slew of tech giants to lay off thousands of employees, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Per the WSJ, the company will be letting go of 8,000 members from its massive workforce, formerly referred to by Benioff — who, again, is definitely not Hawaiian — as the “Salesforce ohana,” ohana being the Hawaiian name for “family.” (Salesforce stepped away from using that and other Hawaiian terminology and practices back in 2019 due to cultural appropriation concerns.)

The economic despair that we are already witnessing should break all of our hearts, but it is just the tip of the iceberg.

As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, the suffering that we will eventually see will be off the charts.

And when people get desperate, they can often do desperate things.

Earlier today, I was horrified to learn that Antifa just attacked a police facility in the Atlanta area…

That attack appears to have been politically motivated, but I believe that much of the civil unrest that we will eventually see will be sparked by economic turmoil.

When people don’t have enough food to eat, they tend to get really angry.

And at this moment hunger is spreading like wildfire all across America.

You better buckle up, because we are about to experience a very bumpy ride.

***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.

Now They Can Actually Use WiFi “To See People Through Walls”

If you truly wanted complete and total privacy, you would need to give up nearly all of the technology that you are currently using.  I wish that wasn’t true, but this is the reality of the world in which we now live.  The “Big Brother surveillance grid” is constantly growing and evolving all around us, and those that are using it to watch, monitor, track, influence and control us have an insatiable appetite for more data.  They are constantly pushing the envelope, and most people don’t seem to care.  But if we don’t stand up for our rights now, eventually we will find ourselves living in a society where there is absolutely no privacy at all.

In fact, many would argue that we are already there.

Recently, I was horrified to learn that researchers have been working on a way to use WiFi to look through the walls of our homes to see what we are doing.  The following is a brief excerpt from a Vice article entitled “Scientists Are Getting Eerily Good at Using WiFi to ‘See’ People Through Walls in Detail”…

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University developed a method for detecting the three dimensional shape and movements of human bodies in a room, using only WiFi routers.

To do this, they used DensePose, a system for mapping all of the pixels on the surface of a human body in a photo. DensePose was developed by London-based researchers and Facebook’s AI researchers. From there, according to their recently-uploaded preprint paper published on arXiv, they developed a deep neural network that maps WiFi signals’ phase and amplitude sent and received by routers to coordinates on human bodies.

As we have seen with so many other highly intrusive surveillance technologies, those that have developed this method are touting the benefits that it could have…

The researchers ague that their Wi-Fi approach to imaging humans in households could be applied to home healthcare, where patients may not want to be monitored with a camera in places like the bathroom or with other sensors and tracking devices.

No matter how old I get, I don’t ever want anyone using any technology to monitor me while I am taking a dump.

If that makes me old-fashioned, so be it.

Sadly, this is not the first time that researchers have developed this sort of technology.

Most people don’t realize this, but scientists have been working on ways to see through our walls for about a decade…

Researchers have been working on “seeing” people without using cameras or expensive LiDAR hardware for years. In 2013, a team of researchers at MIT found a way to use cell phone signals to see through walls; in 2018, another MIT team used WiFi to detect people in another room and translate their movements to walking stick-figures.

Did you know that cell phone signals can be used “to see through walls”?

Neither did I.

Of course cell phones are probably the most comprehensive surveillance devices ever created, and the vast majority of us willingly carry them around wherever we go.

If you don’t get what I am talking about, perhaps this information from the American Bar Association will help you to understand…

Depending on the number of apps installed, a cell phone may send data regarding its location thousands of times per day. Indeed, some phone apps will share as many as 200 individually time-stamped location data points within a 12-hour interval. These data are sent in real time to multiple companies, each of which can track the phone in real time or retrace the phone’s path by analyzing the logged historical data. According to the Times, every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies . . . largely unregulated, little scrutinized . . . are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in massive data files.

Location data are collected by companies along with millions of other data points, commonly packaged and sold as marketing analysis to advertisers, financial institutions, real estate investors, and other third parties. Location data are particularly lucrative to advertisers, who use it to determine the places people frequent and the times they go to these locations.

Nothing you do on your cell phone is private.

Ever.

And your cell phone makes a record of every location that you visit.

So you better not get into trouble while carrying your phone, because law enforcement agencies can use cell phone data “to follow people’s movements months back in time”…

Local law enforcement agencies from suburban Southern California to rural North Carolina have been using an obscure cellphone tracking tool, at times without search warrants, that gives them the power to follow people’s movements months back in time, according to public records and internal emails obtained by The Associated Press.

Police have used “Fog Reveal” to search hundreds of billions of records from 250 million mobile devices, and harnessed the data to create location analyses known among law enforcement as “patterns of life,” according to thousands of pages of records about the company.

We really do live in a “Big Brother society”, and there is no going back.

In fact, things will only get worse in the years ahead.

Last week, I was greatly disappointed to learn that Ford has just patented technology that can remotely control your vehicle…

Ford Motor Co. has filed for a patent on technology that could remotely shut down your radio or air conditioning, lock you out of your vehicle, or prompt it to ceaselessly beep if you miss car payments. Ford said it has no plans to use the technology, contained in just one of the many patents filed by the auto-making giant.

Still, it emerges at a troubling time for car owners. Loan delinquencies have been steadily ticking back up from their pandemic lull. Cox Automotive data showed severely delinquent auto loans in January hitting their highest point since 2006. The use of technology to aid repossessions isn’t new, but the patent application is wide-ranging, even proposing the idea that an autonomous vehicle could drive itself to a “more convenient” location to be collected by a tow truck.

I don’t think that I will be buying a Ford any time soon.

Of course it is just a matter of time before all of the auto companies are using similar technologies.

A decade ago, I included several cutting edge surveillance technologies in a novel that I wrote, but since that time the “Big Brother surveillance grid” has gotten exponentially more intrusive.

So why aren’t more people upset about this?

Why aren’t such technologies a major political issue?

They have herded all of us into a giant technological cage, and the vast majority of the population has willingly accepted it.

So they are just going to keep pushing things even further, because at this point they are experiencing very little resistance at all.

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

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

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