Money

Remember 2008? Another Terrifying Housing Crash Is Now In Progress

June 14, 2022June 14, 2022 by Michael

It is often said that those that refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. More than a decade ago, the Federal Reserve created the most epic housing bubble in American history and everyone was happy until 2008 came along. The economy slowed down, home prices crashed and the ensuing chaos on Wall Street spawned an endless series of movies, television specials and documentaries. But instead of learning our lessons, we did it again. The Federal Reserve created an even larger housing bubble, and I have been relentlessly warning that it would inevitably burst. Now home sales have fallen for six months in a row and prices are crashing again. In fact, in some parts of the country we have already seen prices plunge by as much as 20 percent…

Property prices have fallen by up to 20 percent across parts of the US as buyers shun the market amid ‘Bidenflation’ and spiking interest rates.

Asking prices have plummeted by up to $400,000 in wealthy areas while poorer neighborhoods have seen house values nosedive by as much as $115,000.

Do you remember last time around when millions of homeowners ended up “underwater” on their mortgages?

If we continue on this current trajectory, it is going to happen again.

Last year at this time, the housing market was extremely hot, but now a new report from Redfin is telling us that things have dramatically changed…

A May study by Redfin found that about 19 percent of sellers dropped the prices on their homes in a four week period between April and May. The outlet said that the report indicated an end to the country’s pandemic-era housing boom.

Their report found that Google searches for ‘homes for sale’ were down 13 percent from the same time last year.

It also found that requests for home tours were down 12 percent, and that mortgage applications dropped 16 percent from a year prior.

And the higher mortgage rates go, the worse things are going to get.

Unfortunately, mortgage rates are spiking at a rate that is absolutely breathtaking this month…

Mortgage rates jumped sharply this week, as fears of a potentially more aggressive rate hike from the Federal Reserve upset financial markets.

The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage rose 10 basis points to 6.28% Tuesday, according to Mortgage News Daily. That followed a 33 basis point jump Monday. The rate was 5.55% one week ago.

The last time we saw mortgage rates this high was during the last housing crash.

Unfortunately, they are only going to go higher because the Federal Reserve wants interest rates throughout our economy to rise in order to fight inflation.

But as I have warned repeatedly in recent months, a high rate environment is going to absolutely eviscerate the housing market. Already, higher rates have had a colossal impact on home affordability…

Higher home prices and rates have crushed home affordability.

For instance, on a $400,000 home, with a 20% down payment, the monthly mortgage payment went from $1,399 at the start of January to $1,976 today, a difference of $577. That does not include homeowners insurance nor property taxes.

It also does not include the fact that the home is about 20% more expensive than it was a year ago.

Vast multitudes of potential home buyers will be forced out of the market until home prices comes down dramatically.

If you are one of those people, you could try to rent a place while you wait, but apartment rents are 15 percent higher than they were a year ago…

A new report from Redfin shows that nationally listed rents for available apartments rose 15% from a year ago. And the median listed rent for an available apartment rose above $2,000 a month for the first time.

Rents are up more than 30% in Austin, Seattle, and Cincinnati. In Los Angeles the median asking rent is $3,400. Even in formerly affordable cities such as Nashville it’s now $2,140, up 32% from last year.

I am so thankful that Redfin gives us these numbers, but it turns out that Redfin is in deep trouble too.

In fact, Redfin just announced that they will be laying off 8 percent of their workers…

Real estate firms Redfin and Compass are laying off workers, as mortgage rates rise sharply and home sales drop.

In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Compass announced a 10% cut to its workforce, and Redfin announced an 8% cut.

Shares of both companies fell Tuesday. Redfin’s stock touched a new 52-week low.

So many of the exact same things that we witnessed back in 2008 are happening again.

The economy is slowing down.

Big corporations are starting to lay off workers.

Home prices are starting to collapse.

And there is a tremendous amount of pessimism about what is ahead. In fact, one new survey has found that small business owners are “feeling their gloomiest in nearly five decades”…

Small business owners in America are feeling their gloomiest in nearly five decades, a survey released Tuesday morning showed.

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) said its gauge of businesses expecting better business conditions over the next six months fell to the worst reading in the 48-year history of the survey.

When things got really bad in 2008 and 2009, the Federal Reserve responded by pushing interest rates all the way to the floor, and that certainly helped.

But now the Federal Reserve doesn’t have that option.

In fact, the Federal Reserve seems quite determined to dramatically raise rates in a desperate attempt to fight the inflation monster that they had a major role in helping to create.

And the higher that rates go, the worse things will get for the housing market and for the economy as a whole.

If we would have learned some lessons from the last crisis, all of this could have been avoided. But instead we are now moving into a future which is going to be extraordinarily painful.

At this point, the Federal Reserve is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

If they don’t raise rates, inflation will continue to spiral out of control.

But if they do raise rates, they will crush the housing market and make the coming recession far worse.

For years, they assured all of us that they had everything under control and that they knew exactly what they were doing.

Now everyone can see the truth, but unfortunately it is too late to reverse course.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, 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 digital copies as gifts through Amazon 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 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 ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.

A Nightmare On Wall Street

June 13, 2022June 13, 2022 by Michael

This is bad. This is really, really bad. Investors loved the ride up, but now the Federal Reserve is helping to destroy the bubble that it once so eagerly created, and trillions of dollars in paper wealth is being wiped out in the process. Unfortunately, our system is not really designed to handle this sort of carnage. So many in the financial world live right on the edge, and when things go really, really bad the dominoes can start falling at a pace that is absolutely breathtaking. We witnessed this back in 2008, and it could soon happen again.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 880 points, and many were deeply concerned about what Monday would bring.

Well, the pessimists turned out to be correct, because the Dow plunged another 876 points on Monday.

Overall, the Dow is now down approximately 17 percent from its record high, and so it has almost reached bear market territory.

Of course the S&P 500 is already there…

The S&P 500 fell 3.88% to 3,749.63, marking its lowest level since March 2021 and bringing its losses from its January record to more than 21%. The benchmark closed in bear market territory (down more than 20% from its high) after trading there briefly on an intraday basis about three weeks ago. Some on Wall Street say it’s not an official bear market until the index closes there and that’s what happened on Monday. The last time stocks were in a bear market was in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic.

Needless to say, the Nasdaq has them both beat. Tech stocks were on the cutting edge on the way up, and now they are on the bleeding edge on the way down. The Nasdaq dropped another 4.68% on Monday, and at this point it has already dropped over 33 percent from the all-time high.

Just think about that. A third of the value of the Nasdaq has already been obliterated.

Wow.

As I write this article, investors are extremely concerned that the Fed could raise rates by 75 basis points on Wednesday…

Major averages hit their lows of the session in the final 30 minutes after a Wall Street Journal report suggested the Fed would consider raising rates by 0.75% on Wednesday, more than the half-point increase currently expected.

And Fox Business is reporting that some traders believe that we could actually see a 100 basis point increase in July….

While market consensus is for a half-point interest rate hike at the Fed’s policy-setting meeting this week, the odds for a larger increase next month are surging, with a potential 75-basis point or 100-basis point jump on the table in July. About 16% of traders are penciling in a 100-basis point jump next month, compared to 53% forecasting a 75-basis point increase, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which tracks trading.

Of course the Fed should not be raising rates at all.

The U.S. economy is clearly heading into a very painful recession, and you don’t raise rates as a recession is starting.

Unfortunately, Fed officials feel like their hands are tied because inflation is completely out of control. Last week we learned that the consumer price index has risen to 8.6 percent, and we were told that was the highest that it has been since December 1981.

But if the inflation rate was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, it would actually be well over 15 percent at this point.

So the Fed is going to bring down the hammer, and that is going to continue to roil financial markets.

And right now cryptocurrencies are being hit harder than anything else.

In fact, the price of Bitcoin plunged 15 percent in just 24 hours…

Bitcoin, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency, has lost 15% in the last 24 hours — putting it about 66% below its all-time high in November last year, when it traded around $69,000, according to data from Coinbase. Bitcoin fell below $24,000 Monday, sending the crypto to its lowest level since December 2020.

Ether, the second-most-valuable digital coin, plunged 17%, and has now lost about 75% of its value since November.

At the peak, just about every Bitcoin investor was in the green.

But as I have warned my readers over and over again, you only make money in the financial markets if you get out in time.

There was quite a bit of panic among crypto investors after the Celsius Network announced that it was being forced to temporarily pause “withdrawals, swaps and transfers”…

Celsius Network Ltd., one of the biggest lenders in crypto and a key player in the world of decentralized finance, said late Sunday that it was pausing withdrawals, swaps and transfers following weeks of speculation over its ability to make good on the outsize returns it offered on certain of its products, including yields as high as 17%. The move effectively halted a platform with registered entities across the globe and billions of dollars worth of digital coins under management, accelerating a selloff in the broader market that was already in progress on concern over prospects for tightening monetary policy ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting this week.

We should watch some of these big players in the cryptocurrency industry very carefully.

In the end, I have a feeling that some people that thought that they were “crypto millionaires” will actually walk away with nothing or next to nothing.

Of course it isn’t just crypto investors that are going to get eviscerated.

In recent years our financial markets have been transformed into the biggest casino in the history of the world.

And a lot of investors had become convinced that the Federal Reserve had decided to permanently rig the game in their favor.

Now the rug is being pulled out from under them, and the losses are piling up fast.

Hopefully the markets will stabilize after the Fed decision comes out.

But the outlook for the months ahead is terrible, and my regular readers already know what I believe is coming beyond that.

It took years to get to the top of the rollercoaster, but the ride down will go much, much faster.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

A Survey Of Corporate Financial Officers Found That 100 Percent Of Them Expect A Recession To Start In The Months Ahead

June 9, 2022June 9, 2022 by Michael

Have you ever heard of a survey where 100 percent of the respondents agree? I can’t ever recall seeing one like that, but as you will see below, 100 percent of the corporate CFOs that were just surveyed by CNBC believe that a recession is coming by the end of next year. At this point, our economic troubles are growing so rapidly that you would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see what is happening. A meltdown of historic proportions has already begun, and there is economic gloom just about everywhere that you look.

But even though the U.S. economy is clearly moving in one direction, I still didn’t expect to see this sort of a consensus among corporate financial executives…

According to the majority (68%) of CFOs responding to the survey, a recession will occur during the first half of 2023. No CFO forecast a recession any later than the second half of next year, and no CFO thinks the economy will avoid a recession.

The CNBC CFO Council Q2 survey is a sample of the current outlook among top financial officers. It was conducted among 22 chief financial officers at major organizations between May 12-June 6.

Of course they are right on target.

The months ahead are going to be very difficult.

And with each passing day we continue to get more evidence that the economic slowdown is accelerating. For example, it appears that a “transportation recession” has already begun…

A downturn, if not a full-on recession, is clear in the transportation world. While the rest of the economy debates whether things are that bad, it’s been clear for months to logistics providers that the situation has worsened — and the velocity of that change is still stunning.

The cost to move a container from Asia to a major port in North America or Europe has sunk by 23% since the beginning of this year, according to maritime research firm Drewry. Spot rates have plummeted even faster; marketplace Freightos said rates from China to the West Coast are down 38% month-over-month. FreightWaves forecast this week that ocean shipping volumes will “drop off a cliff” by this summer, based on slumping bookings out of China.

Meanwhile, the most absurd housing bubble in the history of our country is clearly starting to burst. Compared to a year ago, mortgage applications were down a whopping 21 percent last week…

This just keeps getting worse: Applications for mortgages to purchase a home dropped 7% for the week, and were down 21% from a year ago, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today. An indicator of future home sales: Potential homebuyers try to get pre-approved for a mortgage, lock in a mortgage rate, and then start house-hunting.

Mortgage rates have soared this year, and home prices have soared for years to ridiculous levels, causing layers and layers of potential buyers to abandon the market, amid “worsening affordability challenges,” as the MBA called it.

On top of everything else, jobless claims just shot up to their highest level in almost six months…

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly jumped last week, spiking to the highest level since mid-January in a sign the hot labor market could be starting to cool.

Figures released Thursday by the Labor Department show that applications for the week ended June 4 rose to 229,000 from an upwardly revised 202,000 a week earlier, missing the 210,000 forecast by Refinitiv analysts. It marked the biggest one-week increase since last July. The four-week average of new claims, which smooths volatility in the weekly figures, also increased slightly to 215,000 last week.

But even though all of these numbers clearly indicate that a “recession” is coming, a potential “recession” is not the number one economic concern for most Americans.

That is because the worst inflation crisis in modern American history is hitting all of us extremely hard.

According to a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll that was just released, 52 percent of Americans believe that inflation is “the most important issue facing the country” right now…

At this point, the answer to what Americans are most worried about is pretty straightforward: inflation. In the first FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll, 52 percent of Americans said the most important issue facing the country was inflation. We asked Americans this question in a variety of ways, but regardless of how we asked it, the top answer was always the same: inflation.

Other surveys have come up with similar results. For example, just check out these numbers from the Pew Research Center…

Seven-in-ten Americans view inflation as a very big problem for the country, followed by the affordability of health care (55%) and violent crime (54%).

About half say gun violence and the federal budget deficit are very big problems (51% each), according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 25-May 1 among 5,074 U.S. adults.

Inflation is something that the American people can see on a daily basis.

On Thursday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States hit five dollars a gallon for the first time ever.

And as I pointed out the other day, experts are warning that it will soon cross the six dollar threshold.

The grocery store is another place where all of us can clearly see the rampant inflation that is happening. A single shopping cart of food can easily cost $300 these days, and that is absolutely insane.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning, and most Americans realize this. In fact, one survey just discovered that approximately two-thirds of us expect inflation to get even worse over the next year…

The Federal Reserve, the Biden administration, and Wall Street’s economists are confident that inflation will be brought down over the coming year. The American public disagrees.

Two-thirds of Americans say they expect inflation to get worse over the next year, according to a poll conducted by The Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.

Some of us have been warning for years that the decisions that our leaders were making would destroy the stability of our currency.

Now nightmarish inflation is officially here.

And some of us have been warning for years that our rapidly growing long-term economic problems would eventually result in a meltdown of epic proportions.

Now that meltdown has begun.

Our fate could have been very different if we would have chosen a much different path while we still had the chance.

But now it is too late, and the pain that is ahead is going to be greater than many Americans will be able to handle.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

The Worst Economic Gloom In 50 Years

June 8, 2022June 8, 2022 by Michael

We haven’t seen anything like this in decades. Energy prices are soaring to unprecedented heights. Food shortages in some parts of the world are starting to become quite severe. Rampant inflation is out of control all over the globe. Meanwhile, economic activity is slowing down everywhere that you look. Some are comparing this current crisis to the “stagflation” of the 1970s, but I believe that is a far too optimistic assessment. Just about everyone can see that economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating, and there is a tremendous amount of alarm about what the months ahead will bring.

According to a brand new Wall Street Journal-NORC survey that was just released, the percentage of Americans that believe that the state of the U.S. economy is “poor or not so good” is 83 times larger than the percentage of Americans that believe that the state of the U.S. economy is “excellent”…

A severe pessimism grips the U.S. economy and Americans report the highest level of dissatisfaction with their financial situation in at least half a century, poll results released Monday show.

Eighty-three percent of Americans describe the state of the economy as poor or not so good, according to a Wall Street Journal-NORC Poll. Only one percent describe the economy as “excellent.”

I would like to talk to someone from the one percent of Americans that still believe that the U.S. economy is in “excellent shape”.

To me, it is always fascinating to find someone that can completely deny reality even when all of the evidence points in the other direction.

The same survey found that the percentage of Americans that are “not at all satisfied with their financial condition” is the highest in at least 50 years…

Thirty-five percent said they are not at all satisfied with their financial condition, the highest level of dissatisfaction since NORC began asking the question every few years starting in 1972.

Sixty-three percent of Americans say they are extremely or very concerned about the price of gas. Fifty-four percent say they are extremely or very concerned about the impact of high grocery prices on their household’s financial situation. Just 13 percent say they not very or not at all concerned about gas prices and 19 percent about grocery prices.

In other words, this is the gloomiest that Americans have been about their own personal finances in at least five decades.

Wow.

One of the big reasons why people feel this way is because the price of just about everything is going up.

In particular, the price of gasoline has been making national headlines just about every day. On Tuesday, it set another brand new record…

The national average price of gas is now $4.955, reflecting an over three-cent jump overnight, 28-cent rise in the last week, and nearly 64-cent rise in the last month. Diesel also hit another record on Tuesday, reaching $5.719.

Currently, 16 states are experiencing an average price of gas of $5.00 or more. That includes Maine ($5.023), Massachusetts ($5.21), New Jersey ($5.032), Pennsylvania ($5.031), Michigan ($5.214), Ohio ($5.061), Indiana ($5.234), Illinois ($5.532), Idaho ($5.025), Alaska ($5.469), Hawaii ($5.493), Washington ($5.489), Oregon ($5.485), Nevada ($5.564), Arizona ($5.181), and California ($6.390). California’s Mono County appears to be reporting the highest gas price average in the Golden State — $7.213.

Unfortunately, there is a growing consensus among the experts that this is just the beginning. Here is one example…

With the summer travel season just getting underway, demand for gasoline, coupled with the cut-off of Russian oil shipments due to the war in Ukraine, is sending oil prices higher on global markets.

The national average for gasoline could be close to $6 by later this summer according to Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for the OPIS, which tracks gas prices for AAA.

And here is another example…

GasBuddy head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan provided insight into record-high gas prices, warning on Wednesday that “we’re going to be swimming in these high prices for a while.”

Speaking on “Varney & Co.” on Wednesday, De Haan also revealed his forecasts for how high prices at the pump will climb, arguing that they could reach a national average of $6 a gallon in the coming months, but “what seems like more of a guarantee is that $5 mark.”

Others are even more pessimistic. In fact, the head of commodity trading giant Trafigura just warned that the price of oil could actually make a “parabolic ” move in the months ahead.

Needless to say, energy prices have a domino effect throughout the entire economy. When commentator Anthony B. Sanders contacted moving companies about his coming move out of state, he could hardly believe the quotes that he was given…

As I line up my move from Fairfax VA to Columbus OH, I am getting a variety of quotes from moving companies. And wow! The cost of moving using a national moving company for a 4 bedroom house is $15,000 to $20,500. That includes International, North American and Bekins.

One of the reasons for the high cost of moving is the massive increase in diesel fuel used for trucking. Diesel fuel under Biden has risen 117%. And since it was revealed that natural gas often is used for electric charging stations, and NATGAS is up 281% under Biden (but there aren’t many electric moving trucks yet).

Could you imagine paying $20,000 to move from Virginia to Ohio?

In the old days, you could purchase your own new vehicle for that much money.

In this crazy environment, some companies are attempting to hide inflation by shrinking their package sizes…

“Joining the parade of downsized products is cereal stalwart Honey Bunches of Oats, which has seen the weight of its standard box, previously 14.5 ounces, lessen to 12 ounces — a reduction of roughly 17 percent,” the U.K. paper said.

Angel Soft toilet paper has also reduced its size from 425 sheets per roll to 320, while Bounty paper towels have cut their rolls from 165 sheets per roll to 147 late last year. Gatorade also cut its bottle size from 32 ounces to 28 ounces.

Do they actually believe that we will not notice that the packages have changed?

And this isn’t just happening here in the United States. At this point, this is taking place all over the globe…

In the U.S., a small box of Kleenex now has 60 tissues; a few months ago, it had 65. Chobani Flips yogurts have shrunk from 5.3 ounces to 4.5 ounces. In the U.K., Nestle slimmed down its Nescafe Azera Americano coffee tins from 100 grams to 90 grams. In India, a bar of Vim dish soap has shrunk from 155 grams to 135 grams.

Our standard of living is falling with each passing day, and that process is only going to accelerate during the second half of this year.

In a desperate attempt to keep living the way that they always have, many Americans are turning to their credit cards at an alarming rate.

Needless to say, that is only a short-term solution.

And at the same time, overall economic activity continues to slow down…

A closely followed measurement from the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank suggests the economy could be headed for a second-quarter decline in gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced in a country. The GDPNow tracker shows the economy grew at an annualized pace of just 0.9% in the spring, a steep decline from its previous estimate of 1.3% on June 1.

If U.S. GDP is actually negative for the second quarter, that will be two quarters in a row, and that will mean that we are officially in a recession right now.

But what we are heading into in 2023 and beyond is not going to be just a “recession”.

Ultimately, we are heading into the sort of “nightmare scenario” that I have warned about for years.

It took decades of very foolish decisions for us to reach this point, and our leaders in Washington continue to make very foolish decisions.

So the truth is that there are no long-term solutions in sight.

Only pain.

So if the American people are this upset about the economy now, how will they be feeling six months down the road?

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

4 Really Big Names That Are Warning That Major Economic Disaster Is Ahead

June 6, 2022June 6, 2022 by Michael

I hope that you are enjoying these beautiful summer weekends while you still can, because it appears that very troubled times are dead ahead. Simultaneously, inflation continues to spiral out of control even as economic activity in the U.S. dramatically slows down. Many have compared what we are currently experiencing to the “stagflation” of the 1970s, but the truth is that what we are facing will eventually be so much worse than anything that we went through back then. A meltdown of historic proportions is here, and as you will see below, some of the biggest names in the entire country are talking about it.

On Monday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States set another all-time record high…

The gas price spike keeps getting worse.

The national average jumped to $4.87 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That’s up 25 cents in the past week and 59 cents in the past month.

There are now 10 states where the average price of gasoline is $5 a gallon or higher, with the latest being Michigan and Indiana. Washington, DC, is also above $5, according to CNN.

A 25 cent increase in one week is just insane.

If we continue on this trajectory, the price of gasoline would go up about a dollar a month.

I can’t imagine that will be the case, but stranger things have happened.

Overall, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has now more than doubled since Joe Biden entered the White House.

How high will it be a year from now?

For a long time I warned my readers that the price of gasoline would eventually hit ten dollars a gallon, but now we have learned that it is already almost there at one gas station in California.

Meanwhile, U.S. economic activity is really slowing down and we are being warned to brace ourselves for the worst.

In fact, at this point some of the most prominent people in the entire country are starting to sound like they could be writing for The Economic Collapse Blog. The following are four really big names that are warning that major economic disaster is ahead…

#1 If you have a “bad feeling” about the U.S. economy, you are not alone. Elon Musk says that he has a “super bad feeling” about where the U.S. economy is heading, and so he intends to reduce the Tesla workforce by approximately 10 percent…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a “super bad feeling” about the economy and wants to cut about 10% of jobs at the electric carmaker, he said in an email to executives on Thursday seen by Reuters.

The message came two days after the world’s richest man told employees to return to the workplace or leave the company.

#2 I never imagined that I would write about something that rapper Cardi B said on this website, but that is precisely what I am about to do. At one time she was a huge Biden supporter, but on Sunday she publicly suggested that the U.S. economy is about to enter a recession…

Rapper and Joe Biden supporter Cardi B took to Twitter on Sunday to ask when “they going to announce” that the United States is “going into a recession.”

“When y’all think they going to announce that we going into a recession?” Cardi B wrote Sunday in a tweet, which has since garnered more than 120,000 likes, and over 16,000 retweets.

Actually, the U.S. economy contracted during the first quarter of 2022, and if it contracts again in the second quarter then we are actually already in a recession right now.

#3 I really admire author Robert Kiyosaki, and his advice has helped millions of people all over the globe. In the past he was known for his relentless optimism, but now he is almost as pessimistic about our economic future as I am. For example, he tweeted out the following back on March 8th…

DO YOU HAVE a PLAN “B”? We are in BIGGEST BUBBLE in world history. Bubbles in stocks, real estate, commodities & oil. FUTURE? Possible DEPRESSION with HYPER-INFLATION. My PLAN B: be an entrepreneur, stay out of stock market, create own assets, use debt as $, save G,S, BC, guns.

Then he followed that up with this gem on March 13th…

BRANDON & FED want INFLATION to pay off trillions in debt. BEST INVESTMENT may be stocking products you will always use such as toilette paper, trash bags, canned goods, frozen foods, gold, silver, Bitcoin. I do not trust Brandon or Fed. They are Marxists. End the Fed & Brandon.

And then on April 15th he boldly declared that a “hyper-inflation depression” has arrived…

Wiley COYOTE moment coming. Biggest Bubble Bust coming. Baby Boomer’s retirements to be stolen. $10 trillion in fake money spending ending. Government, Wall Street & Fed are thieves. Hyper-inflation Depression here. Buy gold, silver, Bitcoin before the coyote wakes up. Take care

Of course he is dead on accurate about where the economy is heading. I don’t share his optimism about Bitcoin, but otherwise I think that the things that he has shared are very wise.

#4 The crisis that we are now dealing with did not arrive overnight. For years, many of us have been relentlessly warning about debt levels, the destruction of our currency, and the foolish decisions that our leaders were making. Now we are facing the largest debt bubble in all of human history, and there is no easy way out. On Monday, some thoughts that Kim Dotcom shared on Twitter went viral all over the Internet…

Let’s do the math:

US total debt
$90 trillion

US unfunded liabilities
$169 trillion

Total
$259 trillion

Minus all US assets
$193 trillion

Balance
– $66 trillion

That’s $66 trillion of debt and liabilities after every asset in the US has been sold off.

I might quibble with the precise numbers that he used a little bit, but overall Kim Dotcom is right on target.

And I really like how he summarized the nightmare that is in front of us…

So even if the US could sell all assets at the current value, which is impossible, it would still be broke.

The US is beyond bankrupt.
This patient is already dead.
This patient is now a zombie.

You probably wonder why are things still going? Why didn’t everything collapse yet.

It’s all perception, denial and dependency.

Our leaders have tried to keep the party going for as long as they possibly could, and for a while that actually worked.

But now a day of reckoning has arrived, and a horrifying economic meltdown has begun.

We aren’t talking about a “recession” that will be here for a while followed by a return to the way that things used to be.

No, what we are heading for is the sort of immense economic nightmare that I have been warning about for years.

Many Americans will be greatly surprised by how rapidly things totally fall apart, but the real surprise has been that it has taken us so long to get to this point.

You can’t defy the laws of economics forever, and we are about to see the greatest debt pyramid that the planet has ever seen come crashing down all around us.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Americans Will Never Forget The Historic Economic Collapse During Joe Biden’s Presidency

June 2, 2022 by Michael

We have faced a lot of significant challenges in modern American history, but nobody will ever forget the economic horror that is breaking loose during Joe Biden’s time in the White House. For years, we were warned that the policies that our leaders were pursuing would destroy the value of our currency and unleash rampant inflation. Now it has happened. For years, we were warned of a looming global energy crisis that would inevitably hit us. Now it is here. But what we have been through already is just the beginning. The shortages that we are experiencing now will get worse. Many of the ridiculously high prices that we are seeing now will seem like bargains by the end of the year. And right now the U.S. economy appears to be rapidly slowing down at the exact same moment that economies all over the globe are moving in the wrong direction. The CEO of Goldman Sachs just told us that “there’s going to be tougher economic times ahead”, and he is not exaggerating one bit.

On Thursday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States reached yet another brand new all-time record high…

US gas prices have hit a new high of $4.71, just a day after hitting the record as seven states top off at $5 a gallon as inflation soars.

The national average jumped four cents overnight, leaving drivers in even more despair as gas prices continue to skyrocket emptying their wallets.

If Americans don’t like paying about five bucks a gallon, how are they going to feel when it takes about 10 bucks to buy a gallon of gas?

Fortunately, we did just get a bit of good news that should provide some temporary relief…

OPEC and its oil-producing allies agreed on Thursday to hike output in July and August by a larger-than-expected amount as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine wreaks havoc on global energy markets.

OPEC+ will increase production by 648,000 barrels per day in both July and August, bringing forward the end of the historic output cuts OPEC+ implemented during the throes of the Covid pandemic.

Unfortunately, this isn’t really going to change the trajectory of where we are heading.

In fact, one energy expert says that this is essentially just a symbolic gesture…

Robert McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group and a former energy adviser to President George W. Bush, said prices rallied Thursday because the OPEC move was “more symbolic than fundamentally significant.”

“I wouldn’t call it a drop in the bucket. It’s basically a gesture… an important one symbolically,” he told CNN Business.

What we really need are long-term solutions, and there aren’t any on the horizon.

And the truth is that we aren’t just facing an oil crisis. At this stage, the balance between supply and demand has reached a crisis point for all traditional forms of energy simultaneously…

“Now we have an oil crisis, a gas crisis and an electricity crisis at the same time,” Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency watchdog group, told Der Spiegel in an interview published this week. “This energy crisis is much bigger than the oil crises of the 1970s and 1980s. And it will probably last longer.”

The global economy has largely been able to withstand surging energy prices so far. But prices could continue to rise to unsustainable levels as Europe attempts to wean itself off Russian oil and, potentially, gas. Supply shortages could lead to some difficult choices in Europe, including rationing.

What do you think the European economy will look like when there is widespread rationing of natural gas six months from now?

Can anyone out there answer that question?

We have never faced anything like this before, and one industry insider is referring to this as a “perfect storm”…

Joe McMonigle, secretary general of the International Energy Forum, said he agrees with this depressing forecast from the IEA.

“We have a serious problem around the world that I think policymakers are just waking up to. It’s kind of a perfect storm,” McMonigle, whose group serves as a go-between for energy producing and consuming nations, told CNN in a phone interview.

Isn’t it funny how that term keeps popping up?

For years, I warned that a “perfect storm” was coming over and over again, and now that term has constantly been in the news throughout this year.

Another element of the “perfect storm” that we are facing is the rapidly growing global food crisis.

Here in the United States, the bird flu pandemic that has erupted in 2022 has resulted in 38 million chickens and turkeys being wiped out.

As a consequence, the price of eggs has been soaring to unprecedented levels…

The price of eggs increased 10.3% in April. The UDSA predicts an increase between 19.5% and 20.5% year over year in 2022. That could mean $1.00 an egg. Poultry prices will rise as much as 9.5%.

Did you ever imagine that you would be paying a dollar for a single egg?

I still remember when you could get an entire carton of eggs for one dollar.

Chicken meat and turkey meat will be getting more expensive too, and now we are being warned that shortages are coming.

In fact, the CEO of Hormel Foods is openly telling us that “large supply gaps in the Jennie-O Turkey Store will begin in the third quarter”…

A top US food processing company warned of an upcoming shortage of its turkey products at supermarkets following one of the worst bird flu outbreaks.

“Our Jennie-O Turkey Store team is facing an uncertain period ahead,” Hormel Foods Corporation CEO Jim Snee told investors in an earnings call. “Similar to what we experienced in 2015, (avian influenza) is expected to have a meaningful impact on poultry supplies over the coming months.”

Snee said the “large supply gaps in the Jennie-O Turkey Store will begin in the third quarter.” He said highly pathogenic avian influenza was confirmed in “our supply chain” in March.

In case you didn’t get the point of what he was saying, “large supply gaps” is a politically correct way of saying “widespread shortages”.

Speaking of shortages, the baby formula shortage in the United States is now worse than ever…

But, as Bloomberg reports, out-of-stock rates climbed to 74% nationally for the week ending May 28, according to data on 130,000 stores followed by Datasembly. The increase comes after rates spiked to 70% for the week ending May 21 from 45% the week prior.

Even more stunningly, ten states now have shortage rates at 90% or greater, with Georgia hardest hit at 94%.

The Biden administration made a really big deal out of the fact that they were flying in baby formula from Europe, but once again that turned out to mostly be a symbolic gesture.

As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, an increasing number of Americans will fall into poverty and hunger. In fact, according to NPR “demand at food banks is way up again”, and many of those food banks are already at a crisis point…

Fitzgerald, of Feeding America, says providers around the country are dipping into emergency reserves, switching to cheaper products, limiting how often people can visit or how much food they can get, and “stretching their inventory to be able to meet more people’s needs.”

If our food banks are in such distress now, what will things be like six months or a year from today?

Because the truth is that food supplies are only going to get tighter.

The winter wheat harvest in the U.S. is going to come in way, way below original expectations. In fact, we are being told that the winter wheat harvest in Kansas could be down “by more than 25%”…

The U.S. winter wheat harvest potential in Kansas has dipped by more than 25% because of severe drought, and farmers in the state may leave thousands of acres of wheat in fields this year instead of paying to harvest the grain hit by the dry winter.

Looking ahead, a lot less wheat is being planted for the coming growing season because of extremely bizarre weather patterns in some areas.

For example, the amount of wheat that is currently being planted in North Dakota is expected to be the smallest ever recorded…

Some farmers in North Dakota are unable to plant as much wheat as they normally would because of heavy rain across the state.

Government data shows the state is expected to plant wheat over the smallest recorded share of its farmland.

For much more on why U.S. food production is going to continue to shrink in the months ahead, please see this article.

The bottom line is that we are facing really severe problems that are not going to go away any time soon.

And if you are waiting for Joe Biden to come to the rescue, you are going to be waiting for a very long time…

The president of the United States says he understands that inflation is impacting family budgets. But on Wednesday, he said he’s not “aware” of any “immediate action” that would reduce food and fuel prices.

“[W]e can’t take immediate action, that I’m aware of yet, to figure out how we bring down the price of gasoline back to three dollars a gallon. And we can’t do that immediately with regard to food prices, either,” Biden said.

A historic economic nightmare is here, and the guy in the White House is all out of answers.

So buckle up and try to enjoy the ride.

The months ahead are going to be quite chaotic, and you probably don’t even want to think about what is coming after that.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Now Even The Elite Are Openly Admitting That America Is Facing An Absolutely Enormous Economic Crisis

June 1, 2022 by Michael

Not too long ago, the elite were trying to put a happy face on our growing economic problems. It was obvious that things were trending in a very alarming direction, but they kept assuring us that any bumps in the road were just temporary and that a new golden age of prosperity was just around the corner. Needless to say, there were dead wrong, and now some of them are publicly admitting the truth. For example, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon just publicly stated that an economic “hurricane” is rapidly approaching…

Jamie Dimon is no meteorologist, but the JPMorgan Chase CEO is predicting an economic “hurricane” caused by the war in Ukraine, rising inflation pressures and interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

“Right now it’s kind of sunny, things are doing fine. Everyone thinks the Fed can handle this,” Dimon said at a Bernstein conference. “That hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way.”

JPMorgan Chase is one of the most important financial institutions in the entire world.

So it is a really big thing for Dimon to make a statement like this.

Of course he is right on target. An economic hurricane is coming, and it is going to be far more horrible than most Americans could possibly imagine right now.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also just said something that is making a lot of headlines.

Last year she insisted that high inflation would just be “transitory”, but now she is openly admitting that she “was wrong”…

“I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take. As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy […] that I, at the time, didn’t fully understand.”

.@SecYellen on inflation being transitory: “I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take. As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy […] that I, at the time, didn’t fully understand.” https://t.co/AlrXn4kT0r pic.twitter.com/9tqxo0iA3B

— The Hill (@thehill) June 1, 2022

It isn’t exactly a surprise that she turned out to be completely wrong about high inflation being transitory.

We knew that she was wrong when she said it.

But I will give her credit for publicly admitting a mistake. Many in Washington will never do such a thing under any circumstances.

At this point, it should be obvious to everyone that we are in the midst of an absolutely horrifying inflation crisis.

On Wednesday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States jumped another nickel to $4.67. But the real story is the crazy prices that we are starting to see out on the west coast. For instance, one gas station in Los Angeles is now charging more than 8 dollars a gallon for regular gasoline…

A Chevron station in downtown Los Angeles on the corner of Alameda Street and Cesar E. Chavez Avenue is charging customers over $8 for regular gasoline causing some locals to complain about price gouging, KTTV Los Angeles reported on Tuesday.

In a statement to KTTV, Chevron pointed out that the majority of its California branded stations are independently owned and that “unique” factors are contributing to gas prices in the Golden State.

How soon will we see someone break the 10 dollar a gallon threshold?

Will it be by the end of the summer?

In some cities, the price of a gallon of gasoline is already higher than the hourly minimum wage.

That is nuts!

Of course diesel prices have been rising even faster, and this is putting a tremendous amount of financial strain on America’s farmers. If you doubt this, just check out what Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller just told Maria Bartiromo…

When Bartiromo noted “filling a tractor daily now costs farmers $1,000 – twice what it was a year ago,” Miller responded, “it’s through the roof, but it’s not just diesel.”

“It’s fertilizer prices. It’s parts. We can’t get new tractors, new combines. We can’t get new tillage equipment,” he stressed. “So we have to keep running our older equipment, which we can’t get parts for. And so it’s just a whole comedy of errors, and it just multiplies on top of itself.”

When costs go up for farmers, they inevitably get passed on to consumers.

And we have already been seeing food prices spike dramatically. Just check out these numbers from April…

Food grains—including corn and wheat—were up 2.8 percent for the month and 45 percent compared with a year ago. Feed grain prices increased 7.8 percent from the prior month and 33 percent from a year ago.

The poultry and egg index jumped 22 percent from March and 94 percent from a year earlier. The April market egg price, at $2.21 per dozen, is 81.0 cents higher than March and $1.64 higher than April 2021. The price of chickens raised for meat, at $1.05 per pound, is 15.3 cents higher than March and 49.7 cents higher than a year ago. At 95.3 cents per pound, the April turkey price is 2.5 cents higher than the previous month and 18.5 cents higher than April 2021.

Milk prices climbed 4.12 percent in April and are up 47 percent compared with a year earlier.

In the entire history of our nation, we have never seen anything like this.

But as I keep warning my readers, this is just the beginning.

In fact, one prominent Texas farmer is warning that food prices “are going to double”…

“People don’t realize what’s fixing to hit them,” said Texas farmer Lynn “Bugsy” Allen.

“They think it’s tough right now, you give it until October. Food prices are going to double.”

Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine what it will do to our country if food prices double from their already extremely inflated levels?

People will go absolutely bananas.

But this is exactly the type of scenario that I have been warning about for years.

Eventually, food will become such a prime target for thieves that we will actually see armed guards escorting grocery store delivery trucks.

And civil unrest will erupt all over the planet as millions upon millions of poor people get hungrier and hungrier.

Unfortunately, even though so many are now sounding the alarm, the vast majority of the population still has no idea what is coming our way.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

Are You Upset About Inflation? If So, You Aren’t Alone.

May 31, 2022 by Michael

All of a sudden, just about everyone is upset about inflation. It would have been nice if everyone would have been this upset back when our leaders were making the exceedingly foolish decisions that resulted in this crisis. In May 2012, the federal government was 15 trillion dollars in debt. Now we are 30 trillion dollars in debt, but our politicians continue to spend money as if tomorrow will never come. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of dollars that they created out of thin air into the financial system in recent years. For a very long time, I passionately denounced what our leaders were doing, because I knew what would happen. Now a day of reckoning has arrived, and millions upon millions of Americans are absolutely desperate for things to return to normal. Unfortunately, that simply is not going to happen.

In May 2020, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was less than two dollars.

Today, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States reached a brand new record high of $4.62, and we are being warned that it could soon go to “$5 a gallon or more”…

The national average for unleaded gas hit another new high of $4.62 per gallon Tuesday, according to AAA data. Prices are up more than 50% compared with last year.

Analysts say gasoline prices usually peak by mid-May, but this year prices at the pump could continue to rise into July and reach about $5 a gallon or more.

Most of the time, the vast majority of the population doesn’t pay much attention to economics.

But this is where the rubber meets the road, and two recent polls show very clearly that Americans are becoming increasingly frustrated…

An NBC News poll released earlier this month found that 33 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, while 23 percent approve of his handling of the cost of living.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll in early May found that more than 9 in 10 Americans are concerned, at a minimum, about the rate of inflation, which has been at a 40-year high for months. That included 44 percent who say they are “upset” about the problem.

In addition, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index has now fallen to the lowest reading that we have seen since the end of the Great Recession…

Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index measured -45 in May, down from -39 in each of the previous two months. It is the lowest reading in Gallup’s trend during the coronavirus pandemic, and likely the lowest confidence has been since the tail end of the Great Recession in early 2009.

When things go bad, who are people going to blame?

More than anyone else, people are going to blame the guy in the White House.

And right now the Biden administration is absolutely desperate “to contain the political damage caused by inflation”…

The White House launched a new push Tuesday to contain the political damage caused by inflation after President Biden complained for weeks to aides that his administration was not doing enough to publicly explain the fastest price increases in roughly four decades.

Aiming to demonstrate to the public that it is responding to its concerns, Biden met with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell in the Oval Office, wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about inflation and sent top aides across major networks to push the administration’s economic message.

What is Biden’s “economic message” exactly?

I have been sitting here pondering that question, and I honestly cannot answer it.

Every day, the story seems to change. A while back, Biden promised to do all that he could to lower gasoline prices, and he foolishly released a million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

That didn’t work.

So what now?

One insider told Politico that high gasoline prices are “a really difficult issue to message around”, because “you can’t deny the reality”…

The White House’s focus on gas prices is bred from two sobering political conclusions top officials have made. The first is that they have little control over the problem. The second is that as prices rise at the pump, so do Democrats’ odds of a midterm wipeout — especially as the average U.S. gallon of gas hits fresh record highs.

“There really isn’t one silver bullet,” said one person familiar with the discussions. “It’s a really difficult issue to message around when you can’t deny the reality.”

If Joe Biden asked me what he should do in order to reduce gasoline prices, the first thing I would say would be to stop doing things that are counterproductive. The following comes from a recent editorial by Marc A. Thiessen…

If the Biden administration cared about high gas prices, they would be doing everything in their power to increase domestic production. After a federal judge invalidated an offshore oil and gas lease sale in January, the administration chose not to appeal and has since canceled three transactions in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska — taking millions of acres off the auction block. The Post called the move “a victory for climate activists intent on curbing U.S. fossil fuel leasing,” which “effectively ends the possibility of the federal government holding a lease sale in coastal waters this year.” Worse, the administration is about to let the nationwide offshore drilling program expire next month without a new plan in place.

Moving forward, we need to remove mountains of regulations that have made it extremely difficult to build and operate new refineries in the United States.

And we need far more exploration and far more drilling as soon as possible.

Of course the truth is that this isn’t just a U.S. problem.

Energy prices are out of control all over the world, and they are actually much higher in Europe than they are here.

In fact, soaring energy prices are a big reason why inflation in the European Union just hit a brand new record high…

Following Germany’s post-Weimar record high inflation print, the European Union’s consumer price inflation data this morning surged to a record high at +8.1% YoY (notably hotter than the +7.8% YoY expected).

Most Americans don’t realize this, but Europe is actually much closer to a full-blown economic meltdown than we are.

I expect the euro to fall below parity with the dollar in the not too distant future.

And I expect a nightmarish energy crunch in Europe as supplies from Russia are restricted or cut off completely. Unless something changes, next winter is going to be a really challenging time for many European nations.

We have entered the worst energy crisis in modern history, but what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

Much worse is ahead, and the American people will become increasingly frustrated as prices just keep going higher and higher.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

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