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10 Major Layoff Announcements That Have Already Happened So Far In 2023

January 8, 2023January 8, 2023 by Michael

This is my rebuttal to those in the federal government and elsewhere that are attempting to claim that the job market is in good shape. No matter how many workers get laid off, the Bureau of Labor Statistics always seems to find a way to post a positive jobs number each month. We were told that the U.S. economy somehow added 256,000 jobs in November even though Challenger, Gray & Christmas determined that the number of layoffs in November 2022 was actually 417 percent higher than it was during the same month a year earlier. And even though the tsunami of layoffs continued in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is telling us that the U.S. economy somehow added 223,000 jobs last month. It is almost as if there is a certain number that the BLS refuses to go below. For each of the last five months, the number of jobs that the U.S. has “added” has miraculously come in between 200,000 and 300,000 each time. But meanwhile large companies all over America have been laying off workers at a staggering rate.

Unfortunately, the pace of layoffs seems to be picking up speed during the early days of 2023. The following are 10 major layoff announcements that have already happened so far this year…

#1 Salesforce has announced that approximately 10 percent of their workers will be canned…

Salesforce Inc. plans to cut about 10% of its staff as part of a restructuring plan, the software company said Wednesday.

The company will also exit some real estate and cut back on office space, it disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The plan is aimed to reduce operating costs, boost operating margins, and drive “profitable growth.”

#2 Vimeo says that “11% of the company’s workforce” will be permanently canceled…

Vimeo has launched another round of layoffs, a company spokesperson confirmed to Insider on Wednesday.

In an email to staff, Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud said the layoffs would impact 11% of the company’s workforce.

#3 StickFix is eliminating “about 20% of its salaried workforce” as the company starts to come apart at the seams…

StitchFix will cut about 20% of its salaried workforce, according to a statement published by the company on Thursday.

Along with the cuts, the company’s CEO is stepping down, the company announced in a statement.

The company will also close a Salt Lake City, Utah facility, they said.

#4 Their first round of layoffs was not deep enough, and so now Genesis is saying goodbye to “30% of its workforce in a second round of layoffs”…

Cryptocurrency firm Genesis has cut 30% of its workforce in a second round of layoffs in less than six months, according to a person familiar with the matter, as pressure builds on crypto industry executives to cut costs in the wake of a downturn.

#5 Not to be outdone, Silvergate Capital is laying the axe to 40 percent of their workers…

Amid a “crisis of confidence” across the cryptocurrency industry, crypto banking group Silvergate Capital will cut 40% of its workforce and abandon some projects—including a blockchain-based payment solution based on Meta’s abortive Diem project.

#6 SuperRare Labs has just announced that 30 percent of their workforce will need to look for new jobs…

SuperRare Labs, the company behind NFT marketplace SuperRare, became the latest crypto player to make job cuts on Friday, announcing it will reduce its staff by 30%.

The news came from SuperRare CEO John Crain, who tweeted out a message he sent to employees in Slack.

#7 More than a third of Biocept’s workers will be shown the door as the company struggles to survive…

Liquid biopsy firm Biocept said Friday that it is exploring strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value, and has engaged EF Hutton, a division of Benchmark Investments, as its financial adviser.

As this process moves forward, the firm is implementing a restructuring plan that includes reducing staff by approximately 35 percent.

#8 The first two rounds of layoffs didn’t do the trick, and so now Compass has decided to conduct a third round of layoffs…

Compass is still coming back to earth — but this time possibly without its headquarters. On Thursday, The Real Deal reported that the real-estate company was looking to sublease its 89,000-square-foot office space at 90 Fifth Avenue near Union Square. The same day, Compass also announced it was conducting its third round of layoffs this year; in an SEC filing, the company wrote that layoffs would “allow for a path to achieve positive free cash flow in 2023.”

#9 It turns out that the layoffs at Amazon will be much larger than originally anticipated…

Amazon said it is slashing a total of 18,000 jobs, a larger number of positions than it previously announced and the largest set of layoffs in the e-commerce giant’s history.

“We typically wait to communicate about these outcomes until we can speak with the people who are directly impacted,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a note to employees that the company made public on Wednesday. “However, because one of our teammates leaked this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me.”

#10 The Daily Mail is reporting that McDonald’s “will slash many of its 200,000 corporate staff in coming months” as it attempts to turn the business back in a positive direction…

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski has revealed plans to slash corporate jobs later this year to help the business grow.

In a letter to staff on Friday, the fast-food giant boss said there would be ‘difficult discussions and decisions ahead’ and warned that the company had become unfocused.

But don’t worry.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is telling us that everything is just fine.

You believe them, don’t you?

Sadly, it appears that a lot more layoffs could be coming very soon. For example, Bed Bath & Beyond is in such bad shape that it may soon not have many employees left at all…

Now Bed Bath & Beyond “has concluded that there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern,” the retailer said on Thursday. This means Bed Bath & Beyond has to consider all financial options, including restructuring, selling assets or going through bankruptcy.

“These measures may not be successful,” the company added. Its stock price dropped more than 20% as soon as markets opened.

For years, our leaders have been desperately trying to prop up our “bubble economy”, and for a while their efforts were successful.

But now they can no longer hold back the economic catastrophe that has been building for more than a decade.

This generation was handed the keys to the greatest economic machine in world history, but those in power have wrecked it.

Now we stand at the brink of an unprecedented economic crisis, and the months ahead are likely to be quite brutal.

***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.

11 Signs That The Economic “Tipping Point” That Everyone Has Been Waiting For Has Now Arrived

January 5, 2023January 5, 2023 by Michael

How bad do things have to get before people start realizing that we are in the midst of a full-blown economic crisis? The “experts” on television are endlessly debating about whether or not we are going to have a “recession” this year, and meanwhile economic activity is imploding all around us. The number of homes being sold in this country each month has already fallen by a third. The number of job cuts in November was 417 percent higher than it was during the same month a year earlier, and at this point even Amazon is laying off thousands of workers. The Federal Reserve has declared war on inflation, but prices continue to spiral out of control. In fact, vegetables are 80 percent more expensive now than they were 12 months ago. Meanwhile, the financial markets continue to plunge. A third of the value of the Nasdaq has already been wiped out, and more than two-thirds of the value of all cryptocurrencies is already gone.

After everything that has already transpired, everyone should be able to clearly understand what is happening.

So many people have been waiting for an economic nightmare to come, but the truth is that it is already here.

The following are 11 signs that the economic “tipping point” that everyone has been waiting for has now arrived…

#1 U.S. manufacturing is declining at the fastest pace that we have seen since the early days of the COVID pandemic…

The S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell at the fastest rate since May 2020 in December, a continuing sign that the manufacturing sector is on the decline, S&P Global reported Tuesday.

The U.S. Manufacturing PMI posted a 46.2 in December, down from 47.7 in November and solidly below 50, which signals that the sector is contracting, according to S&P Global. Production levels contracted in back-to-back months, with new sales plummeting at the end of December at the fastest pace since 2007, as companies cited weakening demand amid “economic uncertainty” and inflation weighing on customers.

#2 U.S. services PMI has now fallen for sixth months in a row.

#3 We just witnessed the largest one day drop in the Baltic Dry Index since 1984…

The Baltic Exchange’s dry bulk sea freight index crashed on Tuesday in the worst decline on record, sinking on prospects of a global recession.

Baltic Dry Good Index is a measure of global shipping and economic health. The overall index, which tracks rates for capesize, panamax, and supramax shipping vessels carrying dry bulk commodities, plunged 17.5% to $1,250, the most significant daily decline since 1984.

#4 Thanks to rapidly falling imports, we just witnessed the largest monthly decline in the trade deficit since the last financial crisis…

According to the BEA, the November trade deficit narrowed to $61.5b from $77.8b in prior month, coming in below the median estimate of $63.0BN (and just barely missing the top end of the range of $61.3BN to $80.5BN from 42 economists).

Remarkably, the 20% one-month decline in the deficit was the single biggest drop in the US trade deficit on a percentage basis going back to the global financial crisis!

#5 In 2022, U.S. auto sales were the lowest that we have seen for a full year in more than a decade…

Industrywide, U.S. auto sales totaled 13.7 million vehicles in 2022, the lowest figure since 2011 and an 8% decrease from the prior year, according to the research firm Wards Intelligence. Sales had topped 17 million vehicles for five straight years before the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, unleashing supply-chain problems that have bogged down deliveries ever since.

#6 The average rate on a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage is more than twice as high as it was this time last year…

Mortgage rates inched up again last week, after a slight increase the week before interrupted six straight weeks of falling rates.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.48% in the week ending January 5, up from 6.42% the week before, according to Freddie Mac. A year ago, the 30-year fixed rate was 3.22%.

#7 According to CNN, sales of apartments in Manhattan were 28.5 percent lower in the fourth quarter of 2022 than they were in the fourth quarter of 2021…

Higher rates and still-high housing prices cooled demand at the end of last year, causing sales to tumble. Sales dropped 28.5% in the fourth quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2021.

#8 Overall, existing home sales in the United States have fallen for 10 months in a row and are now down by more than a third since January 2022.

#9 Bed Bath & Beyond is warning that the company is literally on the verge of declaring bankruptcy…

Bed Bath & Beyond warned Thursday it’s running out of cash and is considering bankruptcy.

The retailer, citing worse-than-expected sales, issued a “going concern” warning that in the upcoming months it likely will not have the cash to cover expenses, such as lease agreements or payments to suppliers. Bed Bath said it is exploring financial options, such as restructuring, seeking additional capital or selling assets, in addition to a potential bankruptcy.

#10 It is being reported that Amazon has decided to lay off approximately 18,000 employees…

Amazon.com Inc. is laying off more than 18,000 employees — the biggest reduction in its history — in the latest sign that a tech-industry slump is deepening.

#11 Overall, the tech industry has already laid off more than 150,000 workers over the last year.

Many more American workers will lose their jobs as economic activity slows down even more throughout 2023.

So if you currently have a good job that you value, try to cling to it as hard as you can.

The times that we are moving into are going to look completely different from the times that we have enjoyed over the past decade.

Our leaders were able to keep the party going for a long time by absolutely flooding the system with money, but now they have lost control.

We are literally careening toward disaster, but most Americans still don’t understand what is taking place.

Most Americans just assume that those in authority know exactly what they are doing and that a “return to normal” is inevitable.

I wish that was true, because the ride into the economic abyss that we are facing is not going to be fun.

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

Michael Snyder: The Overall Theme For 2023 Will Be “Here We Go!”

January 4, 2023 by Michael

A lot of people tend to use the phrase “here we go” when they think that something really good is about to happen, and others tend to use it when they think that something really bad is about to happen. Needless to say, in this case I am using the phrase “here we go” as my overall theme for 2023 because I believe that we are going to be facing a really rough year. I expect that so many of the trends that have been percolating throughout 2022 will greatly accelerate over the next 12 months. So if you were not pleased with 2022, it is likely that you are really not going to enjoy what is ahead of us in 2023.

I certainly don’t need to tell any of you that 2022 was a very tough year for the economy. It truly was a year when “everything started to fall apart”, and lots of prominent voices on Wall Street are now warning that things will get even worse in 2023.

But if the Federal Reserve were to suddenly reverse course and begin lowering interest rates, that would help the short-term economic outlook a great deal.

Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen. In fact, Fed officials are openly telling us that they expect interest rates to remain elevated for “some time” to come…

Federal Reserve officials reaffirmed their commitment to combating inflation at their December meeting and indicated that interest rates could remain elevated for “some time” until there is clear evidence that consumer prices are falling.

Minutes from the U.S. central bank’s Dec. 13-14 meeting released on Wednesday showed that policymakers worried that investors and financial markets could misinterpret their decision to raise interest rates more slowly as a sign they were ending their campaign to bring prices under control. Officials stressed that the smaller rate hike – 50 basis points, compared to the previous fourth 75-basis point-increases – “was not an indication of any weakening” and warned of continued risks on the inflation front.

So there is no hope on the horizon, and higher rates will continue to crush economic activity for the foreseeable future.

And with each passing day, what is happening to the economy is becoming clearer and clearer. For example, we just learned that Salesforce will be laying off approximately 8,000 workers…

Salesforce plans to lay off about 10% of its workforce, or nearly 8,000 employees, and reduce its office space as tech companies cut costs amid concerns about the economy.

In a note to employees Wednesday, Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff said the move comes as customers take a more cautious approach to spending as the economic “environment remains challenging.”

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

There will be many more layoffs during the weeks and months to come.

Another trend that I will be watching very closely in 2023 is the deterioration of faith in our politicians and in our governmental institutions.

The drama that is playing out in Washington right now is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Kevin McCarthy is a prototypical “swamp creature”, and that is why the establishment loves him. As Speaker of the House, McCarthy would be in charge of keeping the wheels of corruption in motion. There is so much campaign money that needs to be funneled in the right direction, so many important favors that need to get done, and so many critical deals that need to be orchestrated.

The Washington establishment can’t afford to have someone with principles as Speaker of the House, and so they are going to keep pushing for McCarthy.

Of course McCarthy is deeply unpopular outside of Washington, but so was Nancy Pelosi.

Sadly, that doesn’t really matter, because we we are not supposed to have a say in these battles.

But the American people are getting fed up. They can see the endless corruption that is going on, and the popularity of both parties is sinking.

And the truth is that politicians from both parties have been lying to our faces over and over again.

For many of our politicians, lying is as natural as breathing is.

Unfortunately, we have gotten to a point where most of our politicians have lost all of their credibility, and a population that no longer has faith in the system is going to be exceedingly difficult to govern.

I also expect 2023 to be a year of great natural disasters.

Throughout 2022, there was just one historic disaster after another. It seemed like I was constantly writing about droughts, famines, wildfires, hurricanes, giant storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and tornadoes.

Unfortunately, I believe that the 12 months that are ahead of us will be even worse.

If you doubt this, just consider what has been happening over the past few weeks.

In late December, a colossal “bomb cyclone” brought a “once in a generation storm” to the Midwest. In fact, the blizzard that we witnessed in Buffalo was the worst storm in the entire recorded history of the city.

Just as we were recovering from that, a mammoth “atmospheric river” slammed into the west coast. Some parts of California received more than four feet of snow, and there was catastrophic flooding in other areas.

Now here we are just a few days later, and another “bomb cyclone” is about to hammer California. According to the National Weather Service, this is going to be a “truly brutal” storm…

Another powerful storm, known as a bomb cyclone, is hitting the California coast and the National Weather Service in the Bay Area is warning residents that the “truly brutal” system needs to be taken seriously.

The system could trigger “immediate disruption to commerce, and the worst of all, likely loss of human life,” forecasters say. It comes on the heels of a round of record-breaking rainfall that slammed the same area over the weekend.

I have never seen two immensely powerful storms hit California so close together.

There will be “widespread flooding”, and conditions in some parts of the state will be so dangerous that authorities are actually encouraging people to have “go bags” prepared in advance…

A dangerous storm system is slamming California, with meteorologists at the National Weather Service warning of imminent “widespread flooding, impassible roads, mudslides/landslides [and] rapid rises in rivers/creeks.” The system, which prompted the Weather Service to take the unusual step of urging residents to have “go bags” at the ready and prepare insurance documentation in advance, is set to unleash its harshest conditions Wednesday night into early Thursday.

Virtually the entirety of Northern and Central California is under flood watches and high-wind warnings, with damaging gusts to 60 mph possible. Strong to severe thunderstorms could be in the offing as well, in addition to 2 to 4 inches of rain in the lowlands and more in the mountains. In the highest terrain, the heavy rain will transition to up to 2 to 4 feet of heavy snow. Along the coast, beaches will be battered by large waves and areas of coastal flooding.

I also believe that 2023 will be a year when multiple pestilences run wild all over the planet.

These days, it seems like a different disease is making global headlines each week.

A few weeks ago everyone was talking about RSV, and then it was Strep A, and now this week a new “super variant” of COVID is deeply alarming authorities…

Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and chief of the COVID Risk Task Force at the New England Complex Systems Institute, has called XBB1.5 a “super variant.”

XBB.1.5, which is mutated from the original Omicron strain, appears to be spreading faster than others because it is better at attaching itself to human cells.

“A mutation in the virus is located at the site where it binds to the human cells,” said Wine. “To effectively infect humans, the virus needs to bind to cells, and XBB.1.5 seems to do this very tightly.”

Next week it might be something else.

At this point, there are billions of people that have compromised immune systems, and that means that the global population has been perfectly primed for whatever plagues we see in 2023.

I certainly can’t end this article without talking about war.

I expect that both sides will continue to escalate the conflict in Ukraine in 2023, and it appears that the Russians may be preparing a massive new offensive campaign from the north.

Meanwhile, tensions in the Middle East continue to rise, and I believe that a war between Israel and Iran has become inevitable.

On the other side of the planet, the Chinese could soon pull the trigger on an invasion of Taiwan, and if that happens we could also see North Korea invade South Korea while the U.S. is distracted with China.

I have been warning that these wars were coming for a long time, and once they erupt our world will never be the same again.

In fact, our world is already radically different from what it was like just a few short years ago.

So much changed throughout 2020, 2021 and 2022.

But the pace of change is only going to accelerate even more as we get deeper into 2023.

So buckle up and hold on tight, because here we go…

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

Let’s Hope That The Irrational Optimists Will Be 100 Percent Correct About 2023

January 3, 2023January 3, 2023 by Michael

I hope that I am wrong about our immediate economic future, and I hope that all of the other respected voices that are warning of economic doom in 2023 are wrong too. It would be wonderful if things turn in a positive direction at some point during the next 12 months and 2023 turns out to be a year of peace and prosperity for the entire world. Of course virtually nobody is expecting the year to start well. As I discussed yesterday, there is a growing consensus among the “experts” that the months ahead will be quite rough. But even though it has become exceedingly obvious that short-term economic conditions will not be good, some optimists are still trying to put a positive spin on things. For example, Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi is trying to convince us that we will only have to endure a “slowcession” before things finally turn around…

Many CEOs, investors and consumers are worried about a recession in 2023. But Moody’s Analytics says the more likely scenario is a “slowcession,” where growth grinds to a near halt but a full economic downturn is narrowly avoided.

“Under almost any scenario, the economy is set to have a difficult 2023,” Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi wrote in a report on Tuesday. “But inflation is quickly moderating, and the economy’s fundamentals are sound. With a bit of luck and some reasonably deft policymaking by the Fed, the economy should avoid an outright downturn.”

Let’s hope that he is right on target.

And if he does turn out to be correct, let’s hold a big celebration next December celebrating what a wonderful year 2023 was.

I would be up for that.

But I don’t think that is the way that things will play out.

Even now, all of the “mega-bubbles” are starting to burst all around us and the chaos that we have witnessed in the financial markets is unlike anything that we have seen since 2008.

The “bubble economy” that we had been enjoying for such a long time was dependent on a very rapidly growing money supply, but thanks to the Fed the money fountains have now been turned off.

In fact, the growth of M2 has just turned negative “for the first time in 28 years”…

Money supply growth fell again in November, and this time it turned negative for the first time in 28 years. November’s drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years. During the thirteen months between April 2020 and April 2021, money supply growth in the United States often climbed above 35 percent year over year, well above even the “high” levels experienced from 2009 to 2013.

Since then, the money supply growth has slowed quickly, and we’re now seeing the first time the money supply has actually contracted since the 1990s. The last time the year-over-year change in the money supply slipped into negative territory was in November of 1994.

At some point, economic conditions will force the Fed to reverse course.

But for now Fed officials remain deeply afraid of inflation, and so we will remain on the current path.

What this means is that the early portions of 2023 are likely to look a lot like late 2008 and early 2009. We have already started to see a very alarming wave of layoffs, and this has particularly been true in the tech industry…

Tech-driven companies are embarking on a layoff spree the likes of which not seen since the pandemic, a new report has revealed – laying off more than 150,000 workers within the course of a year.

The concerning numbers were laid bare in a recently released analysis from Layoffs.fyi, which tracks firings in real time through information gleaned in media and company releases.

Through these means, the firm found that the technology sector – which had been largely spared in 2020 amid the mass wave of firings when Covid-19 first surfaced – are now among those with the largest numbers of job cuts, with rates increasingly rapidly over the past few months.

Sadly, it is likely that there will be even more tech layoffs in the months ahead.

In fact, one expert is ominously warning that we will see “a continued cutting of heads in Big Tech because they’re getting ready for the Category 5 storm” that is rapidly approaching…

Wedbush Securities managing director Dan Ives shared a similar sentiment about the 2023 economy on “Mornings with Maria” Tuesday, cautioning that Big Tech companies still need to “rip the Band-Aid off” in terms of layoffs as a “Category 5 storm” threatens the macroeconomic landscape.

“Look, a lot of Big Tech, they were spending money like 1980s rockstars. And I think that really shows,” Ives explained. “Sometimes they were increasing 15, 20% per year. I still think it’s a ‘rip the Band-Aid off,’ still some more headcount cuts. We think potentially another 8 to 10% headcount cuts in Big Tech. You look at what happened with Meta, and that’s a good example. Once Zuckerberg finally read the room, cut in terms of what he needed to, stock ultimately lifted. I think, be that as a catalyst, I think you will see a continued cutting of heads in Big Tech because they’re getting ready for the Category 5 storm in terms of what we’re seeing with the macro.”

I don’t like the sound of that.

Could we really see a “Category 5” economic storm in 2023?

Yes, we could.

But once again, let’s hope that the irrational optimists will be correct and that such a storm can be avoided somehow.

Ultimately, many of the irrational optimists are entirely convinced that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with our system and that just a few minor adjustments are all that is needed to get us back on the road to endless prosperity.

On the other hand, there are people like me that are entirely convinced that our system is fundamentally unsound and that it is inevitable that the entire Ponzi scheme will eventually come crashing down all around us.

Normally, most Americans tend to be quite optimistic about the coming year, but this year is different.

According to a Gallup survey that was just released, approximately 80 percent of U.S. adults believe that “2023 will be a year of economic difficulty”…

When offered opposing outcomes on each issue, about eight in 10 U.S. adults think 2023 will be a year of economic difficulty with higher rather than lower taxes and a growing rather than shrinking budget deficit. More than six in 10 think prices will rise at a high rate and the stock market will fall in the year ahead, both of which happened in 2022. In addition, just over half of Americans predict that unemployment will increase in 2023, an economic problem the U.S. was spared in 2022.

But maybe 2023 won’t be so bad after all.

Maybe our leaders will be able to find a way to reinflate all of the old bubbles one more time.

We better hope that they have one final miracle up their sleeves, because the alternative will not be pleasant at all.

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

11 Ominous Predictions For 2023

January 2, 2023January 2, 2023 by Michael

There is a growing consensus that 2023 is going to be a miserable year for the U.S. economy and for the global economy as a whole. In fact, in all the years that I have been writing I have never seen so many big names on Wall Street be so incredibly pessimistic about the coming year. Of course much of that pessimism is due to the fact that 2022 went so poorly. The cryptocurrency industry imploded, trillions of dollars in stock market wealth evaporated, inflation became a major problem all over the industrialized world, and a new housing crash suddenly erupted. Considering all of the pain that we have experienced over the past 12 months, it is only natural for the experts to have a negative view of 2023. The following are 11 ominous warnings that they have issued for the year ahead…

#1 The IMF: “We expect one-third of the world economy to be in recession. Even countries that are not in recession, it would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people”

#2 Bloomberg: “Economists say there is a 7-in-10 likelihood that the US economy will sink into a recession next year, slashing demand forecasts and trimming inflation projections in the wake of massive interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.”

#3 The World Bank: “As central banks across the world simultaneously hike interest rates in response to inflation, the world may be edging toward a global recession in 2023 and a string of financial crises in emerging market and developing economies that would do them lasting harm, according to a comprehensive new study by the World Bank.”

#4 Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan: “We’re going to have a shallow recession”

#5 Mohamed El-Erian: “Many ‘high-conviction’ U.S. recession calls are immediately coupled with the assertion that it’ll be ‘short and shallow.’ Reminds me of the behavioral trap ‘transitory inflation’ proponents fell into last year”

#6 Nouriel Roubini: “No, this is not going to be a short and shallow recession, it’s going to be deep and protracted”

#7 Larry Summers: “My sense is that it’s much harder than many people think to achieve a soft landing”

#8 Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon: “Economic growth is slowing,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said at the same conference. “When I talk to our clients, they sound extremely cautious.”

#9 Charles Schwab & Co.’s Liz Ann Sonders: “We have to take our medicine still, meaning a weaker economy and a weaker labor market. The question is, is it better to take our medicine sooner or later?”

#10 BlackRock: “Central bankers won’t ride to the rescue when growth slows in this new regime, contrary to what investors have come to expect. They are deliberately causing recessions by overtightening policy to try to rein in inflation”

#11 Michael Burry: “Inflation peaked. But it is not the last peak of this cycle. We are likely to see CPI lower, possibly negative in 2H 2023, and the US in recession by any definition. Fed will cut and government will stimulate. And we will have another inflation spike. It’s not hard.”

As you can see, there is a general consensus that things will be bad in 2023, but there is disagreement about just how deep the coming economic downturn will turn out to be.

If the worst of these forecasts turn out to be accurate, that will actually be incredibly good news.

Because the reality of what we will be facing in 2023 is likely to be significantly worse than any of these experts are currently projecting.

With each passing day, we continue to get even more numbers that indicate that big trouble is ahead.

For example, we just learned that luxury home sales absolutely cratered during the months of September, October and November…

Sales of luxury homes fell 38.1% year over year during the three months ending November 30, 2022, the biggest decline on record, according to a new report from Redfin, a technology-powered real estate brokerage. That outpaced the record 31.4% decline in sales of non-luxury homes. Redfin’s data goes back to 2012.

The luxury market and the overall housing market lost momentum in 2022 due to many of the same factors: inflation, relatively high interest rates, a sagging stock market and recession fears.

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008.

And we all remember what the housing crash of 2008 ultimately did to the financial markets.

Normally, the beginning of a calendar year is a time for optimism. As we look forward to a completely clean slate, it can be easy to forget the difficulties of the previous 12 months.

But this year things seem completely different.

On some level, just about everyone can feel that very challenging times are ahead of us.

Decades of very foolish decisions are starting to catch up with us in a major way.

Our leaders tried very hard to keep the party going for as long as possible, and to a certain extent they were quite successful in doing so.

Our politicians in Washington kept borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have, and that definitely delayed our day of reckoning.

And the Federal Reserve kept the financial markets artificially propped up for years by endlessly pumping giant mountains of fresh cash into the system.

But such foolish measures only made our long-term problems even worse, and now our leaders are losing control.

All of the “mega-bubbles” are starting to burst, and the system is beginning to fall apart all around us.

It is time to turn out the lights, because the party is over.

We all had a lot of fun while it lasted, but now the bill is due and an extraordinary amount of pain is ahead.

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

The Year When Everything Started To Fall Apart

January 2, 2023January 1, 2023 by Michael

It amazes me that so many people still cannot understand what is happening. 2022 was supposedly going to be a year when America entered a new golden age of prosperity, but that didn’t happen. Instead, it was a complete and utter disaster. Stock prices fell by the most that we have seen since 2008, the cryptocurrency industry came apart at the seams, inflation soared to absurd heights, and home sales just kept declining all throughout the year. Without a doubt, 2022 represented a major turning point. Americans have already collectively lost trillions of dollars, and many experts are telling us that 2023 will be even worse.

We warned over and over again that the party on Wall Street would eventually come to a very bitter end, but most people didn’t want to listen.

Well, the party has now ended, and the stock market losses that we have witnessed over the past 12 months have been absolutely staggering…

As of closing time on Friday evening, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by nearly 3,500 points since the start of the year, a 9.4 percent drop.

The S&P 500 was also down by 957 points this year, with the tech-heavy index falling by almost 20 percent, capping off a brutal year for the tech industry.

Meanwhile, the Nasdaq sunk by more than 5,600 points, a nearly 34 percent decline in 2022.

More than a third of the entire value of the Nasdaq is already gone.

Just think about that.

Of course some stocks were hit much harder than others.

Tesla is down about 70 percent from the peak, and Elon Musk “has become the first person ever to lose $200 billion from his net worth”…

Tesla CEO and Chief Twit Elon Musk has become the first person ever to lose $200 billion from his net worth, according to a Bloomberg report.

Musk, 51, previously became the second person ever to amass a fortune of more than $200 billion in January 2021, after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Musk has now seen his wealth drop to $137 billion following a recent drop in Tesla shares.

Musk saw his fortune peak in November 2021, hitting $340 billion, and held the title of the world’s richest person up until last month. Musk was ultimately toppled off the throne by Bernard Arnault, the CEO of French luxury giant LVMH.

You have to give him credit for holding up so well under the circumstances.

200 billion dollars is an amount of money that is so large that it is almost unimaginable.

Facebook also got monkey-hammered over the course of 2022. At this point, Facebook stock has fallen over 64 percent from where it was last January…

On the last day of trading this year, Meta’s stock was down more than 64 percent compared to January, with prices sinking from over $338-per-share to now $120-per-share.

The company has lost more than $600 billion in valuation as it spend billions to make its controversial leap to virtual reality with its Metaverse, with the efforts continuing to come up short.

Perhaps Facebook shouldn’t have put so much effort into banning and censoring millions of their best users.

What an incredibly stupid thing to do.

When I go on Facebook these days, it just feels so incredibly dead.

There are still a few diehard users hanging around, but overall it is just a pathetic hollow shell of a social media platform at this point.

Speaking of implosions, 2022 was an absolute disaster for the cryptocurrency industry. The following summary of what we witnessed over the past 12 months comes from Zero Hedge…

Among all the chaos and downfall of many crypto exchanges and leading venture capital firms, the biggest losers are crypto investors. If the burn of the bear market was not enough, millions of crypto investors who had their funds on FTX lost their life savings overnight.

Terra was once a $40 billion ecosystem. Its native token, LUNA — now known as Terra Classic (LUNC) — was one of the top five biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. With millions of customers invested in the ecosystem, the collapse brought their investment to zero within hours. After the Terra collapse, crypto investors lost their funds on a series of centralized exchanges and staking platforms like Celsius, BlockFi and Hodlnaut. Crypto investors also lost significantly in the nonfungible token market, with the price of many popular collections down by 70%. Overall, crypto investors are among the biggest losers of the year.

The total value of all cryptocurrencies exceeded 3 trillion dollars at the peak of the market.

Now the total value of all cryptocurrencies has fallen to less than 1 trillion dollars.

Hopefully you got out before the crash happened.

2022 was also a year when we experienced really painful inflation.

Food prices, energy prices and vehicle prices all went completely nuts, and many compared what we were going through to the Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s.

But this shouldn’t have been a surprise to any of us. Starting in 2020, our leaders absolutely flooded the system with new cash and the size of the money supply absolutely exploded.

Increasing the size of the money supply so dramatically was inevitably going to cause prices to go haywire, and anyone that thought otherwise was just not being rational.

In a desperate attempt to fight the inflation monster that they helped to create, officials at the Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates throughout much of 2022.

As a result, we now find ourselves in the midst of another horrifying housing crash. Home values are now steadily receding all over the nation, and home sales have been falling month after month.

Home sales have already fallen by more than a third.

How much lower can they possibly go?

I don’t know, but we are being warned to brace ourselves for more hard times ahead.

In fact, even the IMF is publicly admitting that “the worst is yet to come”…

“The worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession,” the IMF said in October, noting the slowdown “will be broad-based” and may “reopen economic wounds that were only partially healed post-pandemic.”

If only they knew.

We aren’t just heading into a temporary economic downturn. Ultimately, the entire system is starting to fall apart all around us, and the years ahead are going to be incredibly challenging.

Our leaders have been making mistake after mistake for decades, and now we get to pay the price.

So buckle up and hold on tight, because 2023 is not going to be pleasant at all.

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

The “Mega-Bubbles” Have Started To Burst, And That Could Mean Unprecedented Financial Chaos Is Ahead

December 29, 2022December 28, 2022 by Michael

The Federal Reserve giveth, and the Federal Reserve taketh away. In a desperate attempt to help the U.S. economy recover from the horrific economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates all the way to the floor and kept them at or near the floor until 2022. During that same time period, the Fed also created trillions of dollars out of thin air and pumped it into the financial system. All of this new money had to go somewhere, and it created colossal financial bubbles that were unlike anything we had ever seen before. There were a few voices that were warning that all of this foolishness would end very badly, but those voices were mostly drowned out by those that were super happy that asset values were absolutely exploding. The Fed had essentially created the ultimate “get rich quick scheme”, and countless Americans were more than happy to take advantage of it.

But in 2022 inflation started to become exceedingly painful, and the Federal Reserve went into panic mode. The flow of free money stopped, and the Federal Reserve began to aggressively hike interest rates.

Everyone knew that this sudden change of course by the Fed would crash the housing market, and that is precisely what is happening. In fact, even the Wall Street Journal is now admitting that we are facing “a housing slump as severe, by some metrics, as that of 2007-09”…

The Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases have brought on a housing slump as severe, by some metrics, as that of 2007-09, inflicting pain on prospective buyers, homeowners, builders and other industries linked to real estate.

For the Fed, this is a feature, not a bug: Slumping housing could help deliver the lower economic activity and inflation that the Fed wants in the coming year.

Home sales have been falling month after month, and it is being projected that they could soon fall below the levels that we witnessed during the last housing crash…

Sales of existing homes fell in November for a record 10th straight month. Economists at Fannie Mae and Goldman Sachs forecast they will drop below 4 million in 2023, lower than during the 2006-11 housing bust.

On Wednesday, we got some more bad news.

Pending home sales are one of the best leading indicators for where the housing market is going next, and at this point pending home sales have dropped to the lowest level ever recorded…

Contracts to buy U.S. previously owned homes fell far more than expected in November, diving for a sixth straight month in the latest indication of the hefty toll the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes are taking on the housing market as the central bank seeks to curb inflation.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said on Wednesday its Pending Home Sales Index, based on signed contracts, fell 4% to 73.9 last month from October’s downwardly revised 77.0. November’s was the lowest reading — aside from the short-lived drop in the early months of the pandemic — since NAR launched the index in 2001.

With interest rates so high, very few people want to buy homes right now.

So home prices are going to have to come down.

A lot.

In fact, George Gammon has demonstrated that we will need a crash in housing prices even larger than we witnessed during the last housing crash just to get back to the long-term trend line.

Do you think that our system will be able to handle a housing crash of that magnitude?

Of course not.

Meanwhile, the absurd cryptocurrency bubble that was created by the Fed’s easy money policies has already imploded.

I really like how Wolf Richter described what we have been witnessing over the past year in one of his most recent articles…

And then come the copycats since anyone can issue a crypto currency. Suddenly there were a dozen of them, and then there were 100 of them then a 1,000, and suddenly 10,000 cryptos, and now there are over 22,000 cryptos, and everyone and their dog is creating them, and trading them, and lending them, and using them as collateral, and all kinds of businesses sprang up around this scheme, crypto miners, crypto exchanges, crypto lending platforms, and some of them went public via IPO or via merger with a SPAC.

And the market capitalization of these cryptos reached $3 trillion, trillion with a T, about a year ago, and then when the Fed started raising its interest rates and started doing QT, the whole thing just blows up. Companies go like POOF, and the money is gone, and whatever is left is stuck in bankruptcy courts globally possibly for years. Cryptos themselves have imploded. Many have gone to essentially zero and have been abandoned for dead. The granddaddy, bitcoin, has plunged by something like 73% from the peak. The whole crypto market is also down about 73%.

More than two trillion dollars of “crypto wealth” has already been wiped out.

Less than a trillion is left.

But the party was fun while it lasted, right?

Sadly, all of the bubbles are starting to burst, and 2023 is going to be a really painful year.

Normally, major economic downturns take just about everyone by surprise. But this time around, almost everyone can feel that really bad times are coming. The following is what Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics recently had to say about this…

“Usually recessions sneak up on us. CEOs never talk about recessions,” said Zandi. “Now it seems CEOs are falling over themselves to say we’re falling into a recession. … Every person on TV says recession. Every economist says recession. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He is right.

We’ve never seen anything like this before, and that is because the coming crisis is going to be really bad.

Many among the elite can sense that what is approaching will be truly nightmarish, and so they have been feverishly preparing for the worst…

Though a recent poll found that four-in-ten Americans believe we are ‘living in the end of times,’ it’s not just the everyman who is fearing the apocalypse these days – billionaires have been prepping themselves for the apocalypse with elaborate doomsday bunkers for years.

As the world still reels from the scars of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change-driven storms lash American coastlines and flood inland cities, and Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to talk of using nuclear weapons to devastate Ukraine, a Pew Research Center survey of more than US 10,000 adults found that 39 percent called these the ‘end times.’

The world’s wealthiest are among those cautious of a coming calamity, including billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman, who have famously laid down routes in remote New Zealand with the express purpose of riding out the end of days.

Yes, things will soon get really crazy as global events spiral completely out of control.

But that doesn’t mean that you should curl up into a fetal position and throw a pity party for yourself.

When I was growing up, I was told that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

So get prepared for some really rough years ahead.

The clock is ticking, and just about everything that can be shaken will be shaken in 2023 and beyond.

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

Why Do So Many Bad Things Keep Happening To Us?

December 29, 2022December 26, 2022 by Michael

I suppose that this is a fitting way to end the year. 2022 has been a year of war, plagues, natural disasters, shortages and severe economic troubles, but up until this month we had not been able to add “an apocalyptic winter storm” to the list yet. Unfortunately, what we have just been through over the last week definitely qualifies. A “monster storm” that covered almost the entire country at one point brought blizzard conditions to much of the U.S. over the past several days. Temperatures dipped down to minus 50 degrees in some areas, and extremely high winds and heavy snow combined to create truly nightmarish conditions in certain cities. For example, we are being told that this was the “most devastating storm in Buffalo’s long storied history”…

“We had to send specialized rescue crews to go get the rescuers,” Poloncarz told “CNN This Morning” Monday, adding it was the worst storm he could remember. “It was just horrendous, and it was horrendous for 24 hours in a row.”

“We’re used to snow here, we can handle snow,” he said. “But with the wind, the blinding views – it was complete whiteouts – and the extreme cold, it was some of the worst conditions that any of us have ever seen.”

The storm has drawn widespread comparisons to Buffalo’s famous blizzard of 1977. Poloncarz said in Monday’s news conference the current storm’s “ferocity … was worse than the blizzard of ’77.” And in a news conference Sunday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called this storm the “most devastating storm in Buffalo’s long storied history.”

Buffalo has had a lot of really bad storms over the years.

But this one takes the cake.

According to a local news report, Buffalo has already received about 4 feet of snow, and snow is going to continue to fall until the middle of the day on Tuesday…

The blizzard began Friday, dumping nearly 4 feet of snow in the Buffalo area and making many roads impassable.

The snow is still falling. Some parts of the county could see another 8 to 12 inches by 1 p.m. Tuesday.

I have never seen anything quite like this.

Of course I have been using that phrase a lot lately.

So far, at least 27 people have been killed by the storm in Erie County, and the overall national death toll from the storm is up to 55.

But both of those numbers will inevitably go much higher because right now there are countless drivers stranded in their vehicles on highways all over the United States.

What part of “don’t drive during this storm” did people not understand?

Many others are without power and are slowly freezing as they find themselves trapped inside their own homes by colossal mountains of snow.

Those that are in need of rescue could use our prayers right about now.

Sadly, it seems like whenever there is some sort of a major natural disaster in this country there are hordes of looters ready to take advantage of it.

On Monday, the rampant looting that we just witnessed in Buffalo made headlines all over the globe…

Videos posted online show brazen thieves taking advantage of the chaos, trudging over mounds of snow to get into abandoned storefronts — like a Dollar General where shelves were overturned and items were scattered across the ground.

Residents filmed some of the thieves as they entered the store and left with handfuls of items like paper towels and toilet paper, as one shameless woman even posted a Facebook Live of her and her friends grabbing items from the store.

Others were filmed hauling televisions out of stores, and security footage caught one man breaking the glass of a liquor store door, where he allegedly stole $500 worth of goods.

Zero Hedge has posted lots of videos of the vicious looting, and those videos are prime examples of just how far we have fallen as a society.

As I have said so many times before, the thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing.

If a truly horrific long-term disaster were to erupt that causes law and order to break down on a widespread basis, we will devolve into a “Mad Max society” very quickly.

Speaking of crime, someone just attacked four more electrical substations in Washington state…

Thousands of homes were left in the dark after four electrical substations in western Washington were vandalized on Christmas Day, local authorities said on Sunday, adding that it was unknown if the incidents were connected.

The attacks on Sunday cut power to more than 14,000 utility customers in south Pierce County, near Tacoma, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said.

The burglaries were reported at two substations belonging to Tacoma Public Utilities and two belonging to Puget Sound Energy.

In a previous article, I discussed the fact that the number of these attacks has reached an all-time record high this year, and they are happening all over the nation.

Utility companies are going to have to start hiring 24 hour security to guard their equipment, because this is a problem that isn’t going to go away.

And that will mean even higher utility bills for all of us.

I truly wish that our society was not coming apart at the seams all around us.

But this is where we are at, and denying reality is not going to make things any better.

So why is our society in such bad shape?

And why do so many bad things keep happening to us?

The end of the year is often a time of self-reflection for individuals, and it should also be a time of self-reflection for our nation as a whole.

Because if we stay on the path that we are currently on, the pain that we will experience in the years ahead will be far more severe than what we have been through already.

Good decisions lead to good consequences.

And bad decisions lead to bad consequences.

Wake up America, because time is quickly slipping away.

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

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