Money

Enjoy These Moments, Because The Outlook For After Thanksgiving Is Not Promising At All

November 21, 2022 by Michael

I know that things aren’t great right now, but please try to enjoy the next few days, because it appears that economic conditions could quickly get a whole lot worse after Thanksgiving. I understand that may be difficult for many of you to hear, because we are already dealing with so much. The worst inflation crisis in decades has been eviscerating our standard of living, major layoffs are being announced all over the nation, the housing market has started to crash, and the fallout from the collapse of FTX threatens to push over more financial dominoes in the weeks ahead. Unfortunately, now we potentially have another major problem to add to the list. One of the largest rail unions just voted down a tentative agreement, and so now a national railroad strike in December is a very real possibility…

The likelihood of a strike that would paralyze the nation’s rail traffic grew on Monday when the largest of the 12 rail unions, which represents mostly conductors, rejected management’s latest offering that included 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses. With four of the 12 unions that represent half of the 115,000 rail workers holding out for a better deal, it might fall to Congress to impose one to protect the U.S. economy.

Now that SMART-TD has become the fourth union to reject the tentative labor deal that was on the table, preparations for a crippling nationwide railroad strike that would begin early next month will rapidly move forward.

Such a strike would cripple thousands of supply chains from coast to coast, and even CNN has been forced to admit that an extended strike “could cause shortages and higher prices for goods including fuel and food”…

If a strike goes on for an extended period, it could cause shortages and higher prices for goods including fuel and food. If the four unions that rejected the deals are unable to reach new deals before strike deadlines, Congress could order the railroad workers to remain on the job or return to work.

The good news is that this labor dispute will eventually be resolved one way or another.

But even without a national railroad strike, most experts were already forecasting a dismal month of December.

According to the Wall Street Journal, consumers and businesses are both “bracing for a humbug holiday season”…

Households, retailers and charities nationwide, feeling the pinch of inflation, are bracing for a humbug holiday season.

U.S. consumers and businesses have trimmed spending plans for gifts, charitable contributions and holiday events, data show. The penny-pinching threatens to spoil the year-end for many, especially firms and nonprofits that tally their largest share of sales and donations in November and December.

The Federal Reserve has been waging a war against inflation for months, but prices just keep going up.

In fact, it is being reported that an average Thanksgiving dinner will cost about 20 percent more this year than it did last year…

American families will have an unwelcome guest at the dinner table this Thanksgiving: inflation.

A Thanksgiving meal for 10 will cost $64.05, a 20 percent increase from last year’s average of $53.31, the American Farm Bureau reports.

The centerpiece on most Thanksgiving tables – the turkey – is a big driver of the increase. According to the Farm Bureau,the average price per pound is up 21 percent from last year.

Meanwhile, job losses will completely spoil this holiday season for thousands upon thousands of Americans.

Sadly, many of the jobs that are being lost are good paying jobs. For example, Cisco just announced that they will be firing over 4,000 well paid workers…

San Jose-based tech giant Cisco plans to lay off over 4,000 employees, according to a report in the Silicon Valley Business Journal and later corroborated by the San Francisco Chronicle.

In a transcript of Cisco’s Q1 2023 Earnings Call published by Motley Fool, Cisco Chief Financial Officer Scott Herren characterized the move as a “rebalancing.” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins said the company was “rightsizing certain businesses.”

At one point, the average employee at Cisco was making $109,000 a year.

Those that are losing their jobs won’t be able to replace those incomes easily.

On top of everything else, U.S. consumers are now seeing their home values start to fall as the housing market crashes.

As I discussed earlier this week, home sales were 28.4 percent lower in October 2022 than they were in October 2021.

That is a nightmare figure, and those that work in the real estate business are starting to feel the pain.

In fact, Zero Hedge is reporting that a whopping 37 percent of U.S. real estate agents could not pay office rent in October…

Higher borrowing costs triggered a sharp drop in mortgage applications and home sales in the back half of the year. Deal flow is drying up for many real estate agents, resulting in financial duress that may worsen into early 2023.

In October, a shocking 37% of real estate agents struggled to pay office rent — a 10% increase from the prior month, according to Yahoo, citing a new report via Redfin. The figure could worsen as the housing market rapidly cools via the Fed-induced demand side crunch.

That is more than a third of all real estate agents!

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

Our economic momentum is taking us downhill quite quickly now, and it isn’t going to take very much to turn this downturn into an avalanche.

At this point, things are already so bad that best-selling author James Rickards is warning that “this thing is going to completely crash” and that “we are in for a worse crisis than 2008″…

Rickards points out, “Why does Warren Buffett and Brookshire Hathaway have $130 billion in cash? Buffett is one of the greatest investors of all time. Why isn’t he out there buying stocks? Again, why does he have $130 billion in cash? It’s because Buffett sees what I see. Yes, this thing is going to completely crash. It’s a really good idea to have cash because you can go shopping in the wreckage and pick up some bargains. My point is, we don’t have to guess. Look at the Treasury yield curve. Look at the euro/dollar futures yield curve. Look at other metrics, and guess what it looks like? It looks like 2007. Everything I am describing, but not quite as extreme by the way, was true in 2007. . . . These euro/dollar futures were behaving then exactly as they are now. Except now, the inversion is even worse, which means we are in for a worse crisis than 2008. It’s coming. Everything I said has nothing to do with FTX. Throw FTX on top, and as I said, you are throwing gasoline on a fire.”

If Rickards is correct, what will our nation look like a year from now?

You might want to start thinking about that, because the times we are moving into will be unlike anything we have ever seen before.

But most Americans don’t want to hear this.

Most Americans just want to blindly believe that our leaders in Washington have everything under control and that they will be able to fix things.

There is certainly nothing wrong with hoping for the best, but meanwhile you might also want to start preparing for the worst, because things are starting to get really crazy out there.

***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.

3 Major Factors Which Will Make 2023 A Historically Painful Year For The Housing Market

November 20, 2022 by Michael

I am extremely concerned by what I am seeing in the housing market. When the Federal Reserve decided that it was going to start aggressively hiking interest rates, it was obvious that there would be a housing crash. I repeatedly warned my readers that prices would start declining and that home sales would fall precipitously. Needless to say, that is precisely what has happened. In fact, last week we learned that home sales have now dropped for nine months in a row…

Home sales declined for the ninth straight month in October, as higher interest rates and surging inflation kept buyers on the sidelines.

Sales of previously owned homes dropped 5.9% from September to October, according to the National Association of Realtors.

This is already the longest streak of declining sales ever recorded, and this new housing crash is just getting started.

But of course what we have already witnessed has been pretty breathtaking.

According to Zero Hedge, U.S. home sales in October 2022 were 28.4 percent lower than they were in October 2021…

This monthly decline pushed the year-over-year drop in existing home sales to -28.4% – its worst level since 2008!

Sadly, things are likely to get even worse in the months ahead.

The following are 3 major factors which will make 2023 a historically painful year for the housing market…

#1 The Federal Reserve

Fed officials keep assuring us that interest rates are going to go even higher.

This is literally suicidal behavior, but they are going to do it anyway even though they fully understand what this will do to the housing market.

In fact, an economist at the Dallas Fed just published research which shows that U.S. home prices could soon fall by as much as 20 percent…

U.S. home prices could tumble as much as 20% as the highest mortgage rates in two decades threaten to trigger a “severe” price correction, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Fed policymakers need to strike a delicate balance as they try to deflate the housing bubble without bursting it, Dallas Fed economist Enrique Martínez-García wrote in the analysis published this week.

#2 The Employment Market

Officials at the Federal Reserve also know that hiking interest rates even higher will cause unemployment to go up.

We have already seen major layoff announcements at large corporations all over the nation, and now we can add Carvana to the list…

Carvana is laying off about 1,500 people, or 8% of its workforce, Friday following a free fall in the company’s stock this year, a weakening used vehicle market and concerns around the company’s long-term trajectory, according to an internal message first obtained by CNBC’s Scott Wapner.

The email from Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia, titled “Today is a hard day,” cites economic headwinds including higher financing costs and delayed car purchasing. He says the company “failed to accurately predict how this would all play out and the impact it would have on our business.”

If the Fed continues to raise rates, eventually millions of Americans could lose their jobs.

And because the vast majority of Americans are barely scraping by from month to month, all of a sudden we could have millions of homeowners that are unable to pay their mortgages.

Just like in 2008 and 2009, that would cause a catastrophic spike in foreclosures, and the ripple effects would be absolutely devastating for Wall Street.

#3 Underwater Mortgages

During the last housing crash, millions of homeowners found themselves deeply underwater on their mortgages as home prices fell rapidly.

If home prices end up plunging 20 percent or more in 2023, we will once again have vast numbers of Americans that owe far more on their homes than they are currently worth.

In 2008 and 2009, large numbers of people that found themselves in such a situation decided to simply walk away from their mortgages.

If the same thing were to happen again, it would cause an extraordinary amount of pain for lenders.

So let us hope that such a scenario does not materialize.

Unfortunately, we continue to get more numbers that indicate that we are heading into a very serious economic downturn.

For example, we just learned that the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has now fallen for eight months in a row…

The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Indicators index showed that conditions further deteriorated in October, with the gauge down 0.8% from the previous month. That follows a 0.5% decline in September.

“The U.S. LEI fell for an eighth consecutive month, suggesting the economy is possibly in a recession,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, senior director of economic research at The Conference Board.

Meanwhile, yet another survey has found that the vast majority of U.S. consumers are currently living paycheck to paycheck…

A new employee report said on Friday that as many as 60% of U.S. consumers are living paycheck to paycheck.

The report, a collaboration between data analysis PYMNTS and LendingClub, said 55% of nearly 3,500 people surveyed said they have limited spending capacity, and 49% are shifting their shopping preferences.

The report said that 66% of those living paycheck to paycheck have slashed spending.

Most Americans will not be dealing with the harsh economic environment that is ahead from a position of financial strength.

When things get really bad, millions of people will suddenly not be able to pay their bills.

In particular, I feel really bad for those that purchased homes at or near the peak of the market. So many of them are going to end up losing those homes.

We may have been able to avoid another housing crash if our leaders had pursued much different policies.

But that didn’t happen, and now we are going to experience an immense amount of chaos in 2023 and beyond.

The Federal Reserve created the largest housing bubble in American history by flooding the system with money and pushing interest rates all the way to the floor.

Now they are violently bursting that bubble, and the months ahead are going to be extraordinarily painful for the housing market.

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

We Are Being Warned That Meat Prices Could Go Up Another 40 Or 50 Percent

November 17, 2022 by Michael

If you have been to the grocery store lately, you have probably noticed that meat prices have gone up dramatically. Unfortunately, we are being warned that things could get much worse in 2023. All over the northern hemisphere, cattle ranchers are dramatically reducing the size of their herds due to relentless drought conditions. Meanwhile, the bird flu has already resulted in the deaths of nearly 100 million chickens and turkeys in the United States and Europe. On top of everything else, progressive politicians throughout the western world continue to be absolutely determined to get us all to start eating less meat.

So prices are likely to continue to go up for the foreseeable future, and supplies are starting to get really tight.

In fact, a meat industry insider in Germany is actually claiming that several months from now “we will have nothing on the shelves”…

The German meat industry has warned of impending supply bottlenecks, especially concerning pork, and a board member is putting at least some of the blame on Germany’s current left-wing government, which is well-known for its attacks on meat and efforts to transition to a plant-based food supply.

“In four, five, six months, we will have nothing on the shelves,” predicts Hubert Kelliger, head of group sales at the large butcher Westfleisch and also a member of the board of the Meat Industry Association (VDF), according to Die Welt.

And Kelliger is also warning that whatever is on the shelves in 2023 is likely to cost “20, 30, or 40 percent” more than it does today…

“Whether that will be 20, 30, or 40 percent cannot be quantified today — but it will increase significantly again,” said Kelliger. Such an increase would already be on the back of already substantial increases. Germany has experienced an overall 40 percent increase in food prices this year, including a 73 percent increase in potatoes. Further price jumps ahead could be disastrous for German consumers.

Needless to say, we have been seeing similar price increases here in the United States.

The fact that so many U.S. ranchers have been slaughtering cattle due to the drought has helped to stabilize prices somewhat in the short-term, but as the size of the national cattle herd continues to decline the long-term outlook is not good at all.

In fact, some beef producers in Oklahoma are actually claiming that the price of ground beef could eventually go up to 50 dollars a pound…

Thanks to the unending economic symptoms of the pandemic and 2022’s inflation double-punch, average beef prices are currently about twice what they were in 2019. Add in the deepening widespread drought, a shortage of hay and feed, skyrocketing prices, transport costs, and various other metrics, some Southwest Oklahoma beef producers suggest cheap ground beef could eventually top $50 per pound.

Even worse, while beef is the topic because Oklahoma is a beef-producing state, the same trend is happening to other raised proteins at the moment too. The answer won’t be “We’ll just switch to chicken.” Those prices are steadily climbing too, and let’s not get depressed together thinking about bacon and pork loin.

Ground beef certainly won’t be that expensive next week or next month.

But someday it will happen.

If you love ground beef, what will you do then?

Thankfully, the elite have already been working on a solution for you.

In fact, just this week the FDA announced that one form of “lab-grown meat” is now ready for public consumption…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time cleared a meat product grown from animal cells for human consumption, the agency announced on Wednesday.

UPSIDE Foods, a company that makes cell-cultured chicken by harvesting cells from live animals and using the cells to grow meat in stainless-steel tanks, will be able to bring its products to market once it has been inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), said a release from the FDA.

Doesn’t that sound yummy?

And as I have covered previously, other companies are working on developing something called “beetle burgers”.

This is the future that the elite have planned for us, but the truth is that they aren’t going to be able to rescue us from the extreme global food shortages that are coming.

The UN is telling us that eight billion people live on the planet now.

As global food supplies get tighter and tighter, we aren’t going to be able to feed them all, and food prices will rise to levels that most people could not even imagine right now.

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

Layoffs? You Want To Talk About Layoffs? Here Are 10 Major Announcements Which Have Happened Within The Past 10 Days

November 17, 2022November 17, 2022 by Michael

Have you noticed that the pace of layoff announcements has gotten rather fast and furious lately? Many of the biggest companies in the entire country are now conducting mass firings, and this is reminding many analysts of what we witnessed back in 2008. During the “Great Recession”, millions of Americans ultimately lost their jobs. Will we see a similar thing happen this time around? Let’s hope not, but right now the signs are not encouraging. The following are 10 major layoff announcements which have all happened within the past 10 days…

#1 Gannett (the owner of USA TODAY)

Gannett, the owner of USA TODAY and local news operations in 45 states, announced Thursday another round of job cuts in the company’s news division after a third-quarter loss and an earlier series of cost-cutting measures.

The company, which plans to cut 6% of its estimated 3,440 staff in the news division, will notify affected employees on Dec. 1 and 2.

#2 Roku

Roku is the latest technology and media player to slash jobs, revealing in a securities filing Thursday that it plans to reduce its workforce by about 5 percent, or about 200 jobs.

#3 CNN

CNN CEO Chris Licht had to speak to employees during a tense company town hall on Tuesday as the network faces layoffs by early December after he was tasked with finding ways to cut costs.

Licht, 51, addressed questions surrounding the cuts after he previously indicated during the summer that CNN would not face any need to fire staff.

#4 Cisco

Cisco Systems Inc.’s stock rose in extended trading Wednesday after the networking-technology company delivered better-than-expected numbers on the top and bottom line, and offered encouraging guidance.

Still, Cisco Chief Financial Officer Scott Herren announced a “limited business restructuring,” to be shared with employees on Thursday, that will right-size its real-estate portfolio and impact about 5% of its 80,000 workers worldwide — or 4,000 people.

#5 GE Appliances

Louisville-based employer GE Appliances is planning to lay off 5% of its salaried workforce in coming weeks, the company confirmed to The Courier Journal.

The cost of keeping the company running has risen for several reasons, according to GE Appliances spokesperson Julie Wood, which has caused the business to look into money-saving measures.

#6 Asana

The layoffs in the tech sector just keep piling up.

On Tuesday, project management software provider Asana announced “the difficult decision” to cut its workforce by 9% as part of a broader corporate restructuring program.

#7 Outside Media

Lifestyle media company Outside Media, which houses titles including Backpacker, Ski and Climbing, laid off 12% of its workforce Tuesday, according to a memo sent by founder and CEO Robin Thurston.

#8 Lyft

The layoffs that had been announced last week were confirmed Thursday at local tech company Lyft, raising questions about what the loss of jobs will mean for the wider Bay Area economy.

Ride-hailing app company Lyft confirmed the layoffs to KPIX. Lyft is eliminating 227 jobs.

#9 Twitter

After laying off 50 percent of the company’s employees, Elon Musk has turned his attention to Twitter’s contract workers. According to separate reports from Platformer’s Casey Newton and Axios, the social media platform began reducing its contingent staff on Saturday afternoon. After a period of uncertainty about the scale of the job cuts, Newton put the number at approximately 4,400 affected individuals.

#10 Amazon

Amazon workers were left in chaos after they learned they were the first of the expected 10,000 to be laid off in a 15-minute meeting with executives.

News of the coming layoffs broke on Monday, with employees getting a calendar invitation to the quick, scripted meeting with executives on Tuesday, specifically members of the Alexa voice assistant division.

In that list I didn’t even mention the layoffs at Facebook which could end up being the biggest of them all.

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. If the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates, what we will see in 2023 and beyond is likely to be far worse.

The U.S. economy is already slowing down dramatically, but the Fed seems determined to hike interest rates even higher.

They are committing economic malpractice right in front of our eyes, and what they are doing is going to severely hurt countless numbers of our fellow citizens.

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

The End Of The Retail Industry As We Know It Today

November 16, 2022November 16, 2022 by Michael

Will this be the last “somewhat normal” holiday season for U.S. retailers? Normally, the holiday season is the most profitable time of the year for our retailers, but it has become clear that holiday spending is going to be way down in 2022. Meanwhile, there are a couple of long-term trends that won’t be going away any time soon that are squeezing the life out of the industry from both sides. If those long-term trends cannot be reversed, we will soon see a lot more decaying buildings with boarded up windows where thriving retail establishments once existed. The health of the retail industry is critical to the health of the overall U.S. economy, and right now the outlook for the future of the industry is not good.

Earlier today, I came across a brand new survey that discovered that more than a third of all Americans “plan to spend less on holiday shopping in 2022”…

As inflation forces consumers to spend more on gas and groceries, about 1 in 3 Americans (34%) plan to spend less on holiday shopping in 2022 than they did last year, according to a new Clever Real Estate poll of 1,000 Americans.

Retailers have taken notice, hosting holiday sales earlier than normal and ratcheting up discounts to move merchandise. Stores want to draw attention to deals now before Americans decide to cut back further on nonessential spending — especially when 58% of the country already reports feeling worried about finances.

This is yet another sign that we are heading into a very serious economic slowdown, and it is extremely troubling news for our major retailers.

In fact, Target is publicly admitting that it has been forced to “lower its expectations” as we head into the holiday season…

Target’s profit fell by around 50% in its fiscal third quarter as it cleared through unwanted inventory and sales slowed heading into the holidays, prompting the company to lower its expectations for retailers’ most important time of year.

If all the industry was facing was a tough year or two, most retailers could survive that.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of long-term trends that are currently plaguing the industry that aren’t going to go away for the foreseeable future.

First of all, we are witnessing a tsunami of retail theft that just keeps getting worse year after year.

If you can believe it, Target just admitted that theft from their stores will “reduce our gross margin by more than $600 million for the full year”…

The discount retailer told reporters on a call to discuss its third quarter earnings results that inventory shrinkage — or the disappearance of merchandise — has reduced its gross profit margin by $400 million so far in 2022 compared to 2021.

“At Target, year-to-date, incremental shortage has already reduced our gross margin by more than $400 million vs. last year,” Target CFO Michael Fiddelke said on the earnings call, “and we expect it will reduce our gross margin by more than $600 million for the full year.”

We aren’t just talking about somebody stealing a few candy bars.

600 million dollars is an enormous amount of money.

And a spokesperson for Target is attributing the bulk of the losses to “organized retail crime”…

A Target spokesperson told Yahoo Finance via email after the call the shrinkage was mostly specifically attributed to “organized retail crime.”

At this point, organized retail crime has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States.

Highly sophisticated gangs of thieves are robbing our retailers blind all over the country, and things are particularly bad in states such as California where penalties for shoplifting are extremely soft…

This isn’t just a problem at big-box retailers, either. The California Retailers Association has decried the rampant theft, which is hurting Golden State businesses small and large. Theft has gotten so bad in some parts of San Francisco that it is beyond belief.

“I’m new to San Francisco,” Times journalist Thomas Fuller told a grocery store clerk shortly after moving to the city. “Is it optional to pay for things here?” It sounds like an absurd thing to ask, but Fuller explains that he was genuinely forced to wonder what was going on after he witnessed people walk into Walgreens and Safeway, grab stuff, and walk out.

Shoplifting is a crime against all of us, because more of our favorite stores are being forced to shut down with each passing day.

Unfortunately, there is not an easy solution to this crisis. The moral foundation of our society is steadily rotting away all around us, and that means that even more young people are likely to pick organized retail crime as a “career choice” in the years ahead.

Meanwhile, the stunning decline of the middle class is also a trend that is really hurting our retailers.

As I detailed in a previous article, half of all workers in the United States made less than $3,133 a month last year.

Needless to say, you can’t live a middle class lifestyle in America today on just $3,133 a month.

More people are falling out of the middle class each month, and one recent survey found that close to two-thirds of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck…

According to a LendingClub survey, the number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck is nearing record levels.

As of September, 63% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck. That’s just one percentage point below the record high of 64% last spring. To put it into perspective, the number of people feeling this kind of strain a year ago was around 57%.

Once upon a time, most Americans had at least some discretionary income to spend, and life was good for our major retailers.

But now all of that has changed.

On top of everything else, a major economic slowdown is staring us in the face, and prominent companies all over the nation are now laying off workers.

Sadly, it appears that list will soon include Disney…

The company that once defined family entertainment is going from media giant to epic failure, suffering over $1.4 billion in streaming losses and a stock drop of around 39% for the year. And, it would appear that these financial declines are inevitably leading to employee layoffs.

Disney has put a freeze on hiring, it is limited employee travel and is also reviewing workers for efficiency with plans to introduce cuts as a means to make the company “more nimble.”

We live in such troubled times, and things are only going to get more difficult in 2023 and beyond.

So I would encourage you to enjoy your favorite retail stores while you still can.

Because as conditions continue to get even harsher for our retailers, many of them will soon be forced to close their doors for the last time.

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

U.S. Consumers Are Doing EXACTLY What They Did Just Prior To The Crash Of 2008

November 15, 2022November 15, 2022 by Michael

We never seem to learn from our mistakes. Just before the financial markets crashed and the economy plunged into a horrifying recession in 2008, U.S. consumers went on a debt binge of epic proportions. Mortgage debt, auto loan debt and credit card debt all skyrocketed, and so when the economy finally crashed all of a sudden there were millions of Americans drowning in bills that they were unable to pay. Well, now it is happening again. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, during the third quarter of 2022 household debt increased at the fastest pace that we have seen since the first quarter of 2008…

Households added $351 billion in overall debt last quarter, taking the total to $16.5 trillion, according to data released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Tuesday. That’s an increase of 8.3% from a year earlier, the most since a 9.1% jump in the first quarter of 2008. The debt figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.

This is a recipe for disaster.

As I have been warning my readers for years, you want to have as little debt as possible when economic conditions get really bad.

Unfortunately, even though everyone can see that economic activity is slowing down all around us, consumers are piling on debt at a stunning pace.

In particular, mortgage debt and credit card debt both really soared during the third quarter…

Most of the latest increase came in mortgage debt, by far the biggest liability on household balance sheets. It rose by $282 billion in the third quarter, and by $1 trillion from a year earlier, to $11.7 trillion. Mortgage and home-equity debt combined are up by $2 trillion since the pandemic began.

Credit-card debt also increased by the most in 20 years, with balances rising by 15% from a year earlier. The surge comes as the average interest-rates on card borrowing has climbed above 19%, the highest in data going back to the mid-1980s, according to Bankrate.

I really feel bad for those that purchased homes at or near the peak of the market.

So many Americans have overextended themselves to get the homes of their dreams, and as prices plummet in the months ahead millions of them will soon be underwater on their mortgages just like we saw in 2008 and 2009.

Even more troubling is the fact that Americans are racking up such huge credit card balances.

The New York Fed is telling us that there are now 555 million open credit card accounts in this country.

But only 329 million people live here.

That is madness.

Meanwhile, large companies all over the nation are starting to lay off workers.

In fact, we just learned that Amazon will be laying off approximately 10,000 employees…

Amazon reportedly plans to lay off 10,000 corporate and technology employees as soon as this week.

The cuts would affect the company’s devices organization, retail division and human resources, people familiar with the matter told the New York Times.

This will be the largest round of layoffs in Amazon’s history, and Jeff Bezos is now giving out advice on how to best deal with the coming economic downturn…

The business leader offered his starkest advice yet on a faltering economy in an exclusive sit-down interview with CNN’s Chloe Melas on Saturday at Bezos’ Washington, DC, home.

Bezos urged people to put off expenditures for big-ticket items such as new cars, televisions and appliances, noting that delaying big purchases is the surest way to keep some “dry powder” in the event of a prolonged economic downturn. Meanwhile, small businesses may want to avoid making large capital expenditures or acquisitions during this uncertain time, Bezos added.

He also told CNN that we should “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst”.

Wow.

How many times have I said the same thing to my readers?

When Jeff Bezos starts sounding just like The Economic Collapse Blog, that is definitely a sign that it is late in the game.

Other big tech companies have been conducting mass layoffs as well, and that list includes Facebook and Twitter…

Last week Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, revealed that it will cut 13 per cent of its workforce, while Elon Musk axed half of Twitter’s employees following his successful takeover of the social media site.

The announcements are the latest in a slew of job cuts across Silicon Valley, as experts warn the tech industry is facing a ‘triple whammy’ of a slowing economy, inflation and an end to pandemic-driven growth.

If the Federal Reserve does not start reducing interest rates, we are going to see a tsunami of layoffs in 2023.

And if the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates, it is likely that we could eventually see millions of Americans lose their jobs.

Aggressively hiking rates at the beginning of a major economic slowdown is suicidal.

But the Federal Reserve is doing it anyway.

On the consumer level, piling up debt just as economic conditions are starting to really deteriorate is a really foolish thing for Americans to be doing.

Unfortunately, we just witnessed the greatest consumer debt binge since 2008 during the third quarter.

As I stated at the beginning of this article, we never seem to learn from our mistakes.

The times that we are moving into are going to be incredibly challenging, but reducing the amount of debt that you are carrying will make things a bit easier.

Sadly, most people out there aren’t going to take that advice.

Instead, most people are going to continue partying even as the system falls apart all around them.

In 2008 and 2009, countless Americans that had been living comfortable middle class lifestyles ended up losing almost everything.

You don’t want to be one of those victims this time around.

We are going to see so much financial pain in 2023, but much of it could have been avoided if people would have made much different decisions ahead of time.

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

Natural Gas Rationing Has Begun

November 13, 2022 by Michael

The global energy crisis has entered an alarming new stage. In recent months, natural gas prices have risen to absurd heights and supplies have been getting tighter and tighter all over the planet. But I did not expect that we would see any rationing yet. It had been my opinion that we could possibly see some limited rationing once we reached the worst moments of the winter, but apparently things are worse than I thought. In fact, when I heard about what is going on in Pakistan right now I was absolutely horrified…

Pakistan has no other option but to ration natural gas supply this winter, with gas provided three times a day for cooking to households, amid acute shortages and a forex crisis in the world’s fifth most populous country, an official from the petroleum ministry told a Parliament panel this week.

The energy crisis in Pakistan has deepened this year, and now, natural gas supplies will be very limited for households, according to officials.

How would you feel if your natural gas was turned off throughout the winter except for meal times?

It is being reported that Pakistani households will only have their natural gas turned on “for three hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and three hours in the evening”…

“There would be no gas supply (to household consumers) for 16 hours” a day, Muhammad Mahmood told the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Petroleum, as carried by the local outlet Dawn.

Pakistani households will have gas available for three hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and three hours in the evening, Mahmood added.

I had no idea that conditions were already so bad in Pakistan.

And there are some in the business community that would like to make natural gas rationing for Pakistani households “a permanent feature throughout the year”…

Appreciating the judicious decision of natural gas rationing for domestic consumers, the business community has urged the government to make this prudent decision a permanent feature throughout the year as 50 percent of total gas in Pakistan is consumed by households, which is one of major hindrances in economic growth of the country.

With prices for imported natural gas being so high, it is probably inevitable that other poor countries will be forced to implement similar measures.

Needless to say, that is really, really bad news.

Thanks to relentless stockpiling ahead of time, things will not be quite as bad for Europe this winter as many had originally anticipated.

But Europeans could still be facing occasional blackouts, and they will definitely have to deal with “sky-high energy bills”…

In 1972, natural gas exports from the Soviet Union accounted for around 4% of European gas consumption. By 2021, Russia was providing almost 40% of Europe’s gas. As Moscow’s market share has gradually increased, so has its ability to manipulate prices and trigger crises. Most Europeans now acknowledge that this reliance on Russia represents a major strategic blunder. Too late. Europe’s “green energy transition” features one major flaw: it relies on Russian gas imports.

Back to the future. This will be an extremely difficult winter for all Europeans, whether they face blackouts or heating issues and sky-high energy bills.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that European fertilizer production is starting to bounce back a bit.

At one point, European fertilizer output had been cut by nearly two-thirds, but now it is back up to 63 percent…

Norway’s Yara International one of the world’s largest fertilizer companies, said that it was now operating at 65% of its European ammonia capacity—having slashed output to just over a third of its total capacity for much of the second half of this year. Commodity research firm CRU International Ltd. said Yara’s moves are in line with other producers. Overall, European fertilizer output is now at about 63% of total capacity, having previously stood at around 37% at the start of October, CRU said.

Let us hope that number continues to rise, because fertilizer prices are already insanely high.

As those prices continue to rise, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization is warning that the global food crisis that we are now witnessing could get substantially worse…

“Higher costs for imported energy and fertilizer are behind the foreseen increase. Both are particularly relevant in import bills, posing strains for the current accounts of low-income and lower middle-income countries,” the report said, adding that “As a result, some countries may be forced to reduce input applications, almost inevitably resulting in lower agricultural productivity and lower domestic food availability.”

Here in the United States, those that rely on natural gas for heating are likely to see much higher bills this winter.

At this point, things are looking particularly grim in New England…

With the global natural gas supply stretching thin, Eversource and other utility companies have been sounding the alarm.

Bills have already been going up for some.

Eyewitness News ran into someone in Berlin who described how one of her bills increased to over $200.

Even though bills will be going up quite a bit, ISO New England is assuring everyone that there won’t be any shortages as long as winter conditions are “mild” or “moderate”…

While Eversource has sounded the alarm, ISO New England, the region’s electricity grid operator, is still saying we should be ok for the season.

ISO New England said there’s enough supply for mild and moderate winter conditions.

Unfortunately, Eversource is not as confident.

In fact, Eversource is actually asking Joe Biden to waive the Jones Act so that it can secure more natural gas supplies for the upcoming winter season…

The CEO for New England’s largest utility, Eversource Energy, called on President Biden in a letter last week to enact federal emergency orders to “swiftly address the growing concerns” of New England’s access, or lack thereof, to natural gas this winter heating season.

New England, which lacks the natural gas pipeline infrastructure to fill out its demand, relies on LNG shipments to its three liquefied natural gas import facilities on “foreign flagged vessels,” CEO Joseph Nolan said. “However, because of the war in Ukraine, LNG imports are not available…in the volumes necessary to meet this winter’s needs without causing further stress on European markets and the American economy.”

We are still over a month away from the official start of winter.

If authorities are scrambling this much already, what will things be like once we get to January and February?

Without a doubt, this will be a winter like no other.

But I actually expect the following winters to be even worse.

So enjoy this winter while you can, because the years ahead are going to be exceedingly challenging.

The global elite desperately want to move us away from traditional forms of energy, and they promised us that the “green revolution” would change everything.

Well, everything is definitely about to change, but not in a good way.

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

Bad News Is Good News – Wall Street Greatly Celebrates The Latest Economic And Financial Disasters

November 10, 2022November 10, 2022 by Michael

Sometimes I think that we truly are living in Bizarro World. We just witnessed one of the most horrible financial disasters in years, and economic activity is dramatically slowing down all around us, but Wall Street is celebrating. In fact, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose more than 1,200 points on Thursday. Despite everything else that is going wrong, investors were absolutely giddy because the inflation number that was just released was slightly lower than what most experts were anticipating. A lot of people seem to think that this could mean that the Federal Reserve will soon stop hiking interest rates, but that isn’t going to happen. Jerome Powell continues to insist that rates will keep going higher until the official inflation rate is back down to about 2 percent, and we are a long, long way from there.

So I really don’t understand why there was such a buying frenzy on Wall Street on Thursday.

It just doesn’t make any sense.

Just 24 hours earlier, the collapse of FTX was freaking everyone out. Right now, Zero Hedge has an article up that does a really good job of breaking down exactly what precipitated this crisis…

Alameda Research – Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) FTX-affiliated crypto hedge fund – “owed” FTX $10 billion after the exchange “lent” billions of dollars of sacrosanct customer assets to fund risky bets, just as we suspected… only even more!

That, as The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a person familiar with the matter, is what set the stage for the carnage and chaos across the crypto space that has happened in the past few days as the reality of FTX’s alleged commingling of funds and massive shortfall became public thanks to Binance’s CZ’s due diligence and CoinDesk’s reporting.

FTX extended loans to Alameda using money that customers had deposited on the exchange for trading purposes, a decision that Bankman-Fried described as a “poor judgment call.”

All in all, FTX had $16 billion in customer assets, according to the person, so FTX lent more than half of its customer funds to its sister company Alameda.

As long as the crypto bubble was expanding, nobody got hurt.

But once crypto values crashed, it was inevitable that the whole scam would come crashing down really hard.

Yesterday, I stated that FTX would be going to zero. Well, less than 24 hours later Sequoia actually “marked its own investment down to $0”…

FTX now faces bankruptcy and one of its early backers, Sequoia, has essentially declared the firm worthless after it marked its own investment down to $0.

Heavy hitters all over Wall Street are facing billions upon billions of dollars in losses.

You would think that would be enough to set off a wave of panic on Wall Street, but what we got was a mindless buying frenzy instead.

Meanwhile, we continue to get more numbers about our new housing crash that are absolutely jaw-dropping.

For example, we just learned that U.S. homeowners lost a whopping 1.3 trillion dollars in home equity last quarter…

U.S. homeowners lost $1.3 trillion, or 7.6 percent, in home equity in the third quarter, the largest quarterly decline on record, according to the mortgage software and analytics company Black Knight.

Following the unprecedented real estate boom of the past two years, signs of a slowing housing market are beginning to emerge.

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008, and it is because the Federal Reserve has been dramatically raising interest rates.

If you can believe it, mortgage rates have now been above 7 percent for three weeks in a row…

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) increased to 7.14% from 7.06%, with points increasing to 0.77 from 0.73 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment.

“Mortgage rates edged higher last week following news that the Federal Reserve will continue raising short-term rates to combat high inflation. The 30-year fixed rate remained above 7 percent for the third consecutive week, with increases for most loan types,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s deputy chief economist.

The auto industry is also being hit really hard.

At this point, auto loan delinquencies are already the highest that they have been “in more than a decade”, and it is probably inevitable that they will continue to go much higher…

Auto loan delinquencies have risen to the highest level in over 10 years, according to TransUnion.

TransUnion tracks more than 81 million auto loans in the United States. According to the consumer credit reporting agency, 1.65% of auto loans were at least 60 days delinquent in the third quarter. That is the highest rate for 60-day-plus delinquencies in more than a decade.

For even more numbers that show that the U.S. economy is rapidly heading in the wrong direction, please see my previous article entitled “11 Signs That Economic Activity Is Plunging Off A Cliff”.

But all of the troubling figures that I just shared with you didn’t really matter on Thursday.

Instead, what mattered was the fact that the new inflation number was just slightly lower than anticipated…

The consumer price index rose less than expected in October, an indication that while inflation is still a threat to the U.S. economy, pressures could be starting to cool.

The index, a broad-based measure of goods and services costs, increased 0.4% for the month and 7.7% from a year ago, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics release Thursday. Respective estimates from Dow Jones were for rises of 0.6% and 7.9%.

Ironically, nothing has really changed.

Inflation is still wildly out of control, and the overall economy is still plunging into a major downturn.

We are potentially facing a “stagflation” crisis that will be far worse than anything that we experienced back in the 1970s, but Wall Street doesn’t seem to care.

On Thursday, everyone was buying, and stock prices shot through the roof…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1,201.43 points, or 3.7%, to 33,715.37 for its biggest one-day gain since stocks were emerging from the depths of the pandemic bear market. The S&P 500 jumped 5.54% to 3,956.37 in its biggest rally since April 2020. The Nasdaq Composite surged 7.35%, its best since March 2020, closing at 11,114.15.

So what is it going to take to finally end this absolutely absurd bubble?

A major war in the Middle East?

A war with China?

Sadly, both of those wars are definitely coming.

But when more war does break out, investors may interpret it as really good news since it might mean that the Fed will soon start reducing interest rates.

That is how crazy things have become.

Apparently, nothing really matters except for the Fed, and every piece of bad news is going to be interpreted as a sign that the Fed may change course on raising rates.

So for now we are stuck in Bizarro World, and for the moment ignorance is bliss.

***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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