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How Extreme Has The Dumbing Down Of America Become? You Might Want To Brace Yourself For This One

December 14, 2022 by Michael

Everyone knows that the quality of education in our public schools is declining. We continue to fall behind the rest of the world, and this is particularly true in science and in math. Personally, I am a product of the public schools. I attended public schools all the way through high school, and I earned three degrees at public universities. And I have to admit that the quality of the education that I received was terrible. If I had not spent a great deal of time and effort educating myself, I would not be able to do what I do today. Sadly, things have gotten even worse in recent decades. Today, a large proportion of our young people are not even equipped to function on a very basic level in our society once they graduate from high school, and that has huge implications for the future of our country.

When I was growing up, kids would start learning algebra before they even got to high school.

But these days many of our college students can’t even handle algebra. In fact, the Kansas Board of Regents is actually considering dropping algebra as a requirement at the state’s six public universities because so many students are failing the basic algebra course…

The Kansas Board of Regents is considering stripping specific university math requirements after it was found that a significant percentage of college freshmen fail algebra, NPR affiliate KCUR reported.

The Regents, who oversee the system’s six public universities, are considering implementing the Math Pathways approach which matches students to a math course based on their major instead of mandating algebra for all incoming students. While many universities require that all freshmen pass algebra as a prerequisite for graduation, one in three Kansas students reportedly fail the course, which could delay a student’s graduation.

Are they serious?

Apparently they are. One academic official in Kansas insists that for a majority of the students in the system algebra is simply “not relevant for their fields”…

“We’re sending the majority of students down the college algebra road, which is really not necessary,” said Daniel Archer, vice president of academic affairs for the Kansas Board of Regents. “It’s not practical. It’s not really needed. And it’s not relevant for their fields.”

I have an idea.

Instead of having our college students deal with hard stuff like quadratic equations, perhaps we can just design a course where they just watch videos of Count von Count from Sesame Street count things.

Or will that be too difficult for them?

If we aren’t teaching our high school kids the basic math skills that they will need once they get to college, what are they actually learning?

Well, one thing they are learning is how to use all of the new pronouns correctly. This is very important for life after high school, because using the wrong pronoun at the wrong time can get you into all sorts of trouble these days.

For example, just look at what happened to one middle school teacher in Ohio…

A middle school teacher in Ohio alleges in a lawsuit against her former employer that she was forced to resign after refusing to refer to students by their preferred pronouns.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court on behalf of former Jackson Memorial Middle School teacher Vivian Geraghty by the Alliance Defending Freedom, states that her school district required teachers to participate in the “social transition” of students in her class who have “‘transitioned’ to a gender that was inconsistent with their sex.” Jackson Memorial Middle School is in Massillon, Ohio.

Geraghty, however, refused to participate in the policy because of her Christian religious beliefs. The lawsuit alleges that the school “ejected her” within two hours of Geraghty telling principal Kacy Carter about her reservations to the policy.

In the years ahead, we will have lots of young people that don’t understand math and science, but at least they will be well versed in the intricacies of modern pronoun usage.

Needless to say, many of them will have to be supported by the government because they won’t be of much use to society.

In fact, the U.S. already “redistributes more to the bottom 50% than Sweden or Norway”.

US redistributes more to the bottom 50% than Sweden or Norway! pic.twitter.com/5MQXcmPtnG

— Angus “burnt ends” Grier (@ez_angus) December 13, 2022

At this point, we truly do live in an “idiocracy”, and every single day we see even more signs of this.

Earlier today, I came across a story about someone that decided to shoot a KFC employee because “the restaurant was out of corn”…

Police in St. Louis are investigating after a KFC employee said a customer shot him because he was angry the restaurant was out of corn.

According to a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department incident report, the shooting took place just after 6 p.m. Monday at the fast food chain in the city’s Central West End.

You would have to be really stupid to do something like that.

If they are out of corn, just ask for an extra biscuit.

Don’t go to jail for the rest of your life just because you are feeling a little frustrated.

Sadly, today we have vast hordes of young people that cannot handle their emotions, and that is because they have never been equipped to handle life.

But if they can’t even handle current conditions, how will they respond when things get really rough?

Please don’t get me wrong. I am certainly not lumping all of our young people into a single category.

There are some young adults that are doing more than fine.

But in general, we have a real mess on our hands, and our system of education just continues to deteriorate with each passing year.

***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.

U.S. Vegetable Prices Increased By A Whopping 38 Percent In November, But They Say Inflation Is “Under Control”

December 13, 2022 by Michael

The mainstream media is trying really hard to convince all of us that inflation will soon no longer be a problem, but meanwhile food prices continue to soar to absolutely absurd levels. In fact, we just learned that vegetable prices increased by a whopping 38 percent in November. When I originally saw that number, I thought that it must represent the change from 12 months ago. But that is not the case. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, vegetable prices jumped 38.1 percent from October to November, and they are up a total of 80.6 percent over the past 12 months…

The price of vegetables from producers shot up 38% on a monthly basis in November — and jumped over 80% compared to November 2021 — according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics latest Producer Price Index.

Even after reading that, a lot of you are still going to have a very difficult time believing that these figures are actually real.

So I would encourage you to go to the official BLS website and see the numbers for yourself.

This isn’t an Internet rumor.

This is real.

As you can see from this chart, egg prices are also going completely nuts.

The price of eggs shot up 26 percent last month.

And over the past 12 months the price of eggs is up an astounding 244 percent.

The bird flu is the primary reason why eggs have become so expensive. More than 50 million chickens and turkeys in the United States are already dead, and it is likely that millions more will die in the months ahead.

As for vegetables, the endless drought in the western half of the nation has absolutely crippled production. In fact, one recent survey discovered that 74 percent of farmers in 15 western states “saw a reduction in harvests” in 2022…

A recent survey about the drought by the American Farm Bureau Federation of more than 650 farmers in 15 Western states found that 74 percent saw a reduction in harvests and 42 percent switched crops.

No matter how high the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates, food prices are going to continue to go up.

We all have to eat, and it appears that food supplies will get even tighter in 2023…

U.S. domestic supplies of key crops including corn, soybeans and wheat are expected to remain snug into 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency is forecasting U.S. corn supplies to fall to a decade low before the 2023 harvest, while soybean stocks were seen at a seven-year low and wheat ending stocks are forecast at the lowest in 15 years.

I am particularly concerned about the outlook for wheat.

The two largest wheat exporters in the world are projected to have very disappointing harvests in the months ahead, and this should deeply alarm all of us…

While flooding in Australia, the world’s second largest wheat exporter, in recent weeks has caused extensive damage to the crop which was ready for harvest, a severe drought is expected shrink Argentina’s wheat crop by almost 40%.

This will reduce global wheat availability in the first half of 2023.

A lack of rainfall in the U.S. Plains, where the winter crop ratings are running at the lowest since 2012, could dent supplies for the second half of the year.

So what does all of this mean?

The bottom line is that the global food crisis that erupted in 2022 is likely to intensify quite a bit more in 2023.

Food prices have already risen to very painful levels, and those that are being hit the hardest are those that live in the poorest countries…

With food prices climbing to record peaks this year, millions of people are suffering across the world, especially poorer nations in Africa and Asia already facing hunger and malnutrition.

Food imports costs are already on course to hit a near $2 trillion record in 2022, forcing poor countries to cut consumption.

Every single day, more precious people are dropping dead from starvation.

Things are particularly bad in nations in eastern Africa such as Somalia…

More than 200,000 Somalis are suffering catastrophic food shortages and many are dying of hunger, with that number set to rise to over 700,000 next year, according to an analysis by an alliance of U.N. agencies and aid groups.

But most Americans don’t even know that this is happening because they don’t see images of people suffering and dying on the nightly news.

If the mainstream media is not making a big deal out of this crisis, it must not be important.

Right?

Here in the United States, our politicians are trying to paper over our impending problems by borrowing and spending colossal mountains of money.

The national debt just crossed the 31 trillion dollar threshold, and the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the budget deficit for the month of November alone was a staggering 249 billion dollars…

The monthly federal deficit was a record-setting $249 billion in November, $57 billion wider than the same month last year, as Republican control of the House puts the government’s finances back in the political spotlight.

As the Fed raises interest rates, it is also raising our borrowing costs.

So the Fed can only go so far, because if they push rates too high it will literally collapse the finances of the federal government.

What this means is that the Fed is almost out of ammunition in their war against inflation.

And our politicians in Washington are ensuring that more inflation is on the way by borrowing and spending money at a pace that we have never seen before.

Meanwhile, the bird flu plague, endless droughts and bitterly disappointing harvests all over the planet will continue to suppress global food production.

What all of this means is that food prices are going to go a lot higher than they are now, and many of the famines that we are already witnessing all over the world will become quite serious.

Even though food prices are ridiculously high right now, I would encourage you to stock up while you still can.

Things are only going to get crazier in 2023, and most people will find themselves completely unprepared as conditions deteriorate all around them.

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

A Wall Street Bank Is Warning That Millions Of Americans Will Lose Their Jobs In 2023

December 12, 2022 by Michael

Is your job secure? Over the past couple of years, American workers generally didn’t need to be concerned about job security. Even if someone got fired unexpectedly, it was just so easy to find new employment because there simply was not enough able-bodied workers out there. But now everything is changing. Some of the largest corporations in the entire country are starting to conduct mass layoffs as the U.S. economy steadily slows down. Unfortunately, it appears that a lot more pain is ahead. In fact, as you will see below, one of Wall Street’s biggest banks is ominously warning that millions of American workers will lose their jobs next year.

Stories about mass layoffs are hitting the news at a fast and furious pace these days. For example, we just learned that a factory that makes Jeep Cherokees in northern Illinois will be laying off 1,350 workers…

The company, which employs about 1,350 workers at the plant in Belvidere, Illinois, said the action will result in indefinite layoffs and it may not resume operations as it considers other options.

Stellantis said the industry ‘has been adversely affected by a multitude of factors like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the global microchip shortage, but the most impactful challenge is the increasing cost related to the electrification of the automotive market.’

I was very sad to see that happen.

Those that work in our automotive factories are some of the hardest working people in the entire nation.

Other types of workers are losing their jobs in very large numbers as well.

Earlier today, I came across a story about layoffs that will affect 1,800 employees that worked in phone kiosks inside Costco stores…

Over 1800 employees were laid off at Wireless Advocate which operates the phone kiosks inside Costco Wholesale stores.

A local Costco representative said staff is just becoming aware that all their phone kiosks abruptly ceased operations at all Costco Warehouses on December 5, 2022.

If you lose your job, I would try to find another one as rapidly as possible, because the longer you wait the more people you are going to be competing against.

As I mentioned earlier, even some of the largest corporations in the U.S. are now laying off large numbers of people. In a previous article I discussed the layoffs that are coming at Amazon, and now it appears that those layoffs will be even larger than originally anticipated…

It appears that Amazon plans to fire 20,000 people, which is twice as many as previously estimated. Workers from distribution centers, IT professionals, and corporate leaders will all be let go by Amazon across a number of areas. According to those with knowledge of the situation, Amazon layoffs will happen in the upcoming months. Staff at all levels are likely to be impacted because Amazon workers are ranked from level 1 to level 7. The NYT originally revealed that Amazon plans layoffs in mid-November, citing sources who said that as many as 10,000 workers would be let go.

Sadly, the truth is that we are still only in the very early stages of this new crisis.

Many more layoff announcements will be coming in the months ahead, and at this point a division of Citibank is projecting that the U.S. economy will lose approximately 2 million jobs next year…

The group said in its latest outlook report published this week that the economy could lose an estimated 2 million jobs in 2023 as the jobless rate climbs to 5.25%.

“We believe that the Fed’s rate hikes and shrinking bond portfolio have been stringent enough to cause an economic contraction within 2023,” the economists said in the report. “And if the Fed does not pause rate hikes until it sees the contraction, a deeper recession may ensue.”

If we actually lose that many jobs, it will be catastrophic.

Meanwhile, Americans are steadily getting poorer.

From January to September, U.S. household wealth plunged by a whopping 13.5 trillion dollars.

Part of the reason this is happening is because home values are starting to fall quite rapidly.

And they are going to fall even more if the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates.

Unfortunately, Fed officials just keep telling us that more rate hikes are coming.

Homebuilders are being hit extremely hard as well. They started lots of new houses when times were still good, and now they have lots of inventory and very few buyers…

If a homebuilder cannot sell their ballooning inventory of unsold new houses to households, at current prices and mortgage rates, amid plunging sales and soaring cancellation rates of signed contracts – topping out at 45% in the Southwest and at 38% in Texas – despite aggressive incentives such as mortgage-rate buydowns to stimulate sales and prevent cancellations, well, whom are homebuilders supposed to sell those houses to?

Thanks to the Fed, the entire housing market is a giant mess at this point.

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners are now underwater on their mortgages, and the early payment default rate has risen to heights that we saw back during the peak of the last housing crash in 2009…

Digging deeper into the month’s data, Black Knight found that, while still relatively low among conforming loans, the early-payment default (EPD) rate – which captures mortgages that have become delinquent within six months of origination –– has risen among FHA loans for much of the past year to reach its highest level since 2009, excluding the months in the immediate wake of the pandemic.

Economic conditions are already really bad, and they will soon get a whole lot worse.

Signs of trouble are erupting all around us. For instance, I was deeply alarmed when I read that Orlando International Airport is experiencing a very serious fuel shortage…

The Federal Aviation Administration is warning pilots that Orlando International Airport (MCO) is running low on fuel, and that could mean hiccups in the days ahead for travelers.

In an official notice, the agency said that the airport could continue having supply issues through about 7 p.m. Tuesday, and suggests that airlines should be prepared to operate flights into the airport with enough fuel on board to fly back out.

I have never heard of an entire airport being short on fuel for an extended period of time before.

Hopefully this is just a temporary setback.

But what isn’t temporary are the long-term economic trends. They have all been going in the wrong direction for a long time, and now a moment of reckoning has arrived.

Enjoy the next few weeks while you still can, because it appears that 2023 is going to be a very painful year.

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

Hospitals Are Overflowing With Patients As Multiple Pestilences Sweep Across America

December 11, 2022December 11, 2022 by Michael

Winter hasn’t even begun yet, but cold weather diseases are already spreading like wildfire all over the United States. The flu has returned in 2022 with a vengeance, new strains of COVID are reportedly starting to emerge, and RSV has hit some areas of the nation extremely hard. I don’t ever remember seeing anything quite like this, and the weather is only going to get colder in the weeks ahead. Normally, most people would be able to fight off such diseases fairly easily, but at this point so many have weakened immune systems after everything that has transpired over the last few years. As a result, millions of Americans have been getting really sick, and CNN is reporting that U.S. hospitals “are more full than they’ve been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic”…

Hospitals are more full than they’ve been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a CNN analysis of data from the US Department of Health and Human Services. But as respiratory virus season surges across the US, it’s much more than Covid that’s filling beds this year.

More than 80% of hospital beds are in use nationwide, jumping 8 percentage points in the past two weeks.

Please take the time to read those two paragraphs again.

At no point during the past several years have our hospitals ever been as full as they are right now.

And this has happened even though the proportion of COVID patients in our hospitals has been steadily shrinking…

Back in January, about a quarter of hospital beds were in use for Covid-19 patients. But now, only about 6% of beds are in use for Covid-19 patients, according to the HHS data.

We are being told that some of the new strains of COVID that are now emerging represent a potent threat, but obviously it isn’t COVID that is causing the massive surge in hospitalizations that we are currently witnessing.

Instead, confirmed cases of the flu are absolutely exploding right now. For example, just check out what is going on in Massachusetts…

Illnesses caused by the flu are surging in Massachusetts, according to the latest weekly report from the Department of Public Health.

The report issued Friday, which covers the week from Nov. 27 through Dec. 3, included 5,462 cases that were confirmed by laboratory testing. That’s nearly double the 2,846 cases confirmed during the week covered by the previous report.

Sadly, we are seeing similar numbers nationwide.

In fact, the number of Americans admitted to the hospital with the flu roughly doubled during Thanksgiving week…

The number of people admitted to the hospital for flu during the week of Thanksgiving was nearly double the number of admissions during the week before. And the latest surveillance data probably does not reflect the full effects of holiday gatherings, as it captures only through November 26, two days past Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, RSV continues to rip across America at a breathtaking pace, and very young children are being hit particularly hard.

In some cases, hospitals are actually transferring sick kids out of state because they are so overloaded with patients…

To cope with the flood of young patients sickened by a sweeping convergence of nasty bugs — especially respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, and coronavirus — medical centers nationwide have deployed triage tents, delayed elective surgeries, and transferred critically ill children out of state.

Unfortunately, it appears that this is just the beginning.

Winter will officially start later this month, and so it is likely that things will only get worse in the months ahead.

That is not good news at all, because we are already facing significant shortages of key antibiotics all over the country…

“We are so busy we can’t keep up with the phone calls and sick kids,” said Dr. Josie Stone, a pediatrician with Advanced Pediatrics of Boca Raton. While most of the respiratory illnesses Stone sees are viral, children often get complications such as ear, sinus and throat infections that require antibiotics, she said. With children all over the country suffering from the same complications, South Florida pharmacies have a limited supply of many of the most common antibiotics.

The antibiotics in short supply include Amoxicillin and Augmentin to treat ear and skin infections as well as Azithromycin (referred to as a zpack) used to treat certain bacterial infections, such as bronchitis and pneumonia. It also includes medications such as Albuterol to treat asthma or breathing problems.

As I recently covered in another article, the official FDA website says that more than 100 prescription drugs are in short supply right now.

Of course this is something that is not just happening in the United States. Over in Europe, shortages of many important drugs are also becoming quite widespread…

Countries across Europe are reporting shortages of antibiotics as demand for the medicines rises and manufacturers grapple with supply-chain snags.

Amoxicillin, cephalosporins and other widely used antibiotics are in short supply, data from various countries show, raising concerns among doctors and officials about the availability of drugs that are relied on to treat conditions ranging from ear infections to pneumonia.

If supplies of drugs just keep getting tighter and our hospitals just keep getting fuller, it is probably just a matter of time before authorities in many areas will want to impose new health restrictions.

In fact, officials in New York City are already “strongly urging” residents to wear masks.

I thought all of that was behind us, and I don’t think that any of us want to go back again.

Hopefully, the flu and RSV will be the worst diseases that we have to deal with this winter.

Because the truth is that we have been perfectly primed for more outbreaks, and a truly killer virus could easily sweep through the general population.

As I keep warning, we have now entered an era of great pestilences, and if you are expecting the government to save you from what is coming you are going to be deeply disappointed.

No matter what authorities have tried, multiple diseases just keep spreading all around us.

What we have been through so far is just the tip of the iceberg, and so many people are going to die 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.***

Hundreds Of Thousands Of U.S. Homeowners Are Now Underwater On Their Mortgages As The Housing Crash Accelerates

December 8, 2022December 8, 2022 by Michael

Here we go again. When the housing market crashed in 2008 and 2009, large numbers of U.S. homeowners ended up owing more on their mortgages than their homes were worth. When the Federal Reserve started to aggressively hike interest rates earlier this year, I warned that it would happen again, and now that day has officially arrived. During the third quarter alone, U.S. homeowners lost an all-time record 1.3 trillion dollars in equity as home values plummeted, and a new analysis conducted by Black Knight has found that approximately 450,000 of those homeowners are now underwater on their mortgages…

As the housing market continues to implode – marking a record drop in pending home sales last month amid canceled deals and price cuts, there are around 450,000 homebuyers who owe more than their house is worth as of the end of the third quarter, according to a new analysis from Black Knight. Of those, around 60%, or 270,000, bought their homes in the first nine months of 2022. In total, around 8% of mortgages taken out in 2022 are now marginally underwater, with another 20% having a low equity position.

As I have stated in previous articles, I feel so sorry for those that purchased homes at or near the peak of the market.

If the Federal Reserve continues to raise rates, it won’t be too long before millions of homeowners are underwater on their mortgages, and that would truly be a nightmare scenario.

When you owe much more than your home is currently worth, that makes it exceedingly difficult to sell it.

Ultimately, many homeowners that were underwater on their mortgages in 2008 and 2009 simply defaulted and walked away, and that created enormous headaches for Wall Street.

Right now, we are already in a “housing recession”, and the Federal Reserve is threatening to turn it into a “housing depression”.

Earlier today, we got yet another number that indicates that the housing market is in incredibly bad shape at this moment…

This has been a year of watershed moments in real estate, and not the good kind.

The Housing Market Index, a closely watched industry metric that gauges the outlook for home sales, declined to 33 in November on a hundred-point scale, its lowest level in a decade, save for the first dystopian month of the pandemic. Anything under 50 spells trouble.

14 years after the last housing crash started, another one has arrived.

Interestingly, the housing crash that began in 2008 also began 14 years after the previous one.

In the brand new book that I just released, I have an entire chapter about how the housing crashes have been following a very odd pattern.

And just like 2008, layoffs are starting to surge all over America…

Layoffs are picking up, just in time for the holidays.

At first it was the job-slashing in tech that gobbled up all the attention. From Twitter to Amazon, tech firms have cut more than 146,000 jobs in 2022 after years of seemingly unlimited hiring, according to tracker Layoffs.fyi. Yet with each passing day, the unemployment gloom spreads. It’s reached Wall Street, real estate, crypto, and even the food and beverage industry.

We haven’t seen anything like this since the Great Recession, and one industry that is being hit particularly hard is the media…

In an environment where legacy media is collapsing — in the past week, CNN has started a massive round of layoffs, NPR is responding to a $20 million shortage in corporate grift with a hiring freeze, the Washington Post has folded its magazine and is contemplating widespread layoffs, and the New York Times newsroom will go out on strike on December 8, and we all know how well a strike works when you’re overpaid and have a skill set that can be replaced by sending a van to the Texas-Mexico border — this would be a wake-up call.

I can’t say that I am sad to see these establishment media companies fall on hard times.

They have been relentlessly feeding the public disinformation for years, and the American people are fed up with them.

But I do feel very badly for all of the hard working Americans out there that are suddenly losing their jobs during this holiday season.

On Thursday, we learned that initial claims for unemployment benefits were up last week, and we also learned that continuing claims have shot up to the highest level in 10 months…

Figures released Thursday by the Labor Department show initial claims for the week ended Dec. 3 rose to 230,000 from the upwardly revised 226,000 recorded a week earlier. That is above the 2019 pre-pandemic average of 218,000 claims.

Continuing claims, filed by Americans who are consecutively receiving unemployment benefits, rose to 1.671 million for the week ended Nov. 26, up by 62,000 from the previous week’s revised level.

The fact that continuing claims have now reached such an alarming level prompted one economist to declare that the “recession sky is darkening”…

An economist is warning that, under Joe Biden’s economic leadership, the “recession sky is darkening.”

That’s according to Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds, who commented after reports that continuing unemployment claims at the end of November rose by 62,000 to 1.7 million.

Sadly, he is quite correct.

Economic conditions are going to continue to deteriorate in the months ahead, and this comes at a time when so many U.S. consumers are already living on the edge of financial disaster…

The savings rate is now near an all-time low whilst credit card debt is at an all-time high. Clearly, U.S. consumers are, in aggregate, flying very close to the sun.

I know that I have covered a lot of information very rapidly in this article.

But I want to keep my regular readers updated on what is really going on out there.

In so many ways, what we are witnessing right now is a repeat of what we experienced in 2008 and 2009.

It certainly appears that 2023 is going to be an exceedingly painful year for the U.S. economy, and the U.S. population is not at all prepared to handle any sort of a severe economic downturn.

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

Can You Guess What Percentage Of Americans Are Having Trouble Paying Their Grocery Bills?

December 7, 2022 by Michael

For the first time in decades, the cost of food has become a major issue in America. If rapidly rising food prices are not a problem for you, then you should be very thankful, because most of the country is really hurting right now. The cost of food has been going up much faster than our paychecks have throughout 2022, and this week Walmart CEO Doug McMillion publicly admitted that double-digit price increases for packaged foods “are going to be with us for a while”. This is a crisis that isn’t going away, and as you will see below, it appears that things will get even worse in 2023.

But even though I am constantly writing about our deteriorating economic conditions, even I was absolutely stunned by the results of a new survey that was just released…

More than two-thirds of Americans are having a hard time affording groceries as food costs continue to soar, according to new data.

Retail technology platform Swiftly reported Wednesday that 69% of shoppers say they are struggling to pay their grocery bills after months of persistently sky-high inflation, and 83% currently rely on some form of coupons or loyalty program to put food on the table, according to its True Cost of a Grocery Shop survey.

If this poll is accurate, that means that almost 70 percent of all Americans are having trouble paying their grocery bills right now.

That is crazy!

Unfortunately, food prices are only going to go higher because global food supplies just keep getting tighter and tighter.

For example, the USDA is projecting that the upcoming orange harvest in Florida will be the smallest since 1943…

Orange juice futures squeezed to a near-record high ahead of another US Department of Agriculture’s crop report on Friday that will likely show tight global supplies will persist well into the new year.

USDA’s next report will provide an estimate for Florida’s 2022-23 harvest. Figures will add to October’s downbeat report, which showed that Florida would only produce 28 million boxes (each box is 90 pounds) for the current season, down 32% from the prior year. This season is expected to be the lowest harvest since 1943.

Meanwhile, Fox Business is reporting that our endless national baby formula shortage “keeps getting worse”…

The baby formula shortage keeps getting worse.

One parent from Keystone, Florida, said it’s been “crazy” – especially for parents in need of a popular hypoallergenic and lactose-free formula.

“We have been getting less powder, Nutramigen. So, whatever I have, I’m kind of like, can I just feed him less? But then it’s like, you can’t feed a child less because that’s not fair to them,” mother Ellie Johnston told FOX Business.

On my website, The Economic Collapse Blog, I have been documenting countless other reasons why global food supplies will keep getting tighter in the months ahead. Make sure to bookmark the site and check it several times a week for the latest updates.

As Americans on the bottom levels of the economic pyramid become increasingly desperate, we are seeing a very alarming spike in retail theft.

During a recent appearance on CNBC, Walmart CEO Doug McMillion was asked about what his stores are seeing…

Walmart stores across the U.S. are grappling with an uptick in shoplifting that could lead to higher prices and closed stores if the problem persists, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said Tuesday.

“Theft is an issue. It’s higher than what it has historically been,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“We’ve got safety measures, security measures that we’ve put in place by store location. I think local law enforcement being staffed and being a good partner is part of that equation, and that’s normally how we approach it,” McMillon said.

That certainly doesn’t sound good.

And McMillion went on to say that some Walmart stores could eventually be closed if high levels of retail theft persist…

“If that’s not corrected over time, prices will be higher, and/or stores will close,” McMillon said.

I have bad news for him.

This isn’t going to be corrected.

In fact, things are only going to get worse in this country.

For years, I have been warning that food would become such a target for thieves that armed guards would be needed.

Unfortunately, that time has now arrived…

A Philadelphia gas station owner fed up with incessant crime threatening his employees and customers hired heavily armed security guards to watch over his business.

Neil Patel, operator of a Karco gas station at Broad and Clearfield streets in North Philadelphia, recruited Pennsylvania S.I.T.E Agents clad with Kevlar vest and AR-15s or shotguns.

In many parts of Philadelphia, the criminals are the ones that are in control, and so that is why this gas station owner feels compelled to hire his own private security force…

“They are forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level,” Patel told FOX 29. “We are tired of this nonsense; robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around, gangs.”

The final straw for Patel came after he said his business was vandalized by young people and an ATM machine was stolen. His car was also a casualty of crime around the area.

Of course this sort of environment can now be found in major urban areas all over the nation.

Organized retail crime has become a multi-billion dollar business, and if it is far worse this year than it was last year.

In an article that he just posted, Mike Adams did a great job of summarizing where things currently stand…

The key phrase in all this is organized retail crime. This isn’t merely spontaneous, simple shoplifting, it’s a whole new type of large-scale theft where teams of thieves are prepped and coordinated to hit a retail establishment and clean out its most valuable items in seconds. The stolen goods are then sold on Ebay, Amazon and other online marketplaces, or delivered to local buyers in exchange for cash.

According to the National Retail Federation, organized retail crime has skyrocketed by 26.5% in 2022, year over year. It now costs retailers over $100 billion per year in losses.

Our country is starting to come apart at the seams all around us.

I am sorry if that statement offends you, but it is true.

Crime is out of control, predators are roaming the streets, and the population is becoming increasingly desperate as the cost of living spirals out of control.

Sadly, things are only going to get worse during the months that are ahead of us.

***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 The Global Economy Is Having “One Of Its Worst Years In Three Decades”

December 6, 2022 by Michael

Will 2022 go down in history as one of the most important economic turning points that we have ever seen? All over the planet, economic activity is beginning to decelerate and uncertainty about the future is in the air. Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to escalate and a very painful energy crisis has begun. Unless there is some sort of an economic miracle, it appears that 2023 will be a very difficult year, and the long-term outlook beyond next year is even more ominous. Suddenly, many of the talking heads on television are openly speculating about the hard times that are coming, and the word “recession” is being thrown around quite frequently.

But will we only be dealing with a “recession” in the months ahead, or will it be much worse than that?

At the moment, things are clearly heading in the wrong direction. The following comes from a Bloomberg article entitled “World Economy Heads for One of Its Worst Years in Three Decades”…

The world economy is facing one of its worst years in three decades as the energy shocks unleashed by the war in Ukraine continue to reverberate, according to Bloomberg Economics.

In a new analysis, economist Scott Johnson forecasts growth of just 2.4% in 2023. That’s down from an estimated 3.2% this year and the lowest — excluding the crisis years of 2009 and 2020 — since 1993.

The global economy is more interconnected than ever before, and so pain experienced on one side of the globe is often keenly felt on the other side.

Here in the United States, a huge wave of layoffs has now started. On Tuesday, yet another major media company announced brutal job cuts…

BuzzFeed is axing 12% of its workforce, or around 180 staffers, in a bid to cut costs as the digital media company faces headwinds including an ad-spending pullback and the completion of its integration of Complex Media.

The company informed affected employees via email Tuesday that they were being terminated. “In order for BuzzFeed to weather an economic downturn that I believe will extend well into 2023, we must adapt, invest in our strategy to serve our audience best, and readjust our cost structure,” CEO Jonah Peretti wrote in a memo to employees about the job cuts.

As the housing market crashes, the financial industry is being hit really hard as well.

In fact, it is being reported that approximately 1,600 Morgan Stanley employees will now be looking for new work…

Morgan Stanley cut about 2% of its staff on Tuesday, according to people with knowledge of the layoffs.

The moves, reported first by CNBC, impacted about 1,600 of the company’s 81,567 employees and touched nearly every corner of the global investment bank, said the people, who declined to be identified speaking about terminations.

Speaking of the housing market, we are being told that somewhere around 270,000 recent homebuyers in the U.S. are already underwater on their mortgages.

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008 and 2009, but this is just the beginning.

If the Federal Reserve insists on hiking interest rates even higher, it won’t be too long before millions of homeowners will be underwater on their mortgages, and that will definitely be a nightmare scenario.

So many families are living on the edge of financial disaster in late 2022. If you can believe it, approximately 20 million U.S. households are currently behind on their utility bills…

According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), roughly 20 million households in the U.S. — one out of six homes — are behind on their utility bills.

As of August, these families owe about $16.1 billion in total, with an average amount owed of $788 — and the consequences of this could be dire, especially as home heat costs are expected to reach their highest level in over 10 years.

We are already in a state of economic crisis right now.

But don’t expect the White House to admit that any time soon.

Meanwhile, the cost of living just continues to go higher and higher. Earlier today, I was stunned to learn that Walmart CEO Doug McMillon is actually admitting that double-digit price increases on packaged foods “are going to be with us for a while”…

Walmart (WMT) is the largest retailer in the United States and has a gauge into consumer habits and a wide array of products.

McMillon said that inflation was “most stubborn” on packaged food. Double-digit price increases on these essentials “are going to be with us for a while,” he said.

So we are going to have rapidly rising prices and an imploding economy at the same time.

Yes, 2023 is going to be a whole lot of fun.

At this point, even the mood on Wall Street is shifting.

Stocks were down once again today, and now the S&P 500 has fallen for seven of the last eight trading sessions…

The S&P 500 shed 1.44% to close at 3,941.26, while the Nasdaq Composite sank 2% to finish at 11,014.89. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 350.76 points, or 1.03%, to settle at 33,596.34.

Stocks added to Monday’s declines, with the S&P falling for a fourth straight day and its seventh negative session in eight. Tuesday’s moves bring the Dow’s two-day losses to more than 830 points.

Just a few weeks from now, 2022 will mercifully be over.

But if this year has been “one of its worst years in three decades”, what will the global economy look like a year from now?

As I have detailed above, the U.S. economy is really starting to deteriorate quite rapidly.

So how bad will things eventually get?

Let us hope for a “recession”, but let us also prepare for an economic nightmare.

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

Could 65 Trillion Dollars In “Hidden” Derivatives Cause The Entire Global Financial System To Crash?

December 5, 2022 by Michael

If you thought that the collapse of FTX was something, just wait until the entire global financial system comes crashing down all around us. Most people just assume that the system is being managed by rational people that behave in rational ways, but of course countless investors assumed the same things about FTX. Sadly, the global financial system has slowly but surely been transformed into the largest casino in the history of the world. It is a colossal Ponzi scheme, and once in a while authorities give us a little peek into what is really going on behind the curtain.

For example, this week the Bank for International Settlements released a report that warned that 65 trillion dollars in “hidden” currency derivatives could potentially be a major threat to the stability of the entire system…

There’s a hidden risk to the global financial system embedded in the $65 trillion of dollar debt being held by non-US institutions via currency derivatives, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

In a paper with the title “huge, missing and growing,” the BIS said a lack of information is making it harder for policy makers to anticipate the next financial crisis. In particular, they raised concern with the fact that the debt is going unrecorded on balance sheets because of accounting conventions on how to track derivative positions.

Last year, the total value of all goods and services produced in the entire world was just 96 trillion dollars.

So we are talking about an amount of money that is almost unimaginable.

Everything will be okay as long as financial conditions remain relatively stable.

But BIS analysts warn that “the next time dollar funding liquidity is squeezed” we could have an enormous crisis on our hands…

“Off-balance-sheet dollar debt may remain out of sight and out of mind—but only until the next time dollar funding liquidity is squeezed,” the analysts write. “Then, the hidden leverage in pension funds and insurance companies’ portfolios . . . could pose a policy challenge.”

So let’s hope that such a scenario does not materialize any time soon.

According to the BIS report, banks outside the U.S. are particularly vulnerable…

For researchers at the BIS, it’s the sheer scale of the swaps that’s worrying. They estimate that banks headquartered outside the US carry $39 trillion of this debt — more than double their on-balance sheet obligations and ten times their capital. Accounting conventions only require derivatives to be booked on a net basis, so the full extent of the cash involved isn’t recorded on a balance sheet.

“There is a staggering volume of off-balance sheet dollar debt that is partly hidden, and FX risk settlement remains stubbornly high,” said Borio, head of the monetary and economic department at the BIS.

When this thing finally implodes, there isn’t going to be enough money in the entire world to fix it all.

But don’t worry.

The “experts” are telling us that everything is fine.

Meanwhile, more of our largest corporations are planning layoffs. According to the Wall Street Journal, this even includes PepsiCo…

PepsiCo is reported laying off headquarter workers, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A person familiar with the matter told the Journal that hundreds of jobs are being cut in the head office of the North American snacks and beverages divisions.

Employees in Purchase, N.Y., Chicago, Ill. and Plano, Tex. are said to be impacted.

I thought that PepsiCo was doing well.

I guess not.

But don’t worry.

The “experts” are telling us that everything is fine.

This week some of the biggest names in the mainstream media have also announced layoffs…

Hundreds of media industry staffers were laid off this week during a brutal period that saw Warner Bros. Discovery, Gannett and others slash headcount as economic uncertainty plagues news organizations.

Gannett, a newspaper juggernaut that owns dozens of local media outlets along with USA Today, began its latest round of layoffs on Thursday. The cost-cutting effort impacted roughly 6% of the company’s news workforce of about 3,440 employees.

I can’t remember ever seeing such a wave of layoffs at our largest media companies.

But don’t worry.

The “experts” are telling us that everything is fine.

Of course the truth is that everything is not fine.

Economic conditions are deteriorating all around us, and the ripple effects are being felt everywhere.

According to Fox Business, even Las Vegas is feeling the pain…

Inflation is taking its toll on Sin City as fewer tourists are visiting the gambling Mecca, and those who do spend less than usual, according to a new report.

The University of Las Vegas business school released a report forecasting the city’s economic outlook between 2022 and 2024 and noted that its economy turned grim in June of this year, according to Fox 5.

“Interest rates have gone up. And we know that we know that prices are going up as well. And that’s what the Fed is trying to get their hands around and solve. So it may be that the Fed’s policies is having an effect not only nationally, but it’s also affecting our economy locally,” one of the study’s authors, Professor Stephen Miller, told the outlet.

2008 and 2009 were incredibly difficult years for Las Vegas.

Now those that run businesses in Sin City are bracing for another extended downturn.

In all my years of writing, I have never been more concerned about the short-term economic outlook them I am right now.

It is very likely that 2023 will be a really hard year for the U.S. economy, and of course this comes at a time when the entire globe is being hit by crisis after crisis.

For ages we have been warned that a day of reckoning would eventually be coming, and now it appears that day of reckoning has already arrived.

There is certainly nothing wrong with hoping for the best. But there is also wisdom in getting prepared for the worst.

***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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