Money

New York City Enters A Death Spiral As Hundreds Of Thousands Of Law-Abiding Citizens Prepare To Flee

November 10, 2025November 10, 2025 by Michael

What will the loss of hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens mean for New York City? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to answer that question. When large numbers of law-abiding citizens leave any area, conditions get worse. And when conditions get worse, that motivates even more law-abiding citizens to leave. Meanwhile, the election of Zohran Mamdani will make the Big Apple a magnet for criminals, gang members, radical Islamists, economic parasites, far left political activists and those that have entered this country illegally. New York City has entered a horrifying death spiral, and there is little hope that this death spiral can be reversed any time soon.

According to a poll that was taken just before Mamdani’s victory, 9 percent of the entire population of New York City indicated that they would “definitely” leave if Mamdani won…

Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers are prepared to bolt from the Big Apple if socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani wins Tuesday’s mayoral race — potentially setting the stage for the largest population flight in US history, an alarming new poll warned early Monday.

Around 765,000 people of the 8.4 million residents who call New York City home are preparing to leave, with about 9% of New Yorkers sharing that they would “definitely” leave the city if Mamdani is elected the 111th mayor, the Daily Mail reported, citing a survey conducted by J.L. Partners.

We have never seen anything quite like this before.

If 765,000 people actually leave the Big Apple, that will be roughly equivalent to the entire population of Washington DC…

If those residents were to leave, it would be equal to the population of Washington, DC, Las Vegas, or Seattle fleeing the city.

Another 25% of New Yorkers — about 2.12 million — said they would “consider” packing up and leaving.

But it isn’t just the sheer number of people that are threatening to leave that is the issue.

One of the reasons why New York City is one of the most important cities on the entire planet is because of the vast amount of wealth that is located there.

Now that Mamdani has won, wealthy New Yorkers are freaking out because he believes that capitalism is “theft”…

A lot of ultra-wealthy residents are threatening to flee, and that is a major problem, because the top 1 percent of all income earners pay close to 50 percent of all the taxes…

The top 1 percent of earners in New York pay around half the city’s income taxes.

With a significant proportion of them departing the city’s finances would collapse and there would be less money to pay for Mamdani’s policies, which involve subsidizing various parts of the city’s economy.

New York City is already facing an absolutely massive budget deficit next year.

So how will Mamdani be able to pay for all of his new social programs if ultra-wealthy New Yorkers start leaving in large numbers?

And how will Mamdani be able to maintain order if police officers start leaving in large numbers?

When Mamdani was asked about this, he openly acknowledged that the city is facing a “retention crisis”…

Socialist mayor-elect of New York City Zohran Mamdani said Friday that he is not concerned about backlash from law enforcement following his election victory and reiterated his plan to have social workers carry out certain duties currently done by law enforcement.

During a visit to Puerto Rico, Mamdani was asked if he was “worried” about backlash from the “law enforcement community.”

“I’m not worried about the backlash. What I’m worried about, frankly, is the continuation of a retention crisis that we’ve seen only deepen during the course of this campaign,” Mamdani said.

Mamdani is a smooth talker.

But there is no way that he is going to be able to talk his way out of this mess.

Every single day more New Yorkers are relocating, and one of the most popular destinations is Florida…

Election anxiety in New York City has turned into a real estate windfall in South Florida.

Developer Isaac Toledano, CEO of Miami-based BH Group, told Fox News Digital that his company has closed more than $100 million in signed contracts from New York buyers in just the past few months – about twice last year’s volume.

“I think the election accelerated how people make decisions,” Toledano said. “I think people are nervous [for] what’s coming, how it’s going to affect their lifestyle, the quality of life, taxes, potential of crime [or] no crime.”

Florida is already way too crowded.

This is going to make things even worse.

One real estate agent says that there is currently a lot of interest in waterfront properties “in the $20 million to $30 million range”…

‘We are seeing interest from New York City intensify because of the election,’ Dina Goldentayer, a Douglas Elliman agent in Florida, told the Daily Mail.

‘The city’s area codes 917 and 212 are popping up now almost as much as they did at the height of the Covid pandemic.

‘Most of the calls are from buyers, many Wall Street execs, looking in the $20 million to $30 million range. Specifically for waterfront houses or oceanfront condos.’

The weather in southern Florida is so nice for most of the year.

But is it a place that you would really want to be during the chaotic times that are coming?

Needless to say, it would certainly not be my first choice.

Up until just recently, many long-time New Yorkers never imagined that they would leave.

But now everything has changed.

It has been pointed out that voters that have lived in New York City for less than 10 years are the reason why Mamdani was victorious…

We are seeing similar patterns all over the nation.

In fact, it is being reported that this month we saw “a record forty-two Muslim candidates elected to public office across the United States”…

They told us the plan. Now we’re watching it unfold — in real time.

This week, terror-linked Islamic organizations are celebrating a stunning milestone: a record forty-two Muslim candidates elected to public office across the United States, the most significant wave of Muslim political victories in American history.

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) own data, the newly elected officials span at least nine states — New York, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. The list includes five mayors, four state legislators, two judges, and dozens of city council, county, and school board members.

The electorate has been transformed by decades of mass immigration.

This is something that many of us have been ranting about for a very long time, but there is no way to turn back the clock now.

Those that wanted to “fundamentally transform” America have largely succeeded, and now a 34-year-old Islamic communist that wasn’t even a U.S. citizen a decade ago is going to be the next mayor of New York City.

The largest city in the United States is about to descend into a state of complete and utter chaos, and everyone can see that this is a story that is not going to have a happy ending.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing. You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter. Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites. 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, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

People Are Lining Up At Food Banks As Early As 2:30 In The Morning As The Food Stamp Crisis Forces Millions Of Americans To “Starve”

November 9, 2025November 9, 2025 by Michael

We are less than two weeks into the month of November, and the mainstream media is telling us that millions of Americans are “starving”. If our society is this vulnerable to a temporary disruption in food stamp benefits, what is it going to be like when global events really start hitting the fan and there is no food in our grocery stores at all? Much of the population is just a few missed meals away from going completely haywire. For now, at least those that have not received their food stamp benefits this month can rely on local food banks. But would you be willing to line up at 2:30 in the morning just to get some free food? That is precisely what just happened in the Bronx…

In the Bronx, throngs of desperate locals lined up as early as 2:30 a.m. at food banks because of disruptions in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance benefits caused by the shutdown.

Carmen Verona told The Post she was there for the time ever because her mom and brother had their benefits cut. Her own $459 monthly SNAP benefits aren’t enough.

“Without the food stamps, it’s a lot … and that’s not even enough because I always got to put out of pocket like $200, $300 because it’s too expensive,” said Verona, 58, as she picked up fruit, vegetables, and apple juice.

The reason why people line up so early is because there might not be enough food for everyone.

In Indianapolis, one elderly woman that thought that she had gotten in line at her local food bank early enough ended up leaving empty-handed…

On Saturday morning, bundled in a coat, hat and gloves, Alicia Engel waited in a line outside Fountain Square Church of Christ for a cart of free groceries. An hour before the city-sponsored event was scheduled to end, volunteers ran out of food — and Engel left empty-handed.

This is how badly our economy has deteriorated.

If the food stamp program permanently disappeared, millions upon millions of desperate Americans would suddenly be absolutely destitute.

At one food bank in Cleveland, hordes of hungry people lined up in the rain to get some free food. When Fox News posted footage of the line on X, it got hundreds of thousands of views…

A video of a large line outside a food bank in Cleveland has gone viral amid the ongoing freezing of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the government shutdown.

Fox News posted footage showing long lines of people queuing outside a food bank on its X account. At the time of writing, the video had accrued 599,000 views.

You have to be really committed to stand in the rain for hours.

In other parts of the country, people are able to wait in their vehicles. For example, on one recent morning in Tallahassee “hundreds of cars lined up outside a shopping mall for emergency food assistance”…

On a cold Saturday morning in Tallahassee, hundreds of cars lined up outside a shopping mall for emergency food assistance. Among them was Joe Elliott, a newly retired man with liver disease, whose rising medical costs and lapsed SNAP benefits left him in need, per Chronicle Online.

The food distribution, organized by Second Harvest and supported by United Way of the Big Bend and WTXL, aimed to serve 1,500 families. CEO Monique Ellsworth said calls for help have surged as nearly 100,000 residents in the region face uncertainty over food aid.

We are seeing similar scenes all over the nation.

In northern California, demand at local food banks has absolutely exploded…

Within its service area of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, more than 168,000 people rely on CalFresh, the state of California’s version of SNAP, Bacho says.

On Monday alone, over 1,500 unique users visited the bank’s online food locator tool, which connects people to nearby food distribution sites, according to Bacho. That’s nearly double the usual volume.

Their hotline has also experienced a 200% increase in requests for referrals, she says.

I was surprised to learn that California is not even among the top 10 states that are most heavily dependent on the food stamp program.

It turns out that New Mexico, Oregon and Louisiana lead that list…

New Mexico -21.5 percent
Oregon – 18.1 percent
Louisiana – 17.5 percent
Oklahoma – 16.9 percent
W. Virginia – 15.5 percent
Nevada – 15.2 percent
Massachusetts – 15.1 percent
Pennsylvania – 15.0 percent
New York – 14.9 percent
Illinois – 14.8 percent

There were a few states that began paying out full food stamp benefits last week, but the Trump administration is ordering those states to “immediately undo” what they have done…

The Trump administration has instructed states that they must “immediately undo any steps” that were taken to provide full SNAP benefits to low-income Americans, saying states were “unauthorized.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in a late-night Saturday memo obtained by CBS News, also threatened to impose financial penalties on states that did not comply with the government’s new orders.

“To the extent States sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” Patrick Penn, deputy undersecretary of Agriculture, wrote to state SNAP directors. “Accordingly, States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025.”

What a colossal mess.

And the fact that this crisis has erupted just before Thanksgiving is making a lot of recipients even more upset…

“Nothing, I didn’t get nothing this month,” Anthony Miller said.

Miller said he was supposed to see nearly $300 on his link card on November 1.

“It’s confusing and Trump don’t want to release it, and that’s why he’s taking it to court, and it don’t make no sense at all that we got to starve out here, and he did it at the time of Thanksgiving,” he said.

Did you notice that he used the word “starve”.

We are suddenly hearing that word at lot.

In fact, one female EBT recipient that claims that she is “starving” has been getting a tremendous amount of attention online…

Needless to say, that woman is not starving.

If you go without food for a few days, that is not going to hurt you.

In fact, for most of the population going without food for a few days would actually be quite beneficial for their health.

If you have a chronic disease, fasting is one of the best things that you could possibly do for your body.

The reason why we are hearing the word “starve” so much is because the mainstream media is constantly using it and many top Democrats are constantly using it…

“Donald Trump and his administration have made the decision to weaponize hunger, to withhold SNAP benefits from millions of people, notwithstanding the fact that two lower courts, both the district court and the court of appeals, made clear that those SNAP benefits needed to be paid immediately,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said on CNN Saturday, calling the actions “shameful.”

“Donald Trump is literally fighting in court to ensure Americans starve. HE DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOU,” echoed California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential contender, on X.

Nobody in the United States is starving.

If you want to see real starvation, just look at what is happening in Africa right now.

People are literally dropping dead from a lack of food, but that hardly gets any attention from the western media.

So let’s put all of this into perspective.

This food stamp crisis is just temporary, and the good news is that it looks like a deal to end the government shutdown may be within reach.

We shall see.

But even if this government shutdown ends, there are a couple of things that we all need to remember.

Number one, demand at U.S. food banks was at record levels even before the government shutdown started.

Number two, if there is some sort of a major emergency someday and the federal government is no longer able to feed tens of millions of Americans, things will get very bad in this country very rapidly.

Job Cuts Explode – Up 65 Percent Compared To Last Year – The Employment Market Has Become A Twisted Game Of Musical Chairs

November 6, 2025November 6, 2025 by Michael

It is starting to look a lot like the Great Recession again. I thought that the pace of layoffs in 2024 was bad, but it has just exploded here in 2025. Vast numbers of good paying jobs are being ruthlessly eliminated, and competition for any decent jobs that are still available has become extremely fierce. In some cases, workers that have many years of experience are applying for hundreds of jobs but are not even able to get a single interview. I have said this before, and I will say it again. If you currently have a job that you highly value, hold on to it as tightly as you can. You don’t want to be left without a chair when the music stops playing.

On Thursday, we got the latest employment numbers from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, and they are extremely sobering…

U.S.-based employers announced 153,074 job cuts in October, up 175% from the 55,597 cuts announced in October 2024. It is up 183% from the 54,064 job cuts announced one month prior, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

“October’s pace of job cutting was much higher than average for the month. Some industries are correcting after the hiring boom of the pandemic, but this comes as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs drive belt-tightening and hiring freezes. Those laid off now are finding it harder to quickly secure new roles, which could further loosen the labor market,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

I specifically warned that the pace of job cuts was accelerating.

But these numbers are so bad that they even surprised me.

183 percent higher than last month and 175 percent higher than last October?

Are you kidding me?

The number of job cuts in the U.S. hasn’t been this high during the month of October since 2003.

That was 22 years ago.

Just think about that.

Overall, during the first 10 months of 2025 the number of job cuts was 65 percent higher than during the first 10 months of 2024…

Through October, employers have announced 1,099,500 job cuts, an increase of 65% from the 664,839 announced in the first ten months of last year. It is up 44% from the 761,358 cuts announced in all of 2024.

When the number of job cuts increases by 65 percent in just one year, you have got a major crisis on your hands.

And this is just the beginning.

We were warned that AI would be taking a lot of our jobs, and that is precisely what is starting to happen…

Challenger reports the highest level of layoffs coming from the technology sector amid a time of restructuring due to AI integration. Companies in the sector announced 33,281 cuts, nearly six times the level in September.

How many times have I written about this over the past few years?

A lot of people thought that this would be a threat that we would be facing “someday”, but the truth is that it is a threat that we are facing now.

Eventually, AI and robots will be able to do almost everything less expensively and more efficiently than humans can.

What will we be needed for then?

With each passing day, we get more bad news.

For example, we just learned that Outback Steakhouse “abruptly closed 21 restaurants in October”…

Outback Steakhouse abruptly closed 21 restaurants in October as it begins a “comprehensive turnaround strategy” to keep up with its trendier competitors.

Bloomin’ Brands, Outback’s parent company, disclosed in its earnings report Thursday that in addition to those closures, an additional 22 locations will not have their leases renewed and will shutter over the next four years.

More restaurants are being closed every single day.

More stores are being closed every single day.

And more mass layoffs are occurring every single day.

It is time to wake up.

Meanwhile, household debt in the United States just set another brand new record high as families wrestle with our seemingly endless cost of living crisis…

Total household debt climbed to a record $18.6 trillion last quarter, and while most borrowers remain on track with payments, young Americans are feeling the pressure.

During the third quarter, 3 percent of outstanding balances became seriously delinquent — 90 days or more past due — the largest quarterly increase since 2014, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Among those ages 18 to 29, the rate was about 5 percent — more than double a year earlier and the highest of any age group.

Much of that strain reflects missed student loan payments, with total outstanding debt climbing to a record $1.65 trillion last quarter.

Delinquency rates are really starting to spike just like we witnessed in 2008 and 2009.

As I mentioned yesterday, the credit card delinquency rate just hit the highest level that we have seen since 2011.

For a long time, people have been piling up enormous amounts of debt in a desperate attempt to maintain their former lifestyles, but now vast numbers of U.S. consumers are simply tapped out.

The top 20 percent of the population still has plenty of money to spend, but most of the rest of us are deeply struggling…

While the top fifth of earners now account for almost two thirds of spending — a record — the bottom 80%, which made up nearly 42% of spending before the pandemic, now accounts for just 37% of it, according to Moody’s Analytics. Low- and middle-income shoppers are spending less on all sorts of merchandise like apparel and toys, especially since tariffs were announced earlier this year, data from research firm Circana show.

Student loan payments have resumed and the ranks of subprime borrowers are on the rise, according to credit reporting firm TransUnion. Concerns about inflation — particularly for necessities like rent and groceries — persist, alongside slower pay gains, tepid hiring and more layoffs. And the shutdown has made matters worse for millions, with disruptions to food aid benefits and child care as well as spiking health insurance premiums.

Hopefully this government shutdown will be resolved soon.

But right now there is no end in sight.

One official that works for the the Rhode Island Department of Human Services is claiming that one impoverished woman is concerned that if food stamp benefits are completely cut off “she’d have to go back to eating cat food”…

Since then, family recipients have clogged phone lines and seniors and disabled recipients have lined up outside the Rhode Island Department of Human Services building where Stacy Smith, president of AFSCME local 2882 works in hopes of getting more information about where they can go for food or help.

Smith spoke to USA TODAY in her role as a union representative.

“We had a client that came in and was afraid she’d have to go back to eating cat food,” Smith said. “It’s so frustrating and disheartening. We’re talking about humans, these are people, these aren’t statistics, these aren’t numbers on a paper, these are human lives. Children, elderly, veterans, working moms, working dads. That is who we serve.”

I have heard from so many people out there that are facing nightmare scenarios because of the shutdown.

If you have never been in a situation where you don’t know where your next meal is going to come from, it may be difficult to identify with what these people are going through right now.

The level of emotional stress in this country is moving into uncharted territory, and this is particularly true for our young people…

63% of young adults (ages 18-34) and 53% of parents have considered leaving the U.S. due to the state of the nation
Half of all adults report signs of loneliness, while 69% say they needed more emotional support this year than they received
AI anxiety nearly doubled among students (78%, up from 45%) and surged across all age groups in just one year
75% of Americans are more stressed about the country’s future than before, with political division tied to isolation, physical symptoms, and daily struggles

If people are this stressed out now, what is going to happen when things really start hitting the fan?

A lot of these stressed out people are simply not going to make it.

It is time to toughen up, because it is going to take an extraordinary amount of toughness to make it through what is ahead.

The system is beginning to fail all around us, and a lot more economic pain is on the horizon.

The Terrible Truth About The U.S. Economy Can No Longer Be Denied

November 5, 2025November 5, 2025 by Michael

For a long time, a lot of people wanted to deny what was happening to us. But now we have reached a point when you can no longer do that and retain your credibility. Job openings have been plummeting, and layoffs have been spiking. Manufacturing activity is way down, and delinquency rates are way up. In fact, the credit card delinquency rate just hit the highest level that we have seen since 2011. Just about everything has gotten significantly more expensive, and America’s food banks are being overwhelmed by vast numbers of hungry people. Nobody can deny any of these things, and now U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is publicly admitting that “there are sectors of the economy that are in recession”…

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Stephen Miran, President Trump’s appointee to the Fed’s Board of Governors who is on a temporary leave from his job leading the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, this week struck a downbeat tone about the health of the world’s largest economy. Mr. Bessent went so far as to say some sectors were already contracting. He did not specify which sectors, but high mortgage rates have put housing and adjacent industries such as construction under pressure.

“I think that there are sectors of the economy that are in recession,” Mr. Bessent said on CNN on Sunday. He described the economy as being in a “period of transition” because of a pullback in government spending to reduce the deficit. He called on the Fed to support the economy by cutting interest rates.

Bessent’s job is to put a positive spin on America’s economic performance.

But now we have reached a stage where even he cannot deny the truth.

Just look at what is happening to the shipping industry.

When the economy is booming, the amount of stuff that is being physically moved around goes up.

But when the economy falls on hard times, the amount of stuff that is being physically moved around goes down…

As someone who’s spent decades immersed in the freight and logistics industry, I’ve learned that freight data often tells the story of the broader economy long before traditional indicators catch up. Right now, that data is painting a stark picture: The U.S. economy is entrenched in a goods recession. While consumer spending on services might be holding steady, the movement of physical goods—the lifeblood of manufacturing, retail, and industrial sectors—has ground to a halt. This isn’t speculation; it’s evident in the high-frequency data we track at FreightWaves through our SONAR platform.

Nobody can pretend that this isn’t happening.

I realize that some of you may not want to hear this, but long-haul trucking volumes are down 30 percent on a year over year basis…

The long-haul trucking segment (800+ miles), however, has fallen off a cliff. Year-over-year volumes are down a shocking 30%, a sign that the broader economy is in trouble. Long-haul trucking is more exposed to the energy, manufacturing, auto, and housing segments.

That isn’t a small shift.

That is a monumental collapse.

When Freight Waves stated that long-haul trucking “has fallen off a cliff”, they were not exaggerating.

Manufacturing activity is down too.

In fact, it just declined for the eighth month in a row…

US manufacturing turned down in October on the PMI index, dropping from 49.1 in September to 48.7 in October, marking the eighth consecutive month of contraction. Price pressure may have eased (58 from 61.9), but production (48.2 from 51), inventory (45.8 from 47.7), and deliveries (54.2 from 52.6) have all declined.

Employment in the sector continued to decline (46 from 45.3), and 67% of panelist noted that companies are working on managing their current workforce rather than hiring. Again, lower rates are unlikely to address this structural problem or encourage companies to expand during a contracting business environment. Eight consecutive months of decline should be a warning as manufacturing declines often precede recessions, or in this case, ongoing stagflation.

Since less stuff is being produced, it should be no surprise that cardboard box shipments have fallen to “their lowest levels since the third quarter of 2015”…

Nearly every physical good in the modern economy is transported or stored in a corrugated cardboard box. That’s why box shipments act as a reliable real-time economic barometer, especially very useful now, as the government shutdown enters day 33 and key agencies like the BLS have halted official economic data releases, leaving private high-frequency data sets to fill the void.

The latest box shipment data from Bloomberg, citing a report by the Fibre Box Association, shows some of the weakest volumes in years, reflecting waning consumer sentiment and potentially signaling a subdued holiday shopping season. These shipments were at their lowest levels since the third quarter of 2015.

This is the real economy.

Factories make things and those things are put in cardboard boxes and shipped around the country in trucks.

At every point along our supply chains, activity is slowing down.

So let’s stop pretending.

All over the United States, major employers have been slashing their workforces…

When Starbucks Corp. fired 900 corporate employees in September, economists hardly batted an eye. After all, the coffee chain had already done a February culling as part of new management’s drive to get the Frappuccino maker back on track. In October, Target Corp. eliminated 1,800 roles to help the beleaguered retailer move faster. For each corporate cutback, there’s been a clear explanation: Amazon.com (14,000 corporate jobs) blamed artificial intelligence; Paramount (1,000 workers) just completed a merger; Molson Coors (400 jobs) can’t get carb-conscious consumers to drink enough beer.

Separately, each announcement can be read as a one-off. Yet taken together, some economists worry that the recent spate of cuts is starting to look a little less like individual belt-tightening and more like a warning sign.

Layoffs were up in 2024, and now they are up again in 2025.

Because most Americans are just barely scraping by from month to month, many of those that are losing their jobs are at risk of losing everything.

In this very difficult economic environment, it should be no surprise that vehicle repossessions are expected to hit a level that we haven’t seen since the Great Recession…

Car repossessions are booming as Americans increasingly struggle to pay.

The number of seized cars hit a 14-year high of 2.7 million in 2024, according to data from the Recovery Database Network (RDN), which processes around 90pc of all requests from lenders for repossessions.

Kevin Armstrong, editor of CU Repossession, an industry publication, expects the total will hit three million this year based on current trends, only just shy of the 3.2 million peak seen in 2009.

Things are bad, and 57 percent of Americans expect economic conditions to get even worse next year.

Unfortunately, I think that most Americans are still way too optimistic about what is ahead.

There is no “quick fix” that is going to turn things around, because our system is fundamentally broken.

We consume far more than we produce, a very large percentage of the population has become dependent on the government, and no nation in the entire history of the planet has accumulated as much debt as we have.

We are in far more trouble than most people realize, and the road ahead is not going to be pleasant.

Food Banks All Over The U.S. Are Being Overwhelmed By A Tsunami Of Hungry People

November 4, 2025 by Michael

As grocery prices have risen, demand at food banks throughout the country has surged to very alarming levels. At the end of 2024, I wrote about how demand at food banks had risen to record levels all over the United States. Unfortunately, demand has continued to rise in 2025, and now the government shutdown has shifted America’s hunger crisis into overdrive. Millions of very hungry people are showing up at food banks looking for something to eat, and resources are being stretched to the limit.

There is no area of the nation that is not being affected by this crisis.

For example, it is being reported that food banks in Iowa are experiencing “record demand” during this government shutdown…

Food pantries across Iowa are seeing record demand as families wait for the federal government to restore their food assistance benefits.

So what does “record demand” look like?

Well, at one food bank in Iowa they are serving about twice as many people as usual…

While families wait, many are turning to food pantries for help. At WayPoint Resources in Waukee, the line for food stretched out the door Monday.

“We just opened at noon today. And already in that first hour, we saw double the number of people that we normally see,” said Melissa Stimple, the center’s executive director.

We are seeing similar things happen in other parts of the nation too.

In southwest Texas, one network of food banks is now serving nearly 170,000 people per week…

Eric Cooper, president and CEO of San Antonio Food Bank, which serves 29 counties in southwest Texas, said the number of families seeking help has increased since it was first announced that there would be a disruption in SNAP benefits should the government shutdown continue.

Cooper said San Antonio Food Bank, which is part of the nonprofit organization Feeding America, typically feeds 105,000 to 120,000 people per week but is now seeing close to 170,000 people per week.

When you suddenly go from serving 120,000 people per week to serving 170,000 people per week, it is going to be very difficult to have enough food for everyone.

Often those at the end of food bank lines end up with nothing, and that is why so many people are lining up early.

On Monday, the line at one Bay Area food bank “stretched all the way down the sidewalk”…

On Monday, in a parking lot of Contra Costa College in San Pablo, the line for food stretched all the way down the sidewalk.

“We’re expecting at least 500 families to come out to our distribution,” said program coordinator Geo Dinoso.

When he opened the food line, the crowd was a little hard to believe, but for Dinoso, not very surprising.

In Detroit, “dozens of cars” were “lined around the block” yesterday morning…

On Detroit’s east side, dozens of cars lined around the block at Forgotten Harvest’s Jermaine Jackson Academy drive-thru food pantry Monday morning. It was the location’s first time operating since SNAP funding lapsed this month.

Kim Lewis, who runs the site, said her group faced cold weather and rain to serve more than 250 families.

The “higher demand” was clear – volunteers described cars waiting along Gratiot Avenue hours before the pantry’s opening. Forty minutes after the site closed, the group was still loading up cars, only stopping after supplies depleted.

In Colorado, approximately 100 vehicles were lined up at a food bank in Greeley before the doors were even opened…

About 100 cars lined up along H Street near Weld Food Bank in Greeley on Monday morning before the organization opened its doors, their drivers and passengers waiting to pick up food on the third day of a lapse in funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Staff and volunteers worked through a typical lunch break to meet demand, maneuvering shopping carts full of food to their awaiting recipients. By the end of the day, the food bank served about 2,200 people, according to Weston Edmunds, the food bank’s director of marketing and communications.

This is what our country looks like now.

Millions of formerly middle class Americans are now in desperate need of food.

I have been ranting about the destruction of the middle class for years, but a lot of people out there didn’t take me seriously.

Now look at what has happened.

If you think that we are facing this crisis just because of the current government shutdown, you are way off.

One food bank in Dayton, Ohio was experiencing a dramatic spike in demand “long before the shutdown ever happened”…

Howard said the increased need at the Pantry started long before the shutdown ever happened, and it’s only gotten worse as a result.

“Year to date we’re 30% higher than last year. This week alone we signed up 23 new families,” she said.

The Pantry served 18,000 people in 2024, 60% of whom which were adults over 60 years old and children under 18.

As I have carefully documented, hunger has been rising in the United States for years.

And now we are rapidly getting to a point where there simply will not be enough food for everyone.

On Monday, large numbers of people lined up to get some food at a facility in Portland. Unfortunately, those that were waiting at the end of the line faced the possibility of ending up with nothing because there just wasn’t enough food…

The situation has led to unprecedented demand at local food providers, such as the Blanchet House in Northwest Portland, where lines stretched two blocks on Monday morning as people waited in the rain for a meal.

Julia Showers, communications director for the Blanchet House, noted the unusual demand: “We’re seeing lines, historic lines. Our staff had to go out before we closed the doors and just let everyone know that we have to get a line here. Some people might not get a plate.”

The longer this government shutdown continues, the worse things will get.

The same thing could be said about our air traffic crisis.

According to ABC News, the U.S. Department of Transportation “might be forced to shut down the airspace in certain parts of the country if the government shutdown continues into next week”…

The Department of Transportation might be forced to shut down the airspace in certain parts of the country if the government shutdown continues into next week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Tuesday.

“So if, if you bring us to a week from today, Democrats, you will see mass chaos,” he said. “You will see mass flight delays. You’ll see mass cancelations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it because we don’t have the air traffic controllers.”

We have never seen anything quite like this before.

Air traffic controllers are required to work without pay through the government shutdown, but vast numbers of them are choosing not to show up for work…

Nearly 50% of all major air traffic control facilities face staffing shortages, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Air traffic controllers are required to work without pay for the duration of the shutdown.

About 13,000 air traffic controllers are currently working without pay, according to the FAA. On Friday, the agency said that 80% of New York area staff had called out.

Hopefully the government shutdown will be resolved soon and air traffic will return to normal.

But even if the government shutdown ends, America’s growing food crisis is not going to go away.

Food prices will continue to rise, and global food supplies are just going to continue to get even tighter.

There are multiple long-term trends that are playing havoc with global food production.

I warned that this would result in higher food prices in wealthy western nations, and that is precisely what has transpired.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

We are going to continue to lose valuable top soil, fertilizer prices will continue to spike, weather patterns are only going to get crazier, and our planet will continue to become increasingly unstable.

On top of everything else, we continue to poison our air, our water and our soil in countless ways.

There is only one way that all of this is going to end, and I don’t have to tell you that it isn’t going to be pretty.

Will Payment Of 50 Percent Of Food Stamp Benefits Be Enough To Keep Widespread Rioting And Looting From Breaking Out?

November 3, 2025November 3, 2025 by Michael

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? The good news is that 50 percent of food stamp benefits will be paid out during the month of November. The bad news is that a lot of food stamp recipients are still extremely angry. Food stamp protests are already starting to happen, videos are being posted on social media that show people how to take groceries right out the front door of a Walmart, and one woman is claiming that “everyone was stealing” when she visited her local grocery store. Of course if you live in an area where food stamp use is very low, conditions may seem perfectly normal. It just depends on where you live. Hopefully the government shutdown will be resolved very soon, because if we get to a point where no more food stamp money is coming from Washington at all things could get really crazy.

On Monday, we learned that the Trump administration has agreed to use 4.6 billion dollars in a contingency fund to “cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments” in the month of November…

In a declaration submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, Patrick Penn, a Department of Agriculture official who oversees SNAP, said the administration “intends to deplete SNAP contingency funds completely and provide reduced SNAP benefits for November 2025.”

There is roughly $4.6 billion in the contingency fund that can be used to cover November benefit payments, according to Penn. Officials have said fully covering those benefits would require roughly $9 billion. The $4.6 billion will be used to “cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments,” Penn said.

Will this be enough to stop widespread rioting and looting from breaking out this month?

I hope so.

But we are already seeing lots of videos on social media that allegedly show people stealing food from grocery stores.

If food stamp recipients start receiving some money, that could help settle things down. Unfortunately, we are being warned that it may take some states “weeks” or even “months” to distribute reduced benefit amounts…

In his declaration with the court in Rhode Island, USDA official Patrick Penn said that getting SNAP benefits into the hands of recipients could face delays, since states will have to rework their systems to provide partial payments.

“Given the variation among State systems, some of which are decades old, it is unclear how many States will complete the changes in an automated manner with minimal disruption versus manual overrides or computations that could lead to payment errors and significant delays,” Penn wrote.

He added: “For at least some States, USDA’s understanding is that the system changes States must implement to provide the reduced benefit amounts will take anywhere from a few weeks to up to several months.”

This is yet another example of how incompetent government agencies have become.

How long does it take to calculate a 50 percent reduction in benefits?

This isn’t exactly rocket science.

There could be millions of food stamp recipients that have to wait for an extended period of time for their reduced November benefits, and that certainly isn’t going to make them very happy.

Meanwhile, the USDA has specifically warned grocery stores that they must not give special discounts to food stamp recipients…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has told grocery stores not to give special discounts to around 42 million Americans who use food stamps.

An email sent by the department to stores, posted on X by Catherine Rampell, co-host of MSNBC’s The Weekend, said: “You cannot treat SNAP-EBT customers differently than any other customer.”

Was that really necessary?

There are a lot of people out there that are really hurting right now.

Yes, it is certainly true that there are some that choose to abuse the system.

For example, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins just admitted that thousands upon thousands of people have been illegally using food stamps…

“We have found thousands and thousands of illegal use of the EBT card, we have been moving people off of SNAP, we’ve got about 700,000 people that we’ve moved off SNAP since the president took office, and we’ve arrested about 118 people,” Rollins said.

She added that investigators also discovered about 5,000 dead people who were still receiving benefits.

There should be consequences for abusing the system.

I think that is something that we should all be able to agree on.

One woman posted a video in which she claimed that she actually gets $4,194 in food stamp benefits each month.

I have no idea how she is able to get that much money.

Is she telling the government that she has 12 kids or something?

People like that ruin the system for everyone else.

There really are millions of Americans that do not have enough food to eat every month, and the food stamp program is an important lifeline for them.

Unfortunately for them, it does not appear that this government shutdown is going to end any time soon.

During an interview with CBS News, President Trump explained that the government shutdown will finally end when the Democrats decide to give up…

“I’m not going to do it by being extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way,” Mr. Trump said. “There’s something wrong with these people.”

Mr. Trump said he believes that Democrats will eventually capitulate and vote to end the shutdown.

“And if they don’t vote, that’s their problem,” he said.

I don’t think that the Democrats are going to give up for quite a while.

I think that the Democrats feel like they have an opportunity to turn the political mood in this country in their favor.

So for now, millions of food stamp recipients will just have to stretch their meals as far as they can…

Christophe Niyibizi, 67, said he and his wife had begun limiting themselves to one full meal each day, in midafternoon, to try and make their food last longer. After spending $14 on Saturday for a few groceries, he had $83 remaining — and no way of knowing if his next monthly benefit would show up as scheduled in 10 days.

Placing his small grocery bag into his car, Mr. Niyibizi shrugged and smiled when asked if he felt hungry. A U.S. citizen who immigrated to the United States from the Democratic Republic of the Congo a dozen years ago, he recalled how he had prayed, while still in Africa, that he would make it to America one day.

“This country is a good country, 100 percent,” he said. “This is the first time we’ve had this problem.”

If we get to Thanksgiving and the government shutdown has not ended, I think that things could get really wild.

But it doesn’t have to get to that stage.

If our politicians in Washington can work things out, we could potentially avoid a scenario in which we see widespread rioting and looting.

The level of anger among America’s impoverished masses is rising very quickly, and if it rises high enough we could see a very frightening explosion.

Something Just Broke – It Appears That A Liquidity Crisis Is Upon Us, And That Is Really Bad News For The Financial Markets

November 2, 2025November 2, 2025 by Michael

What is the Fed not telling us? The numbers clearly indicate that big trouble is brewing in the banking system. I wish that I could specifically tell you which banks are in the most trouble, but at this stage we simply aren’t being told anything. They probably figure that the best approach is to try to keep everyone as calm as possible. But they won’t be able to keep a lid on what is going on indefinitely, and when word finally gets out people could start to panic.

In recent weeks, bank reserves have fallen to alarmingly low levels.

In fact, last week they fell to the lowest level that we have seen in more than four years…

US bank reserves have crashed to a four-year low, plunging to about $2.8 trillion, according to the latest Federal Reserve data, sending fresh warning signals across Wall Street and Washington. The steep decline marks the second straight week reserves have stayed below $3 trillion, a critical threshold analysts say could test the banking system’s liquidity strength.

By itself, this doesn’t necessarily signal that we are facing a major crisis.

But everyone agrees that what we are witnessing is certainly unusual.

What is causing far more alarm is what occurred on Friday.

All of a sudden, there was an insane amount of demand for overnight repo cash…

Federal Reserve reportedly pumped about $29.4 billion into the markets via overnight repos.

That’s a big number and it signals something I’m watching closely. According to the data for “Overnight Repurchase Agreements — Treasury Securities Purchased by the Fed” the figure for Oct 31, 2025 is $29.400 billion.

In other words: The Fed is quietly stepping in and stepping up.

To me, this is clear evidence that something just broke.

Who suddenly needed that much cash?

And why did they need it?

The chart that I have posted below comes directly from the Federal Reserve, and it should chill you to the core…

But that wasn’t the end of it.

By the end of the day on Friday, it was quite obvious that something extremely strange had just happened…

Federal Reserve liquidity facilities caught fire on Friday as month-end pressures pushed a key lending tool to a record level of usage.

The Fed’s Standing Repo Facility lent a total of $50.35 billion on Friday to eligible financial firms in two separate availabilities, the highest-ever usage since the tool was put in place in 2021 to provide fast loans collateralized with Treasury or mortgage bonds. At the same time, financial firms also parked a considerable amount of cash on Fed books, with the reverse repo facility seeing inflows of $51.8 billion.

So what is the bottom line?

The bottom line is that it very much smells like a major crisis is brewing.

But let’s wait and see what happens on Monday.

If we see figures on Monday that are fairly normal, perhaps we have more time before things start breaking loose in the markets.

However, if we see even larger numbers on Monday, hold on tight.

In either case, the financial markets will not be able to stay disconnected from the real economy forever.

Just like in 2008 and 2009, large employers all over the United States have been conducting mass layoffs. Sadly, this time around that includes some of our largest and most prosperous employers…

The Trump administration offered buyouts to the entire federal workforce this year, aiming to reduce it by as much as 10%. Roughly 75,000 workers accepted. More recently, Amazon, UPS and Target all announced private-sector layoffs.

Buyouts can sound tempting. A five-figure severance package might be the most money a worker has ever seen in one paycheck. But it’s also the last paycheck your employer will give you.

We haven’t seen anything like this in many years.

Bankruptcies are soaring, delinquency rates are spiking, thousands of stores and restaurants are permanently shutting their doors, and just about everything just keeps getting more expensive.

What we are now facing is being described as “Depression 2.0”.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning and most of the population understands this.

In fact, one recent survey discovered that 57 percent of Americans expect economic conditions to get even worse over the next year.

Many of you are going to be facing some very hard decisions in the coming months.

If you currently have a job that you highly value, I would recommend holding on to it as tightly as you can.

But if you feel that it is absolutely necessary to go somewhere else, you will just have to do what you have to do.

Just understand that if you leave your current position it will not be easy to find a new one at all.

In 2008 and 2009, millions of Americans lost their jobs.

Many of them didn’t have anything to fall back on, and so large numbers of them also lost their homes.

This is one of the reasons why it is so critical to have a sizable emergency fund. At this point, even the mainstream media is stressing the importance of this…

Most people live paycheck to paycheck, and when the economy crashes, that leaves no room to breathe. Having three to six months of essential expenses tucked away can make all the difference when cash flow dries up or jobs disappear overnight.

Keep your emergency savings in an easily accessible account, not tied up in volatile investments. It’s not about hoarding—it’s about buying time and peace of mind. When others panic, you’ll have the stability to make smart, calm decisions.

I expect things to start moving very quickly now.

If the problems in our banking system bubble to the surface and start becoming highly visible, it will create a lot of fear.

And it is just a matter of time before our absurdly overvalued stock market takes a dramatic tumble.

Of course all of this is happening at a time when so many other elements of “the Perfect Storm” are coming together.

We are right on the brink of multiple major wars, global food supplies are rapidly getting tighter, we are being told that the next worldwide pandemic could break out at any moment, and on average the U.S. has been getting hit by a “billion dollar disaster” about every two weeks.

I expect so much chaos to be unleashed during the weeks ahead, and that means that we should expect the turmoil that we are currently witnessing on Wall Street to escalate quite a bit more.

57 Percent Of Americans Expect The Economy To Get Even Worse Than It Is Right Now

October 31, 2025October 31, 2025 by Michael

After many years of steady economic deterioration, a very dark cloud of economic pessimism hangs over our country. The cost of just about everything has been rising faster than paychecks have been, thousands of stores are closing all over the nation, and large corporations are conducting mass layoffs on a scale that we haven’t seen since the Great Recession. Most of the population is just barely scraping by in this very harsh economic environment, and I have been hearing from so many people that are quite frightened about what is going to happen next.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just a small segment of the population is that is scared about the future.

According to a survey that was recently conducted by Deloitte, a whopping 57 percent of U.S. adults expect the U.S. economy to get even weaker during the year ahead…

As the peak holiday shopping season approaches, most U.S. consumers have a downbeat outlook on the economy, according to an annual Deloitte survey published Wednesday.

Most consumers surveyed — 57% — said they expect the economy to weaken in the year ahead, the consulting firm found in a poll of roughly 4,000 respondents. That compares with 30% who expected a weaker economy ahead of the year-ago holiday season and 54% in 2008, one of the years of the Great Recession.

It marks the most negative economic outlook since Deloitte began tracking that in 1997.

Read that last sentence again.

Americans were not even this pessimistic during the dark days of 2008 and 2009.

That is stunning.

As we move into the month of November, there was a tremendous amount of concern that food stamp benefits were about to be cut off.

But two federal judges just ruled that the federal government must use an emergency fund to keep food stamp payments going…

Two federal judges said Friday that the Trump administration must tap into billions of dollars in emergency funds to at least partially cover food stamp benefits for tens of millions of Americans in November.

The rulings from judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island reject a controversial US Department of Agriculture claim that it could not use a contingency fund, which the agency says has $5.3 billion remaining in it, to help cover the benefits amid the month-long government shutdown.

The SNAP program costs roughly $9 billion a month, so the orders will not cover all of the needed payments for November.

The emergency fund does not have enough money to pay full benefits for the month of November, but at least those that are relying on food stamps should be able to get some money this month.

Meanwhile, those that purchase health insurance through the ACA exchanges are about to be hit with absolutely massive premium hikes…

Congress has yet to extend the enhanced subsidies that make insurance premiums cheaper for about 22 million of the 24 million Americans who buy insurance over the ACA exchanges.

Recipients’ health premiums are set to increase by 114% in 2026, on average, without the enhanced subsidies, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.

Of course those that don’t get their health insurance through the ACA exchanges are being hit by dramatically higher health insurance premiums too.

Our system is deeply broken and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

For those that simply cannot afford health insurance at this point, my advice is very simple.

Try not to get sick.

Because if you do get sick, they will try to squeeze every single penny out of you that they possibly can.

In fact, just about every industry is trying to squeeze as much out of us as they possibly can, and we are just about squeezed out at this point.

And now here come more layoffs.

On Wednesday, General Motors announced that it will be laying off a large number of workers as we head into the holiday season…

General Motors (GM) said Wednesday it is laying off 1,750 workers indefinitely in the coming months and temporarily cutting 1,670 others as it scales back electric vehicle production.

The Detroit-based automaker said it is scaling back production plans and realigning electric vehicle capacity at Factory Zero, its flagship electric vehicle assembly plant in Michigan, in response to the slower near-term electic vehicle adoption and an evolving regulatory environment.

In a regulatory filing from earlier this month, the automaker indicated it would incur a $1.6 billion loss for the third quarter of 2025 that is connected to a plan to scale back or adjust its electric vehicle production and factories.

A few days ago, I listed a bunch of other major corporations that are also conducting mass layoffs.

We haven’t seen anything like this since the Great Recession.

Of course some areas of the country are already experiencing recession conditions.

According to Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics, the list of states that have fallen on hard times is rapidly growing…

According to Zandi, the following states are in a recession:

Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Kansas, Massachusetts, Washington, Georgia, New Hampshire, Maryland, Rhode Island, Illinois, Delaware, Virginia, Oregon, Connecticut, South Dakota, New Jersey, Maine, Iowa, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

It’s more sobering news for the economy, as last week U.S. hiring plans fell to their lowest level since 2009.

And just like we witnessed during the Great Recession, home values are taking a very alarming turn…

Of the 20 major metros tracked by Case-Shiller, nine recorded outright price declines, while 13 rose more slowly than the national average.

‘August’s data shows US home prices continuing to slow,’ Nicholas Godec, head of fixed income tradables and commodities at S&P Dow Jones Indices, told Realtor.com.

‘For the fourth straight month, home values have lost ground to inflation, meaning homeowners are seeing their real wealth decline even as nominal prices inch higher.’

Florida and Texas were hit hardest. Tampa saw the steepest drop — down 3.3 percent year-on-year — and has now notched ten straight months of falling prices.

I believe that we have reached a very significant turning point.

In some areas of the nation, I expect that home prices will fall substantially during the months ahead.

I also expect foreclosures to surge like they did in 2008 and 2009 as many more Americans lose their jobs.

The U.S. economy eventually recovered from the horrifying days of 2008 and 2009, but the truth is that we are moving into a much different scenario this time around.

All of the elements of “the Perfect Storm” are coming together, and I am convinced that the months ahead will be extremely chaotic.

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