The Economic Collapse

5 Signs That The Housing Market Will Be Deeply Frozen For The Foreseeable Future

Michael — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 17:39:07 +0000

The housing market in the United States has never been more paralyzed than it is right now. For years, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates at artificially low levels, and during that time most homeowners in this country were able to lock in fixed mortgage rates that were extremely low. Now that mortgage rates are soaring, many of those same homeowners feel trapped because selling would also mean getting a mortgage on a new home at a much higher rate. Meanwhile, most prospective homeowners feel like they are on the outside looking in because a combination of ridiculously high prices and painfully high mortgage rates has made homes more unaffordable than ever before.

There are only two ways that the housing market will get unfrozen.

Either mortgage rates have to come way down or home prices have to come way down.

Of course neither of those two things is likely to happen any time soon.

So we have a real mess on our hands.

The following are 5 signs that the housing market will be deeply frozen for the foreseeable future…

#1 Pending home sales are trending in the wrong direction very rapidly. According to the NAR, pending home sales were 11.3 percent lower in September 2026 than they were in September 2025…

Fast-rising mortgage rates in September took a harsh toll on the housing market, according to new monthly data released today.

Pending home sales, a measure of signed contracts on existing homes, dropped 7.3% from August and were down 11.3% year-over-year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

This count reflects buyers out shopping in September, when the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose sharply. It started the month around 6.8% and hit 7.6% by the end of the month, according to Mortgage News Daily.

This isn’t just a downturn.

This is a historic disaster.

At this point, pending home sales have fallen to the lowest level on record…

#2 Just like we witnessed just prior to the Great Recession, foreclosure filings are way up. In the month of August, they were a whopping 13 percent higher than last year…

ATTOM’s August report showed 40,277 properties with foreclosure filings, up 13 percent from a year earlier. Foreclosure starts rose 7 percent. Completed bank repossessions jumped 42 percent to 5,794 homes. South Carolina, Nevada, Florida, Texas, and Maryland posted the highest rates.

#3 We desperately need more homes to be built, but home construction numbers are just dismal. Last month, single family housing starts and building permits were both down a lot more than the experts were anticipating…

Home construction also took a hit in September. Both single-family housing starts and building permits fell much more sharply than analysts had predicted. Starts were down 4.56% to 859,000 annualized, according to the U.S. Census. That is the lowest level since September 2025. Building permits, which are a measure of future construction, fell 4% for the month.

#4 Homebuilders are not optimistic about the future at all. In fact, homebuilder confidence just dropped to the lowest level in 14 years…

The mood among America’s homebuilders is grim.

Homebuilder sentiment fell three points to 29 in October, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index.

October’s reading marks the lowest homebuilder sentiment the US has seen since June 2012, the NAHB said, when the housing market was still moving through the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. It shows just how much builders have soured on the housing landscape amid rising costs and a record-breaking slowdown in home sales.

#5 The housing market has already been in a depressed state for an extended period of time, and now economist Jim Paulsen is warning that his “Walmart Recession Signal” is peaking just like it did before the start of the Great Recession…

Economist Jim Paulsen calls his theory the “Walmart Recession Signal” (WRS). When Walmart’s stock goes up and shares of luxury companies in the S&P Global Luxury Index go down, it’s a sign that the country may be headed for a recession.

“As economic activity slows and recession risk builds, retailing purchasing patterns tend to gravitate toward discounters like Walmart and away from overall or luxury retailers,” Paulsen wrote in a Substack post Monday. “Consequently, a rise in the WRS could warn of a potential recession or at least a significant economic slowdown.”

And that warning is getting louder, he said. Just as it did before the Great Recession and two recessions in the 90s, the WRS is peaking.

What we are experiencing now reminds me so much of the middle of 2008.

Except this time around those on the bottom rungs of the economic food chain are in far worse shape.

As I discussed the other day, 44 percent of all Americans struggle to even pay for the basic necessities each month.

And millions upon millions of Americans are now living either on the streets or in their vehicles.

For example, in the Bronx there is a very long corridor known as the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” where large numbers of homeless Americans have been living in “old RVs, trailers and trucks”…

Residents along an unsightly stretch of the Bronx are fed up with an eyesore corridor where the homeless have been bedding down in old RVs, trailers and trucks for years, The Post has learned.

The “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” along a section of Webster Avenue has been a headache for locals for at least two years — but the desperate folks calling the rundown vehicles home said they were driven to a bare-bones existence by the Big Apple’s sky-high rents.

These people aren’t living there because they want to live there.

These people are living there because they can’t afford a real home…

Those people told The Post they were driven to live in RVs and trucks by the city’s rents — which left them a choice between the streets, risky city shelters or the vehicles they now call home.

“We need housing,” said Rita Freeman, who said she’s lived in her RV since last November. “I mean, this is absurd. This is bizarre. There’s so many of us.

“I went into hotels, I maxed out my credit card for the first time since I had it since 1994,” she added. “Because I did not want to go to a shelter or the street. It’s very dangerous.”

This is happening all over the nation.

Every single day, even more Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty.

We need affordable homes, but the housing market is not properly responding to market forces any longer because the Federal Reserve’s insane policies have thrown everything out of whack.

It has been said that if you play stupid games, you should expect to win stupid prizes.

Sadly, the Federal Reserve has been playing stupid games for a very long time.

Foolish actions have foreseeable and predictable consequences.

Now we are reaping what they have sown, and there will be no easy way to fix this mess.

There is a reason why I have been ranting about the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades.

The choices that they make have a very real impact on all of us.

Now we are steamrolling toward a major economic downturn, and they are actually thinking of raising rates again.

So much pain is ahead, and much of it could have been easily avoided.

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.

The post 5 Signs That The Housing Market Will Be Deeply Frozen For The Foreseeable Future appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

We Are Facing A Global Energy Crisis, A Global Food Crisis, A European Financial Crisis, The End Of The AI Bubble And A Super El Niño All At Once

Michael — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 17:45:25 +0000

We have never seen a year quite like 2026, and we are certainly not prepared for what is coming in 2027. There has never been a time when we haven’t had problems, but now we have entered an era when we are just getting hammered by crisis after crisis after crisis. At the moment, we are simultaneously facing an unprecedented global energy crisis, an unprecedented global food crisis, an epic meltdown in Europe, the end of the biggest financial bubble in history and the most powerful Super El Niño ever recorded. To say that we have a lot on our plate would be a massive understatement, and what we have experienced so far is only just the beginning.

For a few months a decent amount of oil was sneaking through the Strait of Hormuz, but now Iran is trying to slam the door shut.

The Iranians have been attacking more oil tankers than ever before this month, and earlier today yet another oil tanker hit an Iranian naval mine…

A violating oil tanker struck a naval mine in the southern Strait of Hormuz, causing an explosion and a fire in its engine room, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps Navy said in a statement.

The vessel, which was trying to exit the Strait of Hormuz, had switched off all its positioning and navigation systems from the start of its voyage and was attempting to cross the unauthorized southern route of the strait in disregard of its regulations when the incident occurred.

The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps Navy said any ships in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf that turn off their navigation and identification systems will be dealt with severely and decisively.

The southern route through the Strait of Hormuz near the coast of Oman used to be clear of mines.

Not anymore.

Every time a single oil tanker is put out of commission that is a major loss.

A new oil tanker costs somewhere between $60 million and $140 million, and once an order is placed it takes 9 to 15 months to build it.

Investors are starting to realize that the global energy crisis is not going to end any time soon, and on Monday the price of Brent crude nearly hit 110 dollars a barrel…

Brent crude futures briefly tagged $109.99 a barrel in overnight trading before retreating from five-month highs during the Asian session and into European trading, as signs of recovering Middle Eastern supply offset renewed attacks on energy infrastructure and critical maritime shipping lanes.

Of course Iran is not able to export much oil either, because the U.S. naval blockade is having a devastating impact on their economy…

In a video message posted on Friday, U.S. Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper said the naval blockade has prevented Iran from exporting at least $25 billion worth of crude oil. The U.S. and its partners have also frozen nearly $350 million cryptocurrency assets, he added.

The effects have rippled throughout Iran’s economy, forcing the regime to withhold salaries, pensions, and benefits to workers in the energy, manufacturing, construction and security sectors, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Cooper said.

“The financial strain on Iran’s military has become so significant that there are reports of Iran-aligned militia groups across the region withholding payments to their soldiers in order to funnel money back to the IRGC, which also is not paying its troops,” he explained. “The Islamic regime is clearly feeling the economic pain, and the IRGC is increasingly showing signs of greater desperation as a result.”

What we really need is for the war in the Middle East to end.

But that isn’t going to happen.

In fact, it appears that it could soon greatly escalate.

The fighting in the Middle East has also really driven up fertilizer prices.

Farmers all over the world are paying far more for fertilizer and far more for fuel, and those costs are going to get passed along to everyone else.

Global food prices increased by 13 percent during the third quarter of 2026, and we are being warned that even higher prices are ahead…

Global agricultural prices jumped 13 percent in the third quarter of the year, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which warned a “global food crisis is looming”.

The surge in energy prices due to conflict in the Middle East has sparked a sharp increase in the cost of fertilisers and fuel this year, driving up agricultural production and transport costs.

“Over the next six to nine months, we will see continued increases related to food prices, but also I would say even inflation in terms of food, which will impact most of the populations that actually can afford it less,” IFAD President Alvaro Lario told AFP in an interview on Tuesday.

When food prices go up, more people go hungry.

That is just the way that it works.

The outlook for 2027 is extremely grim, and we are already at a point where the number of people in the world experiencing acute hunger has doubled over the past ten years…

Acute hunger has doubled over the last ten years and now affects 266 million people across 47 countries and territories, according to a new report from Action Against Hunger.

But at least the wealthy countries will be fine, right?

Actually, they won’t be fine at all.

We have been witnessing horrifying riots in France, Belgium, Italy and Albania in recent days.

The rioting has been particularly intense in France, and on Monday French stocks were way down…

French markets tumbled on Monday, with bonds, Paris-listed stocks and even the euro falling after widespread protests across France underscored difficulties the government faces in reducing its large deficit.

Already contending with weak growth and ballooning debt, the euro zone’s second-biggest economy witnessed some of its worst unrest in years over the weekend. Thousands of people were arrested and shops were looted during protests over high prices and declining public services.

France just kept borrowing gigantic amounts of money year after year, and currently they are absolutely drowning in debt.

Now French bond prices are crashing hard and everyone is freaking out…

A slide in bond prices on Monday pushed France’s 10-year yield up 13 basis points to 4.9%, on track for its largest one-day rise since late September, while the German 10-year yield, the benchmark for the euro zone, rose 4 bps to 3.45%.

The difference between those two yields, which is a reflection of the premium investors demand to lend to France rather than Germany, was 146 bps, its highest in two weeks, though it has eased from the nearly 160 bps hit in early October.

French banks are facing nightmarish unrealized losses on the French bonds that they are holding.

If there is a run on the banks, we are being warned that many of them could start collapsing as a result of this crisis.

I certainly wouldn’t want my money in French banks at this stage.

Germany is in a lot of trouble too.

The German economy has been in stall mode for years, bond yields have been rising, and even Volkswagen has fallen on hard times…

In another episode of the “death of Europe,” a new report from Germany brings more troubling news for struggling automaker Volkswagen, suggesting to us that globalists in the bloc have squandered not just their inheritance but their economic future through a failing progressive experiment that has neutered Europe’s industrial base.

German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reports that Volkswagen plans to freeze salaries through the end of the decade as it expands its cost-cutting push after lowering its outlook and doubling its job-reduction target.

“Internal documents reveal that hundreds of thousands of employees are to forgo pay raises. These latest plans represent a further escalation in the conflict between management and employee representatives,” SZ wrote in the article.

Germany, France, Italy and Spain are supposed to be the pillars of the European Union.

Unfortunately, all of them are currently on shaky ground.

This is a story that is still in the early chapters, and I am convinced that the whole world will be shocked by what is about to happen to Europe.

Meanwhile, the AI bubble in the U.S. is beginning to burst.

Many AI stocks have fallen substantially this month.

Investors are starting to realize that AI will never be the income-generating miracle that it was touted to be at one time.

So now there is a lot more hesitancy to fund new data center projects, and some projects are either being delayed or canceled…

More than three years into the AI boom, these ambitious data centre plans are running into reality. At least 47 large projects have been delayed, withdrawn or blocked in 2026, according to data shared by RegLayer, a regulatory intelligence company, which described it as a “conservative estimate” focused on the largest sites.

When there is a stock market bubble, you only get rich if you get out at the top.

Those that hold their AI stocks all the way to the bitter end are going to end up deeply, deeply disappointed.

On top of everything else that I have discussed in this article, we are also facing a Super El Niño.

According to the NOAA, there is an 83 percent chance that this will be the most powerful El Niño ever recorded…

As of October, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts there is an 83 per cent chance that this will be the strongest El Niño since records began in 1950.

Meanwhile, NASA’s satellite measurements show that sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific are currently 1.7°C (3°F) above the long–term average, and could jump another fraction of a degree higher in the coming months.

This band of warm water expanded throughout the spring and now covers millions of square miles in an area stretching from the coast of South America to the heart of the Pacific.

In some parts of the world, this Super El Niño has caused monster storms.

In other parts of the world, this Super El Niño has caused crippling droughts and widespread crop failures.

Sadly, this Super El Niño is expected to persist well into 2027.

That is not good news at all.

At the same time, the global energy crisis and the global food crisis are both going to continue to intensify as we roll into next year.

We really are in the midst of a “perfect storm”, and I anticipate that global financial markets will go totally nuts in the months ahead.

The post We Are Facing A Global Energy Crisis, A Global Food Crisis, A European Financial Crisis, The End Of The AI Bubble And A Super El Niño All At Once appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

What Is Happening In France Will Also Happen Here In The United States Too

Michael — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 18:08:26 +0000

The same alliance that is doing it in France will also bring rioting, looting and civil unrest to the United States as well. It is known as “the Red/Green alliance”, and their shared goal is “revolution” all over the western world. Right now we are witnessing an unprecedented tactical convergence between far-left/Marxist movements (“red”) and radical Islamist groups (“green”), and this should deeply alarm all of us. Ultimately, the long-term goals of far-left organizations are much different from the long-term goals of the radical Islamists. But they both deeply hate the same people, and they both want to see the established order overthrown. So for now they are allies of convenience, and they are not afraid to use violence to achieve what they want.

It is certainly true that a relentless cost of living crisis that stretches all the way back to the beginning of this decade is causing immense economic distress both here in the United States and all over the western world. The far left and radical Islamists are attempting to use this economic turmoil to help fuel their anti-government riots.

What we are witnessing in France is a perfect example of this.

It is being estimated that 550,000 people participated in the riots on Saturday, including 110,000 in the Paris metro area alone…

Chaos exploded across France on Saturday as 550,000 protesters flooded the streets, torched cars and buildings, looted from posh stores including Louis Vuitton and Hermès, and even threatened to storm the Élysée Palace—prompting a defiant President Emmanuel Macron to rage: “Let them come and get me!”

In Paris alone, an estimated 110,000 demonstrators took to the streets, with masked protestors backed by the country’s far-left opposition leader smashing storefronts, targeting luxury business and confronting riot police armed with tear gas and water cannons.

The mainstream media tried to frame the riots as “mostly peaceful protests”, but everyone could clearly see that was not true at all.

Many of the rioters seemed to revel in the destruction that they were causing.

In one particularly disturbing incident, a historic town hall that had somehow survived both world wars was purposely set on fire…

The iconic Limoges Town Hall, which was built in 1883 and survived both world wars, came tumbling down in a blaze after it was torched by rioters in the south-west of France.

A video seen by 1.4 million people on X showed the building, which played a significant role in the French Resistance during the Second World War, collapsing, with its bell tower engulfed in flames.

So where were the police?

They were on the run.

The rioters vastly outnumbered them, and one official described the chaos in the streets as “apocalyptic”…

‘It was apocalyptic,’ a senior commander told Sunday’s Le Parisien newspaper. ‘Law enforcement was unable to contain the multitude of simultaneous attacks occurring across the country, and was quickly overwhelmed by determined protesters.’

Explaining how a number of districts fell into ‘the hands of rioters’, the source said ‘there weren’t enough personnel or ammunition.’

The ‘apocalyptic rioting’ followed intense violence in recent weeks which saw gangs of agitators taking part in running battles with the forces of law and order.

Of course whenever there is rioting, there will also be looting.

In Paris, very large groups of “masked men wearing black hoodies” were grabbing whatever they could get their hands on…

Smashing shop windows and snatching boxes of goods, looters in Paris poured into stores across the capital on Saturday, facing no resistance from authorities as nationwide protests degenerated into violence.

Crowds of masked men wearing black hoodies yanked at metal store shutters until they gave way, clearing shelves of cigarettes, sunglasses, clothes, jewellery and food.

It appears that in many cases the looting was not spontaneous at all.

In fact, it appears that some groups of looters were “highly organized”…

According to AFP, some looting appeared highly organized. Groups of approximately six young men, wearing masks and gloves, approached stores and first disconnected their security cameras. Only then did they smash the windows, break into the premises and steal merchandise. The businesses targeted included supermarkets, pharmacies, luxury boutiques, clothing stores, electronics retailers, cosmetics shops and opticians. In Paris, footage showed looters stripping mobile phone stores of their merchandise and throwing products to accomplices waiting outside.

One widely circulated video, said to have been filmed in Paris, showed a woman desperately trying to stop masked looters from breaking into a supermarket. “Why are you doing this?” she shouted as the intruders pushed through the entrance. One initially placed a hand on her back, apparently trying to move her aside gently, but others surged forward and forced their way into the store. “Stop! That’s not the point!” she cried as she was pushed away. Her appeals failed to stop the looting.

This is what the far left does.

They riot, loot and commit acts of random violence.

The largest far left party in France knew what would happen, but they publicly backed the “protests” anyway…

The disorder is backed by the far-left opposition leader La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party. Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is second in the polls for next year’s presidential elections, which take place in six months.

Mélenchon blamed the authorities for blocking protesters from reaching Place de la République in Paris, which he said had been designated as the start of the protest.

It would be bad enough for leaders of France Unbowed to openly encourage the rioters.

But the truth is that many of them have also been active participants in the “protests”…

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu took a more direct approach than Macron, saying the student movement has been “instrumentalized by the allies of France Unbowed (LFI)… for electoral reasons.” The left-wing LFI’s presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, even participated in one of the Paris protests this week, while LFI councilors, deputies, and mayors have joined student blockades in multiple cities.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon wants to turn France into a communist nation.

And he is thrilled to have hordes and hordes of young Muslim radicals as his allies.

Many of those young Muslim radicals proudly carry Palestinian flags with them, and that flag has become the most visible symbol of the French riots…

“Palestinian flags were visible among demonstrators as violence spread through French cities. A municipal police station was also attacked, shops were vandalized, and riot police deployed tear gas. Storming government buildings and attacking police are acts of political violence, not peaceful protest. President Macron called for calm before the violence erupted. The question now is what his government will do to restore order,” Pamela Geller reported.

The civil unrest is far from over.

Of course it isn’t just France that has been thrown into a state of turmoil.

Yesterday, protests in Italy got quite violent…

Italian police fired tear gas at Italian protesters in the square in front of Milan’s Gothic cathedral, after rioters allegedly threw stones at officers, France 24 reported.

Protesters in Milan also gathered in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II – a luxury shopping centre. Shop owners put down their shutters and tourists appeared to flee the central area as the clashes turned violent, with the central Duomo metro station being temporarily closed.

And the riots in Albania just continue to escalate…

Thousands of young Albanians gathered outside the Education Ministry in the center of the capital Tirana on Saturday on the fifth day of a growing student-led movement ‌to force Prime Minister Edi Rama to resign.

The protest turned violent when a group of young people wearing masks hurled rocks at riot police, who responded with stun grenades, tear gas and a water cannon.

We are being told that people all over Europe are angry about the rising cost of living.

And that is true.

But it isn’t conservatives that are rioting.

It isn’t Christians that are rioting.

It is always the far left and the Muslims.

That same alliance is going to bring rioting, looting and civil unrest to the United States too.

We have seen various instances when this has occurred in recent years, but much worse is coming.

As Americans become increasingly frustrated with our seemingly endless cost of living crisis, “the Red/Green alliance” will use economic pain to stir up anger.

But rioting, looting and civil unrest is not going to fix anything.

The far left and the radical Muslims know this.

They do not intend to fix the current system.

Instead, they want “revolution” so that the current system can be completely wiped out.

The post What Is Happening In France Will Also Happen Here In The United States Too appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

44% Of Americans Have Trouble Paying For Basic Necessities And The Lifetime Cost Of The American Dream Has Risen To $5.3 Million

Michael — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:07:49 +0000

How did we get to a point where nearly half of the entire population is struggling to even pay for the most basic necessities? A lot of people talk about “economic collapse” as something that will occur someday in the future. The truth is that “economic collapse” has been slowly happening for decades as the middle class has been systematically eviscerated. It now takes 5.3 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime. Who can afford that? Most Americans aren’t even going to come close to making 5.3 million dollars during their working years. Of course in this economic environment, much of the population is just concerned with trying to survive from month to month. The cost of living crisis that has been raging for this entire decade is absolutely crushing millions upon millions of U.S. households, and now we just learned that the official inflation rate has gone up again.

If financial stress has become a major theme in your life, I want you to know that you are not alone.

According to a shocking new survey just released by the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of Americans struggle to even pay for the most basic necessities…

More than four-in-ten Americans (44%) indicate they have had trouble paying for at least one of these basic necessities in the past year

We aren’t talking about having difficulty paying the phone bill.

The survey found that an alarmingly high percentage of the population can’t even afford to pay for housing, food and medical care.

It also discovered that a whopping 27 percent of Americans can’t pay their monthly bills in full…

60% say they do not currently have enough income to lead the kind of life they want.
53% say they do not have emergency funds that would cover their expenses for three months.
27% cannot pay some of their monthly bills or can only make partial payments.
32% say they worry every day or almost every day about the cost of healthcare and the amount of debt they have.

More than a quarter of the population is getting behind on their debts.

That is what you call a crisis.

And there is no end in sight.

Most Americans don’t want to be rich.

Most Americans just want to live a middle class lifestyle like their parents did.

Unfortunately, it now costs 5.3 million dollars to live the American Dream over the course of a lifetime…

The cost of the American dream is rising at a faster pace than household earnings, driven by notable increases in the cost of homeownership, raising children and paying for college, according to a new report.

An analysis by Investopedia finds that the lifetime cost of the American dream rose 4.1% from 2025 to 2026, with the cost increasing by more than $208,000 from $5.11 million a year ago to $5.32 million this year.

Are you going to make more than 5 million dollars during your working years?

If not, you are out of luck.

Housing costs have been eroding the middle class faster than just about anything else…

Homeownership costs rose the most in dollar terms, with the lifetime cost rising by over $91,000 from $1.184 million in 2025 to $1.275 million in 2026. That rise amounts to a 7.7% increase year over year.

That figure includes a 20% down payment on a median-priced single-family home of $420,000, with a 6.32% 30-year mortgage that brings the total cost with interest to about $837,000, as well as $3,057 a year in insurance costs, property taxes and 30 years of upkeep and utilities which adds another $438,000 to the price tag.

Of course the figures quoted above no longer apply, because the average rate on a 30 year mortgage is now well over 7 percent.

So now homeownership is even more unaffordable.

And just about everything else is becoming more expensive too.

Today we learned that the official rate of inflation just went up again…

September brought little relief to the accelerating cost of living, as consumer prices increased again and kept the inflation rate well above the Federal Reserve’s goal.

The consumer price index, a broad measure of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the 12-month rate at 3.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected respective gains of 0.6% and 3.6%.

The formula that is used to calculate the official rate of inflation has been changed dozens of times since the Jimmy Carter era, and at this stage it doesn’t even come close to accurately reflecting how quickly prices are actually going up.

But the fact that even the government is admitting that inflation is rising is not good.

Soaring energy costs were the primary reason for the spike in the inflation rate…

Energy costs drove inflation in September, and high retail prices in October suggest pain at the pump will continue. Prices have soared since the Iran conflict started at the end of February.

Gasoline prices last month rose 9.1% from the prior month—a faster pace than August’s 3.9% increase—and are up 34% over the past year. Fuel-oil prices, meanwhile, are up 74% since last September.

When this inflation report was released, it really spooked investors, and bond yields spiked dramatically…

The 10-year Treasury note yield rose on Wednesday following the latest U.S. inflation print.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note — the main benchmark for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt — jumped more than 7 basis points to 5.289% and reached the highest level since Oct. 8.

The longer-dated 30-year U.S. Treasury yield — which tends to react most to geopolitical events — was up more than 3 basis points to 5.602%.

The U.S. Treasury has been working really hard to keep bond yields under control.

I think that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is going to need a bigger boat.

During most economic downturns, normally we are either facing an inflation crisis or an unemployment crisis.

This time around, it appears that we will have both.

Mass layoffs have been occurring all over the nation, and on Wednesday we learned that Netflix is joining the party…

Netflix is reportedly laying off 1,000 workers – the streaming giant’s biggest cuts since 2022.

Staff were told Wednesday that about 6% of the workforce – within product, tech, legal, and human resources teams – was being slashed, according to a memo obtained by the Post.

I thought that Netflix was doing well.

I guess not.

Kroger is another company that was once thriving, but now they have decided to give the axe to about 3,000 highly-paid corporate workers…

Kroger is planning to eliminate approximately 3,000 corporate positions over the next three years as the grocery giant expands its use of artificial intelligence and looks to cut costs, according to a report.

The planned cuts would affect roughly 37% of Kroger’s approximately 8,200 corporate employees, Reuters reported Monday, citing an internal memo from CEO Greg Foran.

The restructuring comes as Kroger faces pressure to improve sales, keep grocery prices competitive and streamline operations through increased use of AI.

Every time more highly-paid jobs are wiped out, the middle class gets even smaller.

If you still have your seat in the middle class, you should be very thankful, because more chairs are being pulled out of the game with each passing day.

The top 10 percent of all income earners are still thriving, but for almost everyone else life is a struggle.

It didn’t have to turn out this way.

Decades of insanely bad decisions have brought us to this point, and now the cost of living is the number one political issue during this campaign season by a very wide margin.

The post 44% Of Americans Have Trouble Paying For Basic Necessities And The Lifetime Cost Of The American Dream Has Risen To $5.3 Million appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Yes, Donald Trump Really Did Just Say That “An Economic Depression Much Like 1929” Could Be Coming

Michael — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 17:28:29 +0000

A lot of people may not like what Donald Trump just said about the economy, but it is accurate. As you will see below, he recently warned that we could soon be facing “an economic depression much like 1929”, and without a doubt the stage has been set for a downturn of that magnitude. Right now, we are in the midst of a global bond crisis, the housing market is paralyzed by high mortgage rates, stores and restaurants are closing all over the nation, there have been mass layoffs in the tech industry, demand at food banks is soaring, and we are experiencing a seemingly endless cost of living crisis that stretches back all the way back to the beginning of this decade.

So I very much agree that we are potentially facing a full-blown economic depression.

Earlier this month, Trump caused quite a shock when he publicly stated that the U.S. “will have an economic depression much like 1929” if the Democrats win the midterms…

Trump made the warning while promoting his pledge to give every adult American $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate.

“If the Democrats win, you will have an economic depression much like 1929,” Trump said in a video posted to Truth Social on Saturday.

He also argued that Republican control would allow the administration to return money to Americans, citing record tariff revenue and economic gains.

Trump has estimated the proposed “Trump dividend” would cost about $1 trillion.

Of course Trump is convinced that an economic depression can be avoided if Republicans win the midterms.

At the moment, pollsters are telling us that such an outcome is very unlikely.

The latest surveys indicate that Democrats are almost certainly going to take the House, and there is a good chance that they will also take the Senate.

Needless to say, the pollsters have been wrong before, and they could be wrong again.

So we will just have to wait and see what happens.

But without a doubt, our economy is teetering on the brink of disaster.

Today, we learned that pending home sales in the U.S. just hit their lowest level in more than 12 years…

U.S. pending home sales are down to their lowest level since spring 2014–with the exception of April 2020, when the onset of the pandemic ground the housing market to a halt.

Pending home sales declined 4% from a month earlier in September on a seasonally adjusted basis–the biggest monthly drop in more than three years. This is a real-time indicator of what’s happening in the housing market; fewer homes went under contract in September largely because mortgage rates rose steadily, surpassing 7% by the end of the month.

The bond crisis has driven mortgage rates to absurd heights, and this is absolutely crushing the housing market.

The areas that are being hit the hardest were once some of the hottest during the boom years…

The declines were biggest on the West Coast: Seattle posted the biggest drop (-24.4% year over year), followed by Los Angeles (-16%), San Diego (-15.8%) and Anaheim, CA (-15.5%). Those Southern California metros are among the priciest in the U.S., so rising mortgage rates hit them hard, pricing many on-the-fence buyers out. Seattle is also expensive, and a bumpy local job market is curbing demand.

It appears to be inevitable that home prices will fall substantially.

In fact, this has already started to happen in some parts of the country.

That may sound like good news, but the last time this happened our economy plunged into “the Great Recession”.

What will happen this time around?

Right now, U.S. households are struggling to keep up with their debts at a level that we haven’t seen since 2010…

The ability of U.S. families to stay current on their debts worsened over the past three years, hitting levels not seen since the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the Federal Reserve reported Friday.

In the central bank’s Survey of Consumer Finances, researchers found that while wealth disparities narrowed somewhat, the ability to meet debt payments deteriorated significantly.

“Families were more likely to be behind on their financial obligations than at any point since the 2010 survey,” stated the survey, a data-rich document the Fed releases every three years to chronicle the nation’s financial health.

The country in 2010 was just emerging from what became known as the Great Recession, a period that ran from December 2007 to June 2009.

The reason why so many Americans are struggling to stay afloat financially is because we are in the middle of the longest multi-year cost of living crisis in U.S. history.

For years, I pleaded with our politicians to stop borrowing and spending so much money.

For years, I pleaded with the Federal Reserve to stop flooding our financial system with fresh cash.

But they didn’t listen.

Now the purchasing power of our money has fallen dramatically and the cost of living crisis is strangling the life out of communities from coast to coast.

In West Virginia, just trying to survive has become a daily struggle for countless numbers of people…

Those forces have hit especially hard in areas that were already struggling economically, like West Virginia’s once-flourishing coal mining communities. The spike in gas costs means a 45-minute drive to the nearest grocery store can set residents back more than $15. And West Virginians who must comply with the new work requirements to receive food benefits are confronting a lack of jobs and training programs. Since last summer, about 24,000 people, including 8,000 children, have lost food stamps, according to the West Virginia Department of Human Services.

“It’s like the pandemic on steroids without funds,” Kirkhart said. “I don’t believe the government needs to provide everything, but if you’re going to ask us to, please help.”

Of course it isn’t just our rural areas that are dealing with hard times.

Our major cities are teeming with the impoverished, the homeless and the addicted.

In some cities, homeless encampments stretch on for block after block, and hordes of drug addicts wander around like zombies and defecate in the streets.

Such an environment is perfect for rats, and it is no surprise that New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia are the most rodent-infested cities in the United States…

A national pest control company has released its annual list of the top 10 most rodent-infested cities in the U.S. — and one Midwest city has now joined the list for the first time.

The list is based on rodent control service data from more than 300 Terminix branches nationwide in 2025, ranking cities where residents most frequently used the company’s services.

While New York and Los Angeles held onto the top two spots, Philadelphia moved up one spot to No. 3.

If things are this bad now, what will they look like if “an economic depression much like 1929” soon hits us?

When I was growing up, our major cities were quite clean and there were no homeless encampments anywhere to be seen.

When I was growing up, drug addicts were not publicly urinating in front of children.

When I was growing up, millions of Americans were not living in their vehicles.

The middle class has been eroding for decades, and now millions upon millions of U.S. citizens live in third world conditions.

This is what long-term economic decline looks like, and now we are being told that “an economic depression much like 1929” could be in our future.

Brace yourself, because we are moving into times that are going to be extremely challenging for all of us.

The post Yes, Donald Trump Really Did Just Say That “An Economic Depression Much Like 1929” Could Be Coming appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The Rising Cost Of Living Is Absolutely Crushing U.S. Households – And Here Is Why It Is About To Get Even More Painful

Michael — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 19:38:56 +0000

When you are working as hard as you can and you still don’t even come close to being able to pay all the bills, it can be absolutely soul crushing. Millions upon millions of Americans are living lives of quiet desperation as they attempt to scrape by from month to month. Many of them have a really hard time sleeping at night because the financial pressure never ends. This is the result of decades of bad policies from our leaders in Washington, and the cost of living is only going to go higher. As you will see below, the global energy crisis continues to escalate, and that means that just about everything that we purchase on a regular basis will soon be even more expensive.

Right now, lines at food banks all over America are the longest that they have been since the early days of the last pandemic.

But we don’t have a pandemic to blame for the long lines this time around.

At a food bank in West Virginia on one recent morning, vehicles were lined up for half a mile before the sun even came up…

Bill Likens stared down a half-mile-long line of cars that started forming before the sun came up over the Appalachian Mountains. He had one job: figure out how to feed them all.

Some had driven more than 30 miles in aging cars and trucks that wheezed down flood-prone roads through the steep hills. They sat silently as the temperature rose into the 80s, their vehicles turned off with no air conditioning to preserve gas, waiting hours for a few boxes of food.

Aided by a cane, Likens, 51, surveyed the pallets being unloaded off a semitruck that arrived that morning. He counted cartons of eggs and sacks of potatoes to calculate how much each waiting car could get — an algorithm of hunger he is constantly trying to solve.

More Americans are seeking help from food banks because grocery prices have soared to absurd heights.

If you can still afford to eat three meals a day, you should be very grateful, because there are millions of Americans that cannot.

73-year-old Joanne Girvin has lost 20 pounds during the past year because she can’t afford to buy enough food, and some nights she just sits down and cries as she tries to figure out what to eat…

Girvin, 73, used to own a restaurant nearby and is now living off Social Security, which is barely enough to cover her monthly bills. Already on a tight budget, she has no extra room for $4 gallons of gas or a rising electric bill. That has left one place to cut — her food.

She said she has lost 20 pounds over the past year because she has been eating less. The night before, she’d eaten canned deer meat left over from last fall’s hunting season with rice and gravy. Some nights she eats a bag of frozen broccoli with butter.

“Sometimes I just sit down and cry when I’m trying to figure out what you’re going to eat out of a can or something because you don’t have no meat,” Girvin said as her eyes welled with tears. “It’s just really bad, this economy. It’s horrible.”

This is what life is like in West Virginia in 2026, and it has been this way for many years.

Of course it isn’t just residents of West Virginia that are struggling.

Food banks all over the country are reporting increased demand this year…

The challenges extend far beyond Appalachia. An NBC News survey of 48 of the largest food banks across 35 states and Washington, D.C., found that nearly three-quarters said more people are showing up at their doors over the past year, from workers on their lunch breaks to older adults overwhelmed with medical expenses. At the same time, more than 80% said the food and funding they received through the U.S. Department of Agriculture had dropped and they were struggling with higher fuel costs for transporting food.

In Maine, Good Shepherd Food Bank said the USDA cut the amount of food it received from 13 million pounds to 9 million pounds in one year. A Michigan food bank, Forgotten Harvest, said it’s handing out less food to make sure there is enough to go around: one bag of potatoes instead of two, two tubs of yogurt as opposed to six.

If you are like most of us, nearly all of your bills have gone up over the past 12 months.

If your income has not been going up at the same rate, you are falling behind.

Once upon a time, if you earned $100,000 or more a year you were living very comfortably.

But now even many of those that are earning $100,000 a year are really struggling…

And though $100,000 is more than double the national median salary of $46,960, financial stress remains for many six-figure earners.

In fact, those making $100,000 or more have now adopted the shopping habits of lower-income households as they struggle with affordability, Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said at a recent retail conference. That remark has some consumers second-guessing the value of such a salary.

“I think a lot of people got to six figures and thought, ‘Wait, why doesn’t this feel like as much money as I expected?’” Steve Sexton, owner of financial firm Sexton Advisory Group, told The Independent in an email.

For decades, our politicians have been spending way too much money and have been destroying the value of our currency.

Now we are stuck with the consequences.

Unfortunately, our cost of living crisis is going to get even worse because the global energy crisis is only going to intensify.

On Saturday, the Houthis hit King Khalid International Airport in Saudi Arabia really hard.

12 people died as a result of that attack, and 309 were injured…

Saudi Arabia said Sunday it would “respond decisively” against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen a day after a strike on Riyadh’s international airport brought the expanding Middle East conflict home for the Saudi capital and its residents.

The attack, which left 12 dead and 309 injured and came without warning, revealed the vulnerability of the U.S. ally and the ramifications of the Trump administration’s reluctance to openly help fight the Houthis more than seven months into Washington’s war with Iran. Riyadh’s airport is the country’s second largest for civilians and is frequently used by royals and visiting dignitaries, including President Donald Trump in his last visit to the kingdom.

The United States is providing Saudi Arabia with intelligence support, analysts and U.S. officials say. But the administration has so far stopped short of the direct military assistance that officials in Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen’s internationally recognized government have sought.

The Saudis responded with a huge wave of airstrikes, and then the Houthis struck King Khalid International Airport again on Sunday…

A passenger terminal at the international airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was attacked again on Sunday, one day after a deadly strike on the Riyadh airport killed at least 12 people, including a U.S. citizen, and wounded hundreds of others.

The second attack comes as Yemen’s Houthi group said they carried out at least four operations targeting King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh since Saturday.

Saudi’s civil aviation authority said the latest Riyadh airport attack caused injuries and that damage assessments are underway.

In addition to hitting the airport, the Houthis also attacked a number of Saudi Arabia’s most important energy production facilities…

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said on Telegram that the attacks are in response to “brutal Saudi aggression against our country and our people,” CBS News partner BBC News reported. He claimed Saudi Arabia launched more than 120 airstrikes in the past 24 hours in Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.

The Houthis said their other targets included the Shugadam gas facility, which belongs to Saudi’s national petroleum and natural gas company Aramco, the Tanajib oil refinery, and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, the BBC reported.

It could take months or even years for the Saudis to repair or rebuild all of the energy infrastructure that has been damaged by the Houthis in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, the Iranians have really stepped up the pace of tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz this month…

There have been nearly a dozen attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz so far this month — as it emerged that some Western officials are sounding the alarm on Iran’s military capacity despite President Donald Trump’s insistence the country’s military has been destroyed.

Iran has plenty of ballistic missiles and can speedily ramp up its stockpile, even after more than seven months of bombing by the United States, anonymous Western officials told Bloomberg.

Word that Iran’s ability to strike back is still strong comes as reports show 11 ships in Strait of Hormuz or nearby, off the coast of Oman, so far in October, according to Fox News, which cited maritime officials in the United States and the UK.

Also, it appears that the Iranians have also now mined the U.S.-backed southern corridor through the Strait of Hormuz near the coast of Oman.

A very large tanker traveling through that corridor hit a mine on Saturday, and another tanker traveling through that corridor hit a mine on Sunday.

Over the past couple of months tankers had snuck a lot of oil through the Strait of Hormuz using that corridor, but at this point the Iranians have decided to crack down really hard.

So what this means is that global energy prices are poised to jump even higher.

And that is really bad news because the price of diesel in the U.S. is already about 70 percent higher than last year…

The national average for diesel stood at roughly $6.32 per gallon Monday, according to AAA — up from about $3.69 at the same time last year, a jump of more than 70%. The surge has also eclipsed the previous record of $5.816 per gallon, set in June 2022 under former President Joe Biden as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent global energy prices soaring.

Even if you don’t have any diesel vehicles, this is going to affect you directly.

Our trucks, our trains and our tractors run on diesel.

It is inevitable that higher diesel prices will get passed along to U.S. consumers, and the cost of living will increase as a result.

The most painful chapters of the global energy crisis are ahead of us, and the entire global economy will be thrown into a state of turmoil.

A lot of people out there didn’t believe that things would ever get this bad, and those skeptics will be completely shocked by what is coming next.

The post The Rising Cost Of Living Is Absolutely Crushing U.S. Households – And Here Is Why It Is About To Get Even More Painful appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The Energy Crisis Escalates: The Dual Threat Of More War In The Middle East And Hurricane Isaias Damaging U.S. Refineries In The Gulf Is Pushing Oil Prices Even Higher

Michael — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:20:50 +0000

Just when it seemed like we had hit a period of relative calm, global events are starting to accelerate again. Within the past 24 hours, there have been a couple of absolutely enormous developments. First of all, Tropical Storm Isaias has become Hurricane Isaias and we are being told that it will make landfall along the Gulf Coast. That is potentially a major problem because the Gulf Coast accounts for over 50 percent of the crude oil refining capacity in the United States. If any of that capacity is taken offline for an extended period of time, that will drive fuel prices substantially higher. Meanwhile, Iran has been attacking tankers at a very alarming pace this week, and President Trump is reportedly considering a new wave of airstrikes on Iran…

The U.S. president and his national security team have discussed possibly resuming large-scale U.S. military operations in the coming weeks, NBC News reported Wednesday, citing a U.S. official and another person with knowledge of the talks.

Axios reported earlier in the day that a possible resumption in armed conflict could include “massive bombing” of Iranian energy, infrastructure and nuclear targets, adding that military aggression could influence the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.

This is a major bombshell.

If the U.S. starts extensively bombing Iran again, the war in the Middle East could spiral completely out of control.

The good news is that President Trump is now pledging that the U.S. will not be bombing Iran until after the midterms…

But his statement also seems to imply that the U.S. will be bombing Iran after the midterms.

Will the Iranians just sit back and wait for that to happen?

It is never a good thing to let your enemy know what you plan to do.

And the Iranians have been threatening to conduct preemptive strikes if they are convinced that they are going to get attacked…

Iran’s army spokesman said on Wednesday that the armed forces were prepared to carry out pre-emptive strikes in the war against the US, as senior IRGC figures claimed tighter control over the Strait of Hormuz and Washington questioned how much authority Iran’s civilian leadership actually holds.

“Should circumstances require it, we will conduct pre-emptive operations down the line in order to prevent the enemy from committing any act of aggression or intrusion,” spokesman for Iran’s regular army Brigadier General Mohammad Akrami-Nia told the state-run IRNA news agency.

It is my opinion that the war in the Middle East is very far from over.

I am expecting some shocking escalations, and this is something that I will be writing a lot more about.

Needless to say, if the war in the Middle East does not get resolved, the global energy crisis will just continue to intensify.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Isaias is making a beeline for the Gulf Coast with landfall expected some time on Friday…

Hurricane Isaias continued its trek toward the U.S. Gulf Coast early Thursday, with a landfall expected late Friday as a dangerous hurricane, driving life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flooding rain.

Isaias is the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, and forecast to be the first to strike the United States since Hurricane Milton in 2024.

This storm is rapidly strengthening, and it could potentially become even more powerful than forecasters are currently anticipating.

And that is not good news at all.

Over 50 percent of all crude oil refining capacity in the U.S. is located along the Gulf Coast, and if any of those facilities get damaged that could push fuel prices substantially higher…

The Gulf Coast accounts for more than 50% of the nation’s crude oil refining capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts alone make up 49% of the nation’s refining capacity.

The National Hurricane Center initially projected the center of Isaias could come onshore late Friday or early Saturday somewhere between eastern Louisiana and the western Florida Panhandle. Located in and around that zone are refineries, where crude oil gets turned into gasoline and diesel fuel.

If those Gulf Coast refineries are forced to halt or reduce production, fuel supplies would get tighter, leading to higher prices.

This is potentially a very big deal.

As the storm approaches, 25 percent of offshore production in the Gulf has already been temporarily shut down…

In the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies have shut in about 500,000 bpd, or 25% of offshore production in the region, as Hurricane Isaias churns toward the coasts of Alabama, Mississippi and the Florida panhandle.

Hopefully Hurricane Isaias will not turn into a monster storm and no refining facilities will be harmed.

But for the moment, investors are quite nervous about both Hurricane Isaias and the potential for renewed fighting in the Middle East.

On Thursday, oil prices jumped quite a bit higher…

The price of oil jumped sharply Thursday, as President Donald Trump weighs whether to resume large-scale U.S. military operations against Iran in the coming weeks.

Brent crude oil rose more than 5% to more than $105 per barrel in early trading, while U.S. crude oil rose almost 5% to nearly $93 per barrel. Benchmark diesel futures jumped 4.5% in European trading. Heating oil, a proxy for jet fuel, rose more than 4%.

The move higher in oil prices also pushed up bond yields. The 10-year Treasury yield, which heavily influences consumer borrowing rates, jumped to 5.35%. That level effectively reversed a drop in yields seen late Wednesday. The yield on every other Treasury bond also rose.

As oil prices rise, just about everything else is going to get more expensive too.

A year ago, it would have taken about $2,700 of diesel to transport a shipment of lettuce from California to New York. Now that same amount of diesel is going to cost about 50 percent more…

Transporting a shipment of lettuce from Salinas, California, to New York “is going to run somewhere around $10,000,” said Dean Croke, principal analyst at DAT Freight & Analytics, and $4,200 of that is for diesel alone.

A year ago, Croke said, the same fuel would have cost about $2,700.

We are all going to pay for this.

When you go to the grocery store to get lettuce, it is going to cost more than it did before.

In fact, just about everything at the grocery store is going to cost more than it did before.

We really are witnessing a “perfect storm” for global food production.

World War 3 is raging, farmers are facing a global fertilizer crisis, a Super El Niño is causing all sorts of havoc, and diesel prices have gone absolutely nuts.

We have never seen anything quite like this.

A year ago, very few people would have believed that so many crazy things would happen in 2026.

Unfortunately, I am entirely convinced that 2027 will be far crazier.

The post The Energy Crisis Escalates: The Dual Threat Of More War In The Middle East And Hurricane Isaias Damaging U.S. Refineries In The Gulf Is Pushing Oil Prices Even Higher appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The Next Global Financial Crisis Is Erupting Right Now As Bond Yields Skyrocket All Over The World – Will France Be The First To Collapse?

Michael — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:49:49 +0000

We all knew that this would be coming eventually. For years, governments around the world have been engaging in the greatest debt binge in human history. Now they are absolutely drowning in debt and investors are no longer willing to lend them gigantic mountains of money at ultra-low interest rates. Bond yields are skyrocketing, and that means that bond prices are crashing. That is really bad news for U.S. banks, because they are holding approximately $4.81 trillion in combined Treasury and agency securities. Banks in Japan and Europe are also holding gobs and gobs of bonds. The nightmarish state of bank balance sheets is going to become a major story in the coming days, and many financial institutions will fail. Meanwhile, consumers will be facing much higher rates for mortgages and other forms of borrowing. This will likely slow down economic activity substantially during the months ahead.

On Wednesday, the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries and the yield on 30 year U.S. Treasuries both hit the highest level that we have seen in 24 years…

The benchmark 10-year Treasury was up more than 3 basis points at 5.307%. It had earlier hit its highest level since 2002. The 30-year Treasury bond rose more than 4 basis points to 5.684% and had also reached a 24-year high earlier.

The last time we witnessed anything like this was during the aftermath of the collapse of the Dotcom bubble.

The good news is that after spiking dramatically earlier in the day U.S. bond yields are being forced back down.

I am entirely convinced that this is due to government intervention.

Our officials have been buying Treasury bonds with billions of dollars that they have created out of thin air in a desperate attempt to keep bond yields under control.

In Europe, individual nations do not have that option. That is one of the reasons why I am concerned that France could be teetering on the brink of financial ruin.

Of course it isn’t just France that is facing a desperate situation. As Bull Theory has aptly pointed out, we are literally watching a global bond market implosion in real time…

Decades ago, France was one of the most financially stable countries in Europe.

But now we are being told that there is a very real risk of “a full-blown public debt crisis in the EU’s second-largest economy”…

France’s borrowing costs are surging as investors around the world wake up to the risk of a full-blown public debt crisis in the EU’s second-largest economy.

Stress in financial markets has now started to spread beyond its borders, raising fears that political dysfunction in France could cause a broader, regional problem.

Memories of the sovereign debt crisis that threatened the single currency’s survival 15 years ago are starting to stir. But is it really going to get that bad again?

The French thought that they could just keep borrowing and borrowing and that there would never be any consequences.

They were wrong.

During an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, the head of the International Monetary Fund delivered a very blunt message to the French government: “get your house in order”.

She explained that the current crisis in France is “the consequence of borrowing shock after shock after shock” and that the French are on a “staircase that does not lead to heaven”…

Political instability in France has put pressure on the country’s government bonds, known as OATs. Investors now demand a higher yield than they do for bonds issued by the Italian government, with French 10-year bond yields rising by more than 100 basis points since the start of the year.

“What we see in France is a complication of, on one side, the consequence of borrowing shock after shock after shock, climbing on this staircase that does not lead to heaven, and on the other side, a political dynamic scene in France that creates more difficulties for the finance ministry to put a clear path for tightening,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told CNBC’s Lisa Kim on the sidelines of an event in Singapore.

She is right.

France is a financial mess, and that threatens the financial stability of the entire European Union.

Meanwhile, the French government has admitted that the level of of street violence has reached the highest level ever recorded…

The French Ministry of the Interior states that street violence has reached record levels fuelled in part by the violent student uprisings seen in multicultural hubs across the country in recent weeks.

Following another day of mass mobilisation of students in concert with far-left political parties and radical trade unions apparently intent on sparking more chaos, the Ministry of the Interior released statistics showing an unprecedented level of violence in public spaces.

According to government data, public violence incidents outside the home hit a record high of 20,000 per month in September, or nearly 700 per day, Le Figaro reported.

There is no end in sight.

Initially, we were told that “students” were protesting because they wanted smaller classrooms and better textbooks.

We can all see that is simply not true at this point.

Criminals dressed in black are rioting, looting and committing acts of violence in major cities all over the country…

French revolutionaries have been burning down schools and setting public buses and fire trucks ablaze. They have looted shops and stalked and preyed on women walking alone. They have attacked strangers with fireworks, mortars, and hydrochloric acid. They have beaten numerous teachers, doused some in gasoline, and set a few on fire. They have injured hundreds of law enforcement officers and firefighters, as well as students who want nothing to do with the mayhem. One witness to the destruction described the scene as “total anarchy” and “total war.”

Yes, a lot of teenagers are involved in the mayhem.

But in many cases the “protesters” are men in their twenties, thirties and forties.

These grown men have been proudly waving Palestinian, Algerian and Moroccan flags as they call for violence in the name of their god…

Paris and other cities are now awash with foreign flags as throngs of unassimilated youths scream their hatred for France itself.

“In the name of Allah, we can kill them all,” barked one masked thug, to the mob’s demented glee.

We are witnessing something extraordinary: an intifada in the heart of Europe.

It is easy to mock the French for what is happening, because it is the result of decades of bad immigration policies.

Of course the exact same thing could easily happen in the United States.

Recent polling has shown that 43 percent of U.S. voters under the age of 25 now have a positive view of Sharia law…

The polling, from Our Republic and Rasmussen, showed “a quarter of 18-35 voters polled would support a community implementing Sharia law as the legal code for the entire town, city, or state if the majority of residents living there desired its adoption.”

The polling said, “Overall, 21% of likely voters said they have a mostly or somewhat positive opinion of Sharia, compared with 57% who have a negative opinion. Positive views were much higher among younger Americans, including 43% of voters ages 18–24 and 39% of those ages 25–29.”

The polling cited a “generational divide” over Sharia, as seniors had a much higher level of opposition.

Reading that should chill you to the core.

We are on the same path that France has been on.

But only a very small segment of the U.S. population seems alarmed by this.

I think that France is cooked.

So is Spain, and so is Germany.

The EU is headed for financial collapse.

Of course the same thing could be said for Japan and the United States too.

It will take some time for the global bond crisis to fully play out, but without a doubt an enormous amount of pain is in our future.

The post The Next Global Financial Crisis Is Erupting Right Now As Bond Yields Skyrocket All Over The World – Will France Be The First To Collapse? appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Food Shortages In 2027? The ICC Warns That Global Food Prices Could Rise By Close To 70% – I Asked AI What Would Happen Next

Michael — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 20:16:28 +0000

All over social media, people want to know if there will be food shortages in 2027. Coming into this year, the UN was warning that global hunger had reached an unprecedented level. Now we are facing a global fertilizer crisis, a global energy crisis, widespread droughts, a Super El Niño and World War III all at the same time. Of course global hunger is going to get even worse in the months ahead. Nobody can deny that. Wealthy nations such as the United States will theoretically be in the best shape, but even here in the U.S. approximately 1 out of every 7 people already live in food insecure households. Rapidly rising food prices will definitely be very painful for us, but for millions of people that live in deeply impoverished countries much higher food prices could suddenly make it impossible for them to buy enough food to properly feed their families.

How would you feel if members of your family were extremely hungry but you didn’t have anything to give them?

For many of us, that would be unimaginable.

Unfortunately, such a scenario could soon become a reality in needy households all over the planet.

For months, I have been warning that the global energy crisis and the global fertilizer crisis were going to have an enormous impact on food production.

Now harvest season is here, and the consequences are starting to become apparent. The following comes from a Wall Street Journal article entitled “Hormuz Gridlock Risks Global Food Crisis, International Chamber of Commerce Chief Says”…

Disruptions to a vital shipping route in the Middle East have created an energy shock. Now, a global food security crisis is brewing, warns the secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce.

The secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce is a man named John Denton.

He is a legal expert on international trade and investment, and he is projecting that global grain prices could potentially increase by up to 80 percent…

The monthslong conflict between Iran and the US has curbed the flow of goods through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway many countries rely on for imports of critical inputs like fertilizers and natural gas.

According to Denton, if the strait is not reopened, grain prices could rise by up to 80%, which would be particularly hard on the economies of import-dependent countries. He added that the situation in the Strait of Hormuz has caused a shortage of about 2.7 million tons of fertilizer on the world market.

Less fertilizer means less food.

That is the bottom line.

If we do see such a spike in global grain prices (and they have already been rising), an ICC-commissioned model determined that global food prices overall could increase by close to 70 percent…

A prolonged disruption to fertiliser and energy markets linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz could push global cereal prices sharply higher, with potentially severe consequences for food security and public health, according to new modelling commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

In the study’s most severe scenario, global cereal prices rise by as much as 81% above 2020 levels. The shock also feeds through sharply to households, with consumer food prices in East Asia, the Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa rising close to 70% above a 2020 baseline.

In recent years, the world has not even come close to producing enough food for everyone.

Now global food supplies are going to get substantially tighter.

As a result, there will be a mad scramble for whatever is available, and this will really drive up prices.

In the end, a lot more people will be malnourished and a lot more people will die from starvation…

Conducted by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Aberdeen and Scotland’s Rural College, the modelling shows how the shock would work its way through the global food system. Higher fertiliser and energy costs reduce nitrogen fertiliser use by approximately 37% and cereal productivity by up to 10%, tightening supply and raising prices for consumers.

For poorer households, these price increases translate into lower calorie consumption, less diverse diets and higher rates of underweight. Under the same severe and sustained scenario, the modelling suggests that the shock could contribute to approximately one million additional dietary health-related deaths in 2030 and leave 67 million more people underweight.

The burden would fall overwhelmingly on lower-income regions. South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia and the Pacific would account for around 80% of the additional mortality and more than 90% of the additional underweight burden. Modelled health outcomes would change little in higher-income regions.

The poorest nations will get hit the hardest.

But we will all be affected.

I asked Google AI to tell me what would happen if the type of scenario that the ICC is envisioning actually plays out. This is what I was told…

Massive Food Inflation: Retail prices for bread, cereal, and packaged goods would skyrocket globally.
Surging Meat Prices: Livestock feed costs would soar, forcing ranchers to cull herds and driving up the cost of beef, pork, and poultry.
Severe Humanitarian Crisis: Lower-income nations that rely heavily on grain imports would face immediate, widespread food insecurity and potential famine.
Geopolitical Instability: Historically, drastic food price spikes trigger civil unrest, protests, and political revolutions (similar to the 2011 Arab Spring).
Protectionist Trade Policies: Major grain-exporting countries would likely ban or restrict exports to safeguard their domestic food supplies, worsening the global shortage.

That sounds about right.

There are some people out there that are touting the fact that they warned about this months in advance.

Of course there are others that were warning about all of this years in advance.

As long as commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains restricted, the global fertilizer crisis and the global energy crisis will both just continue to intensify.

Unfortunately, the Iranians are telling us that they will keep attacking commercial vessels that are traveling through the Strait of Hormuz until the United States agrees to their entire list of demands…

The Strait of Hormuz is going to remain closed until the United States accepts Tehran’s seven-day plan to reopen the waterway, Iran’s top negotiator and parliament speaker has said.

Iranian state-linked news agency Nournews, quoting ⁠Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, reported on Sunday that Washington made “some proposals through a mediator” days after the US replied ⁠to Iran’s diplomatic proposal.

The US should know “that the era of wasting time and dictating unilateral demands is over”, Ghalibaf said, adding Iran’s position remains “clear and definite”.

There is no way that the Trump administration will ever agree to all of Iran’s demands.

So on and on we go.

I realize that food prices are absurdly high now, but they are going to go even higher.

But as long as you have enough to eat, you should be very thankful, because there are many on the other side of the planet that are desperately hungry right now.

Yes, there will be food shortages in 2027.

At this stage, the debate is about how intense they will become.

Hunger is on the rise all over the planet, and the higher food prices go the worse it will get.

The post Food Shortages In 2027? The ICC Warns That Global Food Prices Could Rise By Close To 70% – I Asked AI What Would Happen Next appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

It Has Begun: They Have Launched A New Military Operation Involving 100,000 Soldiers To Wipe Out The Houthis And Take Back Control Of Yemen

Michael — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 19:09:37 +0000

The Great Middle East War has just entered a very dangerous new chapter. 100,000 troops under the control of the internationally-recognized government of Yemen are going to attempt to end the Houthi threat once and for all. Saudi Arabia will be assisting by conducting constant airstrikes on Houthi positions. In other words, all-out war is coming to the Arabian Peninsula. The United States will be providing intelligence and targeting data for this operation, but officials are telling us that the U.S. military will not be directly involved at this time. However, Axios is reporting that the U.S. could join the operation at a later date “should it go south”.

What this means is that there isn’t going to be an end to the Great Middle East war for a long time to come.

One of Iran’s core demands has always been an end to the fighting on all fronts.

Needless to say, what we are witnessing is the opposite of that.

Even in the most wildly optimistic scenario, it would take months to totally defeat the Houthis.

In a televised speech, Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi announced that this new military operation will continue “until the country is liberated from the grip of ‌the terrorist militia”…

Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government said on Sunday it was launching a major military campaign to recapture all areas of the country controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis.

The government’s armed forces would press the offensive “until the country is liberated from the grip of ‌the terrorist militia,” Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi said in a televised address. A military spokesman later called on the Houthis to lay down their weapons.

The Houthis are crazed religious zealots.

They will never, ever lay down their weapons.

So there will be no surrender.

The Houthis will fight until they are either wiped out or they are victorious.

It appears that this will be the biggest conflict in the entire modern history of Yemen.

It is being reported that over 100,000 soldiers could be mobilized to battle the Houthis…

More than 100,000 Yemeni troops could be mobilized in the offensive, depending on the scale, the officials all said.

Riyadh has concluded it cannot enter new Yemeni peace negotiations with the Houthis while they remain in control of Bab al-Mandab, giving them significant global leverage, the Western diplomats and a Gulf official said.

The Houthis have a core group of around 20,000 to 30,000 dedicated fighters, but they can easily mobilize more.

They have been in control of Yemen’s capital Sanaa since 2014, and all previous efforts to dislodge them have failed.

Recently, they captured vast amounts of territory along the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and they haven’t been allowing Saudi oil tankers to travel through that very important chokepoint.

Now the goal is to take it all back.

The U.S. was asked to join this military operation, but that request was denied.

According to Axios, an anonymous U.S. official is insisting that our military “is not going to take kinetic action for now”…

On Thursday, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid Bin Salman called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to brief him on the planned operation and ask again for U.S. airstrikes against Houthi targets, the U.S. official said.
A U.S. official said that the U.S. “is not going to take kinetic action for now.”
Last week, President Trump was close to ordering a strike on the Houthis after a request from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), but eventually decided to hold off.

However, we will be assisting the operation by providing “intelligence and targeting data”…

And apparently the door is being left open for the U.S. military to get involved in the operation at a future date “should it go south”…

The US could join Saudi Arabia’s operation against the Houthis should it go south, despite several previous refusals, Axios reported on Friday, citing American officials.

The operation, expected to be launched in the coming weeks in response to the increased assault by the terrorist organization on Saudi Arabia as well as its storming of Bab al-Mandab, will be led by Saudi-backed Yemeni forces on the ground and supported by Saudi air strikes.

I think that there is a very good chance that the operation will not go well.

The Houthis have had the upper hand for weeks, and in the last 48 hours they got even closer to Yemen’s third largest city…

In the last 48 hours, the Houthis have also made gains against government and local forces on strategic hilltops near Yemen’s Taiz, military sources said, advancing on the last road between the city and Aden on the southern coast.

Houthi control over the Taiz-Aden road would lead to an effective siege of the city, Yemen’s third-largest, inhabited by hundreds of ⁠thousands of civilians and where thousands of government forces are also stationed.

The fall of Taiz would be catastrophic for Yemen’s internationally-recognized government.

I don’t think that Saudi Arabia was eager for an all-out war with the Houthis, but at this stage they probably felt that they had no choice.

So now that one of their key allies is faced with all-out war, how will the Iranians respond?

Will they just sit on their hands as the Houthis get pummeled, or will they take action?

We shall see.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Iran’s enemies that his nation is prepared to strike back “stronger than before”…

“If our enemies again choose the path of military confrontation, our response will be stronger than before, and we will defend ourselves with even more force,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a gathering of foreign ambassadors.

“There is no military solution, nor any solution based on new sanctions,” he continued, adding “only negotiations based on justice and fairness” could end the conflict.

If the Houthis are able to hold their own, the Iranians may not get directly involved in what is happening on the Arabian Peninsula.

But if the Houthis start losing ground, Iran may feel compelled to intervene.

In any event, it has become clear that there will be no peace.

The Great Middle East War will be three years old this week, and now it has escalated to yet another new level.

The death and destruction that we have already witnessed has shocked the world, but much worse is coming.

The post It Has Begun: They Have Launched A New Military Operation Involving 100,000 Soldiers To Wipe Out The Houthis And Take Back Control Of Yemen appeared first on The Economic Collapse.