If You Feel Like Something Really, Really Bad Is About To Happen, You Are Definitely Not Alone

If this is “the recovery”, what are things going to look like once economic conditions start to deteriorate again?  As you will see below, more than half of all households in some of our largest cities “are facing serious financial problems”, and Americans continue to file for unemployment benefits at a rate that the United States had never seen before prior to 2020.  When 695,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits during a single week in 1982, it established a record which stood for nearly 38 years.  But now we have been way above that old record for 25 weeks in a row.  On Thursday, we learned that another 884,000 Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week… (Read More...)

A Sign Of The Times? Unprecedented Fires Have Turned Skies Bright Orange And Blood Red Over California And Oregon

2020 has been an incredibly difficult year for the U.S. as a whole, but no part of the country has been hit harder than the states along the west coast.  It has just been one thing after another all year long, and now unprecedented wildfires have turned the skies bright orange and blood red over vast stretches of California and Oregon.  Many are using the word “apocalyptic” to describe what is happening, and others have said that the skies look like something out of a science fiction movie.  And even though hundreds of thousands of acres have already burned in Oregon and Washington, and even though more than two million acres have already burned in California, officials are warning that conditions will get even worse as we head into “the teeth of the wildfire season”. (Read More...)

A September Stock Market Crash?

Many of us have been waiting to see what surprises the month of September would bring, and it appears that a stock market crash may be one of them.  Even the most ardent market optimists were admitting that the absurd bubble that had developed over the course of the summer was completely unsustainable, and the only real debate was over when it would finally burst.  So is this it?  Stock prices have certainly plunged quite dramatically over the last several trading sessions, but it is always possible that things could stabilize for a little while.  But whether it happens in September, October, November, December or next year, the truth is that everyone knows that a crash is coming. (Read More...)

Charities “Have Lost Billions” And 1 Out Of Every 5 Churches In America “May Not Survive”

Whenever a major economic downturn happens, churches and charities always get hit really hard.  Cutting back on giving is often the very first step that people take when it comes time to reduce expenditures, and that is extremely unfortunate.  But of course you can’t get blood out of a rock, and there are tens of millions of Americans that have lost jobs in 2020 and so they don’t have any extra money to give at this point.  Approximately 59 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment over the past 24 weeks, and we are seeing absolutely massive lines at food banks all around the nation.  In such an environment, it was inevitable that there would be a collapse in charitable giving, and it is being reported that major U.S. charities have already “lost billions in revenue”… (Read More...)

Over Half Of All Young Adults Are Living With Their Parents – Highest Level In Modern American History

As the chaotic events of 2020 have unfolded, large numbers of young people have moved back in with their parents, and this has pushed the percentage of Americans in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket that live with their parents to the highest level ever recorded.  Without a doubt, the collapse of the economy has hit young adults particularly hard.  About 59 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the past 24 weeks, and low wage workers have been disproportionally affected by this tsunami of job losses.  Needless to say, young adults traditionally make up a large chunk of our low wage workers, and now that really tough times have hit a lot of them are being forced to fall back on their mothers and their fathers for support.  According to a brand new report that was just put out by the Pew Research Center, 52 percent of all young adults in this country are now living with their parents… (Read More...)

Signs Of Trouble As We Make The Turn Toward The Fall?

Over the past several months we have been witnessing one of the most gloriously irrational stock market rallies in U.S. history.  Even CNN is admitting that this is “the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes”, but stock prices have just kept going higher and higher until this week.  Several months ago the Federal Reserve decided to do whatever it took to rescue the financial markets, and their exceedingly reckless behavior fueled a speculative boom that is unlike anything that we have ever seen before.  But now it appears that the boom may be ending.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 807 points on Thursday, and it appears that Friday could be another very challenging day for Wall Street.  It is well documented that many of the greatest stock market crashes in history have happened in the fall, and many investors may be trying to bail out before this latest bubble bursts in spectacular fashion. (Read More...)

It Is Being Projected That More Than 50 Million Americans Will Be Fighting Hunger By The End Of This Year

Has there ever been a time in your life when you haven’t had enough food to make it through the week?  If you have never experienced this, you are extremely fortunate.  Even during the best of times, millions of Americans struggle with hunger, and these definitely are not the best of times.  Because of all the crazy things that have happened so far in 2020, large numbers of people have been forced into dramatic lifestyle changes.  Many Americans have deeply cut their food budgets due to a lack of income, others are now only eating one or two meals a day, and we are seeing more demand at food banks around the country than we ever have before.  It is quite obvious that massive numbers of people are really hurting, and Bloomberg is reporting that it is being projected that the number of Americans that are “fighting hunger” will rise to “more than 50 million” by the end of this calendar year… (Read More...)

“It’s Not Your Imagination. Something Is Very Wrong.”

Once in a while, someone says something that perfectly captures the moment that we are currently facing.  Earlier today, I believe that I stumbled upon an example of this, and I will be sharing what I found in this article.  So far this year, our nation has faced one crisis after another, but even after what we have already been though a lot of people out there are absolutely convinced that much worse is coming.  In fact, in all of my years of writing I have never had as many people reach out to me personally with their concerns about our immediate future as I have here in 2020.  There seems to be an overwhelming consensus that great trouble is rapidly approaching, and there are so many people that are making major life changes based on what they believe is coming. (Read More...)

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