There Are Nationwide Shortages Of Aluminum Cans, Soda, Flour, Canned Soup, Pasta And Rice

I had no idea that things had gotten so bad.  Earlier today, my wife spoke with the manager of a local grocery store because she wanted to place a large order for some canned goods.  What she was told surprised her, and it certainly surprised me.  The manager of this local grocery store told her that there are numerous nationwide shortages going on at this moment, and he indicated that there are lots of products that he simply cannot get right now.  When my wife told me what he had said, I decided that I had to look into this, because I hadn’t heard that canned goods were in short supply.  Well, it turns out that the manager that my wife spoke with was right on target, and that should deeply alarm all of us. (Read More...)

“Lockdown 2.0”: This New Wave Of Lockdowns Will Ensure The U.S. Remains In An Economic Depression Through The 2020 Election

Another wave of lockdowns has begun, and that is really bad news for the U.S. economy.  The first wave of lockdowns resulted in the permanent closing of more than 100,000 U.S. businesses, colossal lines at food banks around the nation, and the loss of tens of millions of jobs.  Needless to say, this new wave of lockdowns will make things even worse, and some are speculating that this is precisely what Democrats want.  If the U.S. economy continues to fall apart as we approach the election in November, the thinking is that this will make President Trump look bad and will make it more likely that people will cast votes for Democrats.  But there is also the possibility that this could backfire in a huge way for the left.  If millions of Americans start to identify the Democrats as “the party of the lockdowns”, that could actually greatly help President Trump in November. (Read More...)

Record Temperatures, Long Lines And Increasing Scarcity Will Greatly Test The Patience Of Americans This Summer

This is going to be a long, hot summer that none of us is likely to forget any time soon.  Coming into this year, we knew that societal tensions would be running high because 2020 is an election year.  Many are convinced that this is the most important election in modern American history, and I expect for there to be some extremely shocking surprises as we draw closer to November.  Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 continues to surge to new heights, and the restrictions that authorities have instituted to fight this pandemic have created a huge backlash.  So many people have such extreme emotions about COVID-19, and unfortunately it appears that this crisis is not going away any time soon.  Of course the civil unrest that erupted in the aftermath of the tragic death of George Floyd took societal tensions to an entirely new level that we have never seen before.  There was rioting, looting and violence all over the nation, and more chaos could literally break out at any moment. (Read More...)

Job Losses, Bankruptcies And Store Closings Are All At Apocalyptic Levels As The U.S. Economic Collapse Rolls On

The last four months have been an unending nightmare for the U.S. economy.  Businesses are shutting down at a pace that we have never seen before in American history, the “retail apocalypse” has reached an entirely new level that none of the experts were anticipating prior to this pandemic, and we are in the midst of the greatest spike in unemployment that the United States has ever experienced.  On Thursday, we learned that another 1.3 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, and that number has now been above one million for 16 consecutive weeks.  Things were supposed to be “getting back to normal” by now, buy that hasn’t happened.  Instead, we continue to see a tsunami of job losses that is absolutely unprecedented in American history. (Read More...)

The U.S. Economy Hasn’t Experienced Anything Like This Since The Great Depression Of The 1930s

The recession of 2008 and 2009 was bad, but it was nothing like this.  Even though this new economic downturn is only a few months old, we are already seeing numbers that we haven’t seen since the worst parts of the Great Depression of the 1930s.  More than 48 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits over the past 15 weeks, well over 100,000 businesses have permanently closed their doors, and civil unrest has turned quite a few of our major cities into war zones.  But not all areas of the country are being affected equally.  For example, there are rural areas that haven’t really seen a lot of COVID-19 cases where life seems to have changed very little from six months ago.  On the other hand, some urban areas that have been hit really hard by COVID-19 have been absolutely devastated economically.  For example, the New York Times is reporting that a million jobs have been lost in New York City, and the unemployment rate for NYC “is hovering near 20 percent”… (Read More...)

Violent Crime Is Surging Dramatically In Major Cities All Over America

What we are witnessing all over the country right now is incredibly sad.  In the aftermath of the tragic death of George Floyd, it would have been wonderful to see the entire nation unite behind an effort to make our society less violent, more just and more peaceful.  But instead, we have seen a tremendous explosion of violence and lawlessness that doesn’t seem likely to end any time soon.  Violent crime rates are surging in major city after major city, and the 4th of July weekend was particularly bad.  At least 41 people were hit by gunfire in New York City during the holiday weekend, and this continues a trend that we have seen throughout the first half of 2020.  Just check out these numbers… (Read More...)

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly From The Latest U.S. Employment Numbers

Is the U.S. economy starting to rebound from the massive downturn that the coronavirus lockdowns caused?  Some new employment numbers were released on Thursday, and they were very interesting.  Many are boldly declaring that these new numbers are fantastic news for the U.S. economy, but that is greatly oversimplifying matters.  So far in 2020, tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and we knew that millions of those jobs would eventually come back as COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.  And on Thursday, we received confirmation that millions of those jobs are indeed coming back… (Read More...)

Is The Nationwide Coin Shortage Being Used To Push Us Toward A Cashless Society?

The coin shortage in the United States is becoming quite severe, and a lot of people are deeply concerned about where this might be leading us.  But if you don’t run a business or deal with coins on a regular basis, you may not even know that it is happening.  On Monday, my wife told me that a lot of people on Facebook were talking about this nationwide coin shortage, and then on Tuesday Ricky Scaparo posted a couple of news stories about it, so I decided that I better start looking into this.  Because if this coin shortage is going to be used to push us toward a cashless society, that makes it a really big deal. (Read More...)

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