New Tariffs, Stocks Plunge, Manufacturing Falls Again And More Layoffs – But Everything Is “Fine”?

Things are starting to go downhill rather quickly now.  A day after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time in more than a decade, we received a whole bunch more bad economic news.  Most Americans don’t realize it yet, but our economy is in serious trouble.  We haven’t seen anything like this since the last recession, but most people seem to think that since stock prices are still very high that everything must be fine.  No, everything is definitely not “fine”, and as I noted yesterday, a lot of prominent names are loudly sounding the alarm.  Many analysts are expecting things to really start breaking loose as we get deeper into the second half of this year, and what we witnessed on Thursday certainly didn’t make the outlook any brighter. (Read More...)

“The Stock Market Started To Fall In July…”

Will we look back on the month of July as a critical turning point for the stock market?  During the first half of 2019, stock prices soared to record high after record high even though we just kept getting one number after another that indicated that a new economic slowdown was starting.  Because of the disappointing performance of the U.S. economy, it was believed that we would see a rate cut from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, and that is precisely what happened.  But instead of rejoicing, investors started to panic a bit, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 333 points.  We will get into why that happened in just a little bit.  But without a doubt it seems quite odd that the Fed’s very first rate cut since December 2008 actually caused stocks to go down.  On a historical basis, interest rates are already very low right now, and so this greatly limits what the Fed will be able to do once the next recession officially begins.  Of course most investors are not concerned with such considerations.  What they really want is for interest rates to be pushed all the way to the floor as quickly as possible, and so they were quite disappointed with what they heard from Fed Chairman Jay Powell on Wednesday. (Read More...)

America Has Gone Crazy: A 79-Year-Old Woman Was Just Sentenced To Prison For Feeding Stray Cats

In order for any society to function smoothly, the vast majority of the people need to behave at least somewhat rationally.  Of course there are always going to be exceptions, and we understand that, but most of us operate under the assumption that most of the people that we are going to encounter in our daily lives are not going to act like nutjobs.  Unfortunately, that may not be a safe assumption any longer.  As our society literally degenerates right in front of our eyes, it seems like someone has opened up the barn doors and let out all the crazies.  And the truth is that “our leaders” are some of the best examples of this phenomenon.  Just look at some of the winners that we have running for president.  Quite a few of them are far more qualified for the insane asylum than they are for the highest office in the land.  Of course it doesn’t end with our politicians.  All across this country, it seems like people in positions of power can’t think straight any longer. (Read More...)

If The Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates Now, It Will Be An Admission That A Recession Is Coming

So there is a lot of buzz that the Federal Reserve is about to cut interest rates – and it might actually happen.  We’ll see.  But if it does happen, it will directly contradict the carefully crafted narrative about the economy that the Federal Reserve has been perpetuating all this time.  Fed Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly insisted that the U.S. economy is in great shape even when there has been a tremendous amount of evidence indicating otherwise.  And of course President Trump has been repeatedly telling us that this is “the greatest economy in the history of our country”, but now he is loudly calling for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates as well.  Something doesn’t seem to add up here.  If the U.S. economy really was “booming”, there is no way that the Fed should cut interest rates.  Right now interest rates are already low by historical standards, and theoretically it is during the “boom” times that interest rates should be normalized.  But if the U.S. economy is actually slowing down and heading into a recession, then a rate cut would make perfect sense.  And if that is the reality of what we are facing, then the economic optimists have been proven dead wrong, and people like me that have been warning of an economic slowdown have been proven right. (Read More...)

More Than 80,000 Earthquakes Have Hit California Since July 4th, And The Aftershocks Are Headed “Toward The Garlock Fault”

The recent seismic activity in the state of California has taken a strange turn.  According to the Los Angeles Times, there have been more than 80,000 earthquakes in the state since July 4th, and most of those quakes were aftershocks of the two very large events that hit the Ridgecrest area early in the month.  Over the past couple of weeks, however, a very unusual pattern has begun to emerge.  We have started to see aftershocks creep toward two of the largest fault lines in southern California, and this is making seismologists very nervous.  The fact that we are seeing aftershocks “approaching the Owens Valley fault” is definitely alarming, but of far more concern is the fact that the Ridgecrest aftershocks are also headed “toward the Garlock fault”.  The following comes from a local California news source… (Read More...)

What America Really Needs Is A Lot More Love

This is a very difficult article for me to write.  I cannot remember a time when there was so much hatred in America.  We are a deeply, deeply divided nation, and those divisions are constantly being deepened by all the strife and discord that the mainstream media, our entertainment industry and our politicians are stirring up.  Because of what I do, I spend countless hours on the Internet, and everywhere I go I see hatred.  There is something about this digital world that we have created that makes people feel comfortable saying things that they would never say during normal social interactions, and it is truly frightening to see what is really in people’s hearts.  If we allow all of this hatred to continue to grow, it will ultimately destroy us. (Read More...)

“California Is Being Overrun By Rodents” – And In This Case We Aren’t Talking About The Politicians

California is being hit by a “plague of rats”, and some commentators are suggesting that this is exactly what they deserve.  In fact, some have even gone so far as to suggest that the name of Los Angeles should be formally changed to “Los Ratas” because the rat problem is so severe there.  From Crescent City in the north all the way down to Chula Vista in the south, the rats are seemingly everywhere.  There are millions of them, and the more poison that people put out the more they seem to multiply.  The state of California has never seen anything like this before, and it is getting worse with each passing month. (Read More...)

An “Earnings Recession” Is Here – Big Companies All Over America Are Reporting Disastrous Financial Results

If the U.S. economy really was “booming”, then corporate earnings would be rising.  But that isn’t happening.  In fact, we haven’t seen corporate earnings fall like this since the last recession.  They fell during the first quarter of this year, and based on the results we have so far, it appears that corporate earnings will be down substantially once again in the second quarter.  When corporate earnings drop for two quarters in a row, that is officially considered to be an “earnings recession”, and that normally occurs just before the overall economy plunges into recession territory.  As things get tighter for our corporate giants, we should expect a lot more layoffs in the months ahead, and the unemployment rate should rise quite briskly.  In other words, it looks like our economic problems are about to accelerate substantially. (Read More...)

+ More