The Economic Collapse

Censorship of the Internet has been getting worse for years, but we just crossed a threshold which is going to take things to a whole new level.  On August 25th, a new law known as the “Digital Services Act” went into effect in the European Union.  Under this new law, European bureaucrats will be able to order big tech companies to censor any content that is considered to be “illegal”, “disinformation” or “hate speech”.  That includes content that is posted by users outside of the European Union, because someone that lives in the European Union might see it.  I wrote about this a few days ago, but I don’t think that people are really understanding the implications of this new law.  In the past, there have been times when governments have requested that big tech companies take down certain material, but now this new law will give government officials the power to force big tech companies to take down any content that they do not like.  Any big tech companies that choose not to comply will be hit with extremely harsh penalties. (Read More...)

The Biden administration is trying really hard to convince us that the U.S. economy is doing just fine, but the numbers just keep getting worse and worse.  Consumer confidence is plummeting, large corporations are conducting mass layoffs all over the country, and major retailers are really struggling right now.  Meanwhile, some of the smartest guys in the financial world are making moves that would only make sense if the economy was headed for big trouble.  Earlier this month, I wrote about how Michael Burry has bet 1.6 billion dollars that the stock market is going to crash.  He made a ton of money in 2008 by being on the correct side of the financial crisis, and he plans to make even more money this time around.  This week, speculation has been growing that Warren Buffett also believes that a major downturn is coming.  In fact, Business Insider is warning that Warren Buffett “may be bracing for a recession” because he has been selling off stocks at a staggering pace… (Read More...)

We aren’t quite there yet, but an enormous credit card debt crisis is definitely brewing.  Americans are becoming increasingly dependent on their credit cards to make ends meet from month to month, the percentage of us that are carrying balances from month to month is growing, and the average rate of interest on such balances has risen above 20 percent.  If you can possibly avoid it, do not carry credit card balances from month to month, because that will strangle you financially.  Unfortunately, our young people are never taught this in school, and so many of them get into deep financial trouble when they become adults.  And once you get into deep financial trouble, it can take many years to get out of it. (Read More...)

The latest numbers are horrible, and they are going to get even worse if the Federal Reserve pushes interest rates even higher.  We were warned that high rates would have an enormous negative impact on the economy, and that is precisely what has happened.  Layoffs are way up so far this year, the commercial real estate market is absolutely imploding, and we are witnessing things happen in the housing market that haven’t happened in more than a decade.  For example, last week it was revealed that sales of existing homes have fallen to a level that we have not seen since 2010… (Read More...)

If the American people have lost faith in almost all of our major institutions, how is our civilization going to survive?  If any collective effort is going to work, people have to believe in that effort.  That is true whether we are talking about a sports team, a business partnership, a romantic relationship or a nation as a whole.  When people stop believing, it is just a matter of time before failure arrives, and at this point the American people simply do not believe in those that are currently running our society.  In fact, a recent Gallup survey discovered that faith in our major institutions has dropped to depressingly low levels.  The survey asked people if they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in a long list of prominent institutions, and these were the results… (Read More...)

Supply chain problems were supposed to be a thing of the past, but instead our supply chains just keep getting hit by issue after issue.  Have you noticed that it has become really difficult to acquire parts and get things repaired?  It isn’t just your imagination.  And have you noticed that store shelves seem rather sparse just about wherever you go shopping?  During my latest visit to the local grocery store, I was stunned to see how thin stock levels had become.  I assumed that it was because I had arrived at a bad time and that they were about to be restocked.  But then I started looking into this, and I discovered that major supply chain issues are starting to develop all over the country. (Read More...)

Not another one.  As I have repeatedly warned my readers, leaders all over the globe seem to have come down with a really bad case of war fever.  Instead of sitting down and attempting to find solutions through diplomacy, many of our leaders seem quite eager to use military force to settle matters these days.  There is no peaceful end to the war in Ukraine on the horizon, China is making preparations to invade Taiwan, and the “shadow war” in the Middle East could easily erupt into a full-blown regional conflict.  But in this article I am going to focus on the next war that is reportedly about to begin.  A group of nations in western Africa known as ECOWAS is preparing to invade Niger with the approval of the EU and the Biden administration, and CNN is reporting that “D-Day” has already been chosen… (Read More...)

Do you remember what happened in 2008?  Many people believe that another historic financial disaster is coming and that it will absolutely devastate the U.S. economy.  Earlier this week, I wrote about an investor named Michael Burry that has actually bet 1.6 billion dollars that the stock market is going to crash.  He made all the right moves in 2008, and he fully intends to be proven right once again in 2023.  Of course current conditions definitely resemble 2008 in so many ways.  The residential housing market is so dead right now, and commercial real estate prices are plummeting at a very frightening pace.  Unfortunately, officials at the Federal Reserve are making it quite clear that they are not done strangling the economy. (Read More...)