Of course it isn’t just the Israelis that are facing time pressure.  Mid-term elections in the United States are scheduled for November 3rd, and history has shown us that they are often not kind to whichever party controls the White House.  President Trump knows that if the Democrats end up taking control of the House and Senate his hands would really be tied at that point.  He doesn’t want to leave the “Iran problem” to future administrations, and so he is highly motivated to act now.

If a war is going to be politically beneficial, it should be over by the time an election arrives.

Voters like victories.

Voters do not like wars that drag on indefinitely with no end in sight.

So ideally Netanyahu and Trump would like to see this crisis with Iran wrapped up by the middle of the year.

But if Netanyahu and Trump wait too long, the window of opportunity that they currently have may close completely.

This is likely one of the reasons why the Iranians have been working so hard to delay matters.

If negotiations can be stretched out long enough, Netanyahu will be voted out of office and President Trump will be saddled with a highly hostile Congress which would not be eager to fight Iran.

So the Iranians keep talking about how much they are eager to talk, but meanwhile they are refusing to agree to any of President Trump’s demands.

Unfortunately for the Iranians, it appears that time is running out on their little game.

On Tuesday, Marco Rubio was scheduled to deliver a very important briefing to the “gang of eight”…

Marco Rubio will deliver a rare briefing to top US lawmakers on Iran at the White House on Tuesday as Washington deploys its largest force of aircraft and warships to the Middle East since the 2003 buildup to the Iraq war.

The audience for the secretary of state’s briefing is reported to include the so-called “gang of eight”, which includes the senior lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate, as well as the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The select group is briefed by the White House on classified intelligence matters, which can include preparations for significant military action. Rubio last publicly briefed the group on 5 January, the day after the US launched its successful operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.

Normally, this sort of a briefing doesn’t happen unless something really big has just occurred or something really big is about to occur.

Many are suggesting that this is a sign that military action against Iran is imminent.

Others believe that we won’t see anything happen until the weekend at the earliest.

On Monday, President Trump suggested that a war with Iran is something that could be “easily won”…

Since the Iranians are not inclined to give him what he wants, Trump is reportedly envisioning a series of limited strikes that will force Iran to make major concessions.

But if the limited strikes do not accomplish that goal, Trump would be ready to initiate a broader campaign…

President Donald Trump warned his aides that if diplomacy or targeted strikes do not convince Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program, he will consider larger actions, according to a report.

While negotiators from the U.S. and Iran will meet Thursday in Geneva to try and find a solution that would avoid military conflict, Trump has been considering other options should the talks fail, according to The New York Times.

Both sides have ramped up military preparations in the region in recent days as Trump has been leaning toward carrying out a strike to show Iran that it must give up its ability to make nuclear weapons, Trump advisors told the Times.

This is a huge gamble, because once the missiles start flying a conflict with Iran could spiral out of control very rapidly.

On Monday, the Iranians warned that they will respond “ferociously” even to a series of limited strikes…

Iran vowed on Monday to retaliate “ferociously” against any attack by the United States and reiterated warnings of a regional conflagration in response to President Donald Trump’s threat of limited strikes.

The bellicose rhetoric from Tehran and Washington came as both sides were set to hold indirect talks in Geneva on a potential deal regarding Iran’s contentious nuclear programme, with a US official confirming discussions would resume on Thursday without offering further details.

As Iran faces US pressure backed by a build-up of military force in the Middle East, university students have started the new semester with anti-government protests, reviving slogans from nationwide demonstrations that peaked in January and were met with a deadly crackdown.

And the head of Iran’s military is telling us that his forces will “inflict heavy casualties” on us if we attack…

Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Abdolrahim Mousavi warned the United States against any military action against Iran, saying it would suffer heavy losses in the event of aggression.

“We have not initiated any war, and in the past our approach was to prevent the expansion of conflict and reduce casualties. However, the actions of the United States have caused us to change our approach, and this time, if they make a mistake, we will inflict heavy casualties on the enemy,” Mousavi said.

“Our nation and armed forces are determined to stand to the end against the hegemonic system.”

The Iranians keep hinting that they have some big surprises up their sleeves.

Do the Iranians possess weapons that we do not know about?

If the Iranians actually decided to use unconventional weapons against Israel, the Israelis would respond with overwhelming force.

And then the entire world would descend into a state of chaos.

Speaking of unconventional weapons, the Russians are alleging that the UK and France actually intended to equip Ukraine with nuclear weapons…

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) alleged London and Paris were engaged in a clandestine operation to arm Kyiv with more muscle against Moscow by supplying it with a ‘wonder weapon’.

‘Britain and France realise that the developments in Ukraine leave no chance of achieving their much-desired victory over Russia at the hands of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,’ said a statement today from the spy agency.

‘However, the British and French elites are not prepared to accept defeat. It is believed that Ukraine needs to be equipped with “wunderwaffe”.

‘Kyiv would be able to claim more favourable terms for ending the hostilities if it possessed a nuclear bomb, or at least a so-called “dirty bomb”.’

Let us hope that this report is not accurate.

Let us hope that the Russians simply got a hold of some bad information.

Because giving nukes to Ukraine would be absolutely insane.

Unfortunately, we live at a time when the entire world seems to be going nuts.

The kinetic phase of World War III is nearly upon us, and we are going to witness so much death and destruction in the months ahead.

So enjoy the last remaining moments of relative peace and quiet while you still can, because everything is about to change.

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 An Attack On Iran Appears To Be Very Close, And This Is Why It Must Happen Soon appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

So what did we get for 30 trillion dollars?

We got the greatest party in the history of the world.

Over the past three decades, we have been enjoying an obscenely inflated standard of living that we did not deserve.

When the government spends money, it provides a short-term boost to the economy.  Those that get their hands on the money that the government spends end up using it to go shopping, repair their vehicles, eat at restaurants, etc.

If we could go back and pull 30 trillion dollars of extra government spending over the last 30 years out of the economy, we would be in a rip-roaring depression right now.

So for those of you that wish to avoid economic pain at all costs, you should thank our Congress critters for spending money like drunken sailors all these years.

But in the process, our leaders have destroyed America’s future.

We are broke, and we are absolutely drowning in debt.

The only way that we can meet our obligations is to go into ever larger amounts of debt.

Unfortunately, that cycle can only go on for so long before we reach a point where nobody wants to lend us money anymore.

If you have been paying attention to the bond market, you already know that there have been all sorts of red flags in 2025.

The clock is ticking.  But instead of getting our spending under control, Congress seems determined to ramp our spending up to a much higher level…

The package of tax-and-spending measures sent to the Senate, now officially called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, could act like budgetary wolf bait. It would add around $3 trillion to debt levels over the next decade compared with existing estimates and $5 trillion if certain temporary features were made permanent, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

For perspective, federal interest this fiscal year already will be more than the defense budget and more than Medicaid, disability insurance and food stamps combined.

If you are one of those that want to keep the party going for as long as possible, you probably support this bill.

But for those of us that want our children and grandchildren to actually have a future, we are absolutely horrified by what we are witnessing.

In fact, Elon Musk just called this bill a “disgusting abomination”…

Elon Musk is right.

Rand Paul has also spoken out against this bill, and he is right too.

What we have been doing to future generations of Americans over the past 30 years is beyond criminal.

It must stop.

If it doesn’t stop, it is just a matter of time before the entire system collapses.

We have been able to defy the laws of economics for many years, but now economic reality is catching up with us in a major way.

And even though we continue to spend giant mountains of money that we do not have, the illusion of prosperity that we have created is rapidly starting to crumble anyway.

This week, we learned that Disney is conducting “major layoffs”…

Major layoffs are underway Monday the Walt Disney Company, with several hundred employees impacted globally, Deadline has learned. The bulk of them are across divisions of Disney Entertainment, including marketing for both film and television as well as television publicity, casting and development. Also affected are Disney’s corporate financial operations.

Microsoft is even bigger than Disney, and they are conducting mass layoffs as well…

Microsoft Corp. cut hundreds more jobs just weeks after its largest layoff in years, underscoring the tech industry’s efforts to trim costs even as it plows billions of dollars into artificial intelligence.

More than 300 employees were told their positions had been eliminated on Monday, according to a Washington state notice reviewed by Bloomberg.

These latest layoffs by Microsoft are on top of the 6,000 job cuts that were revealed last month…

A Microsoft spokesperson said the latest headcount reduction is in addition to the 6,000 job cuts announced last month. “We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” the spokesperson said.

If you have a job that you value, hold on to it as tightly as you can, because a lot more people are going to be losing their jobs in the months ahead.

And that is really bad news, because we already have a major employment crisis in this country.

As I discussed the other day, nearly 1 out of every 4 Americans is “functionally unemployed” at this point.

Things are really tough out there right now.

In fact, things are so tough that Americans are eating meals at home at the highest level we have seen since the early days of the pandemic…

More Americans are cooking at home as growing economic concerns are forcing households to cut back, according to Campbell’s CEO Mick Beekhuizen.

Beekhuizen told analysts during the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Monday that consumer sentiment continued to soften throughout the quarter, with shoppers becoming even more deliberate about how they were spending money on food.

“A key outcome is a growing preference for home-cooked meals, leading to the highest levels of meals prepared at home since early 2020,” Beekhuizen said.

One way or another, we are going to have to take our medicine.

Either our leaders will have to get our financial house in order, or the bond market will force us to change.

But no matter how it plays out, nobody can deny that the party is ending.

It was fun while it lasted, but everybody knew that the wild spending would eventually have to come to an end.

Needless to say, the adjustment to our standard of living that we will soon experience will be exceedingly painful, and our society is not prepared for that at all.

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 30 Trillion Dollars In 30 Years – The Greatest Party In The History Of The World Has Destroyed America’s Future appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

The panic that we are witnessing on Wall Street right now is very real.

Since January 17th, more than 11 trillion dollars in stock market wealth has been wiped out.

In fact, a total of 6.6 trillion dollars in stock market wealth was wiped out on just Thursday and Friday…

Roughly $11.1 trillion has been wiped away from the U.S. stock market since Jan. 17, the Friday before President Donald Trump took the oath of office and began his second term, according to data from Dow Jones Market Data.

Some $6.6 trillion of that figure was lost on Thursday and Friday alone — the largest two-day wipeout of shareholder value on record, Dow Jones data showed.

We have seen larger percentage drops over the course of two days, but in dollar terms we have never seen stock prices drop as much as they did during that two day period…

Markets have seen bigger percentage drops, such as in 1929 when they tumbled 25 percent over October 28 and 29 that year, but never as much in dollar terms.

This was truly historic.

And now a lot of people are concerned that we could potentially see a “Black Monday” and a “Black Tuesday”…

The selloff that followed President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement was large by any measure, a Black Thursday and a Black Friday. If they are followed by a Black Monday and Tuesday, then everyone is in trouble.

Hopefully global financial markets will start to stabilize soon.

But it certainly hasn’t happened yet.

During an interview with CNN, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins openly admitted that the White House knew that there would be “uncertainty”…

“The idea that we didn’t know that there would be some uncertainty just isn’t true,” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We knew there would uncertainty.”

But Rollins urged Americans not to look at Thursday and Friday’s trading and say, “the world is ending; the markets are crashing.” Instead, she argued, “the markets are adjusting.”

I wouldn’t call this an “adjustment”.

The Nasdaq is already in bear market territory.

I would call this a crash.

But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is insisting that most Americans “don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations” of the financial markets…

In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Bessent called it a “false narrative” that people who are close to retiring may be reluctant after their retirement savings may have dropped last week because of the stock market downturn.

“I think that’s a false narrative,” he told moderator Kristen Welker. “Americans who want to retire right now, the Americans who put away for years in their savings accounts, I think they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations.

I understand that they are trying to keep everyone calm.

But it isn’t working.

At this point, even the largest Wall Street banks are officially freaking out.  They are hitting hedge funds with “Lehman-style margin calls”…

Hedge funds are facing Lehman-style margin calls as a market crash triggered by President Donald Trump’s tariffs raises fears of a looming ‘Black Monday.’

The market’s sharp downturn has forced hedge funds to sell off assets, with major Wall Street banks demanding collateral after the value of holdings sharply declined, according to sources familiar with the situation.

There is now fear that these margin calls could create cycles of forced selling that could drive stock prices down to extremely painful levels.

The sheer panic that we witnessed in New York on Friday was unlike anything that we have seen since the darkest days of 2008…

‘Rates, equities, and oil were all down significantly… it was the broad market movements that caused the scale of the margin calls,’ one prime brokerage executive told the Financial Times.

While, another prime brokerage executive noted: ‘We are proactively reaching out to clients to assess [risk] across their entire portfolios.’

Prime brokerage teams on Wall Street, which lend money to hedge funds, held ‘all hands on deck’ meetings on Friday to prepare for the increasing volume of margin calls, sources told the Financial Times.

Wow.

This is all happening so fast.

A lot of major players that were way out on a limb are going to end up getting their clocks cleaned.

Leverage can be so seductive.  On the way up, it can help you make tremendous amount of money, but on the way down it can feel like the world is ending.

As I have always warned my readers, you only make money in the stock market if you get out in time.

Wall Street loves stability, because stability leads to predictability.

Unfortunately for Wall Street, we have now entered times that are going to be extremely unstable.

A number of my readers have pointed out to me that the stock market was way overdue for a correction, and I agree with that assessment very much.

But what we are witnessing at the moment is not just another run of the mill correction.

What we are witnessing is a full-fledged panic.

Will the White House be able to settle the markets down?

I don’t know, but I will definitely be watching.

Without a doubt, it appears that a very “interesting” week is ahead of us.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” 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 “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written eight 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 We Are Witnessing “Lehman-Style Margin Calls” In The Aftermath Of The Biggest Stock Market Wipeout In U.S. History appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Of course the truth is that they aren’t doing anything wrong.  The employment market is far tighter than we are being led to believe, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

When a working age American is not working, the government puts that individual into one of two categories.

Right now, there are only 6.5 million U.S. adults that are officially considered to be “unemployed”.

But another 99.9 million U.S. adults are considered to be “not in the labor force”.  So they don’t count as being “unemployed”.

When you add those two numbers together, you get a grand total of 106.4 million U.S. adults that do not have a job right now.

At no point during the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 did that number even reach 90 million.

So don’t let anyone convince you that unemployment is low.

The elite are trying to do their best to convince us that everything is just fine, but meanwhile the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has now fallen for 19 months in a row…

A key measure of the direction of the U.S. economy fell for the 19th straight month and once again indicated that a recession is looming.

The leading economic index fell 0.8 percent in October, the Conference Board said Monday. The LEI is based on 10 indicators that tend to forecast the direction of the economy.

Economists had expected a milder decline of 0.8 percent.

The last time the index declined for 19 months in a row was during the Great Recession when it fell from the end of 2007 through 2009.

The last streak of this magnitude started in 2007.

But we didn’t have a recession in 2007.

And things still seemed relatively fine in early 2008 too.

Of course then we got to the end of 2008 and everything fell to pieces.

That is why they are called “leading” economic indicators.

They tell us what is coming.

And what is coming in our time is not going to be fun.

Needless to say, most of the population is not prepared at all for a major economic storm.

Survey after survey has shown that most of the U.S. population is currently living paycheck to paycheck…

The majority of U.S. adults are living paycheck to paycheck heading into this holiday season, a report shows.

LendingClub’s latest report shows that as of October, 60 percent of adults said they are living paycheck to paycheck. Around 40 percent of consumers consider themselves to be worse off now than in 2022.

Even higher earners are struggling to get by, with 42 percent of those making six figures also living check-to-check under President Joe Biden.

According to a separate CNBC survey, the number of adults struggling to save between checks is up from 58 percent in March.

As long as those paychecks keep coming in, they can keep scraping by from month to month.

But now layoffs are starting to surge again all over the nation.

Young Americans are in particularly dire straits.

Millions upon millions of young Americans have low paying jobs and are deeply struggling with student loan debt, and this is one of the reasons why the average age of a U.S. homebuyer just keeps going higher and higher…

The average American homebuyer is now 49-years-old – 18 years older than in 1981 – as inflation, college costs and house prices make it harder for young people to get a foot on the ladder.

Research by the National Association of Realtors has revealed that the median age of all homebuyers has steadily crept up over the past forty years.

The most shocking contrast is for first time buyers where the median age is now 35, up from 31 in 2013 and 29 in 1981.

The American Dream is now out of reach for most of the nation, and that is especially true among those that are under the age of 40.

But the mainstream media absolutely refuses to acknowledge the truth.

They just keep telling us that things look great for the U.S. economy in 2024 and beyond.  The following comes from a Yahoo Finance article entitled “The election year economy looks good for Biden”…

The much-predicted recession still hasn’t arrived. Will it materialize in 2024, at the worst possible moment for President Joe Biden, as he’s trying to convince voters to give him a second term?

It’s not looking that way. As economists roll out their forecasts for 2024, the prevailing theme is moderation: slowing but still-positive economic growth, a declining rate of inflation, and continued low unemployment.

Seriously?

Come on man.

Do they actually expect us to consume that pablum?

We are already in an economic crisis right now, and things are going to get so much worse during the years ahead.

You can stick your head in the sand and pretend that everything is okay if you want.

But nothing is going to change the fact that the “endgame” has arrived.

Decades of very foolish decisions have brought us to this stage, and now we are truly going to reap what we have sown.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “Chaos” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  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, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post 106.4 Million U.S. Adults Do Not Have A Job Right Now appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

Already, crime is totally out of control in communities all over the nation.  According to the Washington Post, homicides are up 29 percent in Washington D.C. so far this year, and robberies are up 67 percent…

The spike in felonies — homicides and robberies are up 29 and 67 percent from the same time period last year, police statistics show — is not the only data that is causing alarm. The number of juveniles arrested for carjacking has increased slightly since last year, with 41 of the 64 charged between the ages of 12 and 15. As of Aug. 31, a total of 81 minors had been shot in the city this year, compared with 66 over the same span last year and 37 in 2021.

While a preponderance of violence occurs where it often has — in poor neighborhoods on D.C.’s eastern edge — statistics show that the geography of crime has become more diffuse, with prosperous areas less immune than before.

Those are definitely very alarming numbers, but Washington D.C. is far from alone.

A crime wave has been steadily percolating all over America, and even young women are eagerly participating in the violence…

The shocking moment three women beat an Asian man with a metal pipe before taking off with his car has been caught on camera.

Danxin Shi, a rideshare driver, is no longer able to work after his vehicle was stolen by the gang about 5:30pm on Tuesday evening in crime-ridden, Dem-led Chicago.

Footage shows the moment the Chinatown resident, who lives West 22nd Place, parking his vehicle and walking along the street when he is struck with a weapon and shoved to the ground – where he is beaten repeatedly.

This makes me so sad.

Young women are not supposed to act like this.

But now we live in a society where all of the old rules have been thrown out.

In this environment, literally anything goes.  Theft is going to cost U.S. retailers more than 100 billion dollars this year alone, and “flash robberies” that are conducted by mobs of young people have become a daily occurrence…

A group of ‘flash rob’ thieves stormed into a Los Angeles Macy’s department store at Northridge Mall on Sunday morning as they filled bags with $20,000 worth of perfume.

Cellphone video of the crime showed several men dressed in dark hoodies and blue medical face masks loading up bags of what appeared to be cologne and perfume merchandise.

Meanwhile, the worst drug crisis in the entire history of the United States just continues to escalate.

Today, the heart of the city of Benjamin Franklin looks like something you would expect to see in a third world country…

Disturbing new video from Philadelphia shows addicts on the street in a trance like state, passed out on the sidewalk in the city’s multiple homeless encampments.

In the Kensington neighborhood, the footage shows fires burning on trash littered sidewalks as groups of people set up camp.

Drug users are seen hunched over with no control of their limbs, while others are sprawled across the garbage covered streets.

Large groups have taken over the sidewalks, turning them into homeless encampments where many people live in their own filth.

But this isn’t just happening in our large metropolitan areas.

According to Zero Hedge, authorities are having to deal with “third-world country stuff” in Casper, Wyoming…

A city in Wyoming has been overwhelmed with a growing number of homeless people, who have damaged a local hotel that would require millions of dollars to fix and left hundreds of pounds of human feces in the downtown area, according to its mayor.

Casper Mayor Bruce Knell, in an interview with local news media Cowboy State Daily published on Aug. 31, said the city’s homeless population had topped about 200 people, creating “a mess” as they roam the city’s parks and streets.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s third-world country stuff happening in Casper, Wyoming,” Mr. Knell said.

“They destroyed everything,” he added. “It’s horrible.”

With each passing day, conditions in this nation get even worse.

So what is going to happen when the economy finally tanks and people start getting really desperate?

You might want to start thinking about that, because very hard times are clearly on the horizon.

When the economy slows down, there is less demand for rail transportation, and at this point total combined U.S. rail traffic has fallen on a year over year basis for three months in a row…

“August was the third straight month in which total year-over-year U.S. rail carloads have fallen,” Association of American Railroads (AAR) Senior Vice President John T. Gray reported on Sept. 6. Total combined U.S. traffic for the first 35 weeks of 2023 was 16,173,208 carloads and intermodal units, a decrease of 4.9% compared to last year.

Even more troubling, credit card delinquencies and auto loan delinquencies have both hit levels that we haven’t seen in more than a decade…

This year, credit card delinquencies have hit 3.8%, while 3.6% have defaulted on their car loans, according to credit agency Equifax.

Both figures are the highest in more than 10 years.

“The increase in delinquencies and defaults is symptomatic of the tough decisions that these households are having to make right now — whether to pay their credit card bills, their rent or buy groceries,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told the Washington Post.

We had a very sharp recession during the first two quarters of 2020, and then we had another relatively mild recession during the first two quarters of 2022.

Now it appears that a new downturn has begun, and it promises to be very painful.

But our population is clearly not prepared to handle what is ahead of us.

When economic conditions get extremely harsh, I expect that we will see a massive national temper tantrum, and it won’t be pretty.

Are you and your family prepared for that?

I hope so, because the months and years in front of us are going to be full of surprises.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  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, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post We Have A Real Life Nightmare On Our Hands appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

This week, mortgage rates jumped above the 7 percent mark to the highest level that we have seen in more than 20 years…

Mortgage rates surpassed 7% this week, hitting the highest level in more than two decades.

The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage increased to 7.09% this week, up from 6.96% the week prior, according to Freddie Mac’s release on Thursday. That’s the highest point since the first week of April 2002 and marks just the third time rates have exceeded 7% since then. The last times were in October and November of last year, when the rate reached 7.08%.

Needless to say, high mortgage rates have been crippling the housing market in recent months.

At the midpoint of this year, existing home sales were down a whopping 18.9 percent from the same time in 2022…

Total existing-home sales1 – completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – receded 3.3% from May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.16 million in June. Year-over-year, sales fell 18.9% (down from 5.13 million in June 2022).

There are certainly lots of people out there that would like to buy homes, but thanks to how high mortgage rates have become they simply cannot afford to do so.

Housing has become extremely unaffordable in this country.  According to Redfin, the percentage of teachers that can afford to buy a home close to the school where they work has fallen to just 12 percent…

The number of teachers who can afford a reasonably priced home in their school district nationwide has collapsed to just 12%, down from 17% last summer and 30% in 2019, amid the worst housing affordability crisis in a generation, according to data from Redfin.

Redfin’s analysis of median teacher salaries for 2022 across 50 major cities for over 70,000 PreK-12 public and private schools revealed no teacher in San Jose and San Diego could afford homes within “commuting distances” to their respective school, which means home and work are 20 minutes during typical rush hour conditions.

So much damage has already been done.

But apparently officials at the Federal Reserve believe that even more carnage is necessary, because they are indicating that more rate hikes are on the table…

Most Federal Reserve officials signaled during their July policy-setting meeting that high inflation still poses an ongoing threat that could necessitate additional interest rate hikes this year.

Minutes from the U.S. central bank’s July 25-26 meeting released Wednesday showed that central bank officials observed that inflation remains well above the Fed’s 2% target — and that policymakers need to see “further signs that aggregate demand and aggregate supply were moving into better balance to be confident that inflation pressures were abating.”

No.

Don’t do it.

Even if rates stay at current levels, we are headed for extreme pain.

Raising rates even higher would just be suicidal.

But it looks like they are going to do it anyway, and that could push mortgage rates up to the 8 percent level…

Economists have predicted mortgage rates could go above 8 percent if the economy continues to show signs of strength and the US Federal Reserve decides to raise interest rates again.

Mortgage Rates have not hit such levels since 2000, according to data compiled by Freddie Mac.

Do officials at the Fed actually believe that our system can handle such high rates?

Unless the Fed changes course, the housing market is going to absolutely implode.

And of course the commercial real estate market is already imploding.

The chaos that is already transpiring is putting an enormous amount of strain on our financial institutions, and Fitch is warning that we could soon see sweeping rating downgrades in the banking industry…

A Fitch Ratings analyst warned that the U.S. banking industry has inched closer to another source of turbulence — the risk of sweeping rating downgrades on dozens of U.S. banks that could even include the likes of JPMorgan Chase
.
The ratings agency cut its assessment of the industry’s health in June, a move that analyst Chris Wolfe said went largely unnoticed because it didn’t trigger downgrades on banks.

In many ways, I feel like I am watching a repeat of 2008.

Officials at the Fed can clearly see everything that is happening, but they just keep insisting on making things even worse.

So I hope that you have been preparing for turbulent times, because things are going to get crazy.

Sadly, the truth is that most Americans are not prepared for tougher times.  In fact, one recent survey discovered that 72 percent of Americans are not financially secure…

For many Americans, payday can’t come soon enough. As of June, 61% of adults are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a LendingClub report. In other words, they rely on those regular paychecks to meet essential living expenses, with little to no money left over.

Almost three-quarters, 72%, of Americans say they aren’t financially secure given their current financial standing, and more than a quarter said they will likely never be financially secure, according to a survey by Bankrate.

Many of those people will lose their jobs during this new economic crisis, and because they don’t have any sort of a financial cushion to fall back on many of them will also end up losing their homes.

Delinquency rates are already starting to move higher, and that should deeply alarm all of us.

But what we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

So brace yourselves for what is ahead, because this ride is only going to get bumpier from here.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  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, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Brace Yourselves, Because What They Have Planned Is Going To Absolutely Devastate The U.S. Economy appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

To answer that question, it is imperative to understand that our government places unemployed persons into one of two categories…

Jobless people are classified into one of two categories by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)—either unemployed or not in the labor force. To be classified as unemployed in the month they are surveyed, people must be actively looking for work. If they are not actively looking, they are classified as not in the labor force.

Over time, the definition of “officially unemployed” has gotten more restrictive, and today only 6.097 million working age Americans are considered to be in that category.

Meanwhile, a staggering 99.800 million working age Americans are considered to be “not in the labor force”.

When you add both categories together, you get a total of 105.897 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.

Let me try to put that into perspective.

During the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, that number never even got up to 90 million.

So that means that the number of working age Americans that are not employed at this moment far surpasses anything that we witnessed during the Great Recession.

Please do not believe the garbage that the federal government is trying to sell you.

Unemployment is not low.  In fact, John Williams estimates that the real rate of unemployment in this country is somewhere around 25 percent.

If you are out of work at this moment, please realize that you are not alone.

In April, 37-year-old North Carolina resident Al Brown lost his job, and now his family is really struggling…

Al Brown and his fiancée faced a tough call in May when reviewing their weekly budget: What’s a higher priority, more food or dish soap?

Based in Concord, North Carolina, Brown was the main breadwinner for his fiancée and their two children. Then in April, he was let go from his job as a global director of business development at software company Cascade.

He’s since quit his gym membership and sold miscellaneous items around his home, including a computer and yard furniture, to make ends meet. His 13-year-old son quit the basketball team. While losing the family’s source of income has taken a financial toll, it’s also resulted in a mental one.

Since he was laid off, Brown has submitted more than 600 job applications, but that has produced only a few interviews and no job offers…

Brown, 37, now spends his days scouring the internet for jobs or reaching out to potential connections. After filing over 600 applications, only a handful have produced interviews, he says.

If jobs are easy to get, why hasn’t Al Brown been able to find one?

Can anyone out there explain that to me?

Perhaps I am just a little slow, because what the Biden administration is telling us about the economy does not seem to correspond with reality at all.

54-year-old Nina McCollum has applied for “hundreds of jobs” since losing her position in March, and she is still jobless as well…

Nina McCollum, 54, was laid off from her writing gig at jobs site Glassdoor back in March. She hasn’t found a new role since, despite applying to hundreds of jobs.

She’s been living off her savings, selling her blood plasma and frequenting food pantries just to get by — all while taking care of a teenage son. Her domestic partner helps out, but he can’t make up for her lost income.

Why can’t these people find work?

What is wrong with them?

Of course the truth is that there is nothing wrong with what they are doing.  They are diligently searching for jobs, but the reality of the matter is that the employment market has gotten very tight.

Meanwhile, the cost of living just continues to rise, and that has resulted in a “collapse of household savings”…

In February, the U.S. personal savings rate was estimated to be around 4.6 percent—much below the decades-long average of about 8.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. But what does this mean?

Some economists think that the collapse of household savings could lead to a spending slowdown and trigger a recession.

The Biden administration may never admit that we have entered a major economic downturn, but that is precisely what we are witnessing.

In fact, the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing purchasing managers index has now been below 50 for eight months in a row…

The U.S. manufacturing sector fell deeper into recession territory in May, extending a multimonth slump as experts warn that the economy faces “clear challenges.”

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said in a report Monday that its manufacturing purchasing managers index dropped to 46.0 last month, the lowest reading since May 2020 and the eighth consecutive sub-50 reading.

Any readings below 50 represent recession, with all key sub-components in contraction, including the employment index, suggesting layoff pressures are building.

It’s really happening.

Other than for a brief period during the pandemic, we have not seen economic turmoil of this magnitude since 2008 and 2009.

Unfortunately, we are still only in the very early chapters of this crisis.

The economic outlook for the remainder of 2023 is very bleak, the outlook for 2024 is even worse, and the long-term outlook is nightmarish.

But you have to give our leaders credit for propping things up for as long as they did.  By flooding the system with money, they were able to delay our moment of reckoning for a long time.

Of course their gimmicks were also making our long-term problems even worse, and now our long-term problems have become our short-term problems.

There is so much pain ahead of us, and our country is not prepared to handle it.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  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, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post More Than 105 Million Working Age Americans Do Not Have A Job Right Now appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

For a long time, the U.S. economy was “remarkably resilient”, but now things have started to change in a major way.

The following are 11 signs that our economic problems are accelerating a lot faster than most people were anticipating…

#1 We just learned that foreclosure-related filings were up 14 percent last month compared to the same period a year ago…

As the cost of living in the U.S. continues to climb, foreclosures are also on the rise.

May foreclosure-related filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were up 7% from April and up 14% from a year ago, to 35,196 properties, according to the real estate data group ATTOM.

#2 We are being warned that foreclosure filings are on an “upward trajectory” which suggests “heightened activity” in the months ahead…

“The recent increase in foreclosure filings nationwide indicates a trend that has been observed throughout the year, and what we have expected to occur,” Rob Barber, ATTOM’s CEO, said in a statement. “This upward trajectory suggests the possibility of continued heightened activity, and with foreclosure completions seeing the largest monthly increase this year, we will continue to monitor the potential impacts this may have on the housing market.”

#3 As the housing bubble bursts, sales of existing homes are falling all over the nation.  For example, sales of existing homes in central Indiana have now declined for 16 months in a row…

Sales of existing homes in central Indiana dropped 14.8% in May—the 16th straight month that sales have decreased on a year-over-year basis.

Closed sales of existing homes in the 16-county area in May totaled 2,901, down from 3,406 in the same month of 2022, according to the latest monthly data from the MIBOR Realtor Association.

#4 One recent study found that a whopping 8 million Americans currently live in a household that is behind on paying rent.  Many are just barely surviving from month to month like this single mother that was recently profiled in the Los Angeles Times…

Evelyn Arceo holds down a full-time job as a baker at Universal Studios Hollywood, earning $19 an hour. But even when she gets a few hours of overtime at the theme park, the single mother of four can barely afford the rent of her one-bedroom apartment in Panorama City.

On her salary, buying a home is out of the question.

Already, her monthly rent of $1,300 is “just too expensive at this point,” Arceo said, with late fees of $40 to $50 compounding her financial plight. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on time on my rent.”

#5 The most epic commercial real estate crisis in U.S. history has begun, and we are being warned that the two massive defaults in San Francisco that recently made headlines all over the world could just be the tip of the iceberg…

News of Park Hotels & Resorts’ plan to surrender ownership of two of San Francisco’s largest hotels is the beginning of what could potentially become a mass exodus of hotels from the city as 30 additional properties are facing massive loans due over the next two years.

The company behind the hotels announced Monday it had stopped making payments on its $725million loan that is due in November for the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 hotels.

#6 Major corporate bankruptcies are happening at the fastest pace that we have seen since 2010…

US corporate bankruptcies crept higher in May over the prior month as higher interest rates and a slowing economy are pushing many companies over the edge.

S&P Global Market Intelligence recorded 54 corporate bankruptcy filings during May, a slight rise from 52 April. In the first five months of the year, 2023 has recorded more filings than any comparable period since 2010.

#7 Initial jobless claims just rose to their highest level in almost two years…

Initial jobless claims surged last week to 261k (up from 233k prior and well above the 235k exp) – its highest since Oct 2021.

#8 According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, during the first five months of this year the number of announced job cuts was up 315 percent compared to the same five months last year.

#9 U.S. manufacturing has now fallen into contraction territory…

S&P Global data showed that the US manufacturing sector fell into contraction territory in May. A similar survey released by the Institute for Supply Management showed the industry contracted for the seventh consecutive month in May, at a faster pace than in the prior month.

#10 European manufacturing has also dropped into contraction territory…

Among manufacturers in the eurozone, production, new orders and backlogs all fell in May as the sector contracted at a faster pace that month, according to S&P Global figures. The 20-nation currency area’s industrial production fell sharply in March, mostly due to a plunge in Ireland. The indicator measures the output of manufacturers, miners, and utility companies.

#11 It is being reported that new numbers show that the EU “entered a recession in the first quarter of this year”…

The euro zone entered a recession in the first quarter of this year, and economists are not optimistic for the coming months.

The 20-member bloc reported gross domestic product of -0.1% for the first quarter, according to revised estimates from the region’s statistics office, Eurostat, released Thursday.

What I have just shared with you is certainly quite a bit of bad news.

But if I am correct, conditions will continue to deteriorate throughout the rest of this year and into 2024.

We live at such a critical moment in human history, and those that have been waiting for life to “return to normal” can stop waiting.

The pace of change is picking up speed with each passing month, and most of us are simply not prepared for the craziness that is ahead.

Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  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, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post 11 Signs That Our Economic Problems Are Accelerating A Lot Faster Than Most People Were Anticipating appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

As of November, 63% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck, according to a monthly LendingClub report — up from 60% the previous month and near the 64% historic high hit in March.

Even high-income earners are under pressure, LendingClub found. Of those earning more than six figures, 47% reported living paycheck to paycheck, a jump from the previous month’s 43%.

When you are just barely scraping by from month to month, a job loss can be absolutely debilitating.

Sadly, this year many large corporations aren’t even waiting until after the holidays to give the axe to thousands of highly dedicated employees…

There is arguably no good time for companies to lay off employees, of course, but as farewell-to-my-job posts continue to populate LinkedIn, many are wondering, why did they have to do this the week before Thanksgiving or right before Christmas?

Despite the job market’s overall strength, big names in tech including Meta Platforms Inc., Salesforce Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have all laid off workers or announced plans to do so in recent months. Thousands of job cuts have also hit other industries, with Ford Motor Co., Walmart Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. all reducing their head counts, leaving many employees to wonder: Could I be next?

Are things really so bad that these giant firms couldn’t have waited a few weeks?

“Happy Thanksgiving! By the way, you’re fired.”

When I was growing up, big companies at least pretended to be compassionate.

But now corporate giants seem to feel free to let workers go the instant that their usefulness is over…

Layoffs around the holidays are a relatively recent phenomenon. In the 1970s and 1980s, companies were more cognizant of the optics of putting people out of work during the most wonderful time of the year, says Andy Challenger, a senior vice president with Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a career services and executive-coaching firm.

That sentiment has passed, he says. “Today we tend to see companies making the cuts when they feel like they need to.”

Apparently the Washington Post will also be laying off quite a few workers in the days ahead.

When staff members learned that job cuts would soon be coming, they were not happy.

In fact, several other very large media companies have also recently announced cutbacks…

Of course, the news of the layoffs comes amid a horrible backdrop for the media industry at large. In recent weeks, CNN has laid off hundreds of staffers, Gannett has cut 200 staffers, NPR has said it needs to find $10 million in savings, and other organizations have implemented moves to slash costs.

Even though so many big names have been slashing workers, the government has continued to insist that everything is just fine.

And each month they have told us that the U.S. economy has continued to gain jobs.

But now the truth of what has really been going on is starting to become quite obvious.  In fact, even the Philly Fed is now publicly admitting that the number of jobs in this country has been overstated by the government by at least a million…

Remember what we said in July when we first looked at the March-June divergence between the Household and Establishment survey: we said that “since March, the Establishment Survey shows a gain of 1.124 million jobs while the Household Survey shows an employment loss of 347K!” Said otherwise, we found that payrolls “calculated” by the Establishment Survey were overestimated by 1.5 million. Shockingly, the Philly Fed seems to agree, and reports that instead of the roughly 1.1 million jobs reported by the BLS, only 10,500 new jobs were added!

As the tsunami of layoffs continues to accelerate, it is probably just a matter of time before the U.S. economy starts losing large numbers of jobs every month.

That is exactly what several of the largest financial institutions on Wall Street are now projecting, and we continue to get more evidence that economic conditions are really starting to slow down.

On Thursday, we learned that U.S. retail sales actually declined during the month of November…

U.S. retail spending and manufacturing weakened in November, signs of a slowing economy as the Federal Reserve continues its battle against high inflation.

November retail sales fell 0.6% from the prior month for the biggest decline this year, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Budget-conscious shoppers pulled back sharply on holiday-related purchases, home projects and autos. Manufacturing output declined 0.6%, the first drop since June, the Fed said in a separate report.

But apparently economic conditions are not yet bad enough for the officials at the Federal Reserve, because they just decided to raise interest rates even higher…

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest level in 15 years, indicating the fight against inflation is not over despite some promising signs lately.

Keeping with expectations, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee voted to boost the overnight borrowing rate half a percentage point, taking it to a targeted range between 4.25% and 4.5%. The increase broke a string of four straight three-quarter point hikes, the most aggressive policy moves since the early 1980s.

What the Federal Reserve is doing is absolutely suicidal.

They have just ensured that unemployment will go even higher, that our new housing crash will get even worse and that a very painful economic downturn is coming in 2023.

In the aftermath of the Fed’s decision, the Dow was down 764 points on Thursday…

Investors dumped stocks on Thursday as more headwinds emerge for the U.S. economy as the Federal Reserve stays the course in raising interest rates.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 764 points, or 2.2%, as the broader markets faced the worst session since November.

The mood on Wall Street is quite glum right now.

The outlook for 2023 is not good, and the outlook for the years beyond 2023 is even worse.

Our leaders have been making incredibly bad decisions for decades, and now we are starting to pay the price.

There is going to be so much pain during the year ahead, and the vast majority of the population is not prepared for what is coming at all.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  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, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post Most People Are Simply Not Ready For The Economic Chaos That Is Coming In 2023 appeared first on The Economic Collapse.

You can find the new Social Security Administration wage report right here.  The following are some statistics that I pulled out of the report…

-More than 30 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.

-More than 41 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.

-More than 52 percent of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.

-More than 62 percent of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year.

These numbers tell us that most Americans are just barely scraping by, but our leaders want us to buy into the illusion that most people are “doing well” these days.

Of course that isn’t even close to the truth.

According to the Social Security Administration, the median wage for 2021 was just $37,586.03…

By definition, 50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage, which is estimated to be $37,586.03 for 2021.

If we were still living in 1980, that would be fine.

But we aren’t in 1980 anymore.

In 2022, the poverty level for a household of five in the United States is $31,040.

That means that a worker in the United States making the median wage would be earning just enough to lift a family of five above the poverty line.

If you divide $37,586.03 by 12, that gives you a median monthly wage of $3,132.17.

For purposes of this article, I will round up and call it $3,133.

Half of all American workers make more than that per month, and half of all American workers make less than that per month.

And it is important to remember that this figure is before taxes are taken out.

Ouch.

Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to spiral out of control.  Recently, the average rent on a single family home in the United States reached $2,495 a month…

Rent prices for single family homes swelled during the first half of 2022, hitting a national average of $2,495 a month — a 13.4% increase compared to the same period in 2021, according to a new report from national real estate brokerage HouseCanary.

If you are only earning $3,133 a month and you have to spend $2,495 a month for rent, that leaves you next to nothing for everything else.

For example, all of us have to eat.

But these days a single shopping cart full of food will easily run you more than 300 dollars.

And that is if you are trying to be really frugal.

Gasoline has also become extremely expensive.

All the way back in 1960, a gallon of gas cost just 31 cents.

Today, gas is approaching 7 dollars a gallon in some parts of California.

I could go on and on with more examples of the rapidly rising cost of living.  Heating bills are expected to soar this winter, health insurance has gotten absurdly expensive, and new vehicles cost so much that most Americans can no longer afford them.

If things are this bad already, what will conditions be like for the middle class as the economy deteriorates in 2023 and beyond?

The worst housing crash since 2008 has now started, the financial markets are on pace for their worst year since 1969, and big companies all over America are starting to lay off people in large numbers.

Alarmingly, some of the biggest layoffs are actually being conducted by the big tech companies.  In fact, we just learned that Microsoft will be laying off approximately 1,000 workers…

Microsoft will lay off about 1,000 employees, the company confirmed Tuesday.

Although it is not confirmed if the layoffs are isolated in gaming divisions, employees who work for Xbox and other Microsoft-owned studios said they were being laid off, the Washington Post reported. Axios first reported the layoffs Monday evening.

At this point, almost everyone can see that a recession is coming.

Even Jeff Bezos, who is usually extraordinarily optimistic, is warning people to “batten down the hatches”…

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos warned America’s to ‘batten down the hatches’ as he shared a tweet warning of a likely impending recession.

Bezos – who is the world’s second-richest man – tweeted a video of Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon saying there was a ‘good chance’ of a downturn.

The Amazon founder – who has a $137 billion fortune – signaled his agreement by captioning the tweet: ‘Yep, the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches.’

When Jeff Bezos starts sounding like The Economic Collapse Blog, you know that the hour is late.

Yep, the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches. https://t.co/SwldRdms5v

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) October 18, 2022

These days, our impending economic downturn has even become a very hot topic among Hollywood celebrities…

Even non-billionaire-but-still-rich person Gwyneth Paltrow is losing sleep over it.

“The economy sucks,” she told the Hollywood Reporter this week. “I’m just worried about next year and how bad the recession’s gonna be.”

Other celebrities are weighing in, too. Last month, rapper Cardi B ranted about inflation and interest rates. “How are people surviving? I want to know.”

If the middle class is steadily eroding during relatively stable times, what is going to happen once the economy really begins to unravel?

There is so much anger all over the United States right now, and the vast majority of the population is simply not prepared for what is ahead.

I have been writing about the demise of the middle class for more than a decade, and the condition of the middle class has never been worse than it is right now.

At one time America had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, and that was a wonderful thing.

But now very dark times for the middle class are here, and there doesn’t appear to be much hope on the horizon.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including  “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending digital copies as gifts through Amazon to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  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, I strongly urge you to ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior today.

The post The Middle Class Is Dying! 50 Percent Of All American Workers Made Less Than $3,133 A Month Last Year appeared first on The Economic Collapse.